Hands Up... Punk!

(Clint Eastwood)

Things have been fairly quiet since I got home. Not much going on. Well, Thomas and I got straight back to work on Iscariot and we had the broadcast of Emily's Song on Channel 4, which was quite a big deal. I had a bit of a struggle to get the money from kickstarter transfered, my own fault. I click deposit instead of withdraw, so my account went into overdraft! But the money didn't show up anywhere else, so when I hit withdraw and the money went into the bank it wiped out the overdraft and my account went to '0' - the money disappeared!!!

Luckily it was sorted out, but I panicked a bit for a couple of days... can't really afford to lose $2,200 dollars at the moment! You'll also notice I wrote $2,200 and not $2,580 as is on the kickstarter page. Unfortunately not all the funds came through, for whatever reason, maxed out credit cards, expired cards, I'm not sure, but a few donors were unable to complete the transaction. Kickstarter are following it up, so hopefully we can sort it out. But in the meantime it's a substantial some and I'm read, willing and able to spend it!

On the shopping list are: Posters and postcards, always useful for promotion at festival, screenings and markets. DVD duplications, essential. Beta tapes, specialised tapes for projection at festival. I already have an NTSC copy, which I will most likely count as my own donation to the cause, rather then seek to be reimbursed from everyone else's donations. And some of the money will also go toward entering festivals. Fees can add up, they can be anywhere from $15 to $100! I'm going to be very selective and do my research. It's always a risk paying entry fees, they are nonrefundable and I don't want to squander any money, but sometimes it is a risk worth taking.

So we'll keep 140 rolling and see how we go. We're also going to be looking different options in terms of making the film available after it's festival run, more on that later.

In other news:

On Monday I start, or complete, a new project, the working title of which is Hands. It is based on a collection of photography by New York based photographer Scott McDermott. The film will be a montage of his Mandela Day project. In it are photographs of hands of famous people, all of whom gave 67 minutes of the time to help improve the world in some way, on July 18th, Nelson Mandela's birthday. People like Robert DeNiro, Sharon Stone, Will.I.Am, Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood.

The exhibition was originally curated by Elliot Kotek with Nation of Artists. I saw it on the website and while chatting with Elliot on facebook chat I mentioned that it reminded me of an idea I once had for a short film, and wouldn't it be cool to do it with a cast list like that! He suggested mentioning it to Scott, and did, and while we were unable to utilise those people again, we were able to utilise Scott's images - and it went from there.

Elliot wrote a piece of narration, Scott provided his amazing work and I'm going to put it all together. I don't know where the film will go once complete, but it should be an interesting project. So watch this space.

This project also has special significance for me. Clint Eastwood is one of my heroes you see! I always wanted to meet him, and in my idle moments often daydreamed about working with him - that may never happen, but at least this is a little way there (if not still a million miles away!) - and I start the project on his 80th birthday! So that's kinda cool! But who knows, maybe someday - this'll do for now.

Tonight

Emily's Song, tonight (well, tomorrow morning!) at 3:45am on Channel 4.

And just in case you can't stay up tonight to watch it, don't worry, it will be on again on RTE 2 on June 14th.

Way Out West

My poor blog has been feeling somewhat neglected of late! I've been travelling you see, with not much access to the internet, I'm currently suffering from withdrawal symptoms, so needed a fix! Luckily I've landed somewhere I have some access!

As you know I've been travelling. Newport Beach, as reported below, a great fest with a continuing great responce to the film. From Newport Beach and a couple of days in LA I flew to Denver where I met my wife and daughter, which has been the highlight of the trip so far, watching them walk through the gate and have my little daughter recognise me imidiately and give me a huge smile and a riggle of excitment was better then any premiere!

We hung out in Denver for a few days, which was fun, among other things I screened 140 at the Starz Film Centre for the Denver Film Society. It went really well. Good crowd and the film was warmly recieved. There was a long Q&A afterwards with Ron Henderson. People were intrigued and fascinated about the film and the idea behind it. So that was fun.

Following that we met my wife's parents and drove from Denver to Bozeman in one day. That's a 14 hour drive, so you know, that goes through Colorado, Wyoming and into Montana. It wasn't too bad I must say, in terms of length. We broke it up well enough, taking a break every two hours or so and stopping for meals. We stopped in Cheyenne and bought Irish Whiskey! We drove along to original Oregon Trail, where you can actually still see some of the old wagon tracks. We passed through Laramie, Little Big Horn, the site of Custars infamous battle, the hide out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as well as the Crow Nation Indian reservation.

It got a bit hairy as we drove out of Billings. A rain storm came out of nowhere and got stronger the further we drove. It was dark by now and as we moved toward Bozeman to enter the Bozeman Mountain pass the rain got heavier, the wind bullied the car and in the dark distance lightening crackled on the horizon. We were in the 13th hour and tired. It wasn't a pleasent experience. But thanks to the solid driving of Maryann's Dad we were fine and came out the other side unscathed. Having left Denver at 9:30am we pulled into my wife's parents house at 11:30pm... exhausted! But happy!

Today I'm meeting with one of the lecturers of the film department of the Montana State University (MSU) to chat about all things film in Montana and elsewhere state side. I had hope to have a screening here in Bozeman, but my contact here seems to have disappeared, so nothing is set unfortunately. Too bad.

While I was traveling my kickstarter account reached it's target, which is fantasic, so my sincerest and heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported it and the film!

Well, that's been my western adventure so far. I'm looking forward to getting home next week and getting back to work - not before a long rest though, a pint in Clarkes!

Talk soon!