For obvious reasons, I can’t tell you much about the meetings that Carl and I had today. One of them was conducted whilst walking and weaving briskly through the crowds of Cannes. Another took place, perhaps more conventionally, on a patio.
Let me share with you some thoughts that others have shared with me today. I list them below, in no particular order, without passing judgement on their validity, simply to give you a flavour of the things you must consider (because if you don’t, others will consider them for you) when presenting a film project to the industry.
“Why is the lead a girl? It’s a boy’s film.”
“The poster looks like a seventies Czech TV series.”
“These kinds of films are a nightmare, because you’ve got multiple effects house all working on different shots.”
“If the book it’s based on sold less than five million copies, they’re not interested.”
“I haven’t bought this shampoo in years.”
After dinner, we attended a screening of “The Strange Case of Angelica”. It was a nice little story, about a photographer who falls in love with a dead girl he’s snapped, but when I tell you that the director is in his nineties, you will not be surprised to learn that the film moved more slowly than an Easyjet boarding queue.