About Filmmaking, Football Manager, and Me

Life imitates art, and vice versa. Football Manager is arguably the most realistic sports simulation ever, and any avid fan of both sport and sim can testify to that. As a filmmaker, I find added meaning and pleasure from FM (or WSM, the ‘06 version of which I am currently plying).

I manage budgets, wages, signings, tactics and man management – skills which are pertinent to the filmmaking craft; in both you have to make do with budgetary and personnel restrictions to produce the goods on the pitch/screen, because no one cares what was spent, just what was done with it. Not to mention that satisfying all the various players is a tightrope act, and I’m not just talking football. The Dutch invented a style of playing called ‘Total Football’, in which every player could do every other player’s job. I’d like to be a disciple of ‘Total Filmmaking’, in which I’d at least understand every job that goes into the films I want to produce.