The Billionaire’s Sleep

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.