The Triumph of Venus is off and running, with Screeners sent to three film festivals; The Cannes Short Film Competition (France), The Washougal International Film Festival (USA) and The Norwich Film Festival (UK). Now is the time for lots of sustained finger crossing! Once I have a file in the recommended format (from our stalwart editor Jack Marshall) for the Cannes Short Film Corner then this market place will be the films premiere (unless we get into the Competition!!!!). The current screener has a small continuity error which hopefully Jack will be able to correct shortly. When this version is available then several other festivals may be hearing from brokenarrowfilms! Follow this blog for progress reports.
If you are a film goer that likes to relax back and allow the film to wash over you; then Shutter Island has enough visual stimuli to satisfy you. However, if films make you think and you enjoy trying to solve a good mystery then I’d avoid this film. The mood music tries desperately to enhance the mystery but in reality the film is transparent and then it’s a long wait until the end, which is admittedly rather well done. To make a feature the plot needed so must more death, as a short film it would have been a winner!
The Pied Piper Killer is the new name for my feature By Degrees. I’ve been fiddling with the script and I’m now very happy with its 103 pages. In any event it’s now printed and my dear wife will be proof reading and critiquing the work over the next week or so (wish me luck!).
There is one advantage of being a little physically weak for a while and that is that one can turn ones attention back to writing. I have just completed a 100 page first draft for my low budget feature By Degrees... naturally I think that it’s brilliant at the moment... what I’ll think when it comes to my first review in a few weeks time is another matter! The first big test for the script will be my wife, who will be proof reading soon... wish me luck!
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.
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.
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.
It’s Christmas card time again!
Just in time for Christmas Jack Marshall has released the DVD of his award winning short Intruder. As a bonus the DVD also contains a copy of my award winner short-short A Question Of Content. Jack plans to make the DVD available for purchase via his distributing arm Cambridge Film International and naturally I'd like everyone to buy 10 copies as this will help finance a planned micro-budget feature film next year.
At the weekend we filmed my short The Triumph of Venus (originally titled A Martian Eclipse). The story, as the titles suggest, is about the “battle of the sexes”. We used a single location with four scenes (although two scenes were external establishing shots only) and shot in full HD. Whilst a simple concept the actual filming was a challenge as we were working in a confined space and the story involved a water stunt. The stunt was performed by the actors (with a little help from yours truly, that will not be evident in the final cut) and although fairly straightforward required some thought and effort to make it appear realistic. We also managed to get an underwater shot due to the ingenuity of our Cameraman and Editor Jack Marshall . The actors Helen Rynne and Andrew Franzkowiak were great sports and put everything in to this little production. Thanks must also go to my wife Diane Williams who was location manager, caterer and hostess for the weekend. I would be more than happy to work with all four again sometime in the future. The film is now in post and the aim is to have a cut ready for the Cannes 2010 Short Film Competition and also for an IMDb qualifying festival (most likely the Cannes 2010 Short Film Corner – which runs in parallel with the Cannes Film Festival but is in the market rather than the competition). So watch this space for further updates.
At long last a word or two on the Royal Film Performance. It was attended by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall (according to my wife she was wearing a long deep blue sparkling dress) and was the world premiere of The Lovely Bones. The Director (/writer/producer) Peter Jackson and most of the cast were introduced by Steven Fry and then had to struggle back to their seats in the dark as the film started. The film is based on Alice Sebold’s second novel and is a close adaptation (although the role of the mother has been drastically reduced with a complete sub-plot removed – this does not help explain her actions, which is one of the weaknesses of the film). The story is told with large chunks of voice over from the young victim of a sex crime (Susie Salmon played with great feeling by Saoirse Ronan). The film switches from Susie’s spirit world (filmed as a kind of telly tubby land!) to the real world. If you loved the book but hated the end then you’ll have the same problem with the film. Personally I hated the whole thing! The film opens in the UK in about a month. If you loved every part of the book and can live with the mother’s sub-plot removal it would be a must see event.
