Part 27
Every once in a while, I sit down and take stock of what I’m doing and where I’m going. It’s vitally important to set goals in life and, as one grows older, it’s sometimes hard to keep focused on the way forward. I am determined to achieve a number of key objectives before this old body wears out. I’ve seen far too many people of my age and even considerably younger who have simply given up and succumbed to their failures.
So, where do I stand?
I have numerous ongoing small projects that I work on, on a day-to-day basis, but I have never lost sight of two major projects that I have worked on for some years.
The first of which has been my determination to have at least one major international movie project successfully screened and streamed before I hang up my boots. I’ve been modestly successful already with six pictures screened, two of them internationally, seven television drama and comedy series screened on South African Broadcasting Corporation’s channels, as well as numerous documentaries, which garnered seven international awards.
However, it’s a bit like being a good boxer who was a contender but never won the world title! I know I have more to achieve.
I have written a screenplay that has been very well received by professionals in Britain and in Hollywood. My partners and I are currently in the process of raising the money to make it. This is the nightmare of the creative person. Many years ago, the famous Hollywood director Billy Wilder (Some like it Hot with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, The Apartment and Sunset Boulevard) said, “When I was young man, making a movie was 90% creative and 10% business. Today, it’s 90% business and 10% creative!”
And that was about fifty years ago. It hasn’t gotten any better since then. So, much as I would love to devote all my working time to writing and directing, I often have had to spend years learning and overcoming the vagaries of raising money for a project that so many financiers regard as nebulous and high risk. In fact, it isn’t; so, one approaches the development of a movie project as one would any industrial endeavour. It’s not called the Movie Industry for nothing!
Due to the ceaseless demand for movie product, a good story made by real professionals with a realistic budget has every chance of making good money and, at worst position, at least breaking even. Yes, of course, I’d love to make decent money out of my movie but, above all, the creative person within me wants to show that I’m capable of competing with the best.
Which brings me to the second project that occupies more and more of my time. You’ve guessed it – ExoBrain!
When I first met Peter Warren about five years ago, I had already been sold on the ExoBrain software concept by Alan Douglas, a friend of mine from East Grinstead in Sussex, UK. Peter was looking for someone to write a “warts and all” book about his life and his eventual creation of the ExoBrain system. He wanted the book to cover every aspect of his journey in life through to the development of ExoTech, a technology that will completely revolutionize computing.
The book will cover his life in depth, both successes and failures, as well as any potential “secrets,” facts already known that journalists and others love to dig up as soon as a person becomes successful. After all, if everything is discussed upfront, then there’s no opportunity to sensationalize it.
A second book has now been suggested as well, which will probe into the near future after ExoBrain has been successfully launched and is creating a massive effect on the way in which the world of tomorrow will communicate. I started writing the book but actual world events have become so turbulent and unpredictable that I decided to hold back on it until global developments become clearer.
Nevertheless, the intention is to have both books written and available by the time of ExoBrain’s launch, which is, of course, dependent in turn on the raising of the funding that will enable ExoBrain to burst onto the world’s markets with maximum impact.
The longer I work with the ExoBrain team, the more parallels I see in it to the complexities of raising money for movies. It is the age-old battle between the creative elements of an idea, versus any financier’s belief that the money is more important than the idea!
Frankly, I believe it to be a draw. Neither element can work without the other. It becomes more a matter of good communication between both sides of the mix. A project the size and scope of ExoBrain cannot move forward without funding. Peter has put all his personal money into taking it forward, as well as raising another $10 million for the early development of the ExoBrain prototype. Now, the major push is to expand the prototype into a commercially viable system. Then, to impinge on the people of our planet, the idea that a massively important new step has been taken towards the kind of communication system that computers promised seventy years ago and have still failed to fully deliver.
In the end, all the money in the world is useless unless there is something worthwhile to exchange with it, and we believe we have such a thing…ExoBrain is beyond any shadow of a doubt the communication tool ready and waiting to change our lives for the better!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.