For the last six years I’ve been developing and trying to raise finance for The Dark Side of the Earth, my would-be third feature. It’s a wildly ambitious fantasy-adventure set in an alternate 1908 where the world has stopped spinning, and a girl stows away aboard an airship travelling from the Light Side to the Dark Side with the aim of finding Old Father Time and starting the earth turning again.

In 2008 I shot a 35mm pilot for the film starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Kate Burdette (The Duchess) and featuring the voice of Mark Heap (Green Wing, Spaced), on a wonderful big steampunk set with a beautiful puppet of a Victorian swordfighting robot. Many, many talented and hardworking people contributed their skills to the pilot and to the development of the feature script. Sadly all I have to show for all this effort are lingering debt and a gorgeous 35mm print of the pilot. No fucker will finance it.

But perhaps you can learn something from what I achieved, and more to the point, didn’t achieve by reading the blog – which you can now do right here on neiloseman.com. There are also hours of behind-the-scenes podcasts and “how to” guides from the pilot and our pitching trips to Cannes on my YouTube channel.