Thought it was about time to say HELLO!
We’ve been very bad not keeping this completely up to date, but I can assure you, we have been working very hard over the past few months.
This is just a quick post to say that on Tuesday, I’ll be posting a blog explaining exactly what we’re doing, what we’ve been up to and how we’re going to make sure 2011 is the year in which Clovis Dardentor jumps out of ‘development’ and finally gets a move on!
Speak soon!
During “JAM” we learnt SOOO much about practical film-making. We were thrown in at the deep-end, producing and directing for the first time on a film starring the likes of Stephen Fry, Frank Skinner and Phillip Schofield. Now we are discovering (at the same rate) how it all works on the business side.
So, here’s the news: Clovis Dardentor has looked at himself in the mirror and has had an epiphany. He is not a cheap movie after all. We always knew that we wanted to make something big. We took Jules Verne’s story and adapted it into what we thought would be a film with international appeal. Something that people would SEE! But what we did was turn a commercially viable story into something much more niche and domestic. This has been brought to our attention over the past few months by some of the biggest people in the industry. We’ve been very lucky to have their guidance and continued support. Everyone from ‘Blackadder’ creator John Lloyd to Summit Entertainment’s President have given us feedback. We spent a long time adsorbing this feedback and diagnosing the problems with Clovis’ screenwriter, Lizzie Hopley.
We concluded that we needed to go back to the book; the story that is already so international, commercial, fun, exciting and all the rest of it. By doing this we realised that we hadn’t changed Clovis Dardentor for the better the first time round. So a few weeks ago, Lizzie compiled a new treatment, one that was much more in tune with the book and still maintained the magic of Jules Verne. We’ve spent a week or two discussing the new treatment and comparing it to the current screenplay and have decided that we should go in the new direction; the direction which would lead us back to Jules.
… And so, that is what’s happening. Clovis Dardentor is being re-written. Once it is done it’ll be a lot more appealing for studios and production companies and we’ll be in a much MUCH better position to get it made. Whether that is under the umbrella of another production company/studio or with us still in the driving seat, we really don’t know!
Whatever happens, it is sure to be fun and we can’t wait… Will keep you informed!
Wow. Now this is fantastic news! A double whamy of movie star supporters. One of the foremost female screen actors in the world today, Whoopi Goldberg, and the legendary British actor Jeremy Irons are now producers on BUYACREDIT.COM. Both these cinema icons boast an Academy Award for Best Actor/Actress in a Leading Role and their names are well and truly known throughout the world.
But I don’t need to tell you this, do I?
I first wriggled my way into contact with Whoopi a month or so, and her business partner, Tom (who must be one of the nicest people in the world) really loved the project and so he told Whoopi about it. Before long, I found myself meeting the pair of them at the ABC Studios in New York. It was amazing!
But meeting them wasn’t without its hiccups: I walked into the studios to meet Whoopi after she finished recording “The View” and signed in with the receptionist. They sat me down on the side, and more and more people came over and sat next to me. After a while I went up and asked the receptionist when she was going to take me up to the studio and she said “In ten minutes, we’ll take you all up, get you in costume and then we start shooting the commercial at 1 o’ clock” – woh, woh woh. After telling her that I wasn’t an actor for the commerial, she scrambled for her notes and with a big ‘Ah, I see’ she took me upstairs. It was very funny. I wonder what commercial I could’ve been in if I’d just gone with the flow?
Anyway… what I really want to say is that meeting such a screen icon was absolutely amazing, and to know that she loved the idea and was giving us her full backing was just incredible. Thank you Whoopi! She even took the time to make a support video for us, recruiting YOU to be a Movie Producer. You can see this FOR THE FIRST TIME at the top of the post!
However, Whoopi’s not the only movie star to sign up recently… The incomparable Jeremy Irons has also given us his full support. We haven’t yet had the privelege of meeting him, but we’ve been in constant contact with his lovely assistant, Katy, who has been filling Jeremy in on our progress. Just a few days ago, Jeremy told us that we had his full support in making “Clovis Dardentor” and following through on the BUYACREDIT.COM project.
It’s an unbeatable feeling to know that such BIG stars back us in what we’re doing. Jude Law, Sir Ian McKellen, Jeremy Irons, Whoopi Goldberg, Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Phillip Schofield, Joanna Lumley… AH, there are too many!
If you’d told me last year that this was going to happen, I would’ve laughed in your face (sorry; I just would’ve).
Meanwhile, things are progressing well with the TV show and production for the film. All still a bit ‘behind-the-scenes’ on that end of things but I’ll tell you stuff when I can!
Bye!
Don’t be fooled by the silence! It doesn’t mean that nothing is going on, oh no! In fact there’s lots going on back here behind these doors. What we’re doing now is talking to Producers and Production Companies/Groups regarding joining us in order to secure a successful future for “Clovis Dardentor”. We’re being very careful about making decisions as we need producers who will be able to help us take the film to the top! It’s very exciting and there’s lots of talking and thinking and dealing going on. I will of course let you all know what happens…
Just a really quick blog post to say ‘Hi’ and to tell you that this week is going to be an exciting one! Prepare for a blog post explaining very soon. You may have noticed that the homepage has just changed, and now the Jude Law support video is online!
I’ve been up over 24hrs after taking an overnight flight back from NYC and not sleeping on it! Tch. I will update you all when I can (will be in the next few days) regarding our exciting news. But now I must go to bed because otherwise I wil..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Hello there! We’ve been working away for the past week and I thought it was time to post an update… in doodle form:
Okay. Maybe I’ll explain:
1. As you may know we’ve begun the very preliminary steps of casting, i.e. sending our script out to actors to see if they’re interested in the film. We’ve contacted a couple of stars already for different roles in the film, and are waiting back on them. At this time, we just want to see if they have even a little bit of interest in the script, and then all the pieces will start to come together. This can take a while though so don’t hold your breath! Stephen Fry has already agreed to a supporting role in “Clovis Dardentor” as has Annette Badland!
2. We’re talking to quite a few production companies regarding working on “Clovis Dardentor”. To get this film made and seen, we are keen to have it taken on by a company that can make it happen and increase the chances of distribution ten-fold! It’s a very exciting time as we are waiting back on some big leads! We’re also talking to quite a few potential investors. So watch this space!
3. Meanwhile, in BUYACREDIT.COM “Be A Movie Producer” land, after earning the support of Jude Law, Ian McKellen and Rowan Atkinson etc, we’re reaching out to more and more notable figures in the industry to ask them if they would consider ‘being a producer’ on “Clovis Dardentor”. Some very good responses so far from some very big names… but I can’t say anything yet!
4. Possibly most excitingly, John Magennis, the Hollywood TV Producer working on making a Reality TV Show following the making of “Clovis Dardentor” a reality (sorry), is talking to tonnes of people and getting the wheels in motion for the show. Some networks have already displayed an interest, so we’re excited to see where that goes!
… And that’s the run-down of what’s going on, what we’re waiting for and what we’re doing. Kapeesh? 
I thought it was time to try doing a blog update by video. So here’s the first attempt, and a little update on what we’re doing:
(And I don’t know why it looks like I’m wearing lipstick!)
We’re back in London now (well we have been since Thursday actually) but we’ve been so lost in the time-zone change that we have only just recovered. On Wednesday we checked out of our hotel and went down to Hollywood Blvd where we found a Starbucks and a Subway…after coffee and lunch, we called a Taxi and went to LAX. We didn’t have to wait long before we were on the flight, but the flight itself was just a bit uncomfortable and loooonnnngggg. We couldn’t sleep at all on an overnight flight and when we arrived in London it was the next morning. So we had missed the whole night, and it was about 2 in the morning in LA. On Friday I got up at 4:30pm and had breakfast…that’s how messed up our body clocks were! Now though, we have just about recovered.
You may or may not have seen this already (USA Today Article) but John Magennis, the Hollywood TV Producer we met in LA has announced his plans to make a reality TV show following the making of Clovis Dardentor and the progression of the buyacredit.com project. This is hugely exciting news and we can’t wait to see how it all pans out. It would be amazing for the making of the film to be exposed to everyone… It will make it a TRULY open production that everyone can watch.
I’ve spent the weekend compiling some old footage for John, including some footage of the JAM shoot. Whilst doing this, I thought I might as well make a little behind the scenes video of the shoot, so I’m just finishing that up now. It is very rough and just slapped together; but it shows what happened on the two days and is quite good to watch.
Next week should be quite busy with celebrity developments, developments with the script, plans for the reality TV show, meetings for extra funding and we’re also going to approach some of our dream actors to play parts in the film. Should be exciting! Tomorrow we’ll do a video blog from the office to update you all (in more detail) on what we’re going to be up to next week.
In the meantime, here’s a few photos from Hollywood that I didn’t upload before:
View from our Hotel Room:
Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. It was soooo nice:
Kevin Spacey’s Star on the Walk Of Fame! We finally found it:
Today I woke up at 5:00am PST to do a radio interview (ahhh, too early!) and I’m doing it again tomorrow. But after that I got to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. Then we started to get ready to go to NBC with Stephen Fry. He picked us up in his little green mini and we were on our way to the studio. An NBC show about movies had contacted us and asked us if Stephen would go on the show to talk about films, the industry and in particular, buyacredit.com and Clovis Dardentor. We set off from the Holiday Inn Express and just down the road to NBC. It was really nice to see Stephen again. He has been looking after us whilst we’ve been here in LA and has always been on the end of the phone in case of any problems .
He was very envious that yesterday we had walked down Santa Monica Blvd and got ourselves Miley Milkshakes from ‘Millions of Milkshakes’. Ben had found the place on the internet so we ventured through Hollywood to get to it. It’s a nice little shop that invites celebrities to come and make their own milkshakes. The Miley-Shake consisted of Cookie Dough, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and ice cream…YUM! It was sooooo good.
Anyway…I’m going off topic… When we got to NBC, someone showed us to the greenroom where Stephen got his make-up done. We met Carole Propp, one of the producers on the show who was very interested in what we were doing. Unfortunately, we were unable to go on the show as they have a ‘No under 25′s policy’. But who better to represent us than Stephen Fry?
Before long, Stephen was in the studio with Hollywood player Peter Guber, and the interview ran its course. It went really well and Stephen sung our praises . Afterwards, he had to dash off to an important lunch and one of the Production Assistants drove us back to our hotel.
Later on we just went down to Hollywood, finally found Kevin Spacey’s star (it had been covered up by the Red Carpet all week) and took some pictures with it! Can’t get them off the phone though!
Now we’re sitting in the hotel room and contemplating going to Bubba Gumps for dinner. Tonight is our last night here as tomorrow evening we are flying back to London. We have really enjoyed ourselves in Hollywood. It is an amazing place that is just constantly inspiring. Love it here.
NBC interview with Stephen Fry goes out soon but I’m not sure when exactly… I’ll let you know!
We had a really great weekend in Hollywood. Saturday was a good day as we just spent most of it walking around, exploring. We walked down Sunset Blvd for a while, then back onto Hollywood Blvd. Then for the rest of the day we watched the Oscars get set up. There were loads of stand-ins for the stars rehearsing the red carpet walk. Staff with big signs hanging from their necks reading “George Clooney”, “Zac Efron” and “Matt Damon” walked up and down for a while, pretending to pose for pictures!
On Sunday, we watched Alice In Wonderland in 3D. It is a great film, and Stephen Fry (who plays the Chesire Cat in it) was very good. We highly recommend it. After that we made our way down to the Kodak Theatre to join the screaming mob at the Oscars. We weren’t expecting the security we encountered. Before we could even get within a 1/2 mile radius of the Red Carpet we were security checked, one by one. We managed to get a bit of a view through a heavily fenced off pavement and we saw some stars walk in. After a while we thought it would be better to watch on TV, so we went back to the hotel and watched the whole ceremony. It was good to watch it at a normal time and not at 4am (which is when we used to watch it in the UK). The right people won I think.
This morning we were back to work with an early start. Well, I got up early. Toby and Ben got to stay in bed!! Not fair! But anyway, I got up to do two radio interviews and there are some more this afternoon. There should be some newspaper articles coming out over the next few days, and then tomorrow we are going to NBC with Stephen Fry to record an interview for TV…so that should be fun!
I’ll keep you updated!
