The Billionaire’s Sleep

Yes. I’ve decided not to take up the option for another two years. Just too hard to write, renovate, work, raise finance etc.

Still. There’s more where this came from. Just wait for Saluting the Goose - a childrens story set in Woy Woy.

Am going to see if work will allow me to keep a industry blog. Check the Suma Blog for updates.

I’ve realised that I was trying to push this project in way too many directions. In the end I’m making an independent feature film. There will be a lot of promotional material attached to the film, much of it on digital platforms but the primary product is a feature film. I’ve got so many other projects on the boil that are completely suited to digital platforms by their nature that it seems foolish to try and force digital components to sit as part of the core product.

The X Media Lab has been an incredibly valuable experience. The mentors and other project teams added so much to my project. Great ideas like making The Billionaire’s Sleep an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical to a melodramatic TV series for the Hong Kong market. I’ve also had the opportunity to talk with several production companies in Bombay about investment and production opportunities. I’m going to spend the next couple days writing up all my notes and will post again shortly on where I’m taking the story.

I attended a screen writing session at FICCI-Frames yesterday. During the discussion a question was asked about how you got the audience to relate or sympathise with the villain. The speaker, Matt Costello, related the scene in Psycho where Norman Bates pushes the car containing the body into the lake but it gets stuck. For a moment the audience shares Norman’s worry, that the crime will not be hidden!

Another audience member pointed out that you don’t discover Norman is the killer to the end of the film so he isn’t yet a villain. Matt acknowledged the point but said “he is disposing of a body murdered by his ‘mother’. I think that makes him a villain.” At which point someone else in the audience says “Sir. He is doing it because of unconditional love for mother!” I was struck by how such a seminal film can function subtly across cultures. I have always read Psycho through the prism of psychoanalysis. Id, subconscious etc. but here Norman Bates was being read as acting appropriately, fulfilling his responsibility to protect his mother.

Later as I discussed my film with one of the other teams bringing a project through the X Media Lab I realised that one of the strengths of the project is the ability to bring strong dramatic Indian themes together with underlying, dark, traditions of the subconscious and psychoanalytical thought. The unconditional love of mother means many things. Probably at the same time.

I arrived in Mumbai on Friday night. It’s so strange how much easier it is to arrive in India a second time. Off the plane, straight to the pre-paid taxi counter, into my taxi, off to the hotel. It’s still a crazy full on traffic, people everywhere, something to look at constantly environment but it’s one I’m looking forward to rather than dreading.

I’m at a very nice hotel with lake views in the far north of Mumbai. Relaxing. Great pool. Have spent a day writing a presentation for today and getting documentation into order. Last night was the first networking event for X Media Lab. Met some very interesting people. I haven’t given out so many cards in such a short time before.

There is a real animation bent to FICCI-Frames and X Media Lab this time. Several animation production houses are represented at X Media Lab so I will get a good opportunity to discuss some of the animation ideas we have for the project. There’s also a real interest in co-production where the animation house puts up sweat equity in order to keep production costs down.

There’s a lot of opportunity around the digital expression for ‘The Billionaire’s Sleep’. I can see how the Imran character can extend into a storyteller on multiple devices and how the stories he tells can be taken much further than currently in the script. It will be interesting to see what I learn from the mentors and project teams participating in X Media Lab.

It’s almost been a year since I posted here. During that time the film has gone from 20 minute short to 2 hour feature. There’s a script of sorts and I’m heading to India again to attend Frames (a film and TV conference) and hopefully I will be pitching my project as part of X Media Lab while there. I’ve decided to restart the blog as a place for me to keep development diary stuff and as part of my regular writing exercise.

It really has taken a year to build up the skills, confidence and concentration to get this project up and running. The hardest part remains the writing. Basically by writing this blog entry I’m avoiding writing a new one page synopsis that I should be working on. The funny thing is suddenly everything lines up. I’ve found I can sit down and write for a few hours every morning, I have got contacts that enable me to get the project in front of people who can invest (or introduce me to those who can invest) and I feel that I can pitch the project in a way that fills those listening with confidence that I will deliver.

So. Time to deliver.

I’d read about it. Pretty interesting concept. The funny thing is that I’ve only been away for 6 weeks but I still found myself sitting at the gate in Singapore waiting for the Sydney flight thinking “where the hell did all these white people come from and why are the women flashing so much skin!” My new found predeliction for modesty had been offended.

It made me think about something the Australian Prime Minister had said. He felt that a head covering for Muslim women was OK but felt that most Australian’s would find full “head-to-toe” covering “confronting”. I can just imagine how “confronting” a lot of Australian culture would be arriving here. It’s gotten me thinking about a documentary project I’ve had kicking around in the back of my head for quite a long time that talks about shared ‘values’ but how they’re applied differently across cultures. I started writing a treatment (probably as a procrastination device to avoid working on the screenplay).

