MIKE FIGGIS UNPLUGGED

It’s a not-quite-warm spring evening in East London and Mike Figgis is talking to 30 people who are sprawled on a lawn. This al fresco lecture might seem like a typical bit of eccentricity from the 61-year-old Oscar-nominated director, who abandoned Hollywood to make low-budget digital art films. But the lesson we learn is that Figgis is the sane one, and it's those who labour in La-la land who are the eccentrics.

We're all at the Wapping Project, an erstwhile Victorian hydraulic pumping station, now a hybrid restaurant-arts centre. Regular readings and talks are held in the greenhouse bookshop or on the grass just outside.

An avuncular, overgrown hobbit with a halo of electric-shock hair, Figgis has come to discuss digital film-making. He chats unpretentiously about the nuts and bolts of directing, engaging an audience and avoiding self-indulgence. He delightedly recalls developing his digital films, "Timecode" and "Hotel", and rues the slog of returning to Hollywood to make "Cold Creek Manor" for Disney in 2003.

"On a film set, the technicians are completely disengaged," he says. "They’ll do a good job for you, but they’re only interested in cameras or make-up or costumes or whatever it is. They’re not at all interested in the film as a whole." He prefers the collaboration and experimentation that comes from shooting with tiny crews and digital cameras. The truckloads of equipment and personnel necessary for a big film are nothing but a logistical exercise, while digital film-making makes it possible to try new ideas on the spot.

Hollywood productions, he tells us, are absurdly over-manned, over-budgeted and tethered to outmoded technology. You’d be mad to work that way now. "It’s just not very creative," he says, before adding: "The trouble is, it’s terribly well-paid."

~ NICHOLAS BARBER

Picture credit: misspudding (via Flickr)