Chronicles 49 - Yikes!

If you're still popping by and reading this blog thanks for sticking with me. At some point I will right a more comprehensive chronicle of all the activities since Cannes but I've just been too busy to blog.

I'm currently working on a treatment for my second commission. I'm contracted to do 2 drafts and 2 revisions by mid-December. Then I'm contracted to start my 3rd commission in mid-December and deliver end of March. Do-able since I can write fast once I have a structure to hang on to.

Trouble is things are getting busy on the day job as I prepare for presentations in Los Vegas in November and wil also have to go to the US again in October. In parallel I will have to finish the play (being staged in Jan 2008) in the next month or so. So my fiendish plan is to finish off the treatment and while the producer is reading the treatment I will work on the play and hopefully knock out the first draft, then I can go back to the script commission. Then at some point I have to write the script for another producer that I met in New York. We've signed a collaboration agreement and the aim is a first draft before Cannes. So in order to avoid a panic I'm trying to take it one day at a time. Make sure I just put the hours in and hope that it will all come together in time. Hence the 'Yikes'!

It gets even more crazier because in parallel I am putting the pieces together for my rom-com in order that it goes into production, co-ordinating all the parties involved which is now a growing list of producers, executive producers, financiers and a casting director. There's progress here and it's encouraging but it's not in the can just yet so this is also a case of staying in the now and going step by step. Having tried to get this particular project off the ground for about 6 years I really see now that it is a miracle that any film gets made. If I'm lucky we may have the finnace grounded in order that we can go out with offers to cast which, if the finance is in place will hopefully be taken seriously by the agencies. Bottom line we need top names. Rom-coms are no low-budget horror flicks, with rom-coms you need 'names'.

More progress on the short film, we've been offered distribution (to TV channels worldwide) and as well as LA Shorts film festival we've also been selected for Austin film festival. Fingers crossed for Sundance.

Thanks for checking in. Back to the treatment.

SWU