It's a Long Road...

The waiting game continues. The business plan is finished; the Accountants have given it the thumbs up, Ken the Producer has given it the thumbs up. Now the Lawyers have it and once they are happy we can get the plans printed and start sending them out. The business plan has taken nearly 8 months to complete - the length of time it would have taken to make the entire movie!

I have a small list of potential investors to approach and some very good contacts at Pinewood Studios. Of course there is no guarantees that these particular people will fund the film, but its a good place to start. I will also be approaching some Business Angel networks, which means I'll be able to pitch to investors there too.

Next week I’m off to America with my buddy Chris Jones to do some filming for a big corporate video, so as soon as I get back we should be able to get the ball rolling. I'll be visiting the Rhode Island Film Festival so I'll be gathering contacts there too.

Will keep you informed…

Simon on Local Radio

Fosseway Radio, our local radio station have been following our progress with Kaleidoscope Man and recently did an interview with me which was filmed. I feel it's important to get publicity for the movie as soon as possible, and where better to start than your own home town.

Fosseway have been very enthusiastic and supportive about the film. So many thanks guys, I'll make sure you get an invite to the premier.

Business Plan Cover - New Sexy Design

Here is the new design of the Business Plan cover. We've used images from the trailer and opening scene of the film and I'm really delighted by it. I wanted it to look fresh, original and exciting - a movie I'd definitely want to go and see.

The little green figure on the top row with his back to us is Matt the Storyboard Artist. The exploding city is Birmingham (with new CGI buildings added). That's the M6 at the bottom of the picture. It was shot at around 1am back in November!

Click on the image to download a high quality copy.

Storyboarding Kaleidoscope Man

For me, having effective storyboards is an essential part of making this movie. I was extremely lucky to find a very talented young artist called Matt Allsopp who was fundimental in designing the spaceships and creating the really impressive look of the film.

Please see below a little video featuring Matt and myself which I hope you will find of interest.



There is still a lot of storyboarding and design work to be done and as soon as we get the finance in place, storyboarding will be the first area we focus on.

Let me know what you think...

Raising Funds. A Difficult Road Ahead?

The wording on the Kaleidoscope Man business plan is now finished. Its full of very detailed information about tax breaks and the various rules and implications of investing in films. The Accountants have worked on in for weeks and have brought in tax specialists to help.

All we have to do now is get the Lawyers to vet it and we can send it out.

It dawned on me yesterday that we now have to find wealthy individuals to send it to and all of a sudden I'm nervous. Where are we going to find these people? Because of the type of business plan we have, we can only send it out to around 100 people, so we have to be very targeted.

I'm going to start listing everyone I've ever known who may be in a position to help. I'm not sure the list will be that long though. I just hope we don't send out loads of copies and get no responses.

I must stay positive.

The Accountants Have Finished

Our Accountant called me today with the great news that they've finished their work on the business plan. Ken and I are popping in to see them tomorrow to go through their notes.

After that, the plan will weave its way to our Lawyers for one final check over and then we can send it out to potential investors.

Many thanks to Rashmin and Mervyn at Parker Cavendish, for their fantastic support.

Kaleidoscope Man - What Dreams Are Made Of....

It’s funny, but since I was about 15 I’ve been planning “the big one”, the sci-fi movie to end all movies and over the years, I’ve been bouncing ideas around my skull. A kind of ‘War of the Worlds’ thing, big epic, thrilling, etc, but because I’ve painted this enormous picture on a Cecil B. DeMille scale, I’ve been too scared to tackle it. I tried writing it once, but it just seemed so gargantuan that whatever words were on the page, it just wasn’t right.

So the idea for Kaleidoscope Man came as a sort of second hand substitute for not being able to face ‘the big one’. Initially, I had three ideas for this, my next movie:

1. A story set in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
2. A woman gets revenge on the man who raped her mother when she was a child.
3. A man who wakes from one dream only to find himself in another dream, and so on.

