A long time ago, when the world was young and dinosaurs figured that whole ‘hot blooded’ thing would never catch on, I got involved with a film called ‘LVJ‘.
For a long time lots happened. Then, for a longer time, nothing happened. Then there came an extended period of alternating between lots happening and nothing happening. Finally (or so I thought) we settled for nothing happening.
Recently, lots started happening again. Perhaps even more amazingly, it’s continued to keep happening.
When you’ve been working on a project for this length of time (most of my fucking life) it becomes increasingly difficult to get everyone together in one room. It’s particularly difficult in this case because the director and producer no longer live on the same continent and I tend to spend an inordinate percentage of my time on small islands in the Caribbean.
Luckily, technology has the answer.
An unspecified period of time ago (unspecified because, of course, I was working on your project on that date, not fucking about with this one) we went through the latest edit of the film and identified all the little moments where the story needs clarifying or there were oppotunities to punch up the dialogue/add production value/swear at the actors for not being able to deliver a simple fucking line no matter how often you punched them in the face and threatened their kiddies.
(One day I will tell the full story of ‘LVJ’ and I guarantee, not one of you will believe a single fucking word. It really is that preposterous.)
The best way to do this is to all sit in one room, watch the edit one scene at a time and talk about what we felt was missing.
Sadly, that wasn’t possible.
Enter technology.
Enter the conference call.
I fucking love this technology which, granted, isn’t really that much different from making a phone call, but it fucking amazes me. The three of us were sitting in different rooms, in different countries on different continents, watching the same video clip and discussing how best to proceed.
All this from one, rather funky, laptop – and it really is a close second to actually being in the same room. We laughed as hard, we cried as hard and, best of all, I could go for a piss and no one noticed.
“Phill? Oh, the sound’s gone a bit funny there.”
Hmm. Yes.
For posterity, these were the three locations:
NEW YORK
BARBADOS
and CRAWLEY
For the sake of a bit of mystery, I’ll leave it up to you to decide who was where.
Strangely, when I took the Crawley photo (that’s my crappy, immortal Celica there) I was under strict instructions NOT to photograph the Gorilla.
I think I succeeded there.
For more exciting info on LVJ and the never-ending production, visit the Production Blog. And what the hell, let’s watch the trailer again:
George MacDonald Fraser died. I was a bit upset about that.
I set out to write a feature in six days (due to some ridiculously bad time-management skills). I actually managed to write it in three … and it was shit.
I found out I had no idea what blue pages actually are. Or rather, I knew what they were, but not exactly what they looked like and how to do them. I’m still not 100% sure but I’ve come up with my own version and no one’s complained so far.
Whilst on location for ‘K‘ I managed to work out a cheap way of throwing an actor off the roof.
I got fired from a film and inexplicably became obsessed with tin foil as a direct result. Looking back on that, it might have been a teeny tiny nervous breakdown.
I learnt how to write a sex scene which won’t upset actresses, then got called a sexist by Piers for using the word ‘actresses’.
Weirdly, someone asked me to put more swearing into a script. I’ve never been asked for that before or since.
I learnt how to keep actors happy. Or happier, anyway.
I finished the first draft of ‘Mixed Up‘ and for some reason felt the need to post a video of my friends and I massacring ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’.
I decided ‘Mixed Up‘ was going to be my last low budget film and from now on I was going to concentrate purely on some TV specs.
I started work on two more low budget films. Since I can’t remember what they were, they obviously went the way of most low budget films and imploded on contact with reality.
I went to the thing I got invited to – a BBC shindig and chance to meet the producers of the BBC’s New Comedy Unit. Where I stood in the corner for a few hours, got very hot, very angry and completely failed to meet any of the producers of the BBC’s New Comedy Unit.
I realised there are very few female sidekicks.
I picked up even more low budget film work.
Abi Titmuss completely failed to mention me in The Sun and then promised to continue to never mention me in public. I decided not to believe she existed.
Karma Magnet turned up online. People seemed to like it.
Abi Titmuss made good her promise and failed to mention me in Closer.
I confirmed, once and for all, actors don’t really have sex in sex scenes. Unless it’s porn.
I got to write for Doctor Who. Not the show, or even the current Doctor, but for Sylvester McCoy and that’s good enough for me.
I decided some actors needed punching in the throat.
And then ‘Mixed Up‘ started shooting, so I went and hid in the Caribbean.
