If you like Symi, a spooky read and a creepy film, then this post might interest you. Below is the trailer for the film ‘The Thirteenth’ and some photos from the filming in 2013. This is not the theatrical release trailer, this is to attract distributors and sales agents.
The film is still not yet finished, but now, as I understand it, they have ‘locked’ the visuals. This means that the visual aspect of the film, the story telling, won’t be changed any more. It’s taken the new director a long time to get to this point as we know, but now the composer, Michael Bishop can complete his task and score the film.
While he is doing that, there will be some colour grading (enhancing or changing the colour of the film, lightening some places, darkening others) to give it a further visual depth. The start and end credits also need to be completed and the final sound mixed and layered over, in and out of the music. So, probably still a long way to go there; don’t put the popcorn on just yet.
What they (the production company) want us to do now is get as many people as possible to see this trailer on You Tube and to click the ‘like’ thumbs-up symbol so that when a potential distributor comes to see it they will see that it’s already popular and gathering interest. This will increase the likelihood of someone picking up the film and taking on board the job of getting it accepted for festivals, cinemas, TV, wherever they can get it sold. Then, once it starts to generate some income, all those people who were promised a small payment and a small % of the profits might actually start to see a little return on their time and investment. Mind you, they have to have all those folk signed up and under contract for that, so that’s going have to happen soon, presumably while the music is being added and the colour graded…
Anyway, that came in over the weekend so I thought I’d start the week off with the trailer, in case you have not already seen it. And, if you didn’t know: ‘The Thirteenth’ (which was originally called ‘The Judas Curse’, the title I gave the script when I wrote it) is based on my story ‘The Judas Inheritance’ though a much thinned down version of that story. ‘The Judas Inheritance’ is a spooky story told in first and third person, it’s a mystery thriller (with a few horror moments) and is completely set on a small Greek island in the time of economic crisis and rising suicide rates.
One of the underlying themes, for me, was to reflect the situation in Greece (the abandonment of the people by the government, the rise in suicides, etc.) in the story – each time the silver coins rise to the surface the surrounding community starts to die off – and it was all tied in with Symi history. (Though Symi is not mentioned as the island.) A lot of that is lost from the film as films always have to plane down the meat and subtleties of a novel in order to satisfy structure, runtimes, the actors, the producers, the director, the budget and even the makeup artist, it seems.
So, if you want the full story you need to read the book and you can find that here: The Judas Inheritance. Meanwhile, enjoy the trailer, see if you can spot anyone you know, anything you recognise and for more information, contact 1066 Productions.
