Brit filmmaker plans 10hr+ Paint Drying epic

A cheeky Brit has agreeably decided that if the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is going to charge filmmakers to submit their work for certification, he's going to make the longest possible film of paint drying ever to hit the silver screen, and oblige the censors sit through every minute of it.

Just how long the final cut of Paint Drying is depends on how much wonga Charlie Lyne raises down at Kickstarter. He explains:

The British Board of Film Classification (previously known as the British Board of Film Censors) was established in 1912 to ensure films remained free of 'indecorous dancing', 'references to controversial politics' and 'men and women in bed together', amongst other perceived indiscretions.

Today, it continues to censor and in some cases ban films, while UK law ensures that, in effect, a film cannot be released in British cinemas without a BBFC certificate.

Each certificate costs around £1,000 for a feature film of average length. For many independent filmmakers, such a large upfront can prove prohibitively expensive.

Specifically, you have to stump up a £101.50 submission fee and £7.09 per minute of film. However, Lybe notes that "while filmmakers are required to pay the BBFC to certify their work, the BBFC are also required to sit through whatever we pay them to watch".

So, although Lyne modestly set out to raise £109 for a one-minute submission to the BBFC, he's already thundered past £4,000, equating to a paint-drying epic of over 10 hours, according to this handy calculator.

With over three weeks to run on the campaign, that's probably not the end of it, but since Lyne has shot only 14 hours of 4K digital video paint drying footage, if the tin-rattle exceeds £6,057, he'll have to reshoot the film – something "which would also allow Paint Drying to overtake Jacques Rivette's Out 1 (with a runtime of 775 minutes) as the longest film ever rated by the BBFC". ®