A Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: The Midas Touch
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Date: 20th December 2020
Director: Tilman Borck
Producer: Tilman Borck
Writer: Tilman Borck
Cinematographer: Mirko B. Peeck
Editor: Tilman Borck, Jan Steffens
Composer: Tilman Borck
Production Company: F.T.B.-Productions
Budget: 350,000 €
Financing: Independently financed
Shooting Format: Arri Alexa Digital Camera
Screening Format: 2.35:1
World Premiere: Amazon Prime US/UK/Canada/Australia December 2020
Awards: N/A
Website: https://www.themidastouch.online
Tilman Borck is a German actor, writer, and director. He wrote, produced, and directed “The Midas Touch”. We seat with him to unearth the nuts and bolts of his film, The Midas Touch. Hello Tilman, great to be with you.
indieactivity: Introduce your film?
Tilman Borck (TB): Felix, a young advertiser, is down on his luck. Ridiculed by his boss and suffering from unrequited love he knows that something has to change when the chance of a lifetime appears completely out of the blue. He acquires “The Midas Touch” – the ability to conquer every woman with a mere touch. Enjoying life to the fullest for a brief period of time, Felix quickly notices that evil forces are after his new “talent” and “The Midas Touch” soon gets completely out of hand. The basic idea of a “touch” that drives women crazy I had a couple of years ago and combined it with the story of a pickup artist that holds seminars and later is confronted with the bearer of the “touch” that has the success he longs for.
The Official Trailer for The Midas Touch, written, producer and directed by Tilman Borck
After having directed my short film debut “The Treasure of the Czar” that I presented at Short Cuts in Cologne, Ebensee, Austria, the Short Film Festival in Weiterstadt, and at the International Short Film Festival in Uppsala I was looking for a subject for a feature film and finally wrote the screenplay to “The Midas Touch” in 2014. The Midas Touch is a horror comedy with satirical undertones and some slapstick elements set in a fairytale world.
Introduce your crew?
Tilman Borck (TB): I particularly enjoyed the collaboration with my set designer Frank Schönwald who has a theatre background and was able to come up with amazing solutions within the shoestring budget he was given. It was extremely a really difficult task for him to build an office, a private flat, a middle eastern market, and the luscious indoors of the politician all in the 25 days of shooting. While the rest of the crew was on set lighting and preparing the next shoot he was always somewhere organizing, building, or looking for furniture.
Preproduction saw my DOP and myself with the occasional help of a location scout go around Hamburg to find the locations that didn’t look too much like a modern city but like a place that is contemporary but in a parallel universe: We see the characters, we understand what they’re doing and what they want and they are not too different from real-life characters but they’re a little over the top and presented in a non-distinct surrounding that has a fairytale quality. First of all, this meant avoiding to show cars. We were able to get our hands on a car showroom that was completely empty and had two stories where we both installed our production offices and built our sets. That was a decision that enabled us to complete enough shots in quite different settings to finish a 110 min. movie in 25 days. That’s more than 4 minutes of footage that ended up in the movie per day as opposed to 1 or 2 minutes which would be a Hollywood standard.
The rest of the preproduction was planning the shots and the look of the movie that should support the overall fairytale feeling. From a visual perspective, I decided to heighten this by working in unusual scene transitions like a curtain in a bedroom changing into the curtain of a theatre with the woman in the bedroom announcing the beginning of the show or characters that we follow during their scene through a park until we leave them to concentrate on other characters who are coming our way.
Since all the actors had to be brought to Hamburg there was no possibility to rehearse before shooting because the cost of accommodation was simply too high. Our days began around 7 a.m. and lasted usually until 7 or 8 p.m., occasionally until 10 p.m. Generally, I don’t think I would have come up with a better movie with a higher budget. Things can go upside down easily if the production team is not well organized regardless of the size of the production. My team fortunately always saw every problem coming up way ahead and just approached me with what was essential at any given moment. That gave me the peace of mind to concentrate on the creative side of moviemaking.
Of course, I worked very closely with my director of photography Mirko B. Peeck to get the fairytale atmosphere including the lighting and color grading in post. The collaboration was at times strained when we both felt that the other was quite demanding. I annoyed him, particularly when, as a producer, I insisted on knowing what kind of equipment he needed for what reason, whereas he felt I simply should trust him to decide what would be the bare minimum needed. Onset I sometimes felt the camera department endangered the smoothness of the production using all the time they were given, and a bit more, to light and prepare the shots. In retrospect, it was all par for the course though since we managed to shoot a 110 min. movie in 25 days.
An interesting conflict between different production philosophies arose between our line producer Kivik Kuvik and my first and second assistant directors Roman Meyer Paulino and Christian Roos whom he slightly disparagingly accused of using “guerilla film methods” that were quite at odds with his organized ways learned in a long TV career. Somewhere there lies a nice film-in-film plot
What are your personal experiences putting on all these hats/responsibilities (simultaneously)? Tell us about story, writing, and production?
Tilman Borck (TB): By putting on so many different hats I hoped to get away from the above-mentioned movie style where experts in every fieldwork together to hopefully create something special and move toward the approach of “one man and his vision” that evokes the danger of being flawed in many ways but also offers the chance of showing a very personal look at a particular story so that, for better or worse, “The Midas Touch” is really mine.
What is the source of the idea? How did the story develop from the idea? And how did the story evolve into a screenplay? Why do this story? Do you have a writing process?
Tilman Borck (TB): My writing process is combining a plot that I structure a bit ahead of the writing of the single scenes that then in turn sometimes lead to minor changes in the structure so that both inform each other while the plot writing leads. Usually not one to begin my day early I decided that I would have to get up at around 7 a.m every day to get a decent amount of writing done. However, I soon realized that I failed to live up to that schedule because I woke up around 5 a.m each morning haunted by my own ideas.
