Hit the Big Time - Episode 1...

I think Hit the Big Time was one of the first projects I blogged about, back when I was all about full disclosure and telling it like it is because I figured no one I actually knew would be reading this. It seems like a very long time ago now. Here's brief summary from memory, although if you want a more accurate depiction of how it all went down you can click the label at the bottom of this blog.

So back when Ten Dead Men was in the final stages of production I was contacted by JC Mac who played one half of Parker and Garrett, the two bungling hitmen in that film. He wanted to do a comedy short based on the same two characters with the idea to develop it as a feature at a later date. He also gave me a list of locations he was looking at filming in. I came up with an idea about a grudge between two aging B-movie actors that the two hitmen get involved with. I wrote a draft. Some time later I got another draft back which had gone through some minor changes and had three other names on it. Wasn't too pleased with this but it was done and the film was in the process of being shot.

The London and US shoots happened almost immediately which was a pleasant surprise. I now know from my own experience that despite being the most logistically difficult and most expensive stage of the process, once you get into production on a project it usually gets done pretty quickly. Post-production does not get done quickly - not when you don't have much money to pay for it. I think they went through a number of editors and had all kinds of issues with transferring footage between the US and here before it was done.

It was finally finished in November 2009 and was screened in LA - I couldn't go but a few friends of mine did and said they enjoyed it. Since then it's been screened at a couple of festivals in the UK but I think a decision was made early on to release it as a web-series. This makes sense - the film is around 30 minutes long and it takes a lot to get people to watch something that length online. Plus it moves between two countries and four cities so it's kind of episodic already.

I never got to see the final film so I'm watching it now for the first time too. I'm glad it's finally finished and available to see as it represents a lot of work from all involved. Hope you enjoy it, please comment on the Youtube page if you do. If you don't you are welcome to comment here, although one of the few advantages of being one of four writers is that I can blame everyone else for the bits that may not work.



If you want to find out more there's a Facebook Group here and a website here.