Soul Searcher: May 31st 2002

Well, I didn’t get the backlit shots of Simon on that Sunday. We got them today, amongst a lot of other good stuff. We met up with Doug KP at the offices of As You Design, where he revealed an enthusiasm to create a whole promotional campaign for Soul Searcher. Working of course for nothing at this stage, he has kindly offered in the first instance to create four production “paintings” (glorified storyboard frames) in the Manga stylee, which we can use when making presentations to potential funders, and a set of postcards using the same images, which can be placed on every seat at the Courtyard screening of The Beacon. We also came up with the cool idea of the backs of these postcards having a jigsaw element of a larger image which can only be viewed by collecting all four cards. Lo, one day these shall be collectors’ items. Only got three? Ha ha, you poor fool!

Then this evening Simon Wyndham came over, and in the name of tradition we went for pizza at Deep Pan Sasha’s. And there was some hilarity involving one of the other waitresses, a formidable ass groove on one of the seats, and of course James. We bounced various ideas around about the sfyle and progression of the fights throughout the film, how the demons would move and die, and how we could enhance the battles by having the weapons do sparking damage to any walls or other objects they hit. A major discussion about scythes was prompted when James showed us the farming implement he had borrowed for the purposes of the teaser shoot. It looked about 200 years old, had a massive blade, and is officially classified as a lethal weapon. Simon had a few game attempts at doing some moves with it, but it wasn’t long before James was putting it right back in the car. At which point it broke. So we decided to make a scythe, using a metal pole with a cardboard blade gaffa-taped to it. And what do you know? Lit only from behind, and being spun about at extreme speed by Mr. Wyndham, it looked pretty darn convincing. We learnt a lot right there about what qualities the scythe for the film would need to have – both practically, to allow the greatest scope for choreography – and aesthetically. It was great fun shooting out in the courtyard by my flat in the dark – I’m looking forward to the real thing. Funniest moment? I missed it, but apparently a passing lady was heard to remark: “My god – he’s got a scythe!”

In other news, the second draft of the script is near to completion, and a distribution agent in Cambridgeshire has offered to meet with James and myself in June to see if he can’t give us some pointers on getting this movie out there.

Soul Searcher: May 31st 2002