Very Superstitious

If you described our director as a paranoid man - and he found out - he'd shrug his shoulders and admit that he'd always thought you thought that. He's paranoid like that.

Actually, in this case, it's not so much paranoia as a bizarre form of over-awareness; he's almost empathic in worrying constantly about anyone else involved with any given project, because while he's doing it out of love, they're doing it as a favour to him.

That's right, Eton Crow haven't yet reached the stage of paying our actors (in anything other than [a] the coin of the soul and [b] a dvd as a reward for any given performance). This isn't related to the concept of economics sullying creative freedom, it's because we have no money.

Working with our friends, of course, is an entirely different and much more difficult animal. A paid actor can tell you to go fuck yourself, and leave, and then be brought up on whatever contract they signed for breaching it (unless you'd been treating them unreasonably, of course).

A Friend, doing it out of friendship, will, when they reach their breaking point, tell you to go fuck yourself in - hopefully - a very polite manner, and then they can leave as and when they want, because there's no tie other than loyalty - and when you've been under the sun for four hours with someone alternately bossing you around and asking you to wait for camera setups, loyalty gets progressively thinner and thinner.

A good director works around this, by providing food, support and encouragement (in that order of importance - free food has been scientifically proven to be the most important thing on any given set, sometimes.) But even the most willing friend finds themselves tested by sunstroke, long hours, and generalised irritation.

It's our director's contention that it cuts both ways, too. It's along the same principles as to why a person borrows money from a bank rather than from their friends; being beholden to an institution is different to being beholden to a person whose friendship and respect you actually desire (and, in some cases, need).

But, perhaps, enough of this maudlin talk.

Intermission!



You want to know why we're feeling a bit maudlin at the moment?

Eton Crow has suffered it's first 'dead film'.

Having successfully completed our 2009 Demo Reel, we here at the EC offices were feeling a bit brash - one might even say, 'cocky' - and decided to try to make an honest-to-deity proper 'short film'. And oh, it might have been epic in scale - sex (implied), violence, buddy comedy.

We worked on the script for several weeks. Note, this implies two 'firsts' on our part - one, actually having a script, and two, working on it rather than just running with the first draft.

We did some preliminary filming - just the previously-mentioned conversation, plus some driving footage and a couple of dream sequences.

But now, looking at the requirements of the script and the fact that the first round of filming has apparently already broken one of our actors, we've had to decide to put it on the also aforementioned indefinite hiatus, with the emphasis on indefinite, because to make it work we have to go back, gut the script, rewrite, and find enough people to actually film the goddamn thing, and, right now, that's not going to happen.

Of course, such is life.

On the bright side, the 2009 demo reel - filmed in May - is finally and properly finished, and is being burnt to DVDs to be sent to various people even as we speak, so that's halfway to good news.

Plus, we do have other good news, but we're saving that for later.