Part 2 The plot thickens

I went up to Alan’s house the next night and showed all that I had managed to muster together in terms of possible DOP then being Owen McPolin, and possible sound guy, we had Noel Quinn in mind, all of these were Brian’s suggestions, and a cluster of possible formats and methods for making this happen to Alan and his wife Joanne, they were both visibly interested and more than accommodating. The next morning I e-mailed both of them the script which they printed out copies of and read quickly. I was asking for serious money. Eventually a number of days later that realistically became an actual offer of a sizable percentage of the main sum, they had both read the script, their first ever and really liked it.

I held back the info from Brian for a little while that we now had less money than what we required, but that was cool as I was intent on raising more with another individual who was floating in my mind, and as I had suspected came in for a significant investment simply on the strength of our initial conversation in Quinlins, one of the best bars left in Ireland and owned by Hugh O'Connor a lovely, intelligent and humble man. This was something I was trying to avoid, a conversation over a pint, as I had wanted to formally meet with him and show him all that we had garnered together. And this man is the ever supportive and generous Kevin Hannafin.

Over that Quinlins pint, also by the way one the best pints of Guinness in Kerry to my knowledge, Kevin stood up to become a wonderfully positive force in the production of this movie. A couple of days later, Daithi and I went around to his house for the first time and I showed Kevin and his wife Meta in greater detail what this project was all about. And explaining to them who Daniel was, and what he had accomplished in the past. Kevin is a man to my mind that acts upon instinct, and these are the type of individuals I want to be around, how sound that instinct is, is yet to be played out. I now had a more substantial purse of euro at my disposal, and was gun hoe and ploughing ahead.

The search for actors, a DOP and a sound crew was underway, and the phone was printed to my face.

Daithi and I were renting films and watching a DVD of Irish shorts a friend of mine Maurice Galway (Director of the Dingle Film Festival) gave to me to help with the process. We were making lists and making phone calls, and I entered into a communication with the Lisa Richards Acting Agency in Dublin, getting the scripts to Irish Talent that we liked, all this eventually came to naught as Daniel and I made our choices via a casting I set up for Friday the 7th of March in Soho House in London thanks to Mandy Kean booking a room where Dan reeled in his contacts with agents there and shot footage of a number of guys for the two male lead roles.

My contact in the Lisa Richards agency never returned any e-mails again as I apologized and thanked him for his communications to date, but informed that the director had chosen the cast elsewhere, ZERO communication after that, that was a bit odd!!! NADA!! I mean what if we need someone for something else or whatever!!! I don't know, but I thought that odd practice.

I had been in London for Octavius Black’s wedding on the 14th of February and before returning I stayed a night with Daniel and we screened some casting material which he had from his Hollywood feature BORN (still to this day stuck in a budgeting palaver). We both liked Amy Noble and saw her immediately as Zoe. Now where were we going to find Molly? A week later we had interest shown via Amy’s agent and she had been sent the script. By the time Daniel was back in Ireland, and we had got the interest of Emma Griffiths Malin to play Molly, she being the most experienced of the actors and a young woman that looked to be of an exceptional character. (little did I know, and what a character she is).

We had an English DOP on board by the 29th of February, but for a series of issues this ultimately fell apart after three weeks of somewhat infrequent talks. I liked him, but he didn’t really inspire Daniel with confidence and was just too slow in relation to actually reading the script and making strong and impacting decisions in relation to making this movie happen. Lists of lighting requirements were being drawn up, I was passing these along to try and establish what we could get from FAS and what we would have to rent, but the DP was somewhat on the back foot as regards hammering his requirements home. By now we are thundering ahead, and new horizons were beginning to dawn. Enter THE RED CAMERA. WOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

This new film making phenomenon was first made know to me last March when I had set in train a night class in film editing given by Brian Nolan. I first met Brian in early January with some gig footage that had been shot on an NTSC mini dv tape. This I needed converting to PAL and Maurice Galway put me in touch with Brian who did it for me in a heart beat. That was in mid January, on seeing the equipment that FAS had, I asked him about whether he had ever given a night course in Final Cut to which he answered that he had tried, but could not get sufficient numbers. Next morning I woke up with the idea to phone him and suggest I go and get the people, which eventually got done after weeks of painstaking phone calls. The course was great, and he is a superb teacher and a superb creative asset for kerry. During this course and amongst the many plums of knowledge he imparted, including enlightening me to the brilliance of www.lynda.com he spoke about the Red Camera that was then still in development.