Things not quiet now. I've been insanely busy the past week, so busy I spent most of a party at Chris's on Saturday night slouched on a sofa with a stunned expression wondering why my body refused to obey simple orders like: go to kitchen, talk to people, eat free food. Mostly my body stared with a confused expression at anyone passing by who appeared to be attempting to engage me in conversation.
Mostly it's been the run-up to pitching the short film. For the moment, it's called 'Personal Jesus'. I've been thinking of another title, 'Machines of Loving Grace', given it's about a near-future community where the lives of children are ruled by semi-autonomous, sixteen-inch tall robots disguised as cuddly Jesus Christ soft toys, although it is the name of a band. On the other hand, it's also a line from a Richard Brautigan poem, so I'm still thinking about it.
I've met with the director pretty much every evening this week for some purpose or other, often meeting up with other people like Emily, the script development person, and Karen at the Glasgow Media Access Centre to explain exactly how the hell we think we're going to pull off knee-high robots on a budget of no more, probably, than eight grand.
But there are ways. And in fact, the robots might be the simplest part of the whole equation. The script - all two thousand words of it - has been through at least four drafts in the past six weeks. The latest is an ultra-el-cheapo version, aimed primarily at convincing a commission board we have a financially feasible project.
All this, and absolutely no guarantee we'll even get beyond the next stage. In the meantime, I've been taking advantage of various free workshops available to everyone invited into the GMAC talent pool, including a couple of direction workshops. Even if we don't get to make the movie, the amount I've learned about what you can or can't do, or what's feasible, is invaluable.
One of the best pieces of advice I've heard is this: find your location first, then write your story around it. There's another direction workshop next Saturday, I'm going to try and go to: this one is about dealing with actors.
Not surprisingly, I've not had much time to work on the Stealing Light edits. I'm still about halfway through the edits anyway, and I'm praying things loosen up the next week I can get back to them. And on top of that, I've got to come up with some outlines for possible sequels. Busy, busy, busy.
No comments:
Post a Comment