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Ballrooms and Blighty

Things can move pretty quickly when you’re setting up a film company. Especially when you’re looking to secure investment before the end of the tax year in April! That gives me about two weeks to get the paperwork in for the company to be formed in time.

Simple, really.

Getting a film made is no mean trick. There are thousands of writers out there, waving dog-eared manuscripts at production companies in the hope they’ll get picked. But even if you do manage to sell something, what happens to your creative control? Will your rugged, six-foot plus hero suddenly morph into a garden gnome with cross-dressing tendencies? The resulting screenplay might resemble your original creation not one bit.

Forming a company yourself and becoming directly involved is another option. That way you have a say in everything, from the location to the choice of director (providing they agree to come on board, of course!) But the process is fraught with difficulties. How do you convince potential investors that your film will make money? And how do you entice that Oscar-winning director to commit eight weeks of his hectic schedule to your fledgling  masterpiece?

I was told at the outset, this is a business not a dream. But you have to keep nurturing the two things most likely to make it happen: passion and enthusiasm. With these, plus a few lucky breaks along the way, you may find yourself  in business living the dream.

And the film’s subject matter?

Think Ballrooms and Blighty and one of Britain’s most notorious murderers who was hanged in 1946.

But I can’t give away too much.

Until next time…

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