THE SCREENING

The screening was a great end to a helluva day. We’d been worried about rain the whole time but it was a prefect night. Maybe a little cold, but we had a great crowd. They have the whole piazza lit up, and project images against the buildings as you can see. Very nice.

 

Here’s the approach to the stage in front of the giant screen. They called us all up, introduced, asked us if we wanted to say anything. I managed to snap a shot of the screen projecting the introductions, though inadvertently cut myself out. (The wages of trying to clandestinely shoot pics from a stage so you don’t seem too massively uncool).

 

AND THE MOVIE BEGAN… 

AND IT ENDED. 

FIRST OFF, ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL PROJECTION AND MASSIVE SOUND. MADE ME THINK THAT THERE COULD BE A NEW FUTURE IN DRIVE-IN MOVIES. KUDOS TO LOCARNO FOR DOING IT RIGHT. THE SCREENING ITSELF WENT GREAT - CLAPPING AND LAUGHING AT ALL THE RIGHT PLACES. RON PERLMAN’S PARTICULAR FATE GOT A BIG RESPONSE. ALL IN ALL, A HUGE SUCCESS.

HOWARD AND I STAYED BEHIND TO MEET SOME OF THE CROWD. EVEN SIGNED A FEW AUTOGRAPHS. (!!!)  THEN, TOOK A MOMENT TO ENJOY IT ALL. DURING THIS, THE CAMERAMAN FOUND US AND PROJECTED US ONTO THE HUGE SCREEN. (THANK GOD WE WEREN’T SCRATCHING OURSELVES)  THE REMAINING AUDIENCE GAVE US A NICE CHEER AND WE GAVE IN TO THE INNER GEEK AND TOOK PICS OF OURSELVES ON THE GIANT SCREEN.

AND YES, THIS IS WHAT IT ALL SEEMS LIKE, NOW…

IT’S RAINING LIKE A PIG… SO HERE ARE SOME PHOTOS

Yeah, lotta rain here, but we still have hope. It was our media day so everyone has been carted around and millions of photos taken and interviews given. Went to a reception with the Swiss President and a Q & A panel complete with interpreter headseats.  Should be a bunch of photos up on IMDB, but I thought I’d beat them to the punch on a few.
(Producer Chris Roberts and Director Howard McCain standing, then sitting left to right, screenwriter Dirk Blackman, Jack Huston and Sophia Myles.)

Howard in an interview.

Jack and Sophia having some fun while being interviewed.

Sophia showing off her badge; Dirk trying to take a picture of himself.

Yeah, very cool to see the poster going up.

Sophia and Jack absconded with a photog’s camera, amusing themselves.

Best for last. Don’t they look like they’re on the way to a heist?

Will it rain…? …?

That’s the big question, We’ve got an outdoor screening at the piazza tonight, and it’s been almost Biblical here in terms of rain. Last night, after just a wee bit of carousing, we came back to the hotel and the skies just opened. Thunder, lightning, the whole nine yards.  Hopefully it’ll clear by tonight. Although from what I’ve heard, these are die-hard audiences here in Locarno and many of them will watch a movie in a thunderstorm.  My kind of people.  More later.

Locarno Film Festival

Okay, that Conan story was a damn nice thing to see on the front page of the Hollywood reporter. Felt really good.  If you didn’t see it, you can check it out at:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i84d286596a535ecf5a3141fe4e1b2bee

Now we just have to go write an amazing Conan script. Which we will. Something the whole family can see. I’m kidding. Something that will be filled with a remarkable amount of bloody sword-fighting.  Not “300″.  300 and 1.

So I’m finally here in Locarno, Switzerland, in the grips of unholy jet lag. Flew in on British Air. Oh my god I didn’t know they made cans of coke that small. Like an ounce and a half. Landed in Milan and driven to Locarno by Florin. Great guy. 

As you can see from the photo, it’s on Lake Maggiore and it’s gorgeous. 

Our screening is tomorrow night and I include a photo of the huge outdoor screen, complete with our shy star, Sophia Myles.

Director Howard McCain is here and has already been interviewed by a group of local filmmakers. Producer Chris Roberts is making the rounds, and our excessively-handsome star Jack Huston is expected sometime tonight. The clubs are extending hours in preparation for his arrival.

I’ll add more photos as I take them. Later….

Conan Unsheathed at Lionsgate

Writer Dirk Blackman and Writer Director Howard McCain have hit page one of no less Hollywood icon than the Hollywood Reporter today — big news about COnan, Amazon, and the Outlander screening.

href=”http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i84d286596a535ecf5a3141fe4e1b2bee”>

On the Outlandishness of Outlander

Responding to the following:

“I need to mention that when I first heard about Outlander’s crazy concept, I thought that it was maybe just crazy enough to really work. But what impressed me was the Cast. When I tell people the concept they often react as if it can’t possibly be true, and then when you tell them who’s in it they step back and give it a second thought.”

We get a lot of that. Actually, what we get is the movie sounds so crazy that it has to be stupid or campy. So we just played it straight and tried to make everyone as human as possible. It seems to have worked, because as you noted, we got a lot of very fine actors. In fact, I can remember John Hurt telling us that when he first got the script, he did a bit of an eyeroll and figured this was going to be terrible. He had his wife (lovely woman) read it first. And somewhere in the first act she said “John - you have to read this. This is really good.” As you can imagine, that made me feel very good.

