The Summoning

The horror anthology has had a name change from Future Tense to The Summoning. It’s also got a natty little teaser poster:

I think all six of the shorts are finished.; now all I need to do is write the linking scenes.

With four of the shorts, the first drafts are pretty much unchanged - a couple of minor dialogue changes here and there, nothing too drastic. One of them, a werewolf tale, was too funny; so I wrote a second, serious draft and we seem to have settled on a mixture of the two. The sixth, the vampire one, just wasn’t working. I was given the option to try and fix it, junk it and run with five, or come up with a new story.

Five shorts would leave the feature a bit on the short side and fixing it would be a lot of work when it wasn’t really suitable in the first place (a fact which didn’t become obvious until I’d written it); so a new story seemed the easiest way to go.

Producer Jonathan Sothcott and I came up with a few ideas over lunch on Monday, settled on one and I wrote it up today. I sent it off for approval earlier; no notes so far, but there’s bound to be some.

Just the links to go.

In other news: I wrote up a proposal for the TV mini-series I got grilled about in Cannes. It seems to make sense, so I’ve sent it off to the lady concerned - no response yet, but it’s still early days. I sent her an email just checking she remembered me and was okay to receive email attachments. She replied:

“I remember our meeting well.  Yes you can send me the idea by e-mail.”

Which could be good or bad. It’s nice to leave an impression, but I’m never sure what kind I’m leaving. She still wants to read the proposal, so it can’t have been that bad.

Can it?

And just as I was beginning to despair about the sizeable dent in my bank balance left by Cannes; the nice people at NewsRevue sent me a hefty cheque.

Which was very nice of them. I love it when this happens, and it happens to me a lot. I wonder vaguely where the next money is coming from and someone just sends me some.

Aint life grand?

Ready for the off

Cannes tomorrow, in four hours time, to be precise (ish).

I’m packed and I’m ready to go. I think I’ve got everything I need; but I always think that, and I’m usually wrong.

Still: tickets, passport, driving licence, car rental reservation, French sim card reservation, directions to the hotel, hotel reservation … erm. Is that it?

Oh yeah, clothes and other non-essentials.

In the last couple of days I’ve managed to squeeze in another two segments of ‘Future Tense’. Well, three I suppose. Maybe more like two and a half.

Basically, I wrote the fourth of the six shorts on Wednesday; but there was a (possibly) legitimate concern that it was too funny. My personal opinion is a bit of levity in the middle helps as a contrast to the others. A bit of comic relief sets you up nicely for the rest. However, I also understand it might be completely the wrong tone to link with the others.

In the spirit of fair play, on Thursday morning I thought I’d just write a darker version and see which one the people involved prefer. Still waiting to hear about that one.

Yesterday afternoon/evening I wrote the fifth segment. One more to go now, plus the linking scenes which tie them all together.

But that will have to wait, I don’t imagine I’ll get much time in Cannes.

I’m still not a hundred percent certain why I’m going; because Marion, the producer of ‘The Seventh Sword of Bathrick’, asked me I suppose. I spoke to her briefly earlier on. She assures me we’re going to be kept busy with numerous appointments over the next week. Whether or not they prove fruitful remains to be seen. I’m sure it’ll be fun and it will be nice to get to know her and the others involved in the film a bit better.

I’m hoping to hook up with at least three producers I’ve worked with before, just to remind them I’m alive, available and the answer to their scriptwriting conundrums.

Or maybe the cause of their nightmares, but we’ll gloss over those bits.

Expectations: not a lot really. I don’t for a moment believe I’m going to come back richer, better known or better connected; I don’t expect to sign a mega-bucks deal with some desperate Hollywood exec; and I don’t even expect to see many films.

I suppose my only real expectation is to come back considerably lighter in the wallet.

Fuck it, it’s a hell of a way to spunk your cash. Easy come, easy … oh, it’s gone.

It’s been a busy few days

Again. 

I’m thinking of making that the name of this blog.

Over the weekend I signed the contract for ‘Future Tense’ which is the provisional title for the horror anthology mentioned in previous posts.

This simple little sentence probably conjures up images of a nice office where contracts were signed on a plush desk and celebrated with champagne. A handshake, a brief chat: ‘we’re so excited to be working with you on this’ and out the door half an hour later.

Oh no, my friends. It was a five and a half hour pub crawl of Eastbourne, followed by a brisk trot along the seafront in the vain hope of there being another bar open at 11.30 pm on a Sunday night.

Surprisingly, there was. Or at least, surprisingly to me. Which is embarrassing since it’s now technically my home town and has been for the best part of a year.

Never mind, a good time was had by all. Or at least both of us: the producer, Jonathan Sothcott, and myself. In fact, the more Jonathan had to drink, the more work he seemed to be offering me; a fact I must remember when dealing with producers in the future - get them drunk.

Or at least allow them to get themselves drunk.

As usual, I had to resist shouting out: “YOU FOOL! HAH, HAH, HAH, HAH!” immediately after the ink had dried. I settled for saying it quietly to myself when Jonathan had gone to the toilet; something which worried the barmaid who had witnessed the signing and wasn’t really sure what was going on anyway.

So I told her she’d signed away her soul.

We got thrown out shortly after that.

Future Tense is proving to be a very enjoyable film to write, since it’s really just six shorts stuck together (with a linking premise). I had intended to be really flash and turn up on Sunday night with the last four written, slap them on the table and shout something pithy; but it turns out my delusional grasp of time had struck again and it was only physically possible to write one.

Still, I’m three shorts in now and they’ve all been well received. The only notes I’ve had so far about the last one was “Lose the Poodle”.

Which seems fair enough.

Yesterday I scribbled down a longer version (5 pages) of the ‘K-Past’  synopsis for director Don Allen to take with him to Cannes.

That was well received too. It seems, at the moment, I can do no wrong.

Speaking of Cannes, I’ve resolved my ‘hotel in Belgium’ problem by renting a car; which will probably be a damn sight cheaper than taxis/buses and solves the other problem of deciding what clothes to take into town each morning. Casual? Dressy? Shorts? Now I can take them all, including the new (cheap) suit I bought on Saturday to replace the old (extremely cheap) suit I ruined at the Gothenburg Film Festival. I hope I’m not going to go through one suit every festival.

I also sorted myself out with a French sim card so it won’t cost a fortune ringing people trying to find out where they are.

You’d be forgiven for thinking I’m getting myself organised.

The only hassle with the sim card was the company wanted confirmation by fax and my PC isn’t connected to a land-line. The simple way was to install the relevant software on my laptop and connect that to the phone-line downstairs.

I’ve never really liked the simple way though, where’s the challenge?

It took the best part of three hours to find the right cables and enough extensions to run from one corner of the house downstairs to the opposite corner upstairs; but by god it was worth it.

Well, no. Actually, it wasn’t; but I wasn’t going to let a machine and some common sense beat me.

Speaken of beaten, that’s me off to bed now. Another early start tomorrow, another segment of ‘Future Tense’ to write and more fretting over my rapidly diminishing bank balance.

If anyone can be bothered, there are some very sketchy details about ‘K-Past’ and ‘Future Tense’ on my website; but be warned, they are very sketchy. By reading this post you’ll probably know more about them than you will from scouring my website.

G’night.