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Bradgate Brings Some Finance!

I am delighted to announce that the production company, Bradgate Films, have come on board as a co-producer for ‘Gone Fishing’. Through their excellent connections they have managed to bring £5k of private investment to the project, which is excellent news.

Here is what Bradgate say about themselves…

'Bradgate Films are an emerging, midlands based feature film production company. Within Bradgate is a passion for film and over 20 years experience in production. They have produced projects in the

United States, Canada, Thailand, the Seychelles and Monaco in addition to the UK. From micro to millions Bradgate have worked on films including drama, thriller, science fiction, horror and children’s film genres.'

Here is what I can say about Alan and Maria who own and run Bradgate, after we spent a half day chatting over coffee – it’s rare to meet film makers with passion, business acumen and serious experience who are still willing to take a risk and get something special made. Most have been seduced into TV or corporate work, but not Alan and Maria – they still have the fire! So it’s GREAT news for ‘Gone Fishing’ that we have managed to expand our coffers and get a couple of extra experienced hands on deck too. 

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

A Further £500 raised!

As we hit the tarmac running today – Monday – just a recap on where we stand money wise. Over the weekend we received a further £500 in donations. So thank you to Paul Nugent, Huw Jenkins, Hazeley Wilson, Jurgen Wolf, Rod Duncan, John Basham, Steve Payne and Simon Reglar. Splendid. We are in the final negotiations with one of our major partners too, who would bring a third of the budget in one hit. Exciting I can tell you. 

I am meeting with DP’s and Designers this week and hope to have someone announced by the end of the week.

I also did a script revision over the weekend, but after consideration, I think I am going to re-tighten the narrative. I added a few ideas that I felt added charm to the narrative, but also added two new locations. Aside from the budgetary implications, I know in my heart that this redraft would drift into slightly slacker and perhaps a little more self indulgent story telling. So it’s got to go. 

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

Stunt Co-ordinator gets onboard

As many of you may know, stunt co-ordinator Terry Forrestal was a key element to us getting started here at Living Sprit. In the very early days of The Runner, he was an industry professional who was instrumental in giving us credibility. He also added huge production value by doing amazing stunts and bringing in crew who of effects wizards. His help continued though Urban Ghost Story before sadly, he lost his life in a base jumping accident. This was a terrible tragedy and we all felt his loss terribly.

What a welcome delight then to find that among many of the other industry professionals he mentored and helped, was stunt co-ordinator Pete Pedrero. I met Pete a few months back and we chatted about Terry and the films we were making. Today, Pete got onboard Gone Fishing and has offered to Stunt Co-ordinate it. His energy and enthusiasm is uniquely stunt crew orientated, or perhaps it’s the legacy of Terry, who shared that drive and sense of fun. So what was going to be a big problem for us, is now being handles by one of the top guys in the country.

 

When I chatted to Pete on the phone, I asked what he was up to. I expected him to tell me about various projects he is currently involved in. ‘I am just about to be set on fire mate, so let’s keep it quick!’ Blimey. I love the stunt crews energy! 

I must admit, I do have a sense that if Terry is up there looking down, he somehow sent us quite simply the best guy for the job. So thanks Terry, even now you are helping us along on our career.

I think the pic here is of Pete, on fire, and Terry! I recognise the Forrestal grin.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

More Cash and Crewing!

Yesterday I sent out a mail to my mailing list, asking for crew help and specifically a storyboard artist. Boy! I got about 250 responses, so it’s going to take me a little time to get through everyone. It struck me, there is enough enthusiasm and passion there to make five short movies! I think after all is done, I will try and get everyone together for a networking barbecue or something similar. It seems there are a lot of like minded people who are not quite connected to each other, so let’s help build those connections and get more movies made.

As for Storyboard Artists, I am hoping I have found someone in my 250 responses. We will see.

We also got more contributions in the last 24 hours, from Jack Marshall, Rachel Keig, David Bowen, Ghost Films and Susan Douglas bringing the total cash raised to £2,600. We have just managed to secure, for free, the whole 35mm scanning and, grading, mastering, DI, scanning back to 35mm, HDCamSR mastering and data archive – ALL FOR FREE! This is worth about £3k, and brings us much closer! BLIMEY BLIMEY BLIMEY!

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

We are getting there!

OK so fund raising is continuing, and we now have a rather spiffy graph, to show us all where we are at. In the last day we had four more people contribute, raising the cash figure to £2,200 – they are Mike Mindel, Ross Edwards, Martin Bowen and Harriet Barbir. So thank you very much guys. As I said in the last mail, we hope to announce a bigger chunk of money in the next few days, getting us even closer.

We are delighted to announce that we have secured all the 35mm film stock for free, raising a further £2.2k of  the budget, bringing us near to the £5k mark! Holy cow, we are getting there!

We aim to be around £10k by the start of next week.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

Gone Fishing - the budget starts to flow in

I have just spent a frantic week, working on casting and all sorts of other stuff. There will be a script redraft very soon, and this little tweak I hope to be the final one. Most important though is that cash has started to flow into the production- pictured is a post card that came from one person wishing us GOOD LUCK! SO THANK YOU EVERYONE.

We have also had a huge amount of well wishers and we feel humbled by people’s generosity.

So far, hard cash, we have had £1,850 donated, mostly in £50’s and £100’s. But we also had one £500 donation! Blimey! We have also had promises of more from people who can’t donate just now, but who really want to be involved and help get it made. Literally, can you wait until I get paid at the end of the month! Amazing. Truly. 