I knew each of these ideas had something, but they were all to short for a feature film. I decided to blend them all together into a sort of anthology. But it was difficult, because they were all so different.

I’d also just done this ‘sort your life out’ course, called the Land Mark Forum, which had an incredible impact on me, and I wanted to incorporate some of the positive messages I’d picked up from the course, into the story.

I tend to do a lot of my brain storming in the bath. I just mull things over and usually ideas pop up. (I actually came up with my first film Written in Blood whilst lounging in a steaming tub!). I spent many hours soaking and thinking about how to combine each of these ideas.

But it was one hot summers afternoon, when Foot & Mouth was rampant in the British Countryside, that the idea hit me: ALIENS! THEY WERE ABDUCTED BY ALIENS! It struck me like a blast from God, and it felt monumental. From that moment on, these simple ideas became the first draft for Kaleidoscope Man.

Many drafts followed, which I tested on friends and family. During one family holiday to Majorca I read it aloud to my two brother-in-laws, Rob and Jeff, I continually picked their brains on the smallest details of the story. This went on for two weeks, driving them both insane. For me however, it was a fascinating insight into how the rest of the world would feel about the story. And it worked – I just knew it!

After about three years, I met a fellow Writer/Director Simon Bovey, who did a re-write. He ironed out any issues and did a dialogue polish. It’s now a sensational script with more twists, turns and emotion than I could ever have imagined. I really do believe it will move, touch, thrill and inspire the audience, leaving them with the feeling that life really is great, and with that wonderful thing we all thrive on. Hope.

What started as a substitute for ‘the big one’ has now become ‘the big one’. And for me it just proves yet again that life has an interesting way of dealing your cards.

I just so hope that the money to make it will come soon.

New Kaleidoscope Man Concept Art Added

I've added more concept designs and storyboards from the movie to this blog - just scroll down to the bottom of this page and check out some of Matt's superb images.

Let me know what you think!

New Edit Of Kaleidoscope Man Trailer

This is the very latest edit of the Kaleidoscope Man trailer. Not hugely different from the older version except that I've now changed the opening logo (the company we are funding the film through) and have added a voice over.

After showing the first trailer to a few colleagues, they felt I should give a very brief idea of what the film is about. I did get a much longer script recorded for it, but it just didn't feel right with the music and dynamic images, so I kept it very simple.

I hope you like it!

Kaleidoscope Man - The Story

I am often asked what Kaleidoscope Man is about. So here is a brief outline of the story....

Jack awakes, encased in a coffin shaped pod, on a thin ledge in a giant cavern. The last thing he remembers was locking up and leaving his job as the head of a psychiatric care centre for people with mental difficulties.

Suddenly, the ledge shatters and Jack hurtles into the dark abyss below. Falling and falling, eventually he hits the ground, but instead of smashing violently against it, he falls right through it. To his absolute horror, he is blasted out into deep space. Jack had been in no giant cavern, but the belly of a colossal spaceship.

Jack stirs to find himself on the beach of a strange alien planet. As he struggles to take in the gravity of his situation, three of his patients have also escaped the ship. How on earth did they all get there?

Three different stories haunt them, each with the same three characters. Harriet: a loyal friend with a dark past. Samantha: a girl with a damned vision for mankind. Floyd: a misguided man, with delusions of being the next James Bond. Each story has a terrifying conclusion and each has a bizarre link to how they all got on board the spaceship. Jack realises that he must face up to the true horrors of their situation and find a way back to Earth where his beloved wife, Mandy, holds the key to what has really happened.

But they are alone and desperate, and stuck on an alien planet, millions of light years away from Earth, and the aliens are coming to get them…

Kaleidoscope Man is a story about redemption for our characters and their place in the world. An original heart-stopping thriller with dramatic twists and turns and a conclusion that will leave the audience inspired and elated. A roller coaster ride that explores the depths of our human emotions and how we must value our fragile place in this universe.

