Do Elephants Pray?

Home today unusually. I’m half dead with flu, shivering uncontrollably no matter how many layers I wrap myself up in. I am snoozing for an hour or two than pulling myself out of bed so I can do a little work, return e mails, do follow ups to Berlin, write this...

I came down with it yesterday while at the production office going through the infamous receipts with Jonnie. I had felt a bit stuffy the night before but the alternate fever and shaking started at midday while trying to find a €70.00 Intermarche receipt. Anyway, we now have about 99 percent of them and they seem to tally with the bank statements. Although not ordered absolutely perfectly, they were nearly all there, and I am glad to say the chapter of lack of financial knowledge, like the chapter of lack of synced rushes, are both behind us now.

I left Berlin on Monday night, going almost straight from a meeting to the airport. Job done is how I would describe it, people know it is coming. It’s just a matter of delivering with the rough cut. The night before I had a very pleasant meal with Jonnie, Sally Hibbin, a young producer I am trying to work with called Steve Dimarco and an old friend Alex Ross.

Alex has lived in Berlin now for well over a decade and that means I have only been able to see him about three times since. Like me, he is a director. Many people think making films in Europe is easier than the UK. In France that may be true but everywhere else it is just as hard. He has made two films since leaving Bournemouth Film School where I met him and also Martin Parry, my camera operator of choice in 1990. We shared a house together with two others and my mind is indelibly etched with squirrels on the balcony, loud late night playing of The Clash, vegetarian pasta and petty criminality!

After a lovely Thai meal, in a smoky bar (Sally’s preference) we went through the number of people in our year who have since fallen by the roadside, probably about 95%. That’s quite a Darwinian fall off. Bizarrely, also, the most successful are probably; Joe Cornish, Jonathon English (the only sane Producer on my film The Poet) and me! I say bizarrely as I wasn’t actually on the course. Another friend of ours, Andy Saunders, had asked me to repeat what we had done together at the NFTS the year before and come to Bournemouth to produce his graduation film. I am in the graduation photo though. Alex isn’t – he kind of boycotted it.

Alex was very sweet about me supporting him back then when he made his graduation film “Jacob’s Ladder”. It was 38 minutes long and the film school wanted him to cut it just for the sake of making it shorter. That was ridiculous as the film was made with a lot of long sequence shots and the only way to shorten it would be to use jump cuts or loose them completely. The film worked perfectly as it was and I told him so. He kept to his guns and the film was one of the most successful the film school ever made.

One thing that popped into my head while we were out together was the day in the forest when I ate the mushrooms that could have been toxic. The reason being was when Jonnie texted me saying there was a 33% chance of me dying was I immediately though who was going to finish the film. My first idea of course was Roger, my second was Alex. We have a similar artistic sensibility I think.

My only tinge of disappointment In Berlin was with Steve Dimarco who I mentioned before. He wants to produce the next film I will do with Jonnie. The problem is through most of the Berlin trip he barely said a word. What’s the key to being a good producer? The first thing is they have to talk to people! The best I’ve worked with is Paul Trijbits, some people love him, some hate him, but I‘ve never seen someone work a room as well as him. Never. He knows everyone and the people he doesn’t know he just goes up and says “I’m Paul Trijbits” and sticks out his hand. Steve unfortunately still has some way to go.

All this does is make me more convinced my next film will be “The Cult”. 

I have recovered from the flu but am still feeling low. Why I am feeling low I don’t know. I have never suffered from proper depression but guess it must be something like what I feel now. I’m well known for my eternal optimism.

Caroline is still cutting the film but unfortunately she has also been busy this week on other things. That’s the problem when people are not being paid proper money and thus aren’t on something full time. When I see her next I should be able to view the first assembly. As of yet I am not sure when that will be though.

I have spent much of the week negotiating a writer’s contract. The same one I had to continue negotiating again straight after the shoot. It is still not agreed. This whole process has now gone on a total of 22 months. A ridiculous length of time. Normally a writer’s motivation for writing a script is to tell a story. In this case it seems to be about money much to my sadness.

Finally we have handed over the accounts to our accountant Richard Juneman, only to discover that HM customs and excise have asked for further clarification on some minor details about the company. This seems endless but I hope these questions will be the final ones.