Went to the screening of The Wrong Door, met loads of people including Doctor Fox, Sarah Morgan and her boyfriend, didn’t make a tit of myself (except with Doctor Fox) and managed to steal a T-shirt:
Two days later, I had to give the T-shirt back. A handy tip – if you steal something, don’t mention it on your blog.
Learnt how to be constructive with my criticism rather than just scrawling SHIT on the script in red ink, wiping my arse on it and sending it back.
Met Gordon Robertson after knowing him via email (not in the biblical sense, that’s impossible) for a few years. He’s a nice bloke.
And then waffled on a bit about random shit to avoid having to do any real work.
Discovered cats and touchscreen computers don’t mix.
The Wrong Door got a lot of publicity in the run up to the show – 12 of the 14 reviews I read were very positive. 2 were very negative.
The Wrong Door kicked off. So did a guy called Ben Randall who was so upset he didn’t find a programme funny he came all the way over to this blog to call me names.
The Wrong Door had the highest opening of any show on BBC Three (about four people) which seemed to greatly upset a handful of Internet loonies who went on and on and on about it for fucking ages.
I made the mistake of suggesting the people coming to my blog to call me names because they didn’t find a TV programme funny were a bit mental. Several people took great exception to this and went far out of their way to call me names in an effort to prove how mistaken I was about their lack of sanity and a real life.
Got my first death threat. Actually I got two death threats and one offer to rape my three month old daughter to ‘teach me a lesson’. That was nice. Perfectly sane behaviour that, I thought.
Still working on that fucking treatment.
Had a superb meeting where people offered me lots of money. I didn’t, and still don’t, really believe them.
Got offered another low budget feature film. That’s more like it.
Yet more abuse about The Wrong Door. One guy has taken to posting insults then changing names and agreeing with himself. He doesn’t seem to be able to grasp concepts like IP addresses, I can see it’s all one guy. I assumed this was a guy because I like to think women have better things to do.
An old project threatened to spring back to life … and then didn’t.
Finally finished that fucking treatment.
Oh and a bit more abuse about The Wrong Door.
On a serious note, all that abuse was a bit wearing. You write in the privacy of your own room for years until someone decides they want to make your work. You’re pleased, they’re pleased, the show comes out and generally people either like it or turn it off. Then a small contingent of morons think it’s perfectly acceptable to come and call you names, threaten your family and generally behave like cunts because – horror of horrors – THEY don’t like it. It’s depressing and it’s demotivating. I expected to be slagged off in papers if the critics didn’t like something I’d written. I expected to be slagged off on forums or other people’s blogs – all that’s fair enough; but the sheer persistence of a few individuals who felt the need to come here and spout off about it did actually get me down.
Until Oli sent me a cartoon. Which explained everything and really cheered me up. I decided I would find some way to repay him, somehow.
I completely failed to do some writing and in a gargantuan procrastination session, I redesigned my website.
Fixed the second act thing and discovered it no longer matched the ending.
Wrote a whiny post about writing treatments in the hope a certain producer was reading and would let me off for not turning in a treatment he was expecting. It didn’t work. Turns out he can’t read.
Wrote a writer’s vision for a sales pack – I don’t have any vision.
That guy’s still answering himself on The Wrong Door posts.
Hooray! December! This post is finally over and we can all go home!
Assuming any of you are still here.
Met some more writers in the pub: Paul Campbell, Danny Stack, Lara Greenway, Michelle Lipton and Oli … as well as the normal crowd. They were all nice. I told Danny and Michelle the secret which isn’t really a secret – just something I don’t bother telling people. Danny immediately left the pub, Michelle wanted to hug me.
Got angry with ten imaginary people because there were ten of them.
Panicked. Finished the script.
Cut out every other word in the vague feeling it might make it exciting and mysterious. It didn’t.
Told people how to wait. Not sure why, probably avoiding some other work.
Declared my love affair with Apparitions. Which I still haven’t seen the last episode of. I’m a fickle fucker sometimes.
Had some fun. It was fun.
Met James Moran. Told him the secret which isn’t really a secret – he seemed to find it funny.
And there you go. That was 2008 for me. How was it for you?
Or rather, another new trailer. There seems to have been a lot more trailer than film on this project so far. LVJ has been in post-production for … you know what? I can’t even remember.
A long time anyway.
