Still contacting people’s agents. I tried a certain Danish Director of Photography whose work I admire, but as usual his LA agent didn’t want to know until I have money. Still waiting to hear if a certain English actor’s agent has read the script, and have just contacted a particular Scottish actor’s agent to see if I might be able to send the script. A small part of me hopes they’ll all say no because if they say yes and then I can’t raise the money to actually make the film and work with them it would be incredibly frustrating.

Today I met up with Mike Tucker and he still doesn’t think I’m crazy, which is very reassuring. The Model Unit have a workshop at Ealing Film Studios; today it was full of Viking longboats and other Celtic miscellany which they are building for a children’s TV show.
Mike led me into the office area, which is dominated by a Dalek. (And let’s face it, how many rooms could you put a Dalek in and not have it dominate?) Red Dwarf artefacts adorned the tops of bookshelves – a large-scale Starbug model, the Emohawk from Polymorph II. After looking at the company’s impressive showreels and portfolio, I showed Mike the concept art which Ian Tomlinson and David Ayling have been producing for the last year. Mike had already seen some of the key images and had read the script, and was extremely enthusiastic about the whole thing. He was particularly pleased to hear that I wanted to completely exclude CGI from the movie, unlike most producers these days, who want precisely the opposite.
A couple of other modelmakers paused in their Celtic constructions to peruse the concept art, and were equally excited about it.
So Mike and his team are on board the good ship Shadowland. They can’t wait for me to get the film financed so they can start work on it.

Spielberg’s agent sent my letter back, but what he didn’t count on was that I also sent a copy directly to the Bearded One at Dreamworks. Like apples, do you? Well how do you like them apples?
Contacted a certain British actor’s agent regarding one of the major supporting roles and was invited to send the script. The agent’s assistant asked what the projected budget and timeframe are, who else is attached, who the producer is and so on – not questions I was able to answer at this stage. Maybe I’m going about this in the wrong order, but then maybe it’s a vicious circle. Can’t get the names until you’ve got the financing; can’t get the financing until you’ve got the names. Or possibly: can’t get the names until you’ve got a budget drawn up; can’t draw up the budget until you’ve got an experienced producer on board; can’t get an experienced producer on board until you’ve got financing; can’t get financing until you’ve got a budget drawn up. Clearly there’s no point in me drawing up a budget…. Production Design:

Called a famous actress’s manager in LA and got told to call back when the film has financing. A similar thing happened a few months ago with a British name actress, only in that case the agent cruelly invited me to send the script, only to send it back to me immediately without reading it. So many people on my hit list for when I’m rich enough to afford an assassin.
Rebekah Tatlow, a survivor of Soul Searcher, is on board for special make-up effects.

I wrote to Steven Spielberg.
Stop laughing. Have you got any better ideas?