Mark Herbert, producer of Four Lions, Dead Man's Shoes, This Is England and Le Donk And Scor-Zay-Zee is at the Sundance film festival 2010, sending us his updates. Over to Mark...
21 January
7:30 am Park City, UtahSo, Sundance at last.
Me, Chris [Morris] and Derrin (Schlesinger, fellow Four Lions producer) all got into Salt Lake City yesterday. The festival kicks off today and we have our world premiere of Four Lions on Saturday 23rd.
My last day in LA was OK. I went out to Warner Studio's at Burbank for a meeting. We talked about 'small' films which to me is about £100,000 and to them is around £20 million. It could be interesting to try and make a 'studio' film but you'd have little control over what you were making. I was discussing it with an LA producer I know and it turns out that on her last film (which in Hollywood was small) their parking and transport costs were higher than what we made Dead Man's Shoes for. On all our films you have to really watch every pound you spend and there is little slack, I imagine that it may get a bit easier with more money - would love to find out one day.
I somehow managed to check in and end up sitting amongst the LA women's basketball team at Los Angeles airport. I'm a bit Ronnie Corbett myself and it was quite intimidating. The most humiliating bit was on the plane when I overheard one of them whisper "Have you heard how funny that little guy just said cup"
We got into the condo (apartment) at 10pm and crashed around midnight. It so quiet here which after Sunset Blvd is a welcome relief. We've got the same place that we used 2 years ago when we were here with Donkey Punch and A Complete History of My Sexual Failures. It's got a big fridge.
Today is a relatively quiet day (before the storm that will be next few days) so I am going to meet up with Nick Batzias who works for Madman - an Australian distributor that we work with a lot. We are having a snowboard race and the losers pays for dinner and drinks later. He's a pretty huge greek Aussie with the best sideburns you've ever seen. I shall take a picture of them for my blog tomorrow to show you. As well as beating him on the boards I intend to sell him the Australian rights to This Is England '86 TV series whilst on the ski lift.
Its snowing outside and here is the view from our kitchen. Bye for now.
22 January
9.00 Warp Condo - SundanceYesterday started off well. Chris and I went boarding with Nick and Paul from Australian distributors Madman, the snow was lovely and I managed to get an offer for This is England TV series from them on a ski lift. Business should always be like this. Sadly Nick has grown a full beard so his amazing angular sideburns were missing. I explained I'd already blogged about them so he used his finger on the pic to demonstrate how they used to look - and he promised that next time I see him he will have them back.At the end of the afternoon we got back to the condo and something weird happened. I think it may have been a mixture of altitude, jet lag, nerves and a day of boarding but none of us could make even the simplest of decisions (How we made a feature film I do not know). Alex Marshall from Warp arrived and thought we'd all taken magic mushrooms. Chris jumped up at one point and ate 3 bowls of cereal one after the other and the only thing that sorted me out was the meal I have taken a picture of.The actors started to arrive, Riz, Nigel and Arsher were all here. I had a dinner with US distributors IFC. They have distributed 4 of our films and they have a great team and are good fun (they are also really keen on the Tv series - they did a great job on the film so should be good for the it). I also found out most of them are coming to see Four Lions on Saturday. They got me into the Spike Jonze - Absolut Vodka party. Bill Murray was there as were as was a lot of vodka cocktails but I hit a bit of a wall and was very sad not to be able to drink more and stay for the duration.
We are all starting to feel the nerves a bit in preparation for the screening on Saturday. There is good buzz picking up so far and it's great that the 4 main actors, the writers Sam and Jesse and some of our funders are here to experience it with us.
Am taking Riz Ahmed and Arsher Ali snowboarding tomorrow - they have never done it before so the pictures should be good to look out for...
Bye for now.
23 January
7.30 am Warp Condo - SundanceFirst thing I have to say is a massive Happy Birthday to my wife Anita: "Happy Birthday, hope you like your present Xxx"
We all got over our psychotic cabin fever from yesterday. The reality of the world premiere kicked in yesterday and the nerves are jangling. The actors managed to blag some free Burton gear to use and I took them out. Riz had also blagged some free Adidas gear and was absolutely the most bling person on the mountain. Arsher was also on the slopes and I realised he has not yet seen the film so today is really exciting for him. They spent most of the day on their backsides but did manage to still look cool (except for the helmets). I took a snap of them so you can decide.
Kayvan Novak (aka Fonejacker) arrived too yesterday but have not seen him yet because he is staying somewhere swanky.....
...Unlike our writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, because they turned up last at our condo have ended up in the bunk bed room. They had come from LA where they were staying in individual suites and doing high powered meetings into the warp condo which consists of bunk beds, Guinness and rather a lot of flatulence (courtesy of Chris's roasted garlic).
We actually made a decision last night to go out and see a film. I'd heard a lot about it and knew the producer Liz Watts and we'd been following the directors short films which were great. It is 'Animal Kingdom" by David Michod and I thought it was incredible.
We have heard from the UK that the clip we put of the film on www.guardian.co.uk is going down really well but I am now getting too nervous to think of things to write and I have to run out for a breakfast meeting. Will report back after the screening.
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