On Tuesday I got approached about a film about Billy Graham. Why I don’t know as most people would assume I am the last person who would want to do a film on that subject. My agent said “They don’t mind if you are not a Christian, just as long as you are not Muslim or an idol worshipping pagan!”

On Friday me and Jonnie did some more admin stuff, paid a few people and wrote letters to companies who are threatening to sue us. We need some more funds, either by investment or by getting back the damn VAT. We also sent copies of trailers to people we were not able to see in Berlin mainly because they hadn’t attended the festival.

The response to the trailer remains positive and better than the response to the poster. Amongst others, I showed it to Dougal and Cassandra on Thursday when I saw them both at Cassandra’s party. They were both very excited by it.

Midweek I showed it to one of the investors. I didn’t watch it as it played. The Investor asked “Why aren’t you watching it?”

I told them “I will see the film enough when we are in the thick of the editing. I don’t need to see it any more!”

“Aren’t you excited?” they asked further.

After a long pause I explained that I wasn’t excited yet. I had been greatly excited during the shooting but now I am in a different stage. My hope for the film is that it goes to many film festivals and is released all around the world to critical acclaim. That is what happened with Boston Kickout but is exactly what didn’t happen with The Poet. Until you show the film to an audience in a cinema, you don’t know how the film will be perceived. You just don’t know. There is lots of excitement to come one way or another.

I hope to God, I’ll finally get to see the first assembly of the film next week.

I am on my way to Devon and Cornwall to see the writer that I seem to be endlessly negotiating a contract with. It’s just another thing to wear me down and get on my nerves. The goal posts keep changing and we are currently on draft 10. Total amateur hour.

I’ve still not been able to see the first assembly of the film. This is again because of Caroline’s availability. Now I am scheduled to see it on Wednesday. I can’t wait. First assembly’s are routinely 3 hours long as they have everything in them. They include everyone walking into rooms, sitting down, all the pauses and dead time. They are what a film looks like before it takes shape, before it is moulded. They are quite depressing things as well, many things will seem to not work or are too long. It will also look like there are endless repetitions as bits of dialogue will not be needed as things are explained in other ways. But I’m surmising. I haven’t seen it.

On Tuesday, after my monthly poker tournament, Jonnie asked me if he would get to see the assembly. I had to tell him no. I don’t want anyone to see the film until it has some shape. That is my job, the directors job, to give it shape. Like a mother and a midwife in a delivery room why the relatives wait outside. Once Caroline has given her full input, and I have given my full input, then it will be time to show it to Jonnie. And after getting his input to other people and eventually to a whole load of them!

The problem is that everything has taken so long and people are anxious to see some results. After a super quick pre-production and shoot everything now is endless. Axle Cheeng texted me asking about the sound and when she could start work! I barely had the inclination to tell her we have barely moved forward since she left to Malaysia for a month. We are now where we should have been 4 weeks after the shoot. Instead it is 17 weeks after. We are 13 weeks behind schedule and counting. And counting! And Counting!!!

To make things more enjoyable, one of our creditors wanted to press the button on Thursday so we are trying to stop that from happening. It’s not in their best interests to press the button. The legal costs incurred would be equal to what we owe them. Of course they will try to pass that on to us. There’s absolutely no chance of me having an appetite to pay that. They can go to hell on that point!

We’re doing all we can to get more investment but I’m afraid we haven’t yet even received confirmation that our answers to HM customs and excise have fully satisfied them.

On top of this, other people owed money are texting me frequently now. What can I do? They say they have sent in receipts or invoices 4-5 months ago. Well, I got given them 2-3 weeks ago. But of course, how can they understand this concept, that someone employed by the film to deal with the finances should take 14 weeks to deliver the invoices to the person that hired them thus delaying the VAT reclaim by that amount of time. It’s un-understandable, even to me!

One strange occurrence, a beam of light in the darkness, is that out of the blue I got a call from Passing Clouds this week. Steve Norris’ DAT recorder turned up. It was in a plastic bag inside a cardboard box in a corner of one of the venue’s rooms. How it got there no-one knows. Steve was over the moon when I told him.

At least someone’s happy.

T

ELEPHAN

FEATURES

L I M    T   E   D

  P.O. BOX 44636 London   N16 5TU 

  Tel +44 (0) 20 8211 1888 Fax +44 20 8211 0222

    Office@ElephantFeatures.com