Philip
I am really gutted you have tried to attack both myself and Sean publicly on this, and i too regret that things didn’t work out on Pork Pies, I have said from the start that that film was written as a reason to work with yourself and mike, the parts were written for you. So no one is more gutted about this than me.
We have spent an hour doing a readthru of the script and 1 and a half hour doing a rehearsal, for this i apologise, i realise that for an hour of rehearsal there is more time involved with trying to organise an evening, ie getting to the venue and moving things around to be available. For this i am truly sorry.
It is true that I have been talking about this project with you and others for quite a while now, and it has taken longer than originally anticipated to get it moving, this has been due to rewrites, props and location hunting. I have also began to storyboard it, I have also said that this is a more ambitious project than i am used to working on, so there is a sharp learning curve involved.
I am guilty of having a job, this i do admit to, but i am afraid that i have to pay the bills somehow. It would be foolish of me or anyone else to go into short film-making as a full time job. The success rate for film-makers is such a tiny percentage. I never claimed to be a hollywood director or anything of the sort. For me film-making is a hobby an interest and a long term goal as it is for any and almost all of the members of egomotion.
I am afraid that there has been some major confusion arising from our phone conversations and text messages over the past few weeks. It was you not I initiated the concern about whether or not you would be able to make the shoot. You said you had too many commitments on and don’t know if yourself or Mick Nagle would be able to do the film. I immediately responded that i would try to accommodate yourselves, i said that we could work something out.
Following this conversation i received a txt message from Mick, (who i respect for his honesty and professionalism) He stated that he did not want to participate in the film due to a creative difference he had about a pair of sunglasses, he make it clear he did not want to work on the short if i wanted your character to wear the sunglasses which we had agreed on in rehearsals. To me this was a clear indication that Mick did not want to participate in the film, which is his God given right, at no time did i get annoyed with this and i completely respected his decision, a few days later you yourself called me and explained that you were up the walls, that you had a paid acting job just came in and you couldn’t afford to turn it down, which made you even less available for pork pies, i said i completely understand and that there are no hard feelings. I couldn’t expect you to commit to a no budget job if i knew you had to turn down a paid role, this is obvious.
What i took from this conversation was that i now had to go looking for some new actors for pork pies. I then posted a topic on the forum for any others actors that would like to act in the short film, at this stage you then contacted me again and asked me to take the topic down, that you and mick wanted to play the parts, that you always wanted to play these parts. you said that i would have to work around you to have you in the film, you said you were available from about 2-7 any weekday, which as most of us know is impossible for anyone with a full time job to be able to commit to.
At this stage it became increasingly difficult to figure out how i was going to work with you, I had the feeling that you did not really want to take part in the film, that you weren’t happy with my creative decisions or the time that the film would be shot. I have written the film, i want to create the film, i want to do as good a job I can of it, I felt that there is no way i could have some one else no matter who they were dictate terms to me on my own film. I would have expected you to have understood this as you yourself have created and directed films also.
I then approached Sean who "as always" is involved with Pork Pies, Sean agreed that there is no way we could get this film shot to the level we want it done at if there was going to be this much confusion already before we even began shooting, we both made the decision that it would be best if we got different actors to play the main parts, it was unfair of us to expect you to commit to something when you had so much going on at the moment. We had hoped that we could work with both yourself and mick at a later date when your schedule became free. Sean said he would contact you and so i left it at that.
Why you would feel the need to attack us about this publicly has truly shocked me, I really thought that we had a friendship beyond the world of film-making, we have had some good fun over the past months at the meet n greets and future shorts night, we have supported both your play and your film by attending your play, we have attended your production meetings, we have screened your film at future shorts, we provided you with a platform to discuss your film and future projects, we have posted searches for actors and crew on you behalf on the forum we have even mentioned your name in publicity we have received in newspapers, so if you feel we have wasted your time then we apologise.
I would like wish you all the best in your future endeavours and hope that this unfortunate set of circumstances can be put behind us.
yours faithfully
Daniel O’Connell