Avoiding Oscars

Sitting here trying to work out what sites are actually safe to visit during the day; I'm trying to avoid finding out the Oscar results, since time-delays and work requirements meant that Pip and I were unable to watch 'em live, (as if often the case), and I've got to muddle through to 7.30pm without finding out the results if we're going to enjoy watching the show through this evening. The oscar show is one of our rituals; a few years back, we used to take it extremely seriously, and watch every flick nommed in every category just so we could have an educated opinion. A few years' worth of worthless shit like A Beautiful Mind picking up every award under the sun kind of beat the fun out of doing that, though, (shit, there goes my chance of ever working with Ron Howard), but the tradition of watching the ceremony straight through with a bunch of good snack food and a bottle of bubbly still holds true. But where is safe today? Where can I actually visit, in the real world or the virtual one? I have BBC News set as my homepage, so everytime I open a browser I now have to avert my eyes. And i know some bugger will get me with a scrolling tickertape somewhere.

Gave the current cut of Hellbride over to Phil and Richard, our scoring guys, at the weekend. They've done some amazing work thus far, and I can't wait to see it all coming together. Pip sat down and watched the current cut yesterday, which is the first time she's seen it since first assembly. It's all very exciting. I should probably start looking into booking a venue for the cast and crew prem pretty soon.

Oh, and I'd also like to point you fine folks over towards http://www.cinescare.com/index.php?page=stories&family=discoveries where the Cinescare folks ran an interview with me, along with reviews of KK and TrashHouse.

Rock on,
Pat

James Kavaz

Went to a funeral yesterday.

Less than two weeks ago, our friend and colleague James Kavaz, who played Harris in KillerKiller and Lesley Meadows in Hellbride, died. He was only in his mid-forties, and had only been diagnosed with cancer about a week beforehand. What can you say about something like that? All the words become obvious and trite.

Having said that, here are my own trite ones for the record. James was a fucking superb actor and a great bloke to have a pint with. I cast him for Hellbride, then watched his audition tape again and offered him KK too without another audition, (despite the characters being vastly different). He had a way of nailing a character down; of bringing them kicking and screaming off the page and onto the screen.

I have no doubt that I would have kept casting James Kavaz in each of my movies from now until retirement, but things don't always work out the way they should. It's strange to be surrounded by his face on everything from the KK poster to the Hellbride footage that I'm still editing; all the while being painfully aware that we're never going to actually see him again.

Words fail.

Sleep well, mate.