Planning for success

Day 2 at the Microschool.

As you may know by now, I'm on the Film London assessment workshops which is called "Microschool", where four of the final ten selected films will be chosen next Monday and given a guaranteed screening on BBC and a 'micro' budget of £100,000.

Yesterday the writers and directors were split up from the producers in order to perform some of the scenes from the screenplays with professional actors. Additionally the scripts were critiqued by industry experts. Most writers looked a little brain-frazzled by the end of the day as they were given challenges of reducing characters and locations to reduce the budgets even further. What is the film about ? Who is it about ? Why should I care ? Were the focussed questions which demanded instant answers.

Meanwhile, I joined the other Producers for some exciting indepth presentations on the legal aspects, copyright and my favourite, insurance. Lovely. It's a real minefield as you can imagine but fortunately Film London provide all the forms and paperwork in a nice little pack if we are "greenlit". We also had a session with a top line producer who gave some hints and tips around scheduling the film and budgetting.

In the evening, we had arranged to meet David O'Donnell (pictured), from Cage Rage. We are looking to work with one of the fight organisations, as two of the key scenes include one of our hapless characters having to fight in Wembley Arena to save his mum from the bad guys.

When we met David he was in the middle of a conversation with Wolfman, of TV's Gladiator fame. A quick introduction and both of them were interested. Wolfman in a cameo role seemed like a possible option and getting access to the fight cage before and after the big night was seen as easy to provide. We left with an understanding that we have the option to work together if that big green light comes on for us on Monday.

Exciting times. The pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place nicely. Still a long way to go and six projects will be unsuccessful. Nevertheless, it's all good fun.


Douglas