Chalet Girl VoD

This is an edited version of an earlier post.

Since the middle of September, CHALET GIRL has been available for exclusive US Video on Demand download via our US Distributor IFC’s Sundance Now channel.  I don’t have (and would probably not be allowed to reveal anyway) the exact figures for downloads since then, but we’re talking in the tens of thousands.  At $14 a time, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue, with hardly any cut going to exhibitors.  There has been a big online marketing push in the US but, again, that’s pretty smart bang-for-your-buck advertising compared to expensive TV or press ads.  And this approach gives us a platform – reviews, awareness, positive word of mouth – to push out into the more mainstream Netflix / Blockbuster / DVD sell-through (sell-thru?) market in the US.  All without the need for a costly, loss-leading wide cinema release.

I have no idea what the final figures will be, or what if any will trickle back to the film’s investors, but it seems to me a pretty smart way to ‘monetise’ a small, foreign movie in the US.  VoD is the online multiplex, and accordingly the natural home for a multiplex title like CHALET GIRL.  Not that I'm saying we wouldn't have loved a 3,000 print release in the US, or a power-platform release like THE KING'S SPEECH.  But in the real world, this way makes a lot of sense.  (CHALET GIRL is currently out in cinemas in the US, but on a very limited release, and more as a contractual obligation than anything else.)

Screen International writes about this sort of thing in greater depth and with greater intelligence than I could, so you should dig into that title if you want to explore this interesting subject further.  A quote from Jeremy Kay’s article about the Toronto Film Festival in the latest monthly edition will suffice for now: “VoD and digital platforms are playing an increasingly important role here and are regarded as a potentially lucrative avenue, with or without theatrical uplift.  Magnolia and IFC have established digital pipelines and while they will never say how much their films make on VoD, word is the most successful titles can gross millions of dollars.”  This is the future, and it’s happening right now.

In other news, CHALET GIRL has been released into the home entertainment market in the UK by Momentum.  New artwork, new DVD with directors’ commentary and a feature on the premiere (hopefully they won’t show the bit where I fell over as I walked onto the stage).  This has been another very gratifying experience.  We were top 10 in all Film & TV on Amazon for a while, top spot on iTunes, and sold out in my local Morrisons in Warminster.  Twitter is all a-twitter again and there is a real feeling that the word of mouth we missed out on with our theatrical release – a combination of a release date move out of half term and the unseasonably warm weather, among other factors – is now beginning to snowball.  Hopefully we can stay on shelves long enough to hit the Christmas market and Momentum will finally receive the return on the big marketing push they made for the film’s theatrical release.

So, to conclude, it’s a brave new world and we owe it to ourselves to explore every avenue available to us to get our films seen by as many people as possible.  And box office figures are not the whole story.

To update you on my writing, I’m on the (significant) rewrite to HER ROYAL SPYNESS, and currently writing four new treatments for four different producers.  It’s high-investment, low-return work and I wonder if I will ever get paid for any of them, but in my mind it’s the most fun part of the job so I’m happy to wing it for now (but don’t tell everyone).  Also, I’ll be appearing at the Screenwriters Festival Pre-Registration Party next Thursday, 27^th October at Regent’s College.  I hope to see some of you there.

Finally finally, just to plug two great films I’ve seen recently.  The first is my friend and sometime writing partner Donald Rice’s film CHEERFUL WEATHER FOR THE WEDDING with CHALET GIRL’s Felicity Jones once again on incredible form.  For a low budget film it packs a massive punch, both visually and narratively, and I desperately hope it will get a theatrical release.  And from the teeny tiny to the US box office monster, I watched THE HELP last night.  As I discussed with some friends afterwards, I felt totally emotionally manipulated, but when it is done so well, and with such charm and grace, you don’t mind.  In fact, isn’t that what you go to the movies for?

