The Daily Kraken is all about the Oscars

Of course, there are rumors (which I will neither confirm nor deny) that Hollywood is buzzing about Manalive, but modesty (not to mention sanity) forbids we boast too much until we’ve, y’know, shot the first frame of it.

Speaking of which, Dale Ahlquist writes:

We have found a wife for you.

Joey and I were in Savannah this weekend, and held auditions. We cast the rest of the movie, including the role of Mary Grey aka Mrs. Innocent Smith. She’s a redhead, as called for in the script, and she has movie experience. She was in Forrest Gump! (also filmed in Savannah). Her name is Katherine Harrington.

The auditions went just great, and I’m really pleased with the location. Joey is still firming up several details, but I’m just thrilled about how things are falling into place.

Joey will confirm the dates with you the dates that you are needed in Savannah. A final script is on its way as well.

It’s time to start getting genuinely excited.

Also, Rod Bennett confirmed for the conference. He’ll be speaking on Chesterton and Frank Capra. And David Deavel will speak on Chesterton and Alfred Hitchcock. We’ll also premiere the trailer for Manalive.

I head off to Savannah on March 2 and will basically be there all month. While I’m there I will try to dash off some production diaries on the blog so’s you’ll have a sense of what we are doing. This is all new to me as my background was in theatre, not film. But hopefully you’ll get a sense of what it feels like to make a small-budget indie film. Also, I will, hopefully, not be awful.

For now, the practical reality means I have a *boatload* of work to get written before I go so I can clear the decks and not have to write during March (except for the production diaries). Low budget films mean low budget pay for actors (far less than I would normally make for a month of writing). So in order to keep a roof over our heads and bread on the table while I’m gone, I need to do March’s work now so we can meet the dry spell when all I’ll make is the extremely modest pay for acting. It’s sort of counter-intuitive, I know, since you automatically figure that a lead role in movie must involve big bucks. But this is emphatically a film being done by Chestertonians for love, not money.

So forgive me if I don’t blog as much in the run up to March and if my replies to emails are terse. I’m *really* under the gun to get work done, make our monthly “just enough to survive and save a pittance”, and get ready to go be Innocent Smith.