At Christmas Ian and I talked about shooting a scene from the film as a promo piece. It would have to be done properly, shot on celluloid and with high enough production values (not to mention the correct continuity) to one day be cut into the full film. To be affordable, it would need to be in a single small set with few characters, but at the same time it needed to show that I could pull off the kind of complex production design/FX feats that characterise the screenplay, so it couldn’t be a simple dialogue scene.
The Wooden Swordsman scenes were the only ones that fit the bill. Deciding that the Swordsman would be too expensive to make, I shelved the promo idea. But we’re almost a quarter of the way through this year now and it’s shaping up to be as unsuccessful as 2006 was in terms of getting DSOTE off the ground. So figuring I had nothing to lose, I advertised for someone to build the Swordsman on a tiny budget, expecting to get a couple of emails from people telling me I was crazy and it should be done as CGI, and nothing else.
Well, that was only a few days ago and I’ve already had half a dozen enthusiastic responses. As I know all too well from Soul Searcher, having things made by people who aren’t being paid can be – erm, how to put this – an interesting experience. Let us not forget David Dukes with his dog toy grenades and Alan Titchmarsh scythe.
Stay tuned; anything could happen.