What is it that they did? Last night at the O-Bar in Hollywood starting at 8 pm, a real buzz started to arise. People from all over the world were coming to see a trailer for a film that had not even been made. What right did these young filmmakers have to make a film backwards, and why by 9:30 were over a hundred people fixated on a 200 inch projection screen to watch a 2 min trailer, which many had already seen? My name is Jett Dunlap and I am an Executive Producer on this film. I saw this same little teaser trailer in October. My girlfriend had gotten home late and asked me to look at a preview to a film. She tells the story better, but needless to say I was not excited to see another "help me make my movie" pitch, though I watched it anyway to humor her. Then I saw IT. IT is something I looked for in movies, in women, and in products I represented. IT is the indescribable quality which separates greatness from oblivion that we too rarely see. This little glimpse, presented through the eyes of James Boyle and Azhur Saleem, hooked me. I ...

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/

Azhur Saleem and James Boyle have asked me to contribute my co-writer perspective of the "The Marionette Unit" filmmaking process to theirs. When Azhur sent me the first draft of The Marionette Unit, I had already been collaborating with him and James for about 12 months on other film and TV writing projects. We had established a rapport, which is essential in any enterprise, but especially so in creative projects. Our first creative meeting was for another feature-length idea, which we are still developing.  We met in a Starbucks on friday night after work and hashed out the initial plot in a couple of hours over cold coffee. The process was incredibly easy and organic. Ideas flowed and were assessed on one criterion only: Does it make the story better? I have had a number of writing collaborations in the past, but they have been ego driven: one party will feel strongly about something they had contributed and would fight for its inclusion in the final draft, to the detriment of the work itself. What I discovered in Starbucks that night was another writer who cared enough about story to check his ego at the door. Shortly after, Azhur asked me to pitch my ideas ...

Some really great news! The Marionette Unit has just been featured within an article on Ain’t It Cool News – the news source for loads of film, tv and comic-book related projects. This is really great as it means HUGE exposure for our film as that site gets read by millions of people across the world. The posting is AICN & Twitch Present International Eye Candy so thanks again to the guys at Twitch Film for including us in their roundup of films across the world. Scroll down halfway on the page to read the blurb: (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43632) "Steam punk? We got some of that. Coming soon out of the UK is THE MARIONETTE UNIT, a Victorian-era steam punk picture revolving around theatre performers manipulated and controlled by a massive steam-driven organ, the project currently gathering – if you’ll pardon the horrible pun – steam. Producers are putting together funding for both short and feature versions of the concept and, to sell the concept, have put together a fantastic proof-of-concept trailer."

Had a really interesting conversation with Paul the co-writer today during a story conference meeting we were having. We're in the process of really nailing the structure and tone of the film in treatment form before moving onto the actual screenplay draft. It's constantly evolving, characters are changing and morphing into others and levels of importance are constantly in flux. This is the fun part, but also pretty tough. It's easy to get lost - but it helps to work in a team. We both can keep each other in check. With an idea like this it's easy to let your imagination totally wander and you start getting an idea that would require a budget of $100m or something. Our aim with this film isn't to make a blockbuster type affair but more something like a dark thriller, a film that deals with the characters' lives and situations in a fantastical and visually interesting setting. We're having to strike the balance between taking the story to the limits and writing a script that can be produced on a reasonable budget. Normally you just worry about the story you want to tell - which is pretty much how we approached the short script version ...

Hey everyone, just a small update this time. Azhur and I wanted to say a huge thank you! You really have made our new year one of the best. From my previous message on the 2nd Jan, The Marionette Unit Inception trailer then had been watched over 10,000 times! No small feat I hear you say. I would totally agree with you. However after checking the stats and numbers this morning, I was floored! In 5 days since then, the trailer has been watched another 10,000 times. To quote the exact figures, it is 10,340 views in 5 days! That is incredible, I cannot believe it. A total of 20,350 views of the trailer. We wouldn't be in this position without every single one of those views. Also everyone who has sent it to their work colleagues, friends and family. I cannot wait to see what happens next, and as I've mentioned Azhur and I have lots of great things planned and some exciting news coming up. I will just close on this, if you like the trailer and the idea of the film, then help support us even more. Just by sending it out to someone else you know is a great help. The ...

Hey everyone, So 2010 continues to be great for The Marionette Unit. Azhur and I have loads of great things to tell you very soon. In the meantime, to help celebrate the new year, we are launching the redesigned home page for the official website. Call it v2.0 if you will. To see the new page click HERE During the coming weeks and months, we will be updating it with all your wonderful comments about the trailer (some of you may see yours already there). We will also be announcing events that you fantastic people can get involved with. Another new feature is a link to Azhur's Filmmaking blog on his official website. Azhur has a lot to say about his job and film in general, which is always a fantastic read. I urge you all to subscribe and keep up to date with his thoughts and ideas. Also if you would like to get in contact with Azhur and I, we have a new contact page HERE as well. Until next time, happy filmmaking James