While the rest of the filmmaking community was in Cannes, we were in Canon Pyon. We were visiting Maggie, our development producer, in her natural habitat, deep in the Herefordshire countryside (ie. about a mile outside the city centre, ho ho). We got our first reply this morning to the letters we sent out last week (Channel 5), the first of many rebuttals, I’m sure.

Today I played with Lego. I’d like us to meet with potential miniature FX wizards soon and so I need to film videomatics of the relevant shots. Suffice to say this involved spending two hours in my parents’ attic, scrabbling through big buckets of bricks in floor-bound positions which made me ache much less when I was 10, then setting the (very crude) model up in my flat and shooting it with my trusty Canon XM1. And it’s not over yet, since some of the shots require bluescreen elements and/or a more involved miniature set, possibly including someone’s garden pond. Still, James was telling me that George Lucas used Star Wars action figures to block out the fight sequences in Return of the Jedi.

We sent a few more letters off, and are meeting the development producer again on Wednesday for an update. Meanwhile, down in sunny (I assume) Cannes, Tom Muschamp is engaged in a slew of meetings pursuant to the distribution of Beyond Recognition, the film I DOP-ed on in New York last year. All the best to him.

Busy Soul Searcher day. Our very helpful development producer friend sent a long list of financing options and contact details to us, so James and I spent the day going through this, making phone calls, sending e-mails and typing up our pitching materials. So far we have sent a treatment, character designs and crew info to two sales agencies, a TV station (with mention of a possible series stemming from the film) and also Screen West Midlands. We are also working on getting a mentor on board, an executive producer with a track record in fantasy films whose support would greatly improve our chances of securing finance.

We are continuing our efforts to raise private investment as well, and to that end we have sent out press releases today to all the local newspapers.