Call up photographer and start arranging stills for use in film scene where car owner pulls out wallet to reveal dozens of pictures of beloved car. Okay, so that’s the director/producer makes that call. The distributor, with an eye on future marketing, suggests that same photographer gets a beautiful shot he can use as a publicity postcard while he’s doing the same.

Photographer makes helpful (not) suggestion that film maker comes to party at old office building on Friday to spend £5 on buffet (crabsticks and potato chips) and listen to mp3s while drinking beer (not supplied in ticket price). How can I say no? Please, I’m serious–I must say no. Mind you, I’ll be practising that word (no) later today when I return the (fifth) phone call from the guilt-tripping producer wannabe.

At the same time–rubbing tummy and patting head–our hero (me) gets a letter informing him that Fate & Fortune has been accepted for the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, October 15-20.

Hooray!

Marvellous, I hear you say. And so it is. Of course. Yet the reality of this glamorous occasion is that our hero (still me) has to create a parcel to fit the film can using only limited materials.

In a mere twenty minutes, the aforementioned hero successfully cuts up a large cardboard crate to make a small one using only a penknife and a roll of parcel tape. Then he walks down to the Post Office. There, he fills in a big form (in quintuplicate) declaring that the print (cost=£200) has a replacement value of nil (£0) so that LA Shorts Fest doesn’t have to pay import tax.

Then our hero (let’s call him Muggins) discovers he doesn’t have enough cash to pay the postage (£36.40) so he has to take his parcel and walk to the ATM elsewhere, withdraw cash and return to join the suddenly busy Post Office queue again.

Eventually, lunch hour having disappeared in a giddy haze during this tour de force, Muggins manages to buy the stamps and the film print is on its way, uninsured for replacement as it seems to have be without any redeeming value (sic).

Fingers crossed, eh? Ah, what price stardom.