GUEST BLOG: Neil Thompson, Director of the forthcoming film Clubbed which opens in cinemas on January 16th 2009 (http://www.formosafilms.com)
CLUBBED was invited to screen at the Cinema Days event which took place at the Cineworld Leicester on 2nd October. The event is organised by Universal Pictures and Premier PR were looking after all things CLUBBED. The event is for regional journalists from all over the UK to see the best of the films that are getting released in the coming months.
I went up there with Rebecca Knapp from Route One Releasing (The UK distributor), Geoff Thompson, the writer and the actors Colin Salmon and Mel Raido who play Louis and Danny in CLUBBED respectively.
The reaction to the movie was amazing and the screening room was packed which is apparently rare for these occasions. (They are journalists after all and bar was another busy venue!)
We did a Q+A after the film chaired by Quentin Falk who grilled us on the main points of interest which was very lively and then all of us answered a host of questions from the audience which caused some debate! There was a lot of interest in Geoff’s real life story and how we decided which bits to put in the film and also which locations we utilised and how we handled the setting and period of the movie. The soundtrack also seemed to go down a storm and we had a lot of discussion over some of the great tracks in the film and how we managed to get the rights to use them.
Colin was asked about his training regime and how he got in shape to throw some convincing punches in the boxing sections. He readily admitted that it was all down to Geoff putting him on a diet and showing him how to cheat looking like an old pro on the bags and in the ring. Mel talked about hanging out with Geoff and “soaking him up” in order to get in to the role and his way of working to get the truth man.
We were inundated with more questions in that bar afterwards and Route One laid on a n 80s style meal with chicken Kiev, melon boat and black forest gateaux which seemed to raise a laugh form the assembled throng. People kept coming up to us to comment on the film and how it had moved them although that might be because Geoff was sitting there!
A brilliant event and a great start to the CLUBBED tour which next goes to Dinard in France to publicise the release there which I believe is outlined above. No sleep till Hammersmith as Lemmy once said and he knew what he was talking about when it came to this kind of malarkey!
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