Chalet Girl DVD now on sale

In case you had missed it, Chalet Girl is now available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray – the Amazon link is here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chalet-Girl-DVD-Felicity-Jones/dp/B0051NH5OK

 

We’re in the top 10 across the whole of Amazon UK for Comedy and currently number 37 for all Film and TV, which I think is pretty marvellous.

 

If you enjoyed or – God forbid – missed the film when it was in cinemas in March, please think about buying a copy of the DVD to help keep that sales rank up.  The DVD has lots of fun added features / unseen clips as well as a commentary by the director, star and one of the producers (who cares what the writer thinks anyway, right?). 

 

It would make a great stocking filler for a friend / teenage niece / snowboard-loving grandparent.  It can also be used as a Frisbee, a table-leg-wobble-corrector or a novelty mouse mat, or it could just be one of those high-brow titles that you like to have on your DVD shelf to make you look more intellectual than you really are.

 

Please tell your friends – we’ve got big hopes for this as a DVD title in the run-up to Christmas, and other developments, like a possible Chalet Girl TV series, will be dependent on the film reaching out to a wide audience at this stage of its release.

 

More to follow on the blog soon, when I’m not trying to sell you anything, including information about some talks I’m giving at a couple of screenwriting festivals in the autumn.

Busy Busyness

So about twenty four hours after I posted my last entry, crowing about the fact that I had delivered the first draft of “Her Royal Spyness”, finished a quick rewrite on a Sort-Of-Top-Secret-Film project and was getting ready to sink myself into a week of reading, watching, musing and general beard-stroking (maybe even beard-growing), things took a short sharp turn for the hectic.

I got a call from the UK producer on the SOTSF who uttered the magic words “They want to fly you out to LA for a week to do a bit more work on the script.”  Words that I’ve been waiting to hear for about four years, since my last trip to LA, when I had meeting after meeting cancelled or rescheduled and I sulked back home thinking “I ain’t coming back till they fly me back.”  That time had come.

Then the producer uttered two more, slightly less magic words: “On Sunday.”  This was Wednesday evening.  Anyone with a wife, children and a dog will know that plans made are not easily broken, particularly when I had booked that particular week as Time Spent With Family.  Instead it was going to be Time Spent In The Comfort Inn In Santa Monica.  Ouch.  Sorry, wife.

Still, you don’t say no to that, so out I flew.  Air New Zealand flight 1, with no less a luminary than Stewart Till on board (a good few rows in front of me – no business class ticket quite yet).  Films watched included Rio (research for another Rio project I’m working on, with an irritatingly similar final sequence – still forewarned is etc etc), Source Code (mad but enjoyable), Limitless (also mad, very well made but questionable ethics), Thor (at x6 speed, just to find out what happens), and the highlights of the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final (we won).

Then a week sitting in a production company in Santa Monica working on the SOTSF script.  Turned out it was more of a full service overhaul than just some bodywork detailing, but hey, it’s their dime, as we say out there.  I also managed to squeeze in drinks with a couple of producers, one manager (might be time to get an LA manager, if that’s not tweaking fate’s nose too eagerly) and the Chalet Girl director Phil Traill (October 3^rd DVD in the UK, comes out in Australia today, the US next week, etc etc) and his lovely family.  Skyped my own lovely family every morning at 7am, there are worse ways to start the day but it’s still a long time away from home.

Then back home on Air New Zealand flight 2 (do they only have two planes?), no luminaries, watched Unstoppable (loved it – how to make the preposterous somehow plausible), Battle: Los Angeles (so I could see the place I’d just been staying get wasted by alienbots), something else that I can’t remember, which isn’t a great sign, and various bits of Arthur, Water for Elephants and Black Swan (you know which bits) over people’s shoulders.

