Oh man, this keyboard is so sticky. I only went and spilt OJ on it, didn’t I? And the VCR remote, which no longer works. Yuk, yuk.
Right then, so I’ve just got back from a week camping in Cornwall – a surreal week featuring such rare sights as an aroused dolphin, a drunk woman trying to bed a gay man, and a man getting lost round the back of a portaloo. Of course I spent my spare time in the tent doing Soul Searcher sketches, brainstorming locations and sending James long e-mails from antipodean-owned cybersurf shacks with sea views. I hadn’t been back long, naturally, before I ended up at The Courtyard with a large ring binder, a cup of coffee and a pile of headshots. For whilst I’ve been away, Jim has been fixing it for wannabe actors to audition for our movie. Let’s not beat about the bush – the number of responses has been disappointing. No worse than that for The Beacon, but we were expecting more since we cast (ho ho) our net wider by posting in PCR. As ever, I guess lack of financial renumeration is putting people off. Still, thanks to everyone who has applied, and I look forward to meeting you all next week. We’re also going to try to recce a lot of locations next week so that I can begin storyboarding while I’m in New York. But of course, you journal-starers don’t know about New York…
A week on Sunday I’m off to upstate New York for three weeks, all expenses paid, to be the Director of Photography on an action thriller. Chopsy what? Jammy who? Beyond Recognition is being self-financed by London-based director Tom Muschamp, to the tune of not much more than The Beacon‘s budget, and he’s hooked up with a producer in New York, so there it shall be shot. With me doing lighting-camera. In New York. [Laughs deliriously for several minutes.] Obviously this is a big chunk out of the SS preproduction time, so we need to get things to a stage where they can tick along by themselves during that period.
Once again, the scary smallness of Hereford, um, scared us. On the way to the Courtyard, we bumped into Geraint, who just happened to have some of his cool concept sketches with him. He had some very interesting ideas. We hope to meet with the “practical” designers next week and talk about who might be able to make some of the stuff. Goodbye for now.