The hold up, as always, as been the effects and other, better paid, projects getting in the way. Every now and then there’s a frantic burst of activity when everyone’s back on the case and working hard to get the film finished. You can always tell when the film’s entering a concentrated phase of work because the first thing which happens is a new trailer.
Although the rest of the website seems to be down at the moment.
Some people might get upset or frustrated by the lack of completion, I mean, how hard can it be to finish a film? Surely, once the writing and shooting is out of the way, the rest must be easy? Or if not easy, at least possible?
Well, since I’ve had five films semi-produced and not one of the fuckers has been finished (Not one. Including the one already out on DVD) I’ve come to see ‘partially finished’ as the default setting for movie making. It’s not even as if it’s the same reason every time, you know, something you can point at and warn people not to make the same mistake. It’s always different:
One’s run out of money, one’s turned into a bitch fight, one’s stymied because someone involved is being a cock, one was just abandoned because no one could be bothered and LVJ is just a monumentally stupid project for a company to attempt as their first project.
LVJ is the sort of film most production companies would run screaming from, particularly in the UK. It’s been shot on two continents, half of it’s period, it’s got action, aliens, gunfire, military hardware (including planes, helicopters and space shuttles) and more effects shots than Titanic.
And do you know the stupidest thing about it? They actually seem to be pulling it off. Very slowly, admittedly, but it is getting there. I guess with a film like this you need one of two things: lots of money or lots of time. LVJ doesn’t have a budget counted in millions. Hell, it barely has a budget counted in pounds; so the trade off is walking to the finish line instead of running.
If by walking you mean lying face down on the ground and trying to inch forward using only your eyebrows.
Still, I have faith the film will eventually be finished. Curiously, it seems to have already picked up a rating on IMDb of 3 out of 10.
3 out of 10 for a film no one’s ever seen and isn’t even finished?
Hmm, four of eight. Not so good. Let’s take those one by one.
Cast Report for ‘Kapital’.
Took an hour or so: two minutes to generate the report, half an hour to sum up the characters in a pithy sentence and the rest of the time to comb through the script and try to find all the non-speaking roles.
Go through my files looking for sketches suitable for two women.
This also took about an hour. Mostly because I had to open and read all these sketches I’d forgotten I’d written. Some of them were really funny, some of them were really shit. The balance is about 50/50.
Must try harder.
I only found 8 which were suitable for two women. That’s a poor show.
Read and consider a rewrite to a short film
Read it, considered it. I think it needs a lot of work. I’ve emailed my opinion, I’ll wait and see what the response is before going any further.
Would you believe it? I’ve just had the response. I’m going to have a stab at a rewrite at the earliest opportunity (next Tuesday).
Watch the latest edit of ‘LVJ‘ and make notes about possible changes.
This took up most of yesterday and today. The film’s less than two hours, but I had to keep stopping it, rewinding, making notes, comparing the film to the script – finding the original script and seeing what the fuck it was supposed to be about. Realising the actor was improvising and had forgotten to say key lines. Combing through the movie to find the odd second where people are turned away from camera and exposition can be dubbed in … and so on.
Despite the raw state of the footage and the lack of effects in some of the key space battles – it’s still absolutely fantastic. It’s hilarious where it’s supposed to be (and occasionally where it’s not) and it’s dramatic when it needs to be.
And that’s as good as it gets.
And I found out I wrote some great dialogue such as:
“I’d just taken down this big case, I was the man of the hour, you know? So I was hiding in the can; there was a light and this big, purple-faced creature; a bit like Joey’s mom only without that funny eggplant smell. Next thing I know I’m here, pant-less in trees-ville, being interrogated by a giant, two year old midget.”
Which unfortunately got improvised over and lost. Oh well, them’s the breaks. If you haven’t already seen the trailer, it’s here.
Oh, and in a moment of quiet reflection after lunch, I edited the first ten pages of a script and sent it in to the Red Planet Prize. I’m not big on competitions and I don’t expect to win, but everyone else is doing it and I felt left out.
This is tomorrow’s revised list:
Tweak the synopsis for ‘Kapital’ so it actually describes the new draft. (1 hour)
I’ve got to get to number three, the others are extras which can wait; and I’ve got a meeting in London at 17.00 so I’ve got to leave here by 15.00. That means I’ve got to be sat at my computer by 08.00.
Hmm.
