makingmymovie - about charles teton

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Armed with my knowledge of public relations, I formed a company called United Independent Pictures Limited. I got a deal with Robin Cinemas, who own about 25 theatres around the country, their main one being ‘The Prince Charles’, Leicester Square in London, got a ‘12’ certification from the B.B.F.C., pleaded with Rank to make a further two prints and spent the next six months sending press packets out and wooing the press.

I was nervous as hell waiting for the reviews to come in, but they did and about 70% of them were good.

What did the critics say about Dark Summer?

‘A highly coherent and controlled film... an impressive debut’ - Sight & Sound

‘Truthful and believable’ - Derek Malcolm

‘Fresh and sincere’ - The Independent

‘Honest and unpretentious’ - The Big Issue

‘Beautifully shot in Cinemascope, Dark Summer is unpretentious
and uncompromising’ - Film Review

‘A very impressive film’ - Premiere

‘The ring action is arguably the best ever recorded’ - The Voice

‘Makes the inane trash usually passed off as boxing drama look like a farce.
The film is cliché free and the punches hurt.’ - The Guardian, Sport

(A complete list of reviews, script, credit list and production info. for 'Dark Summer' is available here. Alternatively you can watch the high quality QuickTime Movie Trailer, 11Mb\2min 30sec or view 64 of my favourite Stills taken direct from the 35mm Anamorphic print.)

Inexplicably, the one magazine that should have been the first to review Dark Summer, ‘Sight & Sound,’ refused to. I was hopping mad. This is a magazine, run by the British Film Institute, set up by the government to help independent and alternative films in the UK. Yet we'd got over forty reviews from the likes of Premier, Film, Review, The Times, Independent etc., and major TV coverage, and they refused to review the film on the grounds that it wasn't being distributed by one of the majors. So after getting support from the Evening Standard and telling the BFI's Director what I thought, all of a sudden they came out with a review. I still don't understand what the problem was, probably some petty internal political struggle inside the organization. Vertigo printed a story on the whole episode which you can read here.

This volume comprises a range of interviews with contemporary British film-makers. They include producers, directors, writers and people who do all these jobs and more, from camera-work and editing to public relations and distribution. Those interviewed run from Eric Fellner, executive producer on "Four Weddings and a Funeral" through Gary Sinyor, co-director of "Leon the Pig Farmer" via Brianna Perkins of the Children's Film Unit to Angela Hans Scheirl who directed, produced and acted seven parts in the "low budget to no budget" "Dandy Dust".

"A vibrant collection of interviews with the cream of the new talent emerging in the British film industry today. It's a vivid snapshot - and informal handbook - of the trials and tribulations - and joys - of independent film-making: from the script writing and financing to shooting, editing marketing and distribution."

Available for amazon the internet book shop

It's kind of ironic that this BFI book came out with me in, given
‘Sight & Sound’ initial refused to publish a review of Dark Summer.

So with reviews in hand and the film still playing in London, I went to see Icon Entertainment International. They liked the reviews, saw that they could sell it and took it on. Finally, after four years from beginning to end, I could rest knowing that the film was being taken care of.

Pretty much straight away I started pitching to French publishers to get the film rights for both Georges Bataille’ ‘Story of the Eye’ and Alina Reyes' ‘The Butcher’. Both very difficult films to make, if you want to be true to the book. Unfortunately I was too honest with the publishers, telling them that to make the film true to the writer's vision it couldn't be a Hollywood star vehicle; they both needed to be made along the lines of a ‘Hairdressers Husband,’ one of my favourite films. The publishers disagreed, and the rights of ‘Story of the Eye’ were sold to an L.A. based company who have been sitting on it for the last four years, and ‘The Butcher’ was sold to an Italian company, who completely changed the story and made it into a soft porn movie. I heard later that the writer was very unhappy, I have sympathy but maybe if publishers in general looked at how the films where going to be made rather than simply sell to the highest bidder it wouldn't happen. Anyway, I know now to add four zeros to any figures I give to publishers next time.

White Light, which had been churning around inside my head since before 'Dark Summer', became my next project. It was a very complicated movie which I didn't really want to tackle until after I had made another film.

After an interlude as second unit director and cinematographer on Marcus Thompson's second feature film ‘Middleton's Changeling’ shot in Spain, I started work on the script of 'White Light' by taking two years out to research the Bible and all the associated written material surrounding it, Another two years, three writers, about twelve draft and numerous revisions later, I'm ready to start shooting.