The Business Plan - Nearly Ready for Investors

Ken Tuohy (the Producer of Kaleidoscope Man) and I have prepared a shooting schedule and production budget. To make the film to the level we would like, we need to raise £2.3 million. We expect to get at least 25% of this through our UK Regional Screen Agency, Screen West Midlands, who have already invested considerably in the development of the film. The other £75% we hope to raise from Private Investors.

The Business plan will be finished around the middle of July and be ready to send out to Investors.

The plan has taken much longer than I originally hoped because we have set the company up utilizing the EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme), which means investors, can get extremely good tax breaks, making their investment a lot less risky. This has been a very complicated and frustrating process due to the attention to detail required. Our Lawyers and Accountants have been fantastic though, dotting the I's and crossing the T's, and I'm very proud of the document. It's bright, colorful, exciting and really highlights the fantastic opportunity the film could bring - I really hope we can find some investors who are as excited about making the film as we are.

Designing Kaleidoscope Man

A big part of making a movie like K-Man is in the planning. I knew from the outset that the film was going to be extremely visual and when writing the script there was a lot of exposition explaining some of the spectacular set peices, spaceships and locations. This made the story seem clunky and over complicated and I knew I needed to be able to show people exactly what I was after, quickly and powerfully.

My Nephew, Steve Cheshire was teaching at the local art college and told me to look at the work of one of his students, Matt Allsopp. When I saw Matt pictures my jaw hit the floor. This 18 year old was producing work to the quality of Ralph McQuarrie (the original concept artist on the Star Wars movies). So we met, he read the script and came up with about 5 images that he felt summed up Kaleidoscope Man.

Well, to say he hit the nail on the head was an understatment. The guy nailed it, absolutley and completely. At last I had a look for the film and over the next few months, Matt produced some 500 storyboards and concepts for the film. I've added a hand full of his early works and hope to produce an 'Art Of' booklet when the film comes out.

To find out more about Matt, visit him at: www.matthewallsopp.com

A Bit of Back Story

For those who know me, you'll know that I've been banging on about this new movie of mine for years, and to date, you've only seen clips and trailers.

The truth is getting Kaleidoscope Man funded really has been a struggle. I did raise a significant amount of money a few years ago which went towards buying a large amount of high end HD kit to make the film with (and to help my existing corporate business).

However, I was promised a very large sum by a Canadian Investor who constantly assured me that the money was coming. Sadly, it never saw the light of day and as I'd spent a bit to much of my own money developing the project, it ended up sinking my company. Luckily, Screen West Midlands invested a significant amount into the project which enabled me to continue developing the script, produce some storyboards and to create the opening scene of the film.

Getting my fingers burnt made me sit back and think about things. When I was young I could afford to take risks, but now with a mortgage and a young family, I had to be stable. So I enlisted the help of a Producer friend of mine, Ken Tuohy. Ken has worked in the movie business for over thirty years, starting on the Beatles movies, Magical Mystery Tour and Let it be. He's worked with every movie star under the sun including John Wayne, Sean Connery, Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson. If anyone can help me get this film moving, he certainly will. Apart from anything else, he believes in the script and he believes in me, which is the best place to start. Ken has introduced me to the right Lawyers, Accountants, Casting Directors, PR people and Investors. It's just a matter of time before the money comes in, I'm sure of it.

Another guy who has been invaluable to the project is Writer/Director, Simon Bovey. Simon helped me turn the script into something that is now world class. It's exciting, inspiring and beautifully written.

Check Out the New Pilot for Kaleidoscope Man

This is the pilot I've been working on for the last three years with CGI Company, Screenburn Animation. The aim is to show investors the type of movie Kaleidoscope Man will be. A lot of time and money has gone into to it, and I'm delighted with it.

We've done a very professional business plan which will include a DVD with this pilot and the opening sequence of the film. The Lawyers are currently raking over the details of the plan and hopefully it should be ready to go out in early July. I can't wait!!!

Sunday night and back in the office again

Well I've done it. This is my first blogg. Very exciting....