It is now coming up to almost two years since we started this project. As some of you know this began as a 25-minute short film script (which to also add reached the Quarter-Finalist stage at the 14th Fade In Screenwriting Awards in LA). We produced the trailer as a way to raise funding for the short film. The finance for the trailer was helped by the Images Festival Award and they have been hugely supportive of the project from its very small, yet ambitious beginnings. We also had great support from friends, family and fans from across the world that donated their hard-earned cash to help fund the trailer, the website and allow us to keep building this world. So thank you again everyone for your faith in us! Since then the trailer has generated a HUGE amount of interest. So much so that our direction shifted away from making this into a short film but expanded to a feature film. Our trip out to LA in early 2010 was the final vindication that the world of The Marionette Unit belonged on the big screen. We met with lots of people from different parts of the industry, wether they were managers, ...

It's been quite a while since any of us has updated this blog and for that we apologise! We've been hard at work writing the script and really there's not much more to report during the process other than plodding through it and getting it done. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has supported us so far in the project, whether it's with your time or the many people who donated money through the website's first iteration last year. All your help and support has meant that we've got to where we are now, giving us the ability to keep working on this project with as much time as we would want. It's been a hard slog but we feel we're drawing nearer to the end of the development and writing stage. There's still some more to go and in due course we'll post some details about the whole writing experience so far. In the meantime we wish everyone a Happy Holidays and wish you a fantastic New Year. We look forward to updating you more regularly in 2011 as we hopefully start to pick up more steam with the project! - The Marionette Unit team -

Images Festival - 5e Grand prix européen des Premiers Films The Marionette unit appeared at the 5th Annual Images Festival in Vevey, Switzerland for the month of Sept. We were invited along to the opening of the festival on the 4th Sept to take part in the ceremony and attend the first official screening of our Inception Trailer. While we were at the ceremony, we were awarded "1st Grand Prize" for our work so far on the film. It is an amazing honour to be recognised for the film - even more so seeing as we haven't shot the film yet! It was a great honour to win the award, we hope the first of many. Merci Beaucoup Images Festival Asylum Steampunk Festival, Lincoln, England The Marionette Unit appeared at the UKs biggest Steampunk festival called "Asylum" Over 900 people attended the weekends events. The film's producer James Boyle held a special presentation to the visitors and community members. James got to meet a wide range of people from authors, illustrators and performers. During the presentation he talked about the films inception, its current state during the writing process, and also showed the teaser trailer and exclusive concept artwork. The response was amazing. Everyone loved it! The best part ...

Hello everyone, It has been a while since Azhur and I wrote on the blog. As our previous post mentioned, we haven't forgotten about the project or our amazing fans. We have been working very hard on the feature script for The Marionette Unit. Azhur, Paul and myself cannot wait to tell the story and make the film, so look forward to lots of exciting news very soon.... In the meantime, we have some exciting news to tell now. The Marionette Unit is going to be appearing at two festivals in Sept! On the 4th of Sept, The Marionette Unit will be appearing at the Festival Des Arts Visuels De Vevey – Images 10 in Switzerland These were the guys who supported the film during the very early stages. We will be screening the trailer along with brand new concept artwork that hasn’t been revealed online. We will also get a chance to talk on stage to the festival goers about the film. www.images.ch/2010/ Then on the 11th Sept, we will be at The Asylum, the Premier UK Steampunk gathering run by the Victorian Steampunk Society in the historic city of Lincoln. We will have a specific booth there to promote the film and to talk to people ...

A little update to let you all know the latest on The Marionette Unit. You'll have noticed we've been a bit quiet on the blogging front and rest assured, it means we're hard at work on the feature script. We've had some great feedback on the trailer, from the public, Steampunk enthusiasts and industry members alike. It may be quiet on the site a little while longer as we put the finishing touches on our draft and we'll get some news out to everyone as soon as we start sending the script out to our contacts here in London and LA. In the meantime, keep spreading the word of the film to as many people as you can! Thanks

It’s been a while since I’ve written on here about the film and it’s because we’ve been busy writing away on the idea. As an update, Paul and I are forging through the script and it’s shaping up nicely. The process has been amazing though. It’s important to us to try and get as much of the idea nailed before we sit down at our laptops on Final Draft and start putting it together. The reason for this is just to get the overall idea organised in our heads – and it’s MUCH easier to change things at this stage. You don’t want to get to page 90 and realise there’s a logic problem making you have to go back to page 1. Also, working on index cards, where each card represents a turning point or scene, means you don’t worry about the details or dialogue, even characterisation. You just work out the structure of the film. A lot of time was spent discussing the idea, what kind of film we wanted to make and what we wanted to say as filmmakers. All of this is changeable, so it’s a case of moving around and slowly narrowing down our choices till we’ve ...

James, Paul and I are heading off to LA this week to promote The Marionette Unit and help secure funding for the short film. We're aiming to meet a lot of industry people who could be interested in helping on the film. It'll also be the first time in almost a year that we'll all be in the same room together, as myself and James are in London and Paul is in Vancouver. The long-distance writing has created its own set of challenges, but we've managed to soldier through with emails and late night/early morning video chats. Now to have the chance to talk across a table is going to be great. It'll give us the much-needed time to nail down the feature script. It's exciting and pretty nerve-wracking at the same time as we're going to be road-testing the trailer with a lot of people who do this purely for a living! Keep up with all the news as it happens either on this blog. Hopefully there'll be some pretty good news coming out of the next two weeks here!

Hey everyone, Azhur recently was interviewed by the website www.behindballet.com.au. They are based in Melbourne, Australia and it is the blog of The Australian Ballet. Looking at dance through the prism of fashion, music, art and literature, they unravel the stories behind their productions and mine ballet’s juicy past to find the new in the old and the old in the new. They took an interest in The Marionette Unit because of our central character Georgette being a ballet dancer. It is a great interview. Azhur talks about how the original idea came about with myself. He also mentions his inspirations for the dance scene in the movie as well as some of his film inspirations. Read it at : http://www.behindballet.com/making-the-marionette-unit/