Category: The Film

For some months I’ve been hinting at another major journey I was planning for later this year. I haven’t cancelled the trip, but I have put it on hold for a while. I’ll explain why, as the reasons deserve some discussion. Continue reading →

I’m coming to the end of a fun and varied series of preview screenings of Janapar, which culminated last weekend with a one-off movie night in London for followers of this blog. The event was a huge amount of fun, and the film went down better than James & I could ever have hoped for. Thanks to everyone who came along. You really made the night! (And my very real apologies to those I didn’t get time to speak to properly afterwards!) Continue reading →

I wrote recently about my developing plans for Janapar, and I know that there are lots of people who’ve been waiting to see it. So I’m really chuffed to announce a free ‘movie night’ next month, especially for my blog readers, on a late-June weekend in a central London venue. Continue reading →

[vimeo width=“770” height=“424”]http://vimeo.com/39529035[/vimeo] After a lot of head-scratching, many re-scripts, and two failed editing attempts in November and January, James and I sat down on Thursday last week with a gallon of coffee and spent a rather wired day in front of a few hundred hours of footage and a copy of Final Cut Pro. The video above is the result — the first theatrical trailer for Janapar — and we hope it’ll be the one that does the story justice. Some may be surprised that we haven’t exactly pandered to the adventure film genre. But if you’ve been following my… Continue reading →

Responses from the world’s major film festivals are beginning to trickle in. We’ve been making submissions since last autumn, and now we’re beginning to learn what has already been learnt by thousands of independent filmmakers before us: little short of a miracle will get an unknown, independent, first-time filmmaker a premiere at any of the most prestigious events on the festival calendar. Continue reading →

There are a number of possible routes to go down in order to put something like this in front of as many pairs of eyes as possible. The easiest would be to upload the thing to Youtube, hit ‘Publish’, and move on. But to take something to a wider audience? To lift it above the trillions of bytes of throwaway trash that swamps the net? To give the project longevity, purpose and pride? (And, let’s not forget, to somehow recoup the financial investment?) Youtube probably isn’t the best solution. Continue reading →

We respect and engage with transparency and honesty. Storytelling has become a huge focus after these last few years of travel — of generating stories to tell. So transparency and honesty will be a cornerstone. There’s nothing I hate more than corporate bullshit or self-aggrandisement. But we’re so numb with it that we’ve almost forgotten anything else exists. Here are some facts: Continue reading →

A little context — my brother is a journalist in Vancouver, and he conducted this interview with me for his blog. His questions provoked some interesting thoughts. Tell me about the development of the movie. Did you expect that it would become a fully fledged feature, rather than a simple documentary? The best way to understand this is to go back about five years to early 2007, when I was planning to cycle round the world. My best mate Andy and I had got a whole route round the planet mapped out, and we were absolutely dead set on doing… Continue reading →

It came as little surprise to receive the following email yesterday. Dear James, Continue reading →