NEW TRAILER ROUGH CUT

Is HERE.

You will need Quicktime.

Trailer Happiness

We've been cutting a new trailer the last two weeks. Hope to have it up shortly.
In other news:
- have recut the front of the film
- have started audio post

MT
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Screening

Spoke to Meredith Ostrom (CALLAS) yesterday as she is here in LA for a while.
We are going to try to have a rough cut sales screening here in about a month.

Um, I guess that means we better get to it. _______________________________________________
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Yet more film/business news

If you want to know why the UK film business is in such a terrible state, this is a great article giving background on one of the main reasons.

"The private equity tycoon Guy Hands has had his hands full trying to make money from the music industry since buying EMI last year, and now it seems he has taken a hit from investing in the film industry as well.

Mr Hands is one of 75 investors suing an accountancy firm for alleged negligent advice over a tax scheme that left them with a bill for £23m through investment in films including one about a seven-foot boxing shrimp."

The rest of the article is here.

That 7 foot boxing shrimp movie? Details here.

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HARD AT WORK 13

That's it. I'm pretty much out of pics now. :-) But there are several hundred up here now.
If you have any please send them to the email address on the right.

- MT
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HARD AT WORK 12

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Latest News

Have been working on a few other projects but there has been news on the film.
Tartan, who had shown a lot of interest in the film, went bust. Read about it here.

I've also decided after experimenting with different looks that we will probably export the movie in a Panavision matte.


Original


Panavision Matte


MT


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Ok, so its been a bit dull around here....

I've been busy shooting this week. Normal service will resume next week.

NIL Update:
Feedback from Cannes was very interesting. Feedback from elsewhere even more so.

As most of you will have read, very little really happened at Cannes this year, so I'm very glad I didn't go. (although the Soho house bit was apparently amazing). Very positive feedback on the VERY rough cut but no-one threw money at us, which is always a pity.

Showed it to a few people here a week or so ago, and again mostly positive (i.e VERY positive about the bits we know are good, and horrified at the bits we know still need to fix. So like, an overall C+. Maybe a B) and having now seen it myself about 40 odd times I'm pretty certain where we need to go to finish it.
This will start (unless reality intrudes) next week. Insert something about the 'home stretch' here.
For a long time I was really worried about this delay etc being something purely to do with me. I now realise that we have still got off very lightly, and the path of privately funded film making, never smooth, is especially fraught at the moment.

The horror stories I've heard in the last few weeks from other indie film producers makes me feel blessed that we have a film, within touching distance of complete for not much real money.
Let's put it this way: imagine you had a $10M film, with a name cast, and could not either finish it or sell it.

I tell you, in a very Daniel Plainview moment, it made me smile to hear about it.

- MT

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HARD AT WORK 11

Hayley doing makeup, TANGO scene


Bjorn Hellem


The brothers Scott


On set in Chiswick


On set for the VANESSA scene


The artificial foot being prepared for the visual climax of the PETER DENBY torture scene. This foot alone cost over 2k, but was absolutely worth it. An amazing job.


Waiting for the crew to reset, Chelsea. _______________________________________________
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OSCAR MORET

Oscar Moret

Another of the great pleasures of this film was working with Oscar Moret, a tango singer and dancer who plays RALPH's bar manager.
Oscar has had three roles in the film: the first is a scene will will put on the DVD where he and a fellow tango devotee discuss how difficult it is adapting to London, before dancing beautifully together. The scene is completely in Spanish.
The second, he was the bartender in the ill fated MR JOHNSON scenes which may never see the light of day, and finally he can be seen cleaning up the dance club at the front of the big STEVE LYNCH/RALPH scene here.
He was a delight to work with, and has a terrific face for film. I know he enjoyed it!
And keep an eye out for him performing in London. He's absolutely worth seeing.

