Kick off

Mixed Up starts shooting today.

This is good news, I like it when projects start shooting - there’s a lot less chance they’ll fall apart and disappear. It’s not a guarantee of course, but it’s marginally less likely.

What impresses me most is the speed with which this has all come about. It was the end of November last year when the director, Lawrence Pearce, took me to peer through the windows of Beanos and mentioned something about a slacker comedy.

Since we’d met to talk about a different project, I thought we were just idly chatting on the way back to the station. It wasn’t until a week later I learnt I was writing it.

Lawrence provided the story, I provided a synopsis followed by a treatment and started the script near the end of January.

That’s three months from typing FADE IN: to the director yelling: ‘ACTION!’

That’s pretty quick.

By way of contrast, there’s another project I’ve been working on which is still going SEVEN YEARS down the line. SEVEN FUCKING YEARS! Three months? That’s the way it should be. All films should work like that.

In those three months (or less really, since it took three weeks to deliver the first draft) producer Jonathan Sothcott has secured funding and a great cast: Billy Murray, Adele Silva, Lee Otway, Zara Dawson, Abi Titmuss, Anna Brecon, Terry Stone, Giles Alderson, Katia Winter and of course, Sylvester McCoy.

Great cast, great location, great director.

Great script? I don’t know, people seem to like it. I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen the final product.

Despite my own paranoia, I have high hopes for this one. It’s exciting and it’s happening right now. No messing about, get the script, get the money, make the film.

I love it.

Having said that, with production starting today, I am, of course, going to go and hide in the Caribbean until it’s all over.