A Number - Airing Tonight on HBO

Starring Tom Wilkinson and Rhys Ifans, A Number tells the story of a world where human cloning has become a reality. Two genetically identical men confront their father in separate, chilling encounters, each looking for explanations into their shared past.

Based on a play, A Number debuted at The Royal Court Theatre in London in 2002. The production was directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) and designed by Ian MacNeil and starred Michael Gambon and our latest James Bond - Daniel Craig. The play won the 2002 Evening Standard Award for Best Play. It made its U.S. premiere in 2004 in a production starring Sam Shepard and Dallas Roberts. 


I'm always curious to see how plays translate onto the screen, even if it's for the small screen. Themes about identity and father-son dynamics have been fodder for many dramas before, so this could be an interesting twist.

RIP Dan O'Bannon / 1946-2009

Some influential artists you know by name, others merely by their work. Dan O'Bannon was one of the latter. Over a career spanning almost 50 years, this writer (Alien, Lifeforce, Total Recall), director (Return of the Living Dead) and all around amazing guy helped to push the boundaries of pulp sci-fi into heady stratospheres.

 

O'Bannon got his start writing Dark Star, a low-budget cult sci-fi short directed by fellow USC student John Carpernter while they were still in school. Started as a short, it eventually was expanded into a feature (how they managed to get the rights from USC is a feat unto itself)

But my favorite O'Bannon project never saw the light of day. In the heady, early 1970's, director Alejandro Jodorowsky (of mind-melting El Topo & Holy Mountain fame) approached O'Bannon to script a science fiction film to rival his psychedelic classics. With Production Design by Morpheus & H.R Giger, Music Pink Floyd and starring David Carradine and Salvador Dali (in the role of the insane Emperor), Jodorowsky's version of Frank Herbert's Dune is one of those mystical 'what if's' of history that Hollywood is littered with.

http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/jodorowsky.asp

Dan O'Bannon's wife had this to say last week: "My Great Heart finally lost his 30-year battle against Crohn's disease. The O'Bannon Company will go on - I have to publish the Necronomicon which he finally finished, and of course there are scripts to sell. The website was almost finished, and it will be up sometime soon."

RIP Dan. Tonight there is one less star in the sky.

8 Ways In-Vitro Meat Will Change Our Lives

Manufacturing meat in a lab, that's Clay Galt's "Meat Machine" in TWM. So sci-fi right? Think again.

From h+ magazine:

8 Ways In-Vitro Meat Will Change Our Lives

PUBLICITY FROM A DYING TECHNOLOGY

Working through a rewrite this weekend and came across this article. Written a little over a year ago while filming the pre-vis footage, the story made front page in my hometown, Caldwell, TX. A good portion of Things We've Made will be shot there: the Donor's house, the abandoned farm, as well as tons of transitional lonely highway shots.

Journalist Roy Sanders wrote the article and got us access to Barney Homeyer's cornfield.

(Click image to open in new window)

Thank you, Roy. Thank you, Barney. Get well, Newspaper. And we'll see y'all VERY SOON, Caldwell!

io9 Finds Video Clone Collection

io9 has picked up on YouTube user Clonelab79 who has uploaded a collection of videos that mainly have to do with women and their evil clones. Read the post here.



There have been plenty of depictions of clones as monsters, threats and purely evil. Our clone Christopher just wants to find himself. Literally.

TWM - AFM - VISUALS

As promised, here are a couple of pics from the AFM (American Film Market) pitch last Saturday. Those chandeliers were amazingly distracting, but we somehow managed to rile the audience into enthusiastic frenzyfied applause...

POST-PITCH

Back from AFM and the pitch session couldn't have gone better. I'll post pictures as they come in. People actually started applauding in the middle of our delivery. A crowd of 300 people, moved by our lonely clone movie. 300 people, with very good taste...

Off topic, but I love this photo.

I wish I was best friends with a robot when I was that age.
Jealous of those acid-wash jeans, too.

Photo by high_entropy. Check out some of his other work here.

