He’s taking the piss?

I received a pile of notes, pages of the fuckers on ‘K’ the other day, all of them minor, all of them reasonable requests.

Until the last one:

Also, I’m thinking we need to change the tone of this film. It should be much more of a love story – a man battling against his true desire to be in love with a man! A hard man! Not a girlie-man! What ya think???

I think you’d better be fucking joking. This is an action/thriller piece set in London’s gangster underworld.

Then, to top it all off, after my post on stupid precedents, he finishes it with:

Oh and can we have it (with changes and brilliant) this afternoon?

I got this email at about 11.30.

Now, I know I swear a lot; but maybe never before as much as I did that day.

“This afternoon? This after-fucking-noon? A non-girlie-man love story? Is he fucking joking? He’d better be fucking joking. Grumble, grumble, gnash, gnash, wail, wail.”

Only with more, shorter, words.

There will be those amongst you who think ‘Of course he’s joking, no sane director or producer would possibly ask for that in earnest.’

That thought gives you away, that thought shows you’ve had little experience dealing with notes along the lines of:

‘Can we make this a comedy?’ – when the film’s a harrowing story of rape.

or

‘Maybe (insert name of actress the producer is trying to sleep with) could play the lead?’ – when the film is a bio-pic of Hitler.

Changing the film from being about a man rising to prominence in the London underworld to being about a man’s love for another man is bordering on sanity in my world.

So I swallow the rage, put on my most professional voice and make the call.

“Hi, about that email. I don’t think I’ll be able to get it done this afternoon.”

He just bursts out laughing.

Turns out he was taking the piss after all.