One month ago, I pledged myself to a near overhaul of Cheap Noir.  Now, it is done.  What I have in my hands is a thriller with the style, the snap, and the cost effectiveness to make a career in independent film.

My vision for the film is definitive.

My leading character is hand-crafted for an actress I know, who will elevate the film even as it elevates her.

My resources allow me to make this movie for pennies on the dollar.

I may be giving it up.  There are two reasons why.

My first reason is that Receiver comes first.  Partly, this is because Receiver came into my life when the future of Cheap Noir lay in the hands of people I couldn't rely on.  Partly, it is because personally, Receiver holds more relevance.  Partly, it's because Receiver brands me more directly towards the kinds of films I plan to make going forward.  Partly, it's just how I feel.

My second reason is that Doré Damelin, the actress for whom I wrote the South African, deserves this film now.  The film itself deserves to be made now.  Right now, awareness of noir is at a peak.  So many filmmakers understand the aesthetic - where they go wrong is the script.  People forget that noir is about mystery, and not stark violence.  Noir isn't revenge stories and the like - the movie opens with a body, and it's all second guessing until the killer is revealed at the end.  If anyone dies, it compounds the mystery and heightens the stakes.  How many times do you see a gun in The Third Man or The Maltese Falcon?  Not many, and most of the time they're put away once the audience knows they're there.  In these films, guns are not toys. 

My point is that there's loads of filmmakers who can nail this script, now that it's written - and it's written to be shot with a lot of production value on not much money.  That filmmaker deserves his or her shot too.

My logline is this:  In the strange purgatory of Los Angeles, a woman wakes up at the scene of a crime with no memory of who she is.  To unravel her past, the SOUTH AFRICAN investigates a web of diamonds, betrayal, and murder in the City of Angels. 

For more information on Doré, check out www.doredamelin.com, or see her Linked In profile in my connections.

Please, share this information with the producers and directors who need that first huge success, and who have the resourcefulness to create it with craft and passion, rather than huge marketing budgets.  This is a script that will find its own success.  For the sake of my very dear friend, for the sake of the film, and for the sake of the art and industry I love, and most of all for the audience, it deserves to find that success now.