History-Making Holstein

From Keloland TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota...
"For more than a decade, companies have been cloning cows in an effort to create new medications to treat a wide range of illnesses.  It all started with a with a steer named Charlie, who's living out his retirement years on a farm in South Dakota.."

Pitching at the American Film Market

Come see me and An, Producer of Things We've Made talk about the project as part of the American Film Market's "Pitch Me!" Event. We, along with the eight other films in the Film Independent lab will be doing our pitches in front of an audience of 300 people. A panel of producers will give us feedback. Say hi if you drop by.

Saturday, 7 November, 2009
9:00am – 12:30pm
Fairmont Miramar Hotel (101 Wilshire Boulevard)
Santa Monica, CA

Cloning Scientist Found Guilty

Writes reporter Ju-Min Park for the LA Times, "The Seoul court also ruled that Hwang, 56, who became a national hero after he claimed to be the first to successfully clone human stem cells, had partially fabricated the results of his research. He was given a two-year sentence that was suspended provided he stayed out of trouble with the law for the next three years."

Read the full article:

Disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk guilty of embezzlement

And please, no jokes about the dude's name. He's got enough problems as is...

More from Valerie Collective

This time a look ahead full of warmth and Italo-disco from La Bionda Orchestra. Thanks, VC!

TWM Accepted into Producer's Lab

Very happy to announce that Producer An Tran and Things We've Made has been selected for the the 2009 Film Independent Producers Lab. We were honored to be selected as an IFP Emerging Narrative Finalist, so another recognition shows the continuing appeal of this script.

You can check out some short mentions in the trades here and here and here. Congratulations, An!

Besides finding inspiration from other films, TWM has been amazed with the overall aesthetic of The Valerie Collective. Whether it's visual references or the tracks they are laying down, these artists definitely have left an imprint in shaping the low-fi look and feel of our film.

Cold Souls in Theaters

After stellar reviews at Sundance, Cold Souls is making it's way to select theaters. Another example of indie sci-fi, the film has been praised for the performance by actor Paul Giammatti.

Moon in Theaters

We admit, it was a little disconcerting when we first heard the premise of the film Moon: Sam Rockwell plays an isolated pilot on the moon who encounters a clone of himself.

Kind of sounds similar to a certain project we've been working on, doesn't it? Then we saw it at Sundance and were struck by the deft direction of Duncan Jones and the ability to show this world on a $5 million budget. It's one of our favorite movies of the year. It's also completely different from Things We've Made, but inspiring nonetheless with how it was executed and Rockwell's tour-de-force performance. Moon launches with a limited U.S. release today.

Moon was also noted for being one of three productions at Sundance that dealt with themes of science. Click here to read the article, Sundance Boldly Welcomes Sci-Fi Flicks to Fest. Besides The Clone Returns to Home (yes, another clone movie), there was also Cold Souls which received a warm reception. Audiences usually associate science ficition in cinema with big budgets and lots of CGI, but these films show that creative thinking, lower budgets and in camera effects are proving it's more than possible to bring this to screen.

Folk + Minimal = Electronic Druids

This is a long forgotten album from one of my favorite blogs as of late.

Death in June/Les Joyaux De La Princesse

Great textures, sad melodies. Atmosphere out the ass. Truly beautiful music from 1989.

O.F.F.

Trevin

Puppy + Sea Anemones = Super Fantastique'

The 6th Day got there first with REPET:



But this article shows that fact doesn't give a fuck about fiction...
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17003

Thanks, Dr. Feng.

Onward, Forward & Forever...

Trevin

'I Can Clone A Human Being'

How appropriate to christen this blog about our little cloning movie with a hard slap from the real world. 

Via the UK's Independent - Fertility expert: 'I can clone a human being'

Now I don't want to comment or pass judgment on the morality of cloning. That's best left to people much smarter than myself. What I am interested in is creating a forum (and film) that gets people talking about the social implications of genetic engineering - how it will reshape our society - whether good or bad.

Hopefully, in the next few months, as Things We've Made gets rolling, we'll be able to do just that.

Onward, Forward & Forever...

Trevin