Director's Notes
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After a series of unfortunate events led to me going from making a living as a professional composer to working in a cinema, selling popcorn and tickets, I reached a ‘now or never’ moment in my life. So I wrote a feature-length screenplay, with the intention of shooting it myself, without funding – with basically whatever I had to hand.
Before I started the feature, I shot a short film called Quantum Suicide , about the thought experiment which describes the consequences of the Many Worlds theory to mortality.
The film went on to win the audience award for Best Sci-fi at the RATMA Film Festival in 2013.
We started filming Third Contact at the beginning of 2010, with nothing more than a camcorder, a light and a basic sound recording set up, completing the film for an estimated budget of £4000 . The film went on to screen at the prestigious Hofer Filmtage , with Thomas Rothschild calling it a “ masterpiece and sensational debut ” in FAUST .
I returned to London, re-edited and re-scored the film, reducing it from 95 to 85 minutes, but I still couldn’t find a distributor. I resigned myself to the possibility Third Contact was going to be a showreel and started work on producing my next feature.
By chance I received an email from a Meet Up group I was a member of, saying that The London Film Review were looking for writers. I took a look at the site and found they were also asking filmmakers to submit their films for review.
I sent them a screener and received a glowing write-up, with Katy-Jane Hall describing the film as “ sheer artistic brilliance “. The editor of the magazine got in touch, saying he’d helped another independent film raise funds for distribution on kickstarter.com and suggested we do the same for Third Contact.
The campaign started in May, with new people joining the team to help spread the word. Shortly after, we received further glowing reviews for the film, one by Will Roby “ If it’s true that the flick was made with a camcorder . . . Horrocks has done something truly epic ” and another by Thomas Patrick who gave the film 5 stars.
The excitement and buzz grew over the next 56 days, as more and more people put their voice to the call to get Third Contact into cinemas. Some high-profile backers joined the campaign, including MacUser magazine and the Raindance Film Festival .
Heading into the last two days of the campaign, we were still about £7000 short of our £15000 target. Even on the morning of the last day, many of my friends told me they headed into work thinking we had no chance of reaching our total, with still about £6000 needed. But with a huge surge of support in the final hours, we crossed the line with an hour to spare – we’d done it – we’d raised the money to get a very micro-budget film into cinemas.
But not just any cinema. On July the 19th, I signed the contract to hire the BFI IMAX with the date of the event set to Sept 2nd, 2013. The show was a fantastic success, as we broadcast the film and following Q&A live to over 1000 people in 22 different countries.
We nothing more than a laptop, twitter, facebook and other social media platforms we outsold all the other shows on the day combined, including 2 shows of Elysium (a film made for over $100m).
Using our own unique ‘cinema on demand’ strategy – where the show will only go ahead if enough people pledge for seats via IndieGoGo – Third Contact has shown to enthusiastic audiences in Zurich, Antwerp, London, Bristol, Oxford, Newcastle, Sheffield and Norwich.
Third Contact is now available to view online, for instant streaming and HD download from $9.95.
Deluxe Edition includes a new Director’s Commentary audio track and download of the full screenplay (including my production notes for the film).
Please visit: http://thirdcontactmovie.vhx.tv/
Third Contact Review
Third Contact – What They Said
Final Contact
Life Imitates Art Imitates Life
New Pathways For Independent Cinema
A Double-Dog Dare: My Reaction to THIRD CONTACT Director Si Horrocks’ Recent Blog Post | Frisco Kid at the Movies on What We Leave Behind
Death Chambers, Chaos and Confusion | Larry Crane on How Much Do You Need To Know?
Third Contact – Bring A Film To Your Town | Director's Notes on Theatrical Distribution in the USA!
The Story So Far… Be Part Of It | Director's Notes on Something From Nothing
The Story So Far… Be Part Of It | Director's Notes on Now Or Never
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
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Third Contact the Movie
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