So now it’s back to school, for yet more rewriting on SOTSF (they want to shoot it in October), a rewrite on “Her Royal Spyness” (and, yes, I did get one of those “do we need these forty pages” notes – possibly even eighty or ninety, but so it goes...), more corporate work, a possible Chalet Girl TV series, a new pitch with Chalet Girl producers Pippa Cross and Harriet Rees and an awesome new high concept romcom that I can’t wait to sink my teeth into, and will possibly write on spec.

Who says everything shuts down in August?  Not I, not I.

Back in blog

We’re back.  Honestly, I leave my blog for a month and the world falls to pieces.  Economic collapse, moral meltdown, hideousness in Norway.  Still, at least we won the cricket.

This is just by way of a quick update, although I hope to post more in the coming weeks.  I’ve finished and submitted my first draft of Her Royal Spyness to Matador Pictures.  I’ve made mention in a previous post of my frustration at not being able to find quite enough time to devote myself to this, utterly and exclusively.  Fortunately, in the second half of July the clouds lifted and I motored through to the finish under clear skies and with a fair wind.  It’s going to be interesting to see what notes come back, as it always is.  Scene-by-scene I’m sure there is loads that can be pumped up and tightened.  But I imagine there will also be quite a few ‘do we need this character’ or ‘do we need this scene’ comments (hopefully not too many ‘do we need these forty pages’), which is when you have to totally re-imagine the shape and flow of the whole piece.  Still, as I’m forever finding out, there are a million different ways of looking at a story, none altogether right or wrong.  In rewriting, I’ve got to keep my mind open to new suggestions and directions – often great ideas that I wouldn’t have got to on my own – while at the same time retaining that sense of unity and purity that I felt at the end of the first draft.  A complex and challenging balancing act.

I’ve also just spent a fascinating two weeks on a very short and sharp rewrite job.  I can’t say too much about it at the moment (which always makes things sound more mysterious than they really are) but there is a chance that the movie could go into production in the next couple of months.  It was a great gig, too.  The contract literally stipulated start and end dates (1^st to 12^th August).  I spent a week or so getting my rewrite outline approved.  Then, because it transpired that it was essentially a page one rewrite, I sat down last week and wrote twenty pages a day, for five days.  I was bouncing my pages off one of the key guys on the project as I went along, so I would spend two or three hours every morning rewriting the previous day’s work, then crank out the next twenty.  I imagine these sorts of deadlines are common in Hollywood, where production rewrites are a big income source for established writers.  But it’s not something I’ve ever done before.  It was exhausting but incredibly rewarding and I genuinely believe I delivered a good piece of work at the end of those five days.

Both of these jobs have contributed to a growing sense that I’m getting at the moment, that of demystifying the job of the writer.  So much is written and talked about the art of writing, of finding your voice and understanding your art, as if it’s some impenetrable, alchemical mystery whose secrets are revealed only to a chosen few.  And it certainly can be like this, particularly I suppose when you’re looking for your voice in the first place.  But it’s also a craft, a job, a process that can be understood, broken down and replicated at will.  Perhaps this comes with a growing confidence, when you know your way around a screenplay and you know that A must lead to B which must lead to C.  But I feel like my approach to my job has changed in the last twelve months.  What’s the brief, what are the project parameters, then go ahead and execute.  This attitude is informed both by the many on-set rewrites I did for Chalet Girl, where budget and schedule and locations and cast availability start to dictate the creative process (have you pre-ordered your DVD, by the way – October 3^rd in UK), and also from all the corporate work I’ve done over the last ten years.  The objectives, in my mind, are no different whether it’s a £50k training drama or a £5m thriller – craft an effective piece of writing that delivers a satisfying experience for its intended audience.  Maybe this is too linear, maybe it will make me a painting-by-numbers kind of writer.  Or maybe it will make me a more confident, more efficient, more useful craftsman who can peddle his trade in a variety of situations.  We shall see.

