Vampires on Crack

I am still about -- and I often daydream of having the energy to get this blog up and running -- except I kinda think the whole blog thing is dead now. But still, I'd like a record of this shit to one day show to somebody who might give a shit, so here goes.

Since my brief time in Hollywood I returned to the UK to be jobless and broke as shit (again. yawn.) A couple of days after landing I had this sudden flash of inspiration for a movie in a jeg-lagged period of insomnia. Then I sat on the idea for a couple of days, until another flash of inspiration when I was on a train. So, here I am, about 12 weeks later, finishing off the second draft to my new script.

It's a Vampire Movie with a twist. I won't write much else here. I spent 12 months being close to raising £1,000,000 to making my first movie which never happened.

I still want to make a movie but I won't be making that one, I will be making this one. The best way for me to do this is to fucking get off my ass and do it. So I have written this script with the explicit intention that I will shoot it as my first feature in 2010, no matter what.

Privately I have my hopes set on raising £20,000 - £50,000 and making up for the lack of funds with willpower, charm and good fortune.

In LA LA land I met a lot of people who were all talk. The entire film industry is puffed up with hot air and bullshit. I am English. We don't bullshit. We just get on with it.

But I learned that the film industry doesn't have time for subtlety. You need to get up in peoples faces because the alternative is to be invisible: and that, my friends, helps nobody.

But equally, you can make all the noise you want but if you've nothing to back it up with: then you're a bullshit artist and a waste of space.

So I need to get in people's face -- AND make a kick-ass vampire movie on steroids, because I can't bullshit - it's not in my DNA.

But that's cool. The final thing I learned in Hollywood is that there is fuck all talent there.

So it's mine for the taking.

Awesome.

Los Angeles

Right. I went to LA.

It was insane.

For me, Hollywood is a real place now. A far cry from the shithole part of London that I grew up in. And not too dissimilar to that place on TV we're all shown but never visit.

What you don't see is how fucking pigshit and nasty everybody is to everybody else. It's a jungle out there. I'm gonna elaborate on this more soon.

Los Angeles: Part Two

The last trip to Los Angeles didn't happen --- but... I got an email two days ago and it looks like in four weeks I'm gonna go for real!

woot.

ps.

The financing to my movie collapsed. Le sigh, those fucking Arabs let me down... in the words of Bob Evans, "an Arab is an Arab is Arab is an Arab."

Los Angeles

In the early hours of this morning, I received a simple email, my friend is going to USA for a funeral. He wants me to come hang with him in LA for a week. I've never been. He is a director in the middle of financing a $25m movie.

I am a director two weeks from finding out if my movie gets financed.

Perhaps I should go along and see what happens. In London, I've been storyboarding my movie, or at least TRYING to storyboard my movie. I've been visiting a lot of VFX places in soho, studios and sitting in on meeting with this big director guy. At the very least, I'm learning a bunch of stuff with him.

But most of all, I am just stuck here waiting for news which will or won't change my life.

A trip to LA will use up the last of my resources and on the surface I can't see the point. I was going to go anyway in two weeks if I failed in my bid to finance my picture.

Well, I said a lot of prayers the other night -- within 24 hours, this invite comes along. I discern any specific point of going, I'm financing my movie from the Middle East... I don't need LA right now. At least I don't think I do.

I suppose that's the point of faith. We pray for an answer from God and when we get one we're too stubborn to see it. Is this invite to LA an answer? Or perhaps a random coincidence. am I projecting, and seeing what i want to see?

Another way of looking it is that progress is about stepping outside of the comfort zone... This trip to LA will push me. Maybe I should go anyway...

May 2009

Okey dokey, it's been a little while -- the last news was that I had a soft yes for the financing to my movie and would find out in roughly 12 weeks time whether or not it would actually happen.

That was 10 weeks ago.

It's now May, and in an oddly poignant twist, its coming up to the 10 year anniversary of me finishing Film School .

So, this month I will find out if it all works. There isn't much else to say on the matter. Sometimes I am confident, sometimes I am anxious.

I pray, I try and focus my energy on understanding my purpose and God's plan for me.

If I get the money, I'll probably weep. If I don't, I'll also probably weep.

Non-Circumvention Agreement

The 'deal' is 11 weeks away. A Hollywood friend of mine suggests I get my people to sign a Non-Circumvention Agreement.

I'd never even heard of one of these, but apparently in Hollywood, they eat their young -- and nobody with any sense does business without one of these.

What i find intimidating is that I am suddenly swimming with sharks -- I might have known one of these guys for 10 years, but this is business now and I where I used to bumble around like an idiot, I can't charm or joke my way out of a legal minefield.

Suddenly, I am a little boy again, hoping that the world is full of good people who want nothing but the best for me -- how can I ask this man to sign a document that essentially declares that I do not trust him?

Then again: this is business.

How can I allow the slightest possibility that somebody can totally fuck me. Based on what? Trust? Friendship? Respect?

I don't want to get them to sign the paper. Because I want to be able to trust him. Then again, if I get him to sign the paper -- then I suppose that's the only guarantee that I can trust him.

Non-Commital

I feel like I am writing a soap opera -- this is how whole-heartedly ludicrous everything seems to be right now.

About 12 hours ago, I heard from my contact overseas.

The proposal to fund my movie has been provisionally accepted pending certain conditions.

I'll find out in May whether these conditions are met.

These is another offer on the table for 18 months time. This other offer is 10 times bigger than the first.

I really wish I could elaborate here, this story is so absurd you couldn't begin to imagine it. But right now, I simply can't.

But, after three months, the answer I get is:

Yes, maybe.

In May, I'll find out if I raise 100% of the finance to my movie.