There is a rumbling too, for a very large chunk of cash – we hope to make an announcement about that later next week. So we are well on our way to getting there, which is terrific news. But we are not there yet, so please, if you want to get involved, or know anyone who does, take action now and go to http://www.livingspirit.com/GFpayment.htm

Next week is a final week of gearing up before we actually move into a more formal pre production. 

So here are our Associate Producers so far…

Josh Halewood
Damien Donnelly
Kerry Finlayson   
Darren Horne
Merlin Ward
Matt Davis
Leilani Holmes
Gordon Mutch
Sarah Morrison
Tom Waller
Steve Wilson
Jonathan Musgrave
Ian Toulouse
Dean Ivemey
John Quinn
Geoff Moseley
Lyn O'Donnell
Mark Morris
Jane Clemments

You can read more about Gone Fishing here

Onward and upward!
Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

 

Auditioning Kids All Day

Yesterday I spent the whole day auditioning kids. With the help casting Director Catherine Arton, and her two helpers, Sammy and Janna, we managed to get through an astonishing 65 children.

We worked in small groups, which Sammy would take through their paces with fun and games ‘warm up’ routines. In this first stage, the real extroverts began to shine. Mums and Dads were held in another room next door, so Catherine and I rarely had to deal directly with them – this was a real advantage as just keeping focussed on the job was hard enough without having to deal with proud parents.

Once warmed up the kids all did a little piece to camera, starting with their name, age and agent. Then we had a little chat about the film and the character, and they did a little performance.

Things I noticed when casting… 

1. Having a team to deal with this kind of day is more essential than with adult actors as kids need warming up, while mums and dads need to be looked after too. This must be a slick machine.
2. I would say that about 85% of the kids were very good and had some experience. They were mostly professionals though. This was a surprisingly high percentage to me.
3. There was a clear ‘self awakening’ for kids around nine years old. That is, the younger ones were very much children and unaware of the ‘self’ where slightly older ones had become self aware and were more conscious of how they might look – which of course impacted on their performance sometimes. On the whole, the younger the kid, the less focussed, the less polished but the more truthful. The older the kid, and then you could get anything from quite shy to a full on ‘performance’.
4. Making copious notes is essential. After seeing 65 kids, faces merge into a single one. Of course, you will also have your video to spool back and look at which helps.
5. The warm up with Sammy was very important as it got them moving and very much at ease with us all in the room.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Production Manager Gets Onboard

‘Gone Fishing’ moved a step closer today when Production Manager Stephanie Wrate joined team Living Spirit in their offices at Ealing Studios. Stephanie has worked in the production department on over 20 films and her experience and professionalism will be a great asset to the movie. She was thrown in at the deep end today and has already spent most of the day on the phone fixing up possible location recce's.

On the money front, we got our first donation today from Damien Donnelly! Hoorah! And we have not even started emailing out about it.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

The Force Was With Me!

This weekend I had a great directing job – STAR WARS! Yes, I know! Actually it was at the Star Wars show, but we got to shoot little movies with people in costume and on set, who on minutes earlier, were in the crowd of onlookers. It was more theatre than movie, for sure, but a huge amount of fun. There was a huge section of set that was custom built and when filmed, boy did it look like it was just ripped out of the movie. I was struck by how, even now, the Star Wars design and costumes still hold up and feel utterly authentic to their own universe. As directing jobs go, they don’t get much better than this!  

Forgive the cheesy director shot, but it had to be done!

Onward an upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Gone Fishing Update

OK - Here is a brief update as to where we are at with Gone Fishing.

From this point onward, we plan to make regular updates to this page, but for now, here is a potted history of how we got here, to July 12th 2007.

Back in May, Marc Samuelson from Samuelson Productions, read Rocketboy and loved it. And I mean REALLY loved it. They wanted to make it. For $12m. Next year. The only problem is they didn’t want me to direct. So Cannes came and went and I hatched a plan to make a short film of such staggeringly high quality, they would have complete confidence in me as director. (this is phase one of my three part plan, which will be unveiled as we get there).

I had a number of boxes to check when devising a story to make into a short film. First, I needed it to be short, around 7 minutes. Maximise my spend against the knowledge that the important people who see it, will only make a minor time investment. Second, I needed it to be shot on 35mm, to give it the biggest movie feel I could manage. Third, I wanted it to be an Oscar contender. Seriously.

Next I needed to tackle head on, the concerns of the very serious backers of Rocketboy - which reading between the lines, I suspected were something like this ‘Can he handle big projects, and actors? Can he make something cinematic? Can he handle the kids in the story?’ Of course there would be other concerns for sure, but I suspected those were the main ones.

So I devised a short film that echoed the tone and feel of Rocketboy. It stars an old man, and young nine year old boy. The plan is to get a major name to play the old man, and a newcomer for the boy. This would prove I can handle the ‘big names’ and the kids.

I then set about writing down my key words - these are a few words that will guide my choices during the making of the film, essentially an anchor to keep me focused. These words I came up with are CONFIDENT, SENSITIVE and CINEMATIC. These words will inform my every creative choice. It means I can’t rely on cheap cinematic sleight of hand, or overly showy camera work, or oodles of over sentimental music.

In June I wrote the first draft, in a day, after a week or so of mulling the idea over. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that it’s all done in a day. No, this was the first draft and I had spent a great deal of time sort of ‘stewing’ in the themes and ideas. The initial reactions to this first draft were very positive, but I knew there was more that could be done. A few weeks later, I re-wrote to arrive at draft 2. Essentially this expanded on one big story point and also clarified a major plot point so that audience would be in no doubt as to what was happening (something I had picked up on when people read draft 1). Now everyone loves it. This is really great news.

At this point, Producer Ivan Clemments came on board and together, we have been trying to find the money. If you are reading this, you will know all about these misadventures!

So that should bring you up to speed.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com