The high that I felt going through this procedure couldn’t be brought into line with my look in the mirror that reminded me of a ghost that’s come back to earth for but one task.
Let’s talk pre-production: take us through a timeline of how you started and ended it?
Tilman Borck (TB): Preproduction saw my DOP and myself with the occasional help of a location scout go around Hamburg to find the locations that didn’t look too much like a modern city but like a place that is contemporary but in a parallel universe: We see the characters, we understand what they’re doing and what they want and they are not too different from real-life characters but they’re a little over the top and presented in a non-distinct surrounding that has a fairytale quality.
First of all, this meant avoiding to show cars.
We were able to get our hands on a car showroom that was completely empty and had two stories where we both installed our production offices and built our sets. That was a decision that enabled us to complete enough shots in quite different settings to finish a 110 min. movie in 25 days. That’s more than 4 minutes of footage that ended up in the movie per day as opposed to 1 or 2 minutes which would be a Hollywood standard.
The rest of the preproduction was planning the shots and the look of the movie that should support the overall fairytale feeling. From a visual perspective, I decided to heighten this by working in unusual scene transitions like a curtain in a bedroom changing into the curtain of a theatre with the woman in the bedroom announcing the beginning of the show or characters that we follow during their scene through a park until we leave them to concentrate on other characters who are coming our way.
What was your rehearsal process and period?
TB: Since all the actors had to be brought to Hamburg there was no possibility to rehearse before shooting because the cost of accommodation was simply too high.
You shot the film in days. How long were your days?
TB: Our days began around 7 a.m. and lasted usually until 7 or 8 p.m., occasionally until 10 p.m.
Did the tight shooting schedule make it harder or easier? How did it affect performances?
TB: I don’t think the tight shooting schedule affected the performances in any negative way, but due to the fact that the number of shots was limited because of the limited time in general in the editing booth I sometimes found myself a slave to the rhythm of the actors.
If you have a wide shot for 45 seconds that I would only opt for when I thought it worked for that moment, usually when I wanted the audience to be focused on a monologue or dialogue, the actors of that scene become their own directors and you have to go with their pace.
Generally, I don’t think I would have come up with a better movie with a higher budget. Things can go upside down easily if the production team is not well organized regardless of the size of the production. My team fortunately always saw every problem coming up way ahead and just approached me with what was essential at any given moment. That gave me the peace of mind to concentrate on the creative side of moviemaking.
During the film production, what scene (that made the cut) was the hardest to shoot? And why?
TB: The scene that was the hardest to shoot was the showdown in the cult headquarter. We had already shot the first half when the set, a mausoleum, was not available anymore, so we had to fake the other perspective in our make-shift studio the car showroom. So far no one that watched the movie was able to tell so all’s well that ends well.
What was the experience like of working with a small shooting crew?
TB: I enjoyed working with a small crew because it’s easy to keep an overview. As a director, you always feel that you can see everything you need to see and there are no second units to integrate or communication problems with far, far away crew members shooting with multiple cameras. It was perfect for a first-time feature film director who already had enough on his mind, thank you very much!
The film looks stunning. How did you get such a good look when shooting so fast?
TB: Thank you very much for the compliment! Early on I decided that I didn’t want this movie to rely solely on the plot and the comedy of the situation our protagonist finds himself in but I wanted a particular look that would draw people into this fairytale world and make them understand that they are to expect something slightly off with respect to the characters and the way they act.
I was inspired by the old Dracula movies of the Hammer Studios and found my DOP Mirko because I came across a music video that he had shot in a church that presented the look that I wanted for my movie. For a couple of weeks, he sent me movie stills and pictures of photographers he liked and I sent him back the ones I favoured so we slowly came to agree on a set of colours and a general look. I went over budget by about 25,000 €, which wasn’t really over budget but just over the initial budget that I used to motivate myself with and to get going. I managed using money that somehow still was around.
What was the first project out of the gate?
TB: I formed my production company to shoot “The Midas Touch”, which was the first and so far the only project.
What about independent filmmaking and the business do you still struggle with?
TB: Mostly the fact that Amazon pays me 6 cents the hour watched. That’s a fucking disgrace! There are so many options to be seen for independent filmmakers these days and yet it’s still so difficult to be noticed.
Where do you think your strengths lie as a filmmaker?
TB: I think my strength lies in the combination of my work as a writer, director, and composer. As I laid out above that provides a personal touch that I hope is original. On a more general note, I believe that I have a distinct, sarcastic look at the world that brings out farcical elements that probably make for polarizing storytelling. For “The Midas Touch” another important element that I haven’t mentioned yet that is unique is the music that introduces each character with its own theme like in a little opera which adds to the overall fairytale impression.
Let’s talk about finance, How did you finance the film?
TB: My movie was financed by independent entrepreneurs. (Not the mafia).
How much did you go over budget? How did you manage it?
TB: I went over budget by about 25,000 €, which wasn’t really over budget but just over the initial budget that I used to motivate myself with and to get going. I managed using money that somehow still was around.
How important is marketing? Talk about the festival tour? Do you think a project can make a dent without it?
TB: I sure hope that you can make a dent without the festival tour nowadays or else I’m screwed!
Tell us about marketing activities or efforts on this project – and how it worked or didn’t work?
TB: I’m doing a lot on Instagram and talk on movie podcasts. So far I have no idea how it’s going because we’re just out and I haven’t received any numbers yet.
What do you hope audiences will get from the presentation of your film?
TB: A laugh.
What else have you got in the works?
TB: I’m working on a mini-series as a prequel to “The Midas Touch” that tells the backstory of the single characters.
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