Just Two More Stops

I saw this poster on the London Underground today with a picture of a worried looking woman sitting next to someone wearing a giant rabbit costume. I’ve no idea what it was selling (so it failed on advertising grounds) but the caption over their heads read, ‘Just two more stops!’ Implying that the woman could escape from the bunny in two stations.

This week feels very much like that. Just two more stops, and we’ll be there. Just let me get through the week, get to the end of the film making. Why does the bunny keep following me? What do you mean there’s no bunny there? Oooo-kay.

Here’s another thing. I’ve never understood people who want to have a party with music so loud you have to scream into the ear of the person standing next to you in order to be heard. No, it’s not that I’m getting old. I’ve always thought like this. It’s partly why I enjoy dancing. Because there’s no way you can have any kind of conversation with people in that environment and so what else can you do?

Saturday, I was at a party just like this. The music was excellent but I wanted to talk to people and there was no dance floor so I left thinking, ‘What was all that about?’ It was actually a 30th birthday party for one of the people who helped make my films and it was at this really trendy bar in a very seedy part of London. There were no less than three big burly tuxedo-clad characters guarding the door and no less than half a dozen scrawny characters sleeping rough on the streets nearby.

None of it made any sense.

Fortunately, the film making thing is proceeding, although in a way that’s probably just chaotic to look at as a heaving mass of well-dressed drunk people shouting at each other in a bassbeat driven crowded plexiglass bar outside which a parade of badly dressed drunk people drifts by.

Last week I had a meeting with the guys at Whatever Pictures and they’re sending out copies of the Last Train video to festivals. It was a pretty productive meeting actually. They’ve sent it off to something called The British Council who help out with getting British made films into festivals around the world, apparently, and also can contribute a little hard cash.

I’ve pulled together my own diary of festivals from that website, together with some suggestions from my buddy Mark out in LA and elsewhere, to get a list of deadlines and have started sending out a few videos myself this week. Meanwhile, I await news of Fate & Fortune. Still no sign of the elusive EDL…

A slightly worrying thing was when I phoned the neg cutters to check the negative is still safe and sound on their shelf, where it’s been for the past few months. “Oh, yes. I expect it’s fine,” said the cheery voice on the end of the line. Expect? Expect? I wanted to hear, “Yes, it’s right here. Don’t worry about it.” Good grief, Charlie Brown! I guess I should be reassured by the fact that they at least remembered my name. Or maybe they were bluffing? Maybe the giant bunny has it? Err…

And so it goes on, around and around.

Just a few more stops.