I am however very much back in Australia. Just renewed my drivers license, had some Indonesian food in Chinatown and rode my bike through Centennial Park. It is a pretty nice lifestyle, space, reasonably fresh air (particularly when the sea breeze is coming through) and quiet. It is missing something though. I keep thinking of the word community but I’m not entirely sure what I mean by that. I might have to do another post once I’ve worked it out.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog. There have been many things that haven’t made it into a post but I had to save something for stories. Considering I lived in the States 16 years ago and I’m still telling stories from then I think you’re all going to have to endure India in coversation with me for quite a long time.

Well. I even shed a tear leaving India. I forced the driver to play a cd called Hindi Film Nostalgia 4 all the way to the airport. I suspect he enjoyed it as much as I did. Had a delicious final dinner with my friend Arul’s parents. Prawn moily and appams. I had treated myself to the 5 star experience. Ayurvedic massage, swimming pool, bizzare demands on the staff, a driver for the day (which they made complementary!)

It was also a very humbling day as I visited a friend of my mother’s who has been running a womens refuge/hospital/training centre since 1979. It’s a 5 story building with around 500 girls living there plus another 200 staff and 500 students during the day. Seeing a class of pre-schoolers 50 in size getting their afternoon nap by resting their heads on their chairs all crowded up against each other was a bit of a wake up. Still, as the staff member who was guiding me around said “at least they’ve got clean clothes, have been fed and been paid attention to today.”

I’m in Singapore now. Taking advantage of all the free tech stuff here. Will walk round for the 3 hours till my connection to Sydney departs. Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and making myself a coffee tomorrow morning.

Everyone likes to say, the south is so different from the north. At Bombay airport a young man wheels my luggage 15 meters, states “you give me money now”. 10 rupees doesn’t quite do it for him, he says “give me 10 dollars”. I say “eat me”. Our transaction is concluded.

In Cochin a group of fishermen using huge counter-levered nets (weighted with massive rocks) wave me over. The gang leader tells me that since the Tsunami none of the commercially viable fish come into the harbour so he just comes to work for the tourists. I help them haul in a catch of tiny shrimp and sprats, drink chai and eat rice cake. Then I give them some money for the privilege of my labour. It felt different.

Saw a Kathakali performance last night. I shot a video which I think will cut together into a nice 10 minutes instead of the several hours it took. It was pretty easy to follow the story. What was interesting was how long it takes to say ‘leave’. About 10 minutes of gestures and grimaces. Of course the character has to say ‘leave’ 4 or 5 times so it was a fairly short dramatic piece that somehow spiraled into several hours. What really struck me was how foolish the main male characters all seem to be. Pompous and self-righteous but foolish all the same.

Well. I started at the end of Holi. Down at Chowpatty beach where thousands of young men wash colour out of their hair, clothes and skin and play an odd version of sumo wrestling where one person is thrown out of a square drawn in the sand by another 15 or so.

As I watch hundreds more stream onto the beach and into the water from surrounding neighbourhoods, out of cabs, three to a motorbike and along Marine Drive. I decided to follow this flow of people to its source.

I’d taken a video camera rather than stills because I imagined Holi would be this spectacle best captured in motion but in fact it’s a very intimate, one-on-one engagement. Individuals approach you crying “Happy Holi!” then gently mark your forehead with a brightly coloured tilak. No, they think, that’s not quite right, so they grab you by both cheeks asking “How are you, my friend?” smearing further colour over your face. Now your clothes need some attention and what… no colour on your arms? That can be mended. Top it off with a silver coloured handshake a splash of water and welcome to Holi.

As I got further into the meelee it becomes both more exhuberent and more agressive. Men drink a cocktail of cane juice and what smells like raw alcohol. Encouraging each other to drink more while simultaneously smearing additional colour over each other’s faces. Small pink and purple children run around throwing water at each other. Any idea I had of simply being an observer has long since been abandoned.

Eventually everyone moves off to wash, but the spirit of goodwill remains. Today Bombay is quiet (strangely enough), people take the time to chat and ask questions. Usually when I say I’m writing a screenplay people ask me who will be in the film? Today they ask me to tell them the story. I end up sitting on Marine Drive, under a tree telling the plot to a group of multi-coloured men and women, eating ice-cream and leaving everyone in suspense by not telling them the ending. They laugh, saying “Now we’ll have to see it! We know people like you!”

Back in the hotel. The manager was unimpressed but everyone else who works there laughed, slapped my back and said happy Holi!