Last year, independent filmmaker Charlie Lyne launched a Kickstarter to fund Paint Drying – a single, unbroken shot of white paint drying on a brick wall. This wasn’t a post-modern deconstruction of the slow cinema genre of filmmaking, however. Lyne knew his film would be basically unwatchable to anyone who wasn’t aided by psychedelics or an unnatural fascination with paint.

Paint Drying was an act of protest against the British Board of Film Classification. Writing on his Kickstarter page, Lyne explained that he was angered by the fact that the BBFC “continues to censor and in some cases, ban films, while UK law means that, in effect, a film cannot be released in British cinemas without a BBFC certificate. Each certificate costs around £1000 for a feature film of average length. For many independent filmmakers, such a large upfront can prove prohibitively expensive.”

In an act of solidarity with broke filmmakers everywhere (it costs £7.09 per minute to have censors classify your film), Lyne raised £5,963 to show the BBFC over ten hours of glorious, Technicolor paint-drying. The film is now complete, and the film censors finished watching it this morning. 

Luckily for all of us, the film passed the censors’ test with flying colours and is now cleared for release, so fingers crossed Lyne gets a distribution deal in time for us to troll our significant others with the world's worst Valentine’s Date.

To find out how it feels to be the first filmmaker to actually intend to send his audience to sleep, we interviewed Lyne.

Hi Charlie, thanks for talking to us. Can you explain what inspired you to film paint drying for over ten hours?

Charlie Lyne: I was invited to a filmmaker day at the BBFC last year, and I just really shocked when I heard them discussing what films should be censored and why. I started thinking about whether it's even right that films should be censored, when we’re so protective of music, and literature, and theatre and everything else. I actually had the idea for Paint Drying that same day.

Do you think we shouldn’t classify films at all? Surely age ratings are useful?

Charlie Lyne: I’m not opposed to age ratings, I think they are really valuable. I just have a problem with censorship, with the BBFC deciding what we can and can’t watch depending on what they think causes ‘harm’. 

Should films ever be censored?

Charlie Lyne: One of the reasons that people aren’t that bothered about what the BBFC does is that the films they ban are usually pretty obscure, so most people don’t hear about them. But I don’t think that my tastes, or anyone else’s, should govern what other people have a right to watch. If a film is legal to produce, how can it be illegal to watch? It’s absurd.

How did you make Paint Drying? I assume it was pretty easy. 

Charlie Lyne: I’m not much of a painter-decorator, so I actually had to figure out how to do it. I don’t think I bought the ideal brush for it, I got a fence-painting brush for brick which isn’t ideal. Next time I’ll get a roller.

What sort of paint was it?

Charlie Lyne: I think it was a brilliant white one. Whichever came up first on Amazon.

Where is the actual wall?

Charlie Lyne: I’d rather not say. It was a favour and I don’t think the owner of the wall would appreciate me saying. 

Sounds suspicious. So on your Ask Me Anything Reddit some people have criticized you for ‘trolling’ the BBFC. How would you respond to this?

Charlie Lyne: I wouldn’t identify this as trolling. I see it as a bit silly, but hopefully making a serious point. I’m not just doing this for a laugh. I want to encourage people to discuss censorship, even if people don’t agree with me.

Do you feel like the BBFC’s fees are fair? 

Charlie Lyne: I get that they’re professionals, and the fees reflect the time it takes for them to sit there and watch everything. But if you’re Disney and you’re releasing The Force Awakens, the £1000 it takes to have the film classified is literally nothing. Whereas if you’re an independent filmmaker, £1000 might be your entire budget. In my ideal world, the BBFC would still exist and give age ratings to films, but people who didn’t want to submit films – for budget reasons or because their film was too niche – would be able to opt out and go unrated.

Were you tempted to put a penis in there halfway through to make sure the censors were actually doing their job? 

Charlie Lyne: Literally, everyone suggested that. For about a month, that’s all anyone wanted to talk to me about. But ultimately I thought a penis would have diluted the point I was trying to make.

Have you watched the whole thing? 

Charlie Lyne: Not the whole thing. I’ve watched more than is healthy, though. I’m actually talking to a cinema about possibly showing it. So fingers crossed, there will be one opportunity out there for everyone who’s interested in watching it.

Fingers crossed indeed. For anyone else who's keen to watch Paint Drying, head to Charlie's Twitter to see a 30 second clip.