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:
The Jobbing Scriptwriter 
It might have a been a long time coming, Phil, and the movie might not end up as good as it was written, but the trailer looks fun & that soundtrack “Careful what you wish for” is great! Who’s it by?
The writing process on this has been unusual, but I actually think it’s one of those rare occurances when the result is better than it was initially written – it’s just far too complicated to explain.
As far as I’m aware, all the music is custom written for the film. By the producer, as it happens. All of the tracks are superb though – hopefully there’ll be a soundtrack album.
I’m sick of all these fucking success posts! What about the all the shitbag whinging ones on here that we could all relate too and laugh a new arsehole out at?
I mean, well done Phill. Keep up the good work.
Oh, sorry. I’ll try to be more miserable next time.
That’s it, I’m moving to the fucking Maldives or maybe I should just get all vfx on crawley’s ass, a quick sky replacement, closely followed by a land replacement, that should do it.
Or you could put the Gorilla back in.
No, wait, fuck the Gorilla – just FINISH THE FUCKING FILM!