Introducing: "George"

2009-06-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

Will the character dance like this in the film? Who knows. But he might well be wearing that fetching apron...

In a, let's say, "unguarded" moment, it's Kissing Johnny Depp's friendly local café owner, George. (Or possibly Christopher Walken).

And so it begins...

2009-06-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

When you've been turned down for umpteen different jobs in just one grey rainy afternoon it's rare to still be smiling at the end of it, and even rarer still to sit down and relive every moment on video. Yet that was today in a nutshell, for at least one of us ("Alice") - and maybe, too, it's the whole spirit of the film in miniature: overcoming grey days and, from little more than love, belief and a bloody good script, trying to create a dream. That's what "Alice", the film's central character tries to do, and that pretty much sums it up for us too:

Obstacles? What obstacles?

(Budget? What budget?)

Blurring script and reality, today's filming followed "Alice" around the town's shops and cafés in search of work. Some knew they were being filmed, others hadn't a clue, and maybe even now are puzzling over the contents of the CV that was handed to them (for its comic value it should really be put on this blog sometime). All bar one were great sports, though, and from almost every location Director and leading lady seemed to emerge grinning and laughing -which made being a bag-man, outside and out-of shot ever more tantalising, but the wait to view the footage was worth it. Inevitably some shots were lost to stray rain spots, others to dawdling passers-by, but watching back the footage you could already see the one-minute montage emerging.

Perhaps most importantly, however, it seems that we've secured not only the use of a location for a great many of the film's key scenes, but the very one that the writer always had in mind - and it was there that the crew, this afternoon, found a case of life unexpectedly imitating art. We probably can't expand on it too much here, but let's just say that in rehearsal one character took on a dimension which hadn't originally been envisioned; today that trait turned out to be shared by a real-life counterpart. And if that isn't some kind of good omen, then what is?

UPDATE: While I was typing, a link to today's rough cut arrived in my in-box - happy to say, it looks great!

There's a movie happening here, folks...

Most definitely :)

Day One

2009-06-08T00:54:00.000-07:00

If you want to kiss your dreams, you have to write yourself into the script...

This blog will follow the progress of filming a script called 'Kissing Johnny Depp' in a small town in Cornwall.

With a zero budget, endless good will and a bicycle basket full of dreams and wishes, today we start; let the adventure begin.