We’re off to Italy for the week. I don’t think the mobile phones will be working so, if you need to contact us, it’s best to do it via email.
We’ll try to post some photos and updates while we’re there.
Those from Glassworks, Kleinman or Independent; we’ll get in touch with you as soon as we’re online (tomorrow hopefully) or when we have a phone number.
.ciao.
I’m trying to write a little blurb for an “about us” section right now. I find things like this hard to do. It’s like, I don’t know… what do you want to know? Seriously, write in and tell me. Or just write it for me. That would be good.
All sorts of facts are going through my head but I don’t think they’ll make the final cut. For instance:
Sometimes people ask if we are twins. We’re not. I’m 18 months older than Corran.
We have a little sister. Her name is Annan. Our parents named the three of us after places in Scotland. She lives up in Glasgow where she is learning the deadly art of hair and make up. Keep an eye out for her work on the big screen in the years ahead.
She’s getting married next month. That will be fun. I better start doing some calve muscle exercises so I don’t look like a skinny-ninny goat, goof when I put the kilt on.
I’m allergic to nuts. Corran isn’t.
The closest thing we have to a religious faith is a love for Greek Mythology. We are especially partial to Athena.
If it ever seems like my writing is weak then maybe you should consider the possibility that English could be my second language. It’s not but it’s pretty rude when people just assume like that.
There’s another fact for you, Corran and I only speak one language- and we’re not even too hot with that one. It is our goal to speak many languages though, starting with French. So feel free to leave emails and messages in French- or whatever language you want. We have to learn somehow.
God, there are some really noisy people outside today. All these trucks are driving by and everyone is honking their horns and yelling… There is this one old, cackling hag in particular that I hope gets hit by a derailed train sometime soon.
Anyway, it’s hard to do these “about us” type things. We’re just a couple of artist/filmmakers doing our thing in London, England. We don’t want no trouble.
Hey, that’s it! Boom, simple!
Our friend and mentor Steve Barron has a new movie out. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Fest –where it did very well- and next, I think, there will be a screening of it in LA (we’ll double check that for you and post an update later today). If you get the chance, you must see this movie.
This review by Jordan Hunter at Indieville says it best.
More info here:
The Choking Man website
The myspace profile
And the Choking Man trailer
Arran: Uh hello? How’s the reception now? Are you receiving?
Satan: Totally… So you want to talk about what now?
Arran: Come on, you know what I want to talk about.
Satan: What was it? 666?
Arran: Yes, that’s right. I thought we should go straight to the source. This is a special day for you isn’t it? June 6th 2006?
One morning we shot a couple of hours worth of tape while Johnny Depp put on his makeup and prepared for his scenes. Unfortunately, since we could never afford clearance on the music that was being played in his dressing room, most of the sound was unusable -he was listening to Tom Waits, in case you’re keeping notes- Howevz, we think the footage we got, really captured a moment and it ended up working nicely with a voice over. So here’s a little clip from a chapter called “Why Should I?”
UPDATE:::By the way… The other guy you see talking in that clip is Stephen Jeffreys. He’s the genius who wrote The Libertine and knows everything there is to know about Rochester…More on Stephen later:::
If you bought the Libertine on DVD in the UKand are saying “Hey, no making of? What’s the deal?” Here’s the deal (as far as we know); The Weinstein Company rep the domestic release of The Libertine in the US and they’ll be releasing the DVD, I believe, on July 4 -That version will have Capturing The Libertine (which is the new title for our making-of) available on it- Odyssey Entertainment reps the rest of the world and didn’t commission any “making-of” of their own. Their UK release deadline was months before The Weinstein Company even thought about putting any EPK’s or making-of features together for the US release, so they didn’t add one to the package.
The truth is we don’t know shit about that side of the industry. All we know is; when we asked if anyone was ever going to see Capturing The Libertine, someone turned and said “Huh? Ya, sure kid. Don’t you worry that stuff. You did a good job. Here’s some money. You like money right kid?”
So we took the money and said “Gee, that’s it? Golly, well thanks mister. We sure-”
“Great! See ya round kid. Thanks.” …That kinda’ thang.
In all honesty, working on that film was beyond great. We wanted to try our hand at directing something so they let us do it on their dime. It was our job to hang out with a world class cast and crew. To say we’ve learned a lot is an understatement. It was a lot of work and, at times, frustration levels were higher than normal but we had Joe to make it easier –If you people ever need an editor call Joe Howes. Not only is he proficient, clever and inventive but nothing gives him a bigger boner than going weeks without sleep just to get the job done right- We also had the best producers watching our backs and filling our stomachs. Laurence Dunmore and Mr.Mudd have been on our side since the beginning and we’ll never forget that.
So there you go. The post you thought we’d never post is now posted. I was hoping to have a clip of the film ready for you but I’ll have to wait till later on tonight or possibly over the weekend -I know I know shhhhh!- In the meantime…here’s another still.
The Libertine was lit mainly by candle light and available light. The image above shows Johnny warming his hands over what gaffer Garry Davies called a “birthday cake”.
A lot of you have been waiting for us to update you in on what’s happening with our little film called Capturing The Libertine. Tomorrow we’ll post a little clip and fill you in…How’s that?
We captured the above image from our Libertine days. The actors in it are Francesca Annis (left) and Rosamund Pike (right) -the crew behind her (from left to right) Nick Cosens, Chaz Lyon, Robert Dibble, Paul Schwartz, Erik Peterson, Laurence Dunmore
