Markos Markou - Q&A

Markos Markou, the director of 'Papadopoulos and Sons' an independent UK film came in to speak to us about his film and the film industry in general, more the independent film industry. Here are some things that I picked out as being interesting:

• Firstly, the motive of his film was quite different from those we see in Hollywood. Larger film are made for the purpose of making a profit for the producers. However for Markos this was not the case. He did not want to make a huge profit on the film, but wanted to tell a story of something personal to him.

• This personal aspect rubbed off on his crew and cast very strongly. He treated the whole production process like a "family business," put in his own words. For example, in the lunch queue every day he would line up from the back and not jump to the front of the queue as many producers would do. He was, therefore getting lunch after small crew members such as electricians. He also made an effort to learn the names of all of his crew on the first day. This made them feel like a more important cog in this system, allowing Markos to get the most out of all of his crew. 

• This family feel also allowed him to get the actors of his choice. He originally went after Stephen Dillane to play Harry Papadopoulos, however he could not do this film as the shooting dates clashed with those of 'Game of Thrones' which Dillane was also starring in. Markos decided, however, to go after Stephen's son, Frank to play James Papadopoulos, Harry's son. After seeing this, Stephen realised how much he wanted to do this film with his son and so forced 'Game of Thrones' to move their dates so he could be a part of 'Papadopoulos and Sons.'

• Although the sole purpose of Markos' film was not to make a profit, since he was using his own money for the whole process, he still wanted to make a profit. For this reason he made sure he kept within his budget and put maximum effort into ensuring that his film got into cinemas and was seen be as many people as possible.

• Finally, the marketing aspect of this film was very interesting. Since he knew he would not make a return if his film was taken on by sales agents he decided to do this whole process, again, on his own. He took his film to festivals and markets all over the world in order to raise publicity. Also, he targeted the Greek community as he knew they would be the main audience of his film. He asked Greek priest to promote his films during their services throughout London and eventually managed to get his film into Cineworld branches all over England.