, BLOG ROLL

I was chatting to someone today about one of my movies; “Pissing With Confidence” (If you haven’t seen it, why not? Now go to “films”, click on it and watch it. I’ll still be here when you get back.

Now you know what I’m talking about in this blog entry. Anyway, I he was saying he saw something on the internet about where men stand next to each other in public toilets and I replied to him that the idea was mine first. Well, I’m pretty sure it is.

I wrote the script and copyrighted it in early 2000, and as far as my research has found out, no one had done anything on the topic before then. Over the next 12 months, I went around to a few production companies, trying to raise the money to make the film. I got turned down by most and finally raised the amount (£5000) in the Summer of 2000 by stepping completely out of the film business and getting sponsorship from some private businesses and individuals via my lawyer.

I started pre-production in late August 2000 and we had finished shooting by the first week of October that year. Then I had a long and tortuous process of getting it edited, getting the voice over done (which turned out to be the easy bit, thanks to Mr. Alexander Armtrong who is a complete star and gentleman), getting the animations ready and the soundtrack written and recorded. It wasn’t until the Summer of 2001 that I finally had it ready for release.

By that stage, a couple of websites had emerged, mainly repeating each other, on the subject of where to stand in a toilet blah, blah blah, but also another short film called “Urinal” and starring Paul Kaye had pipped our film to the post and got released ahead of us.

Now the company who made “Urinal” was one of the places I had sent a copy of my script to. By all accounts, they had 4 times the budget of mine and rushed the production through. I’m NOT saying my idea was stolen, and there are some clear differences between my script and theirs (they have an anal rape scene…British comedy, ladies and gentlemen) so let’s knock the idea of plagarism on the head here and now. I think there’s room enough in this world for multiple takes on the same subject; we are blessed in having both “The Seven Samurai” and “The Magnificent Seven”…even though I thought “Urinal” was thoroughly dreadful. Have I covered my ass enough now?