UPDATE: Oscar is in the West End as part of this: Zorro The Musical

- MT


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The casting of Meredith Ostrom (CALLAS)

Meredith Ostrom, South Bank, CALLAS 2005-07

Meredith is the second actress to play CALLAS in the film.
We shot with the fantastic Rosalind Blessed in 2004, but when we did the major rewrite in 2005 we thought it would be better for the part to be played by someone substantially older and with a more vampish/camp quality, so did another two casting sessions for the part.


Rosalind Blessed, CALLAS 2004

2004 CALLAS (Rosalind Blessed) in action

Again Thea MacLeod did a great job of finding us great actresses, and we were pretty certain we were going to cast an older UK soap actress, known for villainous (and sexy) roles. Then as a 'throw in' we included a blonde American who was also auditioning for something else in the casting studios the same day.
Her interpretation of the role was completely different to anything we had seen that day.

I mean, COMPLETELY different.

Everyone else had read the part as it was written - icy, straightforward and a bit vampy. Meredith's version was psychotic and over the top sexual. She completely destroyed the line readings of the script, and spent most of the audition on the floor. We were baffled but very intrigued.
I was very excited by Meredith, but still wasn't sure, so had our top three choices come back to do it again. We had really already decided to give the part to the other older actress, but I was still keen to canvas wider opinions on Meredith.
So a week later we were back in the same studio. The first two were fantastic, (the other girl is appearing in the next Bond movie), and again everyone was thumbs up about the older UK actress.
I'd organised Meredith to audition last, and this time she was even more different. But the mood in the room changed completely. She had won everyone else over. And boom, she was in.
Since that day she has been one of the most powerful forces involved in the film, happy to reshoot if needed and just a great energy to have involved.
She took CALLAS places we absolutely weren't expecting, and for me that's a good thing.

- MT


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HARD AT WORK 10

Nick Townsend pre-torture

Matthew John manhandles Jonas Mortensen

Jonas on camera, Hugh Edwards is a monitor hog.

Shooting in Shad Thames

Andrew Cockerill, Mark Tierney, Hugh Edwards, Philip Carson
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'BOBBY ADAMS'

This is a great scene giving some background to the STEVE LYNCH character as he bumps into BOBBY ADAMS, whom he used to work with in the City.
BOBBY is played by the great David Cleveland-Dunn, who we shot three times in order to get this character exactly right. He was homeless in 2004, a Big Issue salesman in 2005 and now a man running a chain of newsagents in 2007.
This is another ungraded roughcut.
You may have noticed that the music seems the same under a lot of the video here. We use a piece from the soundtrack to the 2003 remake of 'Solaris' as our main guide track, as it has a good 'pulse' and a slightly eerie tone. Other soundtracks we have cut scenes to include 'Notes On A Scandal' and 'The Thin Red Line'.

HARD AT WORK 9

Jonas Mortensen shoots the infamous 'cocaine' scene

Amateur meteorologists Jerome Scott, Mark Tierney and Michael Greco

1st AD Peter Errington, MT ready for his nude cameo, Reece Young

1st AD Peter Errington. A true character.

Philip Carson and Francesca Stone
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Mr Tierney is unwell.....

I apologise for there being very few posts this last week.
Between being laid up with a pinched nerve in my neck (blinding pain for 3 days) and staying on top of Cannes, I haven't had time.
More on Cannes later.
We are ingesting the 2004 shoot at present, looking for any hidden gems. Very fun. Will post excerpts shortly.

Talk soon,

- MT

THE CENTRAL PARK STORY - ROUGHCUT

HELEN & OLIVIA - ROUGH CUT OF 1st SCENE

ROY & RALPH REPOST

Ungraded rough cut of a scene featuring RALPH (Colin Salmon) and ROY (Mark Rathbone).

RALPH & STEVE MEET

This is a roughcut of the initial part of the scene where STEVE LYNCH catches up with his old gangster mate RALPH in his seedy dance club in North London. Here Steve begs for Ralph's help and Ralph ends up up doing him a 'favour' that changes Steve's life forever.

BERKOFF VIDEO REPOST