As you have probably sensed, things are not going well. I’m trying to attach another writer, but that seems to be just as difficult as attaching an actor. Again, it’s Catch 22: the agents don’t want to know unless there’s money already in place. Screen West Midlands don’t know whether they will be able to run the Production Development Fund this year.
Things are looking better for Soul Searcher. I’ve just signed a new deal including the US rights, and the feature length behind-the-scenes doc, Going to Hell, has also been picked up for independent distribution via tinternet and possible TV broadcasts overseas. Ironic that the easiest feature film I’ve ever made (I’m talking about G2H, not SS, obviously) should prove the most popular.

Had a meeting at the top of a tall winding staircase in Soho. (No, not that kind of meeting.) There were two partners in the production company, both with visual effects backgrounds. You know what? I can’t be arsed describing it any further. They didn’t want to make the film – that was the end result of it. So what else is new?

Whilst typing up the script revision, I spotted a fatal flaw. As predicted. So I reverted that section back to the previous draft and put The Dark Side of the Earth draft 4 to bed. Someone else can write the next version.
Round at Rob’s on New Year’s Day, Jennie and Dale recorded the voices for the new videomatic, The Wooden Swordsman, which you can see on the video page.

On the train home to Malvern for Christmas, I came up with what appears to be a version of the sabotage subplot which makes sufficient sense that I can type it up and consider the fourth draft complete. The chances are high that halfway through typing it up, I will spot a fatal flaw in it.
Yesterday Ian and I shot a new videomatic before I came back to London. Ian made a very impressive cardboard model in a very short space of time, which shared the stage (table) with some Lego and a Sindy.

I finished the videomatic, but I’m still struggling to complete the fourth draft of the script. Someone please give me some money so I can pay another writer to do it for me. If I run one more permutation of the sabotage subplot through my head, it might explode.

What usually happens is that I type the date and then daydream for anywhere upwards of five minutes before I can think of a way to begin the entry. And I won’t be able to use that one again.
A new videomatic, depicting the stopping of the world, is almost complete. No shots in it are stolen from other films. In the same way that no elements of the Sherlock Holmes stories were purloined from Edgar Allan Poe. (This is a clever, witty and cutting joke from the world of classical literature. If you do not understand, simply laugh now to appear learned.) Other shots feature the Corps action figures on sticks, my sister’s holiday snaps and lots of crumpled paper.

So Miramax don’t want to make The Dark Side of the Earth. “Tonally, it is not a Miramax sort of film.”
More Back to the Future fun here.

If you were amused by the Superman Returns video blog I recommended to Soul Searcher journal readers in February, check out this sequelific Hot Fuzz blog.
And on the subject of Peter Jackson, I would also like to recommend The Frighteners Director’s Cut DVD. Although the film is weakened by the extra material which has been reinstated, it’s worth the purchase because the second disc contains The Funniest Blooper In The Annals Of Cinema: Michael J. Fox genuinely forgets what film he’s in during scenes with The Judge and yells, “DOC!!!!”

I had a meeting today with Lee Thomas from Screen West Midlands. After twice being turned down by their script development fund, I had given up on the agency, but new big boss Jonnie Turpie told me at a Rural Media event a couple of months back that in spite of those two rejections, the production funding was administered by different people and it was still worth me looking into that. And here was the second surprise: Screen West Midlands do fund feature film production, contrary to what I’d been led to believe in the past.
Lee, who I met briefly in Cannes last year, told me that – as a result of Soul Searcher – SWM were keen to provide me with some financing if they possibly could. His initial reaction to the Dark Side treatment was one which others had previously hinted at, but no-one had put as clearly before. The story combines an epic, effects-heavy, action-adventure genre with a small, “rite of-passage” character element. (A deliberate decision.) Problem is, an expensive FX genre movie needs to find a wide audience in order to make a profit, whereas the quirky characterisation I’m aiming for tends to only interest a more narrow audience, hence it traditionally being the realm of low budget films.
Put bluntly, in order to get the film made, I may have to make the characters more stereotypical.
In other news, I’m following a couple of new leads in respect of producers and name actors. By the way, the companies with whom I had promising meetings over the summer seem to have lost interest.

Bang, bang, pop, bang. Must be almost fireworks night.
A Mr. James Furlong has won the Soul Searcher “Guess The Budget Competition”, a challenge only slightly more difficult – for anyone who’s watched the DVD extras – than those multiple choice quizzes you get at the end of CSI. “Was the victim killed by (A) a screwdriver, (B) a bus driver or (C) Minnie Driver?”
The correct answer (to return to Soul Searcher) was