Pain, pain and more pain

I was right, it is all going too well. Mike Eley has just been offered a commercial in the US for the week we’re planning to shoot. He’s busy looking into whether or not he can get a work permit in time. If he can’t then good for us but bad for him. If he can then good for him, and I guess it’s postpone for a week for us. Can’t complain, it’s just one of those risks when you have no money. Just hope that we can keep everyone (and everything) on board for another week. The longer the delays go on the more worried I am that Kieran will get some big offer to do something else.

On the plus side I’ve decided to cut the hospital scenes down, thereby virtually eliminating the need to find this location, which was proving tricky. I actually did it because I was worried the story was coming to a halt half way through when we got to the hospital, and wanted to cut it right down to keep the narrative moving. The fact that it makes the hunt for location easier is just a bonus.

And on the double plus side I won £75 on the National. So we now have a budget of £75, unless I spend it all on prostitutes and booze, which I probably will.

All hail

We love Panavision. The very kind Mr Pete Swarbrick took us through all the HD equipment then took us through to bookings. We explained our situation, how we had this great cast and crew and only a little window of opportunity to shoot in, and because of that we hadn't had a chance to get any money. And what did they say? We love to help film makers out. And indeed they do.

Subject to availability we're now shooting on top of the range HDW-F900. What nice people. Mike Eley mentioned shooting on the 750, but Panavision insisted (insisted) we take the next camera up as they think it's better when you go for a 35mm print, as we're intending to.

So that's cast, DP, insurance, make up and now camera sorted out. That leaves me with the following: Location, sound, focus puller, props, and Kearney is busy working on the locations. Easy. Thinking of adding a load of CGI shots just to make it more of a challenge to make. 22 days until we start shooting. Bugger, that's not that far off.

Things get moving. A bit.

God bless shooting people. The film making network has come to my aid again and provided make up artists and a location manager for the film. Still hunting for a focus puller, but think (hope) a few phone calls will fix that.

A commercials company (who shall remain nameless while we sort things out, just in case) have also stepped forward to allow us to put the production through their books, thereby allowing us to use their public liability insurance. Woohoo, that's £800 saved, which is especially sweet as we don't have £800 to start with.

Tomorrow I'm off to Panavision to see what we can do for camera equipment. I spoke to a very nice man there on the phone, telling him all about our wonderful cast and crew, and how we'd like to shoot High Def, and have arranged to see him at two. I may have forgotten to mention the fact that we have no money. Oops.