We seem to tackle subjects like that - we wrote a script about Amazons for Scarlett Johansson. Before they read it, everyone heard about it and thought - “Amazons… girls in skimpy outfits playing at swords. Sounds dumb.” But we played it straight and wrote something along the lines of Seven Samurai. Changed a lot of minds. In fact, Lion’s Gate just picked up the script and are moving forward on it aggressively.

We always figured you can write about anything, you just have to be true to what it is.

Outlander Getting BIG Buzz From Screen Daily at Locarno

A nice pat on the back from Screen Daily, which lists the 8 buzz films at the Locarno Festival. Check it out at:

http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=40117&Category

Meeting the actors for the first time

So we all arrive in Halifax - (which has a great club scene - I think there are 1700 colleges there) and everyone gets together for the first run-through of the script. This was pretty thrilling for me, I have to admit. After writing the script and taking so long to set it up, it’s finally going to be read by professionals.

Because prior to this, it’s just Howard and me reading lines to each other to hear how they sound, and both of us could kill just about any line from “Play it Sam, play ‘As Time Goes By’” to “I’ll be back.” With few exceptions, writers and directors can’t act for shit.  (And thank God no one was present when we were practicing sword strokes to get the blocking down…)

So anyway, it’s  a thrill to meet these people.  Jim was very professional, and full of hope about his beloved Notre Dame football team.  John was… h’mm… magisterial. You got the sense there was nothing you could throw at him that he couldn’t handle with class and dignity. (And when he took some of us out to dinner, the maitre d’ certainly did scramble to find us a good table). And while some clown on a chat site recently was talking about how Ron was difficult on the set, nothing could be further from the truth. Completely good guy.

And Jack, well, he does know how to have a fine time. He’s one of those guys you wonder if he can possibly act. After all, he’s so damn good-looking. And yes, he can.

I remember when Sophia walked into the room the first time at a kick-off dinner. All the guys just went a little quiet. Then one of the Viking actors hit on her, swinging for the fences. He looked like he’d gotten all liquored-up for the try. Can’t remember his line, definitely second-team, though. Sophia handled it like a pro, like she’d had to do it plenty of times before. But she wasn’t mean at all. I think the guy left their conversation thinking all the world was his oyster, not even realizing he’d been shut down.

MEMORIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND

All right, I’m up, it’s late, why not write another one. Could get into this whole blog thing. (Okay, so I’m not an ‘early adopter’.) So the company has started the shoot by chartering a plane and flying up to Newfoundland. (Now the crew, hardy souls that they were, have to take a BARGE to Newfoundland with all the equipment. I’m talking 7200 hours on a boat. The air was a miasmic storm of recycled food.) We shoot for three days (more on that at some point) then… well… party. Hard. Jim throws a big party - very nice - good food, good wine, breaks out the Cubans. (As in, ‘lights up some cigars’, not ‘frees the last remaining Batista supporters.’ In case you were confused.) Dinner’s over, everyone goes out onto the deck to smoke aforementioned Cubans. We’re all having a good time, and a couple of extremely drunk (that is, more than us) local fellows join us. Now we’re more than happy to have them  - Newfoundland’s been great to us. People were terrific; extras standing stock-still for hours, freezing. We could stand them a few drinks, no problem. Anyway, these guys go on to tell us that as it’s our first time in Newfoundland, we have to “kiss the cod.” (Now, as they’re looking at Sophia as they say this, we’re beginning to worry that a fight’s brewing. I mean who knows what “cod” actually means in these parts?”) Turns out it means ‘cod’. And evidently it’s a local tradition for first-timers that you literally “kiss a cod”.  We agree, being drunk, and they head off to find one. We’re expecting a full-on fish, lips and all, but when they return, they’re holding what is obviously a fish filet. We  all dutifully give that filet a peck. All but one of us, that is.  That person, being slightly drunker than the rest, (which was in itself an extraordinary feat) decides that true manhood demands that he not just kiss that cod, but take a BITE out of it.  Now even through our drunken haze, we look on in horror. We have no idea where that fish came from, nor indeed, how long it had been since he left the briny behind. But he shrugs it off and manfully chews away.  CUT TO:

Next day, we’re supposed to leave, but that member of our group is vomiting so spectacularly that he can’t even leave the bathroom, much less get himself on that plane. Takes him a whole day to recover before he can catch a flight back.

So the moral of the story I guess, is this: When in Newfoundland, you may kiss the cod… just don’t swallow.

OFF TO LOCARNO and a note on Canadians

So I just booked tix for the Locarno film festival. Can’t wait - it’s playing in the huge plaza there and should be an amazing experience. Sophia is coming, along with Jack and Howard. Only downside is 14 hours of flying and I’m flight-phobic. Should be a blast.

Okay. So, just wanted to share a “Canada Moment”. Coming home from the stage in Halifax one day. (Probably after shooting the waterfall sequence - Jim, Sophia and Jack hanging from wires on a model cliff while thousands of gallons of water were plummeting down on them. Everyone game, even through a pink-eye scare.) So anyway, I’m at a red light, stopped. Decide it’s a killer time to make a phone call. Yap-yap on the cell phone, then I look up. Light’s green. Probably been green for a minute or two. I look in my rear-view mirror and there’s a line of cars behind me… and NO ONE HAS HONKED. Like they didn’t want to interrupt my phone call. In Los Angeles, I’d've been dead and buried. You’ve got three seconds to hit the gas or you’re in a shallow grave out in Joshua Tree. So… Canadians. Not too impatient. Not too violent. Nice folk.