Kicking wasps

Went scouting locations for ‘Mum and Dad’ today. Looked at four places in Sherwood and West Bridgford, all of which had something about them – good bedrooms, good kitchen, great living-room – but unfortunately not together in the same house. Emma, our location scout, is working really hard and seems to think that we’ll get somewhere soon, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed – ideally we’d like to get one location to serve for the bulk of the film, rather than have to try and piece the house together from different parts around the city, but the closer it gets to the shoot date, the more ready we’ll have to be to think about maybe doing just that.

Lisa had a meeting yesterday with Film London and Em-media and it looks like we’re going to get some money by the end of next week. She also said that they had signed off on the script – although both Sol from FL and Lizzie from EMM had the same note about one of the characters that they’d like me to look at (so signed off, but not quite…). At first I bridled – worrying about putting things into the script that might start opening things up and potentially causing more problems, (like kicking a wasp nest or something) – but then I just realised that I what I was actually worrying about was the prospect of trying to find the time (and headspace) to think about writing in the middle of doing everything else.

So, kicking myself up the arse, I sat down today (in between locations) and had a go at adding some more nuance to the script – attempting to flesh out the back story of this particular character, without impacting too much on what’s already there. I basically changed three scenes, adding a bit of dialogue for Dad, a horrible kissing moment and a suggestive bit of action in the Terrible Room At The Top Of The Stairs. I’ve sent it to Lisa (as my monitor for the Wrongness Quotient in the film) to see what she thinks.

Also yesterday, I appeared (live!) on the radio to talk about horror. It was Radio Nottingham, 9 in the morning, alongside Paul Welsh from Em-media (who assures me that I’ve misjudged him in suggesting that he’s not a horror fan…). It was only a quick thing – 20 minutes or so, with records and phone-ins (“That was Peter Cetera, ‘The Glory of Love” – and now it’s over to Gillian from Wollaton…”). I got to plug ‘Mum and Dad’ (although when I mentioned it was about a brutal and perverse family torturing and killing people at the end of a runway, the presenter’s eyes seemed to flash a little with concern for his audience…) and Mayhem, so I guess it was worth doing.

Over in another part of the world…Jeanie’s film 'Teenland' has just had its premiere at the Big Sky documentary festival in Missoula, Montana. Jeanie’s gone over there for the week (stopping off in a snowbound New York on the way), and is documenting it on her blog.
It’s great that ‘Teenland’’s finally getting out there – it seems like ages ago that we shot it. She also had a couple of meetings about her next film, which is in development at the moment and is due to start pretty much when I’m scheduled to be finishing ‘Mum and Dad’. Hopefully, I’ll get to work on it – then at least we’ll get to see each other this year…