Variant D4 and Daybreakers

If any reader has visited brokenarrowfilms.co.uk they may have seen, amongst the projects listed, the feature film script Variant D4. This Vampire story was written some years ago, long before the recent popularisation of the sub-genre. But as it requires a “real” budget I’ve pushed it back and back to promote cheaper projects such as the feature The bloodline and short films like A Question Of Content and my current project The Triumph of Venus. And of course I have worked on other peoples projects like the feature film script Babbage for Frame On Frame etc.

So why bring this up?

Let me tell you:

Yesterday I went to see the Austrian film Daybreakers . It’s a good Vampire yarn and well produced, well worth a visit even if you’re not a total sub-genre fan. However, the point is that the film contains many of the themes and circumstances contained in Variant D4!

It does not put pay to the D4 project entirely but if it did ever get made (and personally I think my story is even better than Daybreakers – {of course I would say this!}) it would be considered to have been inspired by Daybreakers. So, just in case it does get made I will now be able to point to the many, many (somewhat wishful thinking here!) people who have read this blog and visited the website to vouch for D4’s originality. Egotistic or vain is that?

The Bloodline

The logjam on my The Bloodline feature film project may have moved slightly as a result of a meeting with the main Producer over the holiday. Hopefully, he will soon be in a position to take the Portuguese version on by engaging our nominated writer. In the meantime I’ve polished up the English version and added a little more interplay between the two main characters, which goes some way to satisfy a wish of the Producer, without making a major change to the structure of the story.

Regular readers will remember my blog on the technical issue we had with my short The Triumph of Venus – I’m happy to report that Jack Marshall has demonstrated how we can fix the frames using Adobe After Effects.... well done Jack!

First Cut The Triumph of Venus

The Jack Marshall has completed the first cut of my short The Triumph of Venus. We still have a few issues to deal with, music, shot selection and a tricky technical problem, but it looks like we'll have something we can put into the Cannes Short 2010 Film Competition and the Short Film Corner.

The technical issue relates to a few frames that need correction or replacement during what I call the candle scene. The frame above indicates the problem, the frame below indicates a rough correction... can you spot the difference? Well, you would if the image was projected on a full sized cinema screen, which must be the aim for our final version!

My feature script The Bloodline polish is going well and has been helped by the experience gained making two shorts.

New Year

For much of last year and back into 2008 I was involved in the Babbage feature film. Although no longer on the project, collaborating with Frame On Frame has help to polish up my script methodology. With this in mind I’ve started a review of my own feature, The Bloodline. I hope to tighten up the latest version so keep reading this space. Over the break I was able to speak to my producer and hopefully 2010 will provide an opportunity to take this project further. In the meantime Jack Marshall has made good progress in editing my short The Triumph of Venus and hopefully a rough cut version will be available soon.