I’m taking this week as a well earned and much needed reading and research week.  I’m finally, finally reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces, which is blowing my mind on pretty much every page (and which, incidentally, plays well into my ‘demystifying’ thesis – we’re not doing anything new here).  I’ve also got The Hare With Amber Eyes and How To Be A Woman to get through, and then I want to attack by David Lean Centenary Collection DVD Box Set – I haven’t seen either of his Dickens films, to my shame.  This is precious time which I’m determined not to waste.  August is quiet, and I get Her Royal Spyness notes back on 22^nd.  Time to make creative hay while the sun isn’t shining and the phone isn’t ringing – I’ll need it during the long cold winter ahead.

Film London - Market Place Live

Film London - Market Place Live is kind of interesting also. Angus Finney is a smart fellow, I went on a South West Screen / CASS Business School course led by him in 2008/9, one of the most useful training experiences I've undertaken. Worth a watch. Although I haven't actually made it through to the end yet.

The Scriptwriter's Life

Found The Scriptwriter's Life today through a link from another blog. Written by a guy I know, and I kind of like it. Food for thought, at any rate.

Simply not enough

A very quick one this.  I’m conscious I’ve been letting my bloggery levels slip but that’s the point of this postlet.  There simply are not enough hours in the day.

This last couple of weeks I’ve been wrestling with: the first draft of “Her Royal Spyness” on commission for Matador Pictures; a twenty page treatment for a new romcom with the Chalet Girl producers Pippa Cross and Harriet Rees; a new romcom idea that I pitched to another producer and which they have asked me to flesh out; the rewrite on “Romeo and Rosaline”; another rewrite on my BASE jumping script (with Ed Caesar) called “Exit Point”; two more new ideas that I think have legs and which I don’t want to let go of; an old treatment that my agent wants me to dust off and submit to the BBC; a monstrously complicated training film script for BP; three more corporate in various stages of development; helping two friends with the development of their feature scripts; not to mention scripts to read, books to read, films and tv shows to watch, lawns to mow and lives to lead.

And there are simply not enough hours for all this.

I’ve been working myself into a bit of a lather about it.  Clearly the most important of all of these is the script commission for Matador, because it’s a real job with a real company that I’m being paid real money for.  But, given the 58 other things that are crowding in and around it, I haven’t been able to give it the time or the focus it demands.  And this is crazy.  For one thing, I’m loving the work when I finally get stuck into it.  For another thing, I’m on a deadline and I don’t want to miss it.  And for a third thing, THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WORKING TEN YEARS TO GET TO.  I’M BEING PAID TO WRITE.  And now that it’s finally happening, I’m being distracted by everything else, all those other little jobs that pay a bit of money here, or might lead to something else there.  Whereas in fact what I should be doing is SITTING DOWN AND WRITING WHAT I’M BEING PAID TO WRITE.

The “Chalet Girl” experience was career-changing, no doubt about it.  But it’s done now, and the window of opportunity that it opened is closing with every passing week that I don’t fire out a brilliant new script.  So what I need to be doing is focusing every ounce of my creative being on making “Her Royal Spyness” as brilliant and professional and filmable as possible.  Then those nice people at Matador will tell everyone they work with what a brilliant, professional and filmable writer Tom Williams is.  Then I’ll get more jobs.  And so on.  That’s the theory at least.  And that’s all that matters right now.  The rest can wait.

So I’ve come up with four strategies.

One, I’ve rented an office, out of the house.  I love my kids, but they’re not great writing partners.

Two, I’m cutting down on my corporate work.  It’s interesting, and it pays the bills, but there’s a bigger picture here. 

Three, every morning, 8.30am – 1pm, I’m working on “Her Royal Spyness”.  Everything else can wait till the afternoon.

Four, longer term, I’m learning to say no, and to prioritise.  You can’t do everything, all the time.  Have two, maximum three projects on the go, and give those your all.  When they’re done, move on.  But I’ve found that the more food I throw at the wall (if that’s the right image), the less actually sticks.

And that includes not writing as many blog posts.  Until next time, whenever that might be.