The Live Journal of James Stevens-Arce

Before the conference on local film distribution started yesterday morning (see previous post), I managed to corner the head of the local Film Fund and ask when he thought we might get the contract for Souls taken care of.

He (in Spanish): "There are four other productions we have to deal with ahead of yours."

Me (in Spanish): "So, January, then?"

He: (nods).

Me: "Any idea what part of January?"

He: "Probably the last week."

Me: "I will contact you then."

He: "Okay."

And I will. And we shall wait with bated breath to see what new delay pops up then.

Tomorrow morning (December 14th), I'm attending a conference on local film distribution at which the main speaker will be the general manager of the largest movie theater chain on the Island.

The head of the local Film Fund is scheduled to be there, so I hope to corner him at some point and get him to set a date to take care of the contract negotations for the $150,000 loan they've approved for Souls, so we can finally set a firm production date.

I suspect it won't happen till the week of January 8th, at the earliest, but at this point I'd just like to get a firm commitment from him as to a date.

Since I last posted about our production of Souls on September 22nd, we have been trying to get our contract with the Puerto Rico Film Fund negotiated and signed so we can access the 5-year, interest-free $150,000 loan they have approved for our project and get rolling.

We had originally hoped to shoot the first week of October (it's a 30-minute film with a 5-day shooting schedule), but were then forced to move that back to the week of December 11.

Now those dates, too, have been scrapped and we will have to wait until the contract is resolved before attempting to set new dates.

The week before Thanksgiving, the head of the Film Fund assured me we should be able to meet to iron out any final kinks by the week after Thanksgiving, but I've had no word from him to date. Tomorrow I shall try to contact him to see where things stand.

After an almost three-week hiatus while I worked on re-writes, today we resumed casting the male roles in Souls: Angelo, Dana, Klein, Paco, and Sacrovir. Ran from 11 A.M. to 6:30 P.M., with a pizza break somewhere in the middle. We begin casting the female roles -- Mayra and Gladys -- at 11 A.M. on Monday. After that, callbacks.

And probably more pizza.

In unrelated news, when I got home this evening Tita made crepes slathered with sliced strawberries, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream.

For dinner.

I am finishing a re-write of Souls, my short film script that came in first in the short screenplay category of the 2003 L.A. Screamfest Film Festival Screenwriting Competition. After something over two years, it looks like it will finally get produced. Maybe.

Currently, we're looking at shooting it the first week of October. This will allow us to edit it in time to take it to the American Film Market in L.A. the first week of November. The re-write is designed to turn what was a standalone 35-minute script into a standalone 30-minute short which can also function as the first act for the feature-length version which I will be working on in the near future. The visit to the American Film Market is designed to try to interest potential distributors in providing financing for the feature version.

Casting sessions started yesterday.