I contacted EMI Music Publishing in order to license the Simple Minds song “New Gold Dream”. After telling one of their sales agents a little about my film and budget, he got back to me within 48 hours saying that the songwriters have refused to grant permission for the song. I was highly skeptical that this agent was able to contact all four songwriters and get a straight answer from them within that time period, especially since they hadn’t even seen a screener of the film. I asked him whether money was an issue and told him that I was willing to negotiate. He said “Money is not an issue. They don’t want the song in the film”.

Of course, I don’t take no for an answer that easily. Especially not from some bureaucratic asshole who tries to stand in my way. I decided to contact the songwriters/band members myself.

An online search revealed contact information for Derek Forbes, founding member of Simple Minds. I emailed him and he responded telling me that he has no problem with me using the song for my film, and that I could send a screener directly to him for approval. I promptly sent him a screener via email. Clearly, the guy at EMI Music had lied to me -- he hadn’t even bothered contacting anyone from Simple Minds.

Following my principle of being bold and audacious, I decided to approach John Graham at Sony and pitch him one of my scripts. John Graham is the Creative Executive of Screen Gems, a Sony company responsible for producing movies such as Resident Evil, Underworld, Quarantine, and The Stepfather. Pretty big stuff.  His office is in the Screen Gems building, adjacent to the Robert Young building, where I work. I had met him there twice briefly when I hand delivered stuff to him.  

I took a few deep breaths, picked up my script and went to the sixth floor of the Screen Gems building.  He wasn't in, so I introduced myself to his pretty assistant and told her I would return.  I went back three hours later and he was in a meeting inside another office, so I waited on the couch outside his door.  I didn't want to come back a third time because that would make me look weak. Next thing I knew, the assistant pulled John out of his meeting for me.  "Matt's here to see you," she told him. I definitely wasn't expecting that.

"Hi John, sorry to interrupt your meeting there.  Could I please have five minutes of your time?" I asked.

"No problem.  Come right in."  He ushered me into his office.  Simple as that.

I formally introduced myself and told him I wanted some advice on how I could go about getting one of my scripts read by someone such as himself at Screen Gems.  John seemed like a nice guy. Young too -- somewhere around my age.  He gave me the classic "we don't accept unsolicited submissions" line, but elaborated further and encouraged me to keep knocking on doors. We talked a bit more, then I thanked him for being gracious and sharing his time and advice with me.

It's frustrating when you have the attention of a top Hollywood executive, with your script ready to go right under your arm, and yet they refuse to even look at the first page. No problem, there's always tomorrow. At least now John knows my name and face.  I'm sure we'll run into each other again.

I'm almost done with the edit and sound mix. I want to license the Simple Minds song "New Gold Dream" for the film so I've contacted the song's publisher. Hopefully it won't cost too much since it'll be for film festival screenings only. I shot the film with this song in mind and actually played it on location for the actors -- it matches the tone of the film perfectly. I'll try my best to get the film festival rights but if it doesn't work out I'll record my own music.

I had Alex photograph a specific image during the shoot that I want to use for the poster. It came out real well and my friend Jon, who is a graphic designer, is busy working on it.

It’s seven in the morning, I just got back from shooting STRING THEORY for twelve hours, and I can’t sleep. I scheduled the shoot until 6:00 AM and amazingly we got our last shot at 5:54 AM.

It all went very well. My gaffer Alex took a bunch of pictures -- I’ll post some here soon.

Today I held the third and last rehearsal session with my actors. Despite rehearsing only an hour each time, we covered a lot of ground. We went through each scene and I made sure everyone understood the characters, the story, and the intention behind each line. We also covered blocking. All this should save us a lot of time during the shoot and lead to a better movie. We’ll be shooting this Saturday, from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM. I doubt we’ll need the whole twelve hours but I scheduled it just in case.