Who wants to take bets on me not achieving any of it?
I had a day off yesterday, and very nice it was too. It’s been a long time since I did nothing all day, or at least intentionally did nothing. I’m not counting the odd days I have when I sit at the computer and completely fail to achieve anything – they aren’t days off, they’re just annoying. Fortunately they’re few and far between.
I finished the second draft of ‘Kapital‘ on Sunday, just waiting to hear back from the production team now. I’m curious to know if it makes any sense. It does to me, but getting the balance of exposition right can be quite tricky when you’re working on a project. Particularly when said project is designed to be the first of a trilogy and events in the second and third films have to be foreshadowed here, without confusing people.
Although there is one overall story, each film has to be self contained. We don’t want to go for the ‘Lord of the Rings’ thing of only giving you a third of a story at a time.
There’s a meeting scheduled for Thursday, hopefully it won’t revolve around the rest of them calling me names and swearing at me.
The second draft was a massive pain in the arse … and the fingers, back and eyes.
It’s taken me longer than any rewrite ever has, I’ve been working on it non-stop from 8 in the morning until 11 at night, every day for ages.
Except when I haven’t.
Like when I went to the pub last Thursday – but even then I worked on the train on the way up and back. The first outing for my gay laptop, I might add. An outing which proved no one wants to sit next to a bloke with a pink laptop. One guy sat down, but after a brief glance at the sheer pinkness of the thing, he upped and left.
Space to stretch out on a train, sheer luxury.
But the second draft’s done now (until the next lot of notes come in) and it’s time to move on to the next project. Jason Arnopp asked me when the last time I worked on a spec script was, and I honestly can’t remember. As appealing as it is, it’s difficult to find the time amidst the list of the things pending for other people.
As it stands today, the list, in no particular order, is:
Cast Report for ‘Kapital’.
Go through my files looking for sketches suitable for two women.
Read and consider a rewrite to a short film
Watch the latest edit of ‘LVJ‘ and make notes about possible changes.
And there’s something else. Something I know I’ve forgotten which is lurking at the back of my mind. Something someone asked me about writing for them …
Nope, no idea. If you’re reading and I’ve left you out – I will remember, I promise.
For anyone whose work is on the list – rest assured YOU are top of the real list. YOUR project is much more important to me than anyone else’s.
Right, so now the whole laptop saga is out of my system I can start catching up with the other exciting stuff that’s been happening.
Erm …
Okay, so not much really. Well, that’s not true; I had drinks with Abi Titmuss last Wednesday, that was quite cool.
But then again, even that statement isn’t quite true; it was one drink and there were four of us there: me, Mandy (my wife), Jonathan Sothcott and Abi. Abi wants to do a short film I wrote, Jonathan wants to produce it and Mandy just wanted a drink, so everyone walked away happy. Since I have a vested interest in all three things, I walked away the happiest of all.
From there we all went our separate ways, I met up with producer/director Don Allen and we talked over the rewrite for Kapital. We managed to close up the plot holes from the first draft and talked through the character changes needed for the new story - and it all seems to work.
Between these two meetings, I had a phone call from a third producer, Mark Shields. It seems LVJ, the never-ending project, is actually nearing the end of post-production. For reasons I’m not going to go into here (mostly because I don’t really know), LVJ has been in production for a little over seven years. There’s a trailer on the website, if you’ve got the time, it’s worth a watch: http://www.lvjmovie.com/videotrailers.html
For the first time there’s a cut everyone seems happy with – it’s not perfect, but it’s watchable and makes sense – am I available to go and watch it and offer my opinion?
Yes, yes I am.
And I did, yesterday; and it’s really good. A lot of the effects are still missing, but the animatics help fill in the blanks, and some of the transitions need smoothing out – but overall it’s watchable, interesting, funny and surprisingly tense towards the end.
Surprising because I wrote it and know what happens – sort of.
The whole process has been unusual and someday I’ll be able to explain it in full, but today is not that day. Suffice it to say the film has been made against overwhelming odds and getting as far as it has is a real testament to the talent and dedication of the guys involved. It’s been a seven year shoot on two continents with more effects shots than ‘Titanic’ and a budget which spiralled from nothing to … well, nothing.
Despite all the problems, the final result looks like it might well have been worth all the effort and that’s good enough for me.
Posted by phillbarron 
Posted by phillbarron 
Posted by phillbarron 
