November News

Producer Debbie Aston and the Finders Keepers production team have decided to postpone crowdfunding the film until the spring and then go straight into production - hopefully following a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Kickstarter have just made it easier for UK filmmakers to fund their projects. This makes more sense from a social media marketing point of view. The fact that Christmas is just around the corner also means that people are going to be more conscious of spending over the next months.

Sherlock Holmes star Big Joe Egan starred in the Finders Keepers trailer

In other news I'm delighted to welcome actress Louise Osborne to the team as associate producer. Louise has worked both as an actress and in production roles in Hollywood. She has worked with people like Dr. Dolittle director Steve Carr and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. Louise is originally from Ireland but has a local connection here in Birmingham as she is married to Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne's son Louis. For those of you who are interested in acting for screen Louise runs an excellent course based at the Midlands Arts Centre. She can be contacted about this through her Acting for Screen website.

I'm also delighted to welcome art director and production designer Jude Hanly. Jude did wonders for us on the Film Division Around Again WWII themed shoot back in May.

Around Again bunker scene set by Jude Hanly

My good friend and award winning scriptwriter Dominic Carver is also attached as script editor. Dom was recently signed up by a literary agent so I'm delighted about that - especially as it puts some wheels back on my Roaring Forties sit-com idea which we're co-writing.

Dom is also responsible for the new script for the out-of-competition version of Around Again which will be its own standalone story. It was always our intention to employ a shoot once use many approach given the effort of putting together a 50 strong cast and crew to shoot it. The good news is that it is being worked on in post-production so I'm hoping we'll see it commence its festival run soon.

I'm planning to do some self-directed shorts over the winter and have started to scout locations for various story ideas. I'm also building a good relationship with the nice folks at UKFilmLocation.com who have been very helpful in the past and have some great locations.

Last but not least I have decided to go ahead with trying to crowdfund a graphic novel based on my Scampenstein feature animation idea. The idea is to create interest in the story via the graphic novel as a means of then making it into a feature film. You can follow progress on Twitter or Facebook or read the Scampenstein blog.

Thats all for now.

Brendan