New Film In Production

I suppose I'd better put something new in this blog! I am the world's worst diary keeper. From one moment to the next I am far too busy with things to sit down and actually write down what I am doing. Since I am a writer, one would think that this was second nature to me. But since I am a writer, I feel no urge to write anything FOR FREE!!!

However, nowadays I am told that you have to use the Internet to promote yourself and your work, especially if you are making films! One is meant to Twitter about it and Blog every moment, and engage the potential audience in the process, thus building a fan base.

Unfortunately, I know the statistics behind websites, especially those devoted to film and those short film competitions. And the truth is that people are fiddling the votes and artificially boosting their hits rates, and more to the point, they are still getting pathetic results! The only results that count on the internet are those that can be counted in the millions. Only then can you be certain that nobody has fixed anything and that at least some of the hits are people genuinely interested. Since Paris Hilton isn't in my movie, nor Brad Pitt, the only way to ensure a million hits is to set fire to my trousers and I'm not sure that will do the trick either. In which case I will just have to leave it to the good taste and intelligence of the mass of humanity with broadband connections.

Even so, here I am. Listen up! I'm making another film. It is going to be funny. I'm having fun interviewing lots of beautiful girls who I want to play parts in the movie and wondering how I can write them all in to it. I hate turning anyone down, especially if they are pretty.

I should be shooting it this month, but the weather is looking horrible! I procrastinated all through the hot summer months thinking it far too hot to shoot anything in Hong Kong and now suddenly it's far too cold. We have missed out on the usual pleasantly sunny and dry autumn, if that's the right term for the season here in the tropics. The Topless Volley Ball scene will not look the same at 4 degrees centigrade. I shall just have to cut that out and replace it with a knitting competition, culminating in a parade of woolens and balaclava helmets.

Now who will be interested in watching this film? I hate to say it, but I am under no illusions whatsoever. The answer is no-one. There is not a single person on the planet who wakes up with a sudden craving to watch a short movie on the Internet that isn't pornographic. Similarly no-one is flocking to the cinemas to see movies shorter than the magic 70 or 80 minute length that separates features from "shorts".

The point of making a short though is to test a concept, to practice a technique, to train oneself up in the use of various equipment, and to play with untried and unsung actors and actresses. After that, one sends it off to short film festivals in the hope of it winning a prize. Then it can become a show piece to enable one to get funding for larger and more commercial prospects.

The odds of this happening are somewhere between nil and zero and so those of us who do this sort of thing must really love doing it or have something devastatingly important to try and express in film form. The other possibility is rank stupidity, but then as I chat to yet another beautiful girl or go to another event full of the bold and the beautiful, and get  excited about another idea for a script, I don't think stupidity quite explains it.