'the last ten grand'. party only option - as ever

S>N>A>F>U IT feels like every six months I write something about having to find 'the last ten grand'. currently i'm finding my latest last ten grand, well maybe a little bit more. i've proved myself v poor (D+ at best) at the whole 'picture the scene' richard e grant in the player style pitching for dough. instead i'm going to do what i know, and throw another party.

this one is going to be small - back in the day, before i was sensible, we used to call them microwaves - or to make it sound bit grander, a boutique bunfight. there will be a bit of banter about the film with someone important who can lend it some deserved credibility and showbizification, a screening of some of the film, in a beautiful house, stuffed with cool contemporary art, that i am borrowing from a secretive and philanthropic good guy. we'll draft in some thinking man/woman's crumpet to give the do a bit of conversational sex appeal and social jeopardy.

i will beg, borrow and steal lovely food and good wines. at the end (if people pay me enough money not to bring out my alter ego, a ridiculous middle aged mid life crisis type female who is a complete disc jokey, aka, DJ Set Wrecker) my philanthropy-soldier buddy, Sigrid, and I will stand at the door with more begged, borrowed, stolen goody bags, a copy of the film to take away and our hands held out, selling stakes in the film.

the guest list is small and nearly full of, let's be honest here, PEOPLE WE KNOW WITH MONEY. but if anyone out there in the world thinks they should be at this do, get in touch.

best way to contact me is via twitter, @spicerlife; or email me katespicer AT btinternet DOT com

the directors, will and james, are found at spicer & moore, their production company

i would dearly love to talk about where the film is at now in great detail but a deep suspicion tells me not to. don't want to jinx nuffink.

love and light (as my dear dear very old friend victoria beckham likes to say), kate

comrades! let's get thomas spicer on the television set. he's got more charisma than holly willoughby (but smaller boobs, for now at least given the rate he's gobbling pies he's catching up fast)

contact

best way to contact me is via twitter; or email me katespicerATbtinternetDOTcom

the directors, will and james, are at spicer & moore, their production company

Comments

I would like to apologise to the hundreds of people who have left some really wonderful comments on this blog; i never found them until now. some of them had incredibly useful and helpful advice, some of you had offered contacts that, at the time, could have changed our world. I am just gutted that I was such a dolt, that i never worked out how to view them all.

touched and full of thanks and will check my comments box regularly now.

kate

Sweet Thing

A best friend said she was approached by her daughter recently "Mum is my tooth-fairy on benefits because my friends all got a pound under their pillow and all I got was 20p."
"It's ok sweetie she's just saving up to get a swimming pool installed at the back of her council chestnut maisonette."

Talking of sweet things, there was an article that caught my eye recently about cake. An unsatisfied customer and the lack of the candyfloss-topped tooth-melter named the Sweet Tooth fairy cake at a quaint shop in Cardiff. I see what the toof fairies are doing. Times are tough, but i remember when teeth fell out naturally; on a modest blackjack or fruit salad chew from days of yore. None of this fancy spread fodder. The pennywise little mites must be earning a hefty penny round Cardiff way. The mother in the shop threw herself to the floor in front of her zombie cold-turkey kids "going ballistic" because her favourite teeth decaying treat had sold out. Not before grabbing the shop owners hair the woman was apparently seen smashing the counter in a Vinnie Jones stylee - 'don't let me see this happening again, AWIGHT?'

The star of Mission to Lars Tom Spicer likes cake, especially with tea and 3 sugars. Unlike our sweet tooth loyalist above, Tom has impeccable table manners, even wiping away any trace of crumbs from the table so as not to make mess. "don't like mess, hate it". Tom thoroughly enjoys food and is not a snob about what he masticates - Just good proper tucker.
When he was a tyke Tom would wriggle with sheer joy as the book Fish for Breakfast was read to him. His lively peridot eyes signalling to the story teller like a lighthouse in the Farne Islands, bright and excitedly awaiting confirmation of what "loony" would do such a thing.
Tom now thoroughly enjoys fish for breakfast.

It was good to see Tom tucking in to the variety of food stuffs on the road stateside in the mighty Mission to see Lars. This is a magnificent film with many an astonishing scene such as a visit to see Lynne, herself very knowledgable about Fragile X, her son Andrew being FX. We see Andrew moshing to Queen in his bedroom, surrounded by immaculately applied Freddie Mercury posters on the wall. Is there a connection between those with fragile X and the love of heavy metal and rock? Fascinating. One thing Lynne confirmed as does Proffessor Randi Hagerman later in the film is that those with Fragile X are much more sensitive to sound than others. I'm intrigued to find out more. All these years we assumed Tom's tendency to ask for the tv and radio to be turned down for being "too loud" was just being silly. Ironically Tom adores talking about listening to music really really loud but like the time we conceded taking him to the tattoo shop to satiate that desire, or to the motorbike shop for a really fast bike, he was just in it for the banter! I've watched MTL about 20 times as I've wanted to see it with friends and family members to imbibe their reactions. All have been hugely positive and everyone picks up on the beautiful humour of the film interjected with very interesting knowledge of the FX condition.

The film picks up momentum like Metallica's Enter Sandman. Gets better and better. Tom's comic timing is impressive. He'll keep you guessing til the very end. Mission to Lars brings tears of laughter, joy and heartbreak. The recipe for an epic moovie don't ya think. Everyone should get to watch this film. It's so entertaining and super insightful. There is a part where Tom chooses to wait in the van while the rest of the crew go and do an interview. Voyeristically we see Tom, unaware of the camera left lying nearby, double-checking his perfectly packed bag for his roadtrip of a lifetime and displaying the beautiful FX charachteristic of hand flapping with uncontainable excitement at the mere thought of meeting Lars Ulrich of Metallica. Another favourite cheeky clip is at the end of the film when Kate chirpily asks Tom what he plans to do next - "that's enough Kate. leave it".

Tom's journey has certainly not ended it is only just beginning. We are finding things out about Tom and Fragile X that we have never known before. Wicked sense of humour being one of the super special things about him. Oh how we were warmed when Tom matter of factly started signing his autograph on the promotional film cards for people lucky enough to have seen previews of the film already.
Tarrah for a bit. Georgie x

clips of the film

Waiting to hear back from the BBC and festivals is the closest I've got to that feeling of waiting for A level results; it's worst than waiting for my degree result because I knew I'd done badly in that.

PIES

I rang Tom Saturday to ask him if he wanted to come for lunch. He told me he was "Too Busy", which annoyed me because I know he isn't that busy, yes it's lambing season and there is work to be done on the farm where he now works at Bystock - he ditched the paper shed a while back.

Really though, I suspect he just wants to hang out with his best mate Jeffrey on the massive white leather Lay Z Boy sofa in Jeff's room, watch telly, chat, drink tea and coffee and eat cakes and pies.

There's quite a lot of talk of pies at the early part of the film, Tom could see we found this chucklesome, and played up to it. I seem to remember asking him on camera at some point what he loved, aside from Metallica, and he patted his expanding belly and went, "Pies, mmmn, I love em."

The older (read nagging, read concerned) women in the family, Mum, my stepmum (Jane), me, have been increasingly concerned about Tom's less than ideal diet. His room is full of fizzy pop of every conceivable hue, Mr Kiplings slices, crisps, large blocks of cheese and crisps, and a withering length of cucumber that my Mum likes to put in his fridge, like a feeble totem of hope for a healthier future.

Tom's mate Jeff has convinced him eating Bystock Court's food is a bad idea for reasons I probably shouldn't go into too deeply. I've eaten Bystock food a few times, especially in the last year or so while making the Mission, and its like good school food, which I've always had a taste for. Roast chicken, mash, gravy, veg Tom? No, it's a ginsters and a couple of bags of beef crisps, tea, coffee and fancy cake in Jeff's room, no wonder my once string bean of a brother is taking on a round bellied avuncular form.

But, in many respects, its none of my business what he eats and none of his what i eat. the human rights act has also enshrined his right to eat pies, even though we think he should be cajoled into eating a jamie oliver type 'good' institutional meal three times a day.

I want Tom to live long and be healthy. As a shallow, image conscious, fat snob, I want my sylph like bruva back. he keeps saying he's going on a diet which so far means giving up sugar in his tea, well, giving up four of the sugars in his tea.

However, I have indulged many vices over the years. Tom doesn't drink much, smoke, spend cash on stupid things, he doesn't take drugs or owe Heidi Fleiss $50,000. If he wants to indulge himself in pies and fancy cake and sweet milky hot beverages, I really don't think I can object without looking like a patronising hypocritical nag.

I shall continue to nag and he will continue to ignore me. I'm posting the picture below because it shows us as the happy family we occasionally are.

NO word from TriBeCa film festival on whether we have been selected; no word from Wellcome as to whether they will give us a grant to finish the sciencey bits of the film and do a cool outreach programme. But lots of people asking me about it. Today, the builders, Franco and Reggie (two of Tom's less celebrtiy heroes, although Franco is quite well known in the town of Ashburton and is definitely quite rock n roll) and the more lofty Mr Holy Moly.

People's interest is f'inawesum man.

Writing this has made me decide to have a pie for supper

Buon Appetito

Confused people who think mental illness is the same as mental disability

Incredibly, even a psychology student dragged this stinking ignorant opinion into a conversation recently, and I had to sit on my fists to stop myself punching her as she talked up a 'contraversial' opinion that disability and illness are one and the same.

People with mental disabilities are more vulnerable to mental illness, sometimes because of their disability, but just as often because they do not receive useful psychiatric care, or have suffered bad things in their lives that bring on mental illnesses.

You tend to be born with a disability and it will affect intellectual development; mental illness tends to happen after childhood and, often, it can be managed, treated, or, hopefully, cured.

There is a term, psychiatric disability, that describes someone so mentally ill they cannot usefully function in society.

Tom doesn't have a mental illness; he's about as likely to get a bit miserable as any other Spicer kid, we've all got a bit of a gloomy gene. He has a wonky gene and a misshapen chromosome, and he just got baked different as he developed in the womb and in his very early years.

Mental disability in a foetus can be caused by having a mentally ill parent who is drinking excessively, as it can a mother who has nothing to eat, which in turn damages the foetal development. But if anyone wants to try and tell me mental disability and mental illness are the same thing, perhaps in a debate type sort of a forum, I would be delighted to step up to that particular plate. Poorly educated 'free-thinkers' and hippies, especially, love to promulgate this asinine view. Then again, perhaps they are themselves a bit, you know...

Dude, I have not seen you in, like, years. Dude, where the fuck have you been?

Bloggers that write, "It's been a while" are useless. So I'm going to say, I've been busy. Which is probably more annoying, but better than, "I've been at Daddy's place in St Barth's and skiing a lot with my new billionaire boyfriend" - which I haven't.

Where is Mission to Lars at?

Yesterday we sent the film to New York for consideration for the Tribeca Film Festival. Hoping, willing, some kind of decent sort of selection that might enable us to put one of them laurel leaf thingies on the bottom of our film poster.

It seems this, along with a microscopic cinema release, is what all the right documentaries wear these days. I heard a story recently about a low budget documentary maker who was a hit at the film festivals who didnt go home for a year. He just hoofed around the world as the guest of various film festivals, which is nice work if you haven't got any other work to do.

I'd be happy with one nod of recognition (preferably a bