One Season to Rule Them All

Greetings Earthlings,

Once again this blog seems to have fallen down the to the very bottom of my importance ladder. I do have an excuse this time, I have been busy with finishing up the old film business, as in - getting it finished, doing all the promotional malarkey and getting ready for a festival run (all going well of course). Plus the Euro's have been on.

New film poster:  mildly offensive.

So far most of my time and effort has been on the promotional side of things, which in all honesty I am completely at pain to do. It's just not in my nature to go "hey guys, look at my fecking amazing film", however, all careers are filled with at least some unpleasant work and, as unpleasant work goes, this really isn't that bad. For the record, bagging up plates in a darkened room for 7 hours a day, is. Or indeed selling bowling promotions door to door. I know, I did both. However, I now have promotional flyers, business cards, a facebook page and I've painted the side of my flat with a mural of myself saying "Are you missing out on the wonder that is John Byford?" so I'm pretty well sorted on the 'whoring myself out' side of things.

All jokes aside, I'm sure all of this effort will pay off. Indeed it will have it's first chance this coming weekend where I will be jetting off to the Palm Springs Film Festival. My film is in the market there, entitling me (and guest) a free pass to the festival and cheap hotel rooms galore. Marvelous. It should be interesting, despite being 110 degrees every day, and at the very least it'll be good to spend some time among like-minded dreamers (see: mentalists). At the very most? Who knows. Apparently this 'market' I'm in is a hotbed of industry types looking for new talent. I'm certainly new so half of their requirement is met already. Hurrah.

Also, it will give me great pleasure to be handing out flyers with the word "Twat" emblazoned across it. It's the little things in life, eh?

My final hope for this weekend is that I meet some people who will help get my feature off the ground. I've been pursuing this venture in earnest of late, making small but significant dents in the pre-production process and it's starting to look like an actual possibility, which frankly excites me beyond belief. A trip back to England will hopefully be needed soon. Fingers crossed.

I should probably also mention that I received an email from another film festival head personally saying that they "loved" my short and look forward to meeting me. I wanted to scream "does that mean I'm in then you vague bastard?!" but luckily thought better of it. Again, at the very least, it's all very flattering. It's weird though, while people are finally beginning to see the film and the supposed 'payoff' stage for all the hard work is close by, in my mind, I am completely over it. Not in a negative way. It's just that when you work on something for so long, when it's 'finished' your mind immediately moves on to the next project. I suppose because now you know twice as much as before and you're ready to make a film twice as good. That and the fact that I've probably watched a 14-minute film about 900 times. Regardless, a strange but very pleasant phenomenon.

Peace and Love,

JB.