Spanner Films - UK

We apologise for the break in diary service

franny — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 07:21:23 +0000

Hello anyone who might be reading this.

Sorry I haven't had a moment to get the diary entries from August to December up here.

Five years ago today

franny — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:42:58 +0000

It's exactly five years to the day - possibly to the hour - that we thought of the idea for the film, so strikes me as a delightfully auspicious moment to go public about our little project.

500 million people on the case?

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:05:52 +0000

The last ever day filming Crude didn't start too well for poor Lizzie as the hire car she picked up yesterday developed a flat tyre and she spent half the night organising tow trucks. Then had to get up at 5.30am to pick me and new soundman Ben up to drive to Bedford for the result of Piers's three-year battle to get planning permission for his latest windfarm.

A coherent script emerges

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:00:00 +0000

After three very long days and nights bashing together all the ideas into a coherent script, we stocked up on pastries and got everyone into the same room for a read-through. Mark was very convincing as the geeky teenage know-it-all but Emily wasn't so keen on her slightly wimpy teenage girl (maybe should swop those roles over. can't have the girl being feeble).

Spices then gold now oil next water

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:54:49 +0000

Rain, Cameras, Action....

Photograph: Charlotte Rushton

No option but to keep going

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:47:25 +0000

Just finished two weeks script writing with David and Emily . Nearly killed me. Brain imploded. Far too many great ideas and no system for marshalling them.

Never making another film

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:39:39 +0000

McLibel is on at a festival in Tel Aviv soon, so I did an interview for some Israeli radio station or something today. Made my best effort to be interesting in case The Boy happens to hear it.

Very much from the Spanner mould

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:19:51 +0000

Suddenly remembered Emily James as I was washing up for the first time in three weeks this morning. She's an indie filmmaker very much from the Spanner mould. Her film "The Luckiest Nut In the World " famously used animated singing peanuts to discuss trade liberalisation.

"Scriptwriting for Beginners"

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:38:50 +0000

Am totally stuck on the animation script, so decided to try to do something - anything - positive and cleaned up three years of cat shit from my roof. Then started clearing the overgrown ivy with the thought of planting some veg up there. But as soon as the ivy went I could see a bloody great big crack in the wall.

D major, E major, F minor

sylvia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:28:31 +0000

Not been going too well with the animation. There seems to be a fundamental mismatch between the Spanner Films approach - "don't know how long it is, don't know how much cash we have, don't know what style we like, what do you all reckon?" - and the professionals at Passion who work with such things as scripts, storyboards, deadlines and budgets.