John Fisher
About
My earliest recollection of piers was the green and white electric trains that travelled the mile to the end of Southend pier in Essex. Sadly they have now been replaced with diesel ! (the picture above is not Southend.)
The Independent Film Producer's guide to Film Finance.
I was involved in the commercial side of TV programme production and sales since the late 1990s although at the time I had just set up a post production studio with a view to assembling TV shows rather than owning them.
Over the following fifteen years I made a number of short films for the education market, and sold these through Athena Education in the UK and Ireland.
The early experience with the post production had introduced me to the concept of "having a commission" as an aspiration rather than a fact.
Finding oneself the owner of a series of TV shows but with no payment for making them lead me to a level of involvement in international TV programme sales I might not have otherwise considered.
However the situation was rescued, and I came to know Cannes rather well, and this debacle lead me to set up a consultancy to try and help would be producers to get the money to make their films before they started making them.
I must be naive because I was shocked at the number of people seeking millions who had not a penny.
And clearly they couldnt pay for my advice so I have put it all in this book.
Available for £19.95 inc. postage to UK. Email books@johnfisher.net
Over the following fifteen years I made a number of short films for the education market, and sold these through Athena Education in the UK and Ireland.
The early experience with the post production had introduced me to the concept of "having a commission" as an aspiration rather than a fact.
Finding oneself the owner of a series of TV shows but with no payment for making them lead me to a level of involvement in international TV programme sales I might not have otherwise considered.
However the situation was rescued, and I came to know Cannes rather well, and this debacle lead me to set up a consultancy to try and help would be producers to get the money to make their films before they started making them.
I must be naive because I was shocked at the number of people seeking millions who had not a penny.
And clearly they couldnt pay for my advice so I have put it all in this book.
Available for £19.95 inc. postage to UK. Email books@johnfisher.net
I came to writing relatively late in life after a lifetime in TV and film production initially with BBC and ITV and later with Athena Education writing and producing the PSHE films which were in demand in the nineteen nineties, but which were swamped by free material online later. The educational writing set me on the course to novels with The Accidental Money Launderer, and the other books just seemed to arrive as ideas which organically grew into books. The Southend Spielberg
recalled many of the situations I encountered in my time as a post production facility owner in the 1990s before I started making educational films. The tale of three film producers needed a story for them to make a film about and so I wrote The Lugano Lowry
which started as a few lines, but as the Southend Spielberg progressed it was clear that nothing short of a fully developed story would be enough.
When I told my late mother that I had written a book she said "How can you write a book you don't know anything" She was referring to an educational work at the time and of course she was right. As good luck would have it no one else knew and so many schools were good enough to buy it along with my many other books and videos, and since no one sent it back I am guessing they were happy, or may be just being polite !!
When I told my late mother that I had written a book she said "How can you write a book you don't know anything" She was referring to an educational work at the time and of course she was right. As good luck would have it no one else knew and so many schools were good enough to buy it along with my many other books and videos, and since no one sent it back I am guessing they were happy, or may be just being polite !!
What is there to look forward to?
Well I have several ideas in the wings.
In around 1995 I had a some theories about how technology might affect the way we lived our lives.
I wrote a film script called 2020 Hindsight and took it to a friendly producer in Dublin who agreed to take it on with certain actors signed up, and a bit of script development.
Unfortunately with the passage of time more and more of what I had written as fiction had become reality, and when I last dug it out there was nothing left that had not already happened.
None the less I have an idea that AI lends itself to some interestig ideas and these are on my desk.
There are two other ideas, one about a female spy from the 1930s who eventually gets on the nerves of the prime minister who has her killed in her 80s
And finally there is a rather more serious idea about a bishop exploring the notion of sin in the context of a job which forces him to make unchristian choices, and beginning to wonder whether he is supposed to be leading or serving his flock.
Well I have several ideas in the wings.
In around 1995 I had a some theories about how technology might affect the way we lived our lives.
I wrote a film script called 2020 Hindsight and took it to a friendly producer in Dublin who agreed to take it on with certain actors signed up, and a bit of script development.
Unfortunately with the passage of time more and more of what I had written as fiction had become reality, and when I last dug it out there was nothing left that had not already happened.
None the less I have an idea that AI lends itself to some interestig ideas and these are on my desk.
There are two other ideas, one about a female spy from the 1930s who eventually gets on the nerves of the prime minister who has her killed in her 80s
And finally there is a rather more serious idea about a bishop exploring the notion of sin in the context of a job which forces him to make unchristian choices, and beginning to wonder whether he is supposed to be leading or serving his flock.
