Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Flat Tires and Wrong Turns.

(140 DVDs)

I've had a considerable lack of energy this last month. Perhaps it's the high pressure in the weather. I think it might be to do with the fact that I've just completed to major projects, 140 and Iscariot. Of course, we had the premiere of 140 in May, which was a huge deal. I came home feeling energised. I had the kickstarter money in hand and print material, DVDs and everything else to get organised.

While I was doing that I was also finishing Iscariot with Thomas, a project (I'm sure you know by now) we've been working on for 2 years. We finished it, at least well enough to give it to people to consider. And luckily we found a producer who is strongly considering it, maybe even more then that, but nothing is official yet, so no point talking anymore about it until it is.

So two major finish lines cross, both in the same week and right now I feel like the flat tire of a bike that's just completed the Tour De France! I'm exhausted and drained.

I have several projects I want to move onto. I'd love to get back to Ghoster and apply the new techniques I've learn on Iscariot to that and even try to put it into production. I'd love to get back to Nevermore and bring that up to scratch. Bad Moon too. I've love to finish Cats of the Crescent. I have new ideas I want to start and I'm even talking to a friend about a five day feature to shoot later this year. But honestly, I don't have the energy for any of it.

Every time I sit down to start writing some I find myself on Facebook without remembering the turn. I don't drive, but the late night drive home from work has often been described to me, how you look up and realise you're nearly home and you have no recollection of the last 6 miles! You wonder if you were asleep, or at least the conscious part of your brain was asleep and somehow your subconscious drove the car! I feel like that.

I suppose the Ridley Scott film knocked it out of me a bit. While I've remained philisophical about it, it certainly knocked the wind out of me. After a year and a half of work to suddenly realise one of the seminal directors of our time is doing the same thing, kinda takes the shine off it. With Iscariot too, the producer we spoke to wasn't willing to back the script with us as directors, which is why we wrote it, to direct. But we came to realise to stand a chance of getting it made anytime soon, if at all, we need to let someone else take the reigns, take the writing credit and hope for another opportunity further down the road. After we get some legit feature film credits to our names. I think both events have made me realise how far down the pecking order I am, and after 10/11 years of trying to get films made, it doesn't feel like I've gotten very far!

Isn't it interesting though, I have a feature doc sharing press with Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald, that people seem to want to see and by all accounts is a success, at least in terms of the project that was set out. I have a feature script in the hands of a producer who wants to make it, and seems excited about it, yet I still feel unfulfilled, disappointed. Strange. I guess it's all part of the journey.

But whatever about all that. I need to get back to work. I have a film half completed on my hard drive that involves the work and commitment of others, so I need to get on that! I am excited about the other projects, especially the prospect of shooting before the end of the year. So I need to pick myself up and dust myself off and get on with the job at hand.

Sharing Press with Ridley Scott:

I've also started uploading the 140 clips in full on Vimeo. Check them out to the 140 Vimeo Page.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Strange Days!

To say the least!

I've had a very interesting couple of days. Yesterday I had planned on going to Dublin to finally drop off 140 for DVD duplication (which I did, eventually). I awoke to find the little red light of my blackberry flashing. Nothing unusual about that. I often get a few emails during the course of the night. But not like this. Not with such interest news attached.

(Ridley Scott)

This link lead to an article about Ridley Scott's new film, something called 'Life in a Day', with him producing and Kevin MacDonald (Last King of Scotland) directing and editing. The film is a social media experiment, a crowd sourced, user-generated, internet film that requires people from all over the world to capture their day and send in footage to be edited into a visual montage of personal moments that will become an experimental documentary... sound familiar at all? I can give you 140 reasons why it might!


Alot of people have been outraged on my behalf, Click Here to see what Movie Line said about it. I also commend the loyalty and spirit of friends and family, but I think this is a positive. Hey, I'm excited I'm getting some press, that 140 is being talked about and that my name is side by side with the likes of Ridley Scott! I never thought that would happen.

It's fantastic that someone like Ridley Scott is experimenting with this kind of filmmaking. And if he's doing it then maybe I'm on the right track! With digital filmmaking, technology and what the internet has become, people are exploring these avenues. There are bound to be similarities early on. I wonder how many films there were about trains pulling into stations when the Lumiere Brothers started?!

I do hope Life in a Day doesn't over shadow 140. I'm not sure it will. But you never know. But then again, it just might shine a light on my little film, and that's only a good thing!

But talk about David and Goliath!