So I haven’t written anything lately about our film progress because I’ve been waiting for something exciting to report. However, I know these things take time -- often a looooong time -- so it only seems right to celebrate the mini-milestones as they come.

Basically, we’re moving forward as if we’re going to shoot our film this Oct-Nov. No, we haven’t signed on with a production company. No, we haven’t raised the remainder of our funding. But we’re still talking about it as though it’s going to happen.

Is that delusional… or is it just a matter of putting things out to the universe and believing that they are possible? I’m choosing to believe the latter. J… well, while he believes it’s possible, he’s a bit of a neurotic guy and is starting to panic with each passing week. If we want to shoot the film this fall, we’ll need a deal within the next few months so we can jump into pre-production. I’ve been calm, reminding him over and over again that it *will* happen. After all, if you have a choice between believing or not believing, then why not choose to believe? Who says that it can’t happen?

J has been extremely proactive in approaching production companies lately, calling about 3 or 4 a day. (Boy -- I can’t wait to see the cell phone bill this month!) His cold calls are getting better and better with each passing day. I’m so proud of him! He’s got more guts than I. His pitch is perfected to a point that he consistently gets past reception to speak with the directors of development or producers. In his cold calling quest, he has thrown caution to the wind and started calling some of the bigger Hollywood companies. Why not, right? What do we have to lose?

While there are always passes on our script, we have still received a lot of positive feedback about our concept. Some companies have even taken the time to check out J’s short film and art work, which they seem to be very impressed by as well… even if our script is ultimately not for them. It’s also neat to observe how word is getting passed around. Our web stats indicate that a lot of these bigger companies (some of whom we haven’t even contacted) are taking the time to check out our promotional website, as well as J’s personal portfolio website. For example, Revolution Films checked out our promotional site twice last week. Since we didn’t contact them, it was kind of exciting to see their name come up.

Naturally J, sensitive soul that he is, gets discouraged when people pass on our script. I keep telling him that even the best movies get passed on a few times before someone picks it up. It’s just how it is. Think of it as the universe’s way of doing process of elimination. Not everyone can produce our film… but the right company will at the right time. We just have to trust that everything will fall into place the way it’s meant to -- but in the meantime, just keep plugging ahead as though it’s going to happen.

About a month or so ago we hired a Production Manager out of our own pocket money, (a.k.a. credit card), to create a professional budget for us. She’s been absolutely amazing and has gone over and above what we expected from her. She just finished the budget breakdown yesterday and passed off all the files. It’s cool to see the thorough outline of what days we’ll shoot, when we’ll need to rent a crane, hire stunt men, etc… It feels *so* real. If everything falls into place, it would be a five week shoot starting on October 15th.

It’s also neat to see what everything will cost, and what we’ll get paid for our writing services, producing contributions and J’s director’s fee. She created the budget with a bit of wiggle room so everyone’s fees can be comfortably negotiated down if a production company decides to make our film but wants to make it for less money. (The current total budget stands at about 7.3 million. Believe it or not, that’s considered a very low budget film.) Either way, if we keep our lifestyle exactly as is, we figure that we’d both be able to quit our jobs for about 2 – 4 years. Enough time to hopefully get a ball or two rolling with our next project(s).

In other news, one interested production company asked our permission to pass our script along to another producer friend that is very close friends with a top actor. They feel this actor would be excellent for the lead. Our protagonist is a 70 year old man. (Which presents another challenge as older men are not a big box office draw. For instance, About Schmidt was a critically acclaimed movie, but it didn’t fare well at filling seats.) Anyhow, this company acknowledges that there are not many actors that age who can really carry a movie, but there are a few… and they have one in mind. So we agreed to pass our script along… ‘cept we never got a name of who this actor was. I don’t know why we didn’t ask. I suppose that was pretty stupid on our part, but sometimes it is fun to just sit back and imagine. We joke that it really depends on who they consider a top actor… it could be anyone from Anthony Hopkins to Leonard Nemoy. Ha. To be honest, I’m kinda hoping for someone more in the league of Hopkins. (I can dream, can’t I?) If you saw (or at least managed to get through the first ten minutes of) Hopkin’s movie “Slip Stream” that he wrote, directed and starred it, you’d know that he’s a brave man willing to take risks. I hate to say that I couldn’t get through the first 40 minutes before it started giving me a real headache… and yet, it gives me hope that he’d give a screenplay like ours a chance... if it is him, that is.

This now brings me to my final milestone (well, of sorts…). Even though Mr. Mystery Lead might already be reading our script somewhere out there, J n’ I have always had a specific actor in mind for the lead role – Albert Finney. In fact, when J created the concept teaser for our website, he even drew a character that resembled Mr. Finney, in hopes that when we eventually approach him, he might notice the resemblance and be flattered that we wrote this script specifically for him.

With our 1M investment, an award-winning screenplay, J’s previous film accolades, our budget finalized, and a handful of production companies currently considering our script for development… we felt that we had enough ammo to try and approach Mr. Finney’s representation. If we could attach an actor of his caliber, it would definitely speed the development process. Still sounds like a total long shot, eh? We asked our Production Manager if insignificant people like us even had a snowball’s chance in hell in approaching someone like him. I’m sure his representation would want to hear from an actual producer or an agent or something. Our PM, who is such a gem, insisted that we are anything but insignificant and that we should absolutely take our chances now and approach him before he books his schedule for the fall. (He currently has nothing going on this year, according to IMDB). It was a very nice compliment that we are “anything but insignificant” especially when we know full well that we are merely two tiny shrimps floating around in a massive shark tank. She’s so sweet though… and it was the boost of confidence we needed to go through with it.

So yesterday J n’ I crafted a proposal and sent it along to Finney’s representation in London.

I guess time will tell.