Looking around the Interwebs for inspiration and well, anything that will help settle my nerves… The work that’s coming up in the next few weeks is both exciting and nerve wracking, and as such I’ve turned to the internet to provide me with advise from the masters. And what better person to give advise about movie making then Ridley Scott? Director of Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator and Hannibal (to name but a few)… I was lucky enough to stumble across this Q and A with him and can’t even begin to tell you how good it is.

If you’re remotely creative you will get something out of this. Enjoy.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Part Four:

We’ve got the budget! The total amount of money I have to spend on what will most likely be the biggest mistake of my life is 10, 000 bucks. Well below the budget of even the most modest independent films.
How did a Cheese Snack addicted, mouth breather with no prospects like myself get the money?

Easy! I married a woman with a good credit rating.
Let me offer those interested in making a flick some advice. If you don’t want to be laughed out of a bank don’t tell them you want a personal loan to make two movies based on one very weak idea. No sir, they will laugh at you so hard that you could consider the teller’s reaction to be a ‘pre-disapproval’.

No, what you want to do is come up with a plausible reason, say Travel for instance. Then go to one branch of a bank, lets call this bank ‘Bank X’ and the first branch ’Branch One’ then tell the Banker you want a loan for travelling. Then tell them you want to pay it off over five years.

The Banker from ‘Branch One’ will then tell you that “Travel loans need to be paid off within a year, for any longer repayment periods you need to get a loan for something like Household goods” next you need to thank the Banker for his or her time (this has to be done promptly because this whole thing is being done in your lunch hour) and you leave the premises. This action is followed by getting in your car and going to ‘Branch Two’ of ‘Bank X’, ten minutes drive from ‘Branch One’. You then tell the Banker you want to apply for a personal loan, then tell them it’s for household goods…

So for those of you looking to get a loan for reasons you don’t wish to disclose to the bank, I submit to you a list of things I have now learned in my trip to ‘Bank X’.

- Do not wear a tuxedo to the bank. This only arouses suspicion.

- Do not present the Banker with a bouquet of flowers. This is inappropriate. This is even more inappropriate if your Banker is a Man.

- Do not gasp in terror when you see the calculations your Banker is making and realise how little it is that you actually earn. This does little to strengthen your case.

- Under no circumstances should you try to make light of any of the Banker’s anecdotes, especially those involving the death of a family member.

- Try to pick the sturdiest chair at the Banker’s desk. Nothing says “Decline this Loan” more than a fat man lying on pieces of broken chair screaming “ I CAN’T GET UP! THE CHAIR LEGS ARE STABBING ME IN MY BACK FAT!”

- Let your Wife do the talking.

That’s all for now, but we have some stuff coming up as we move into Pre Production along with some video diaries, Blu-ray and game reviews and pod-casts. See below for the Failure Early Warning System update, we dragged ourselves a little closer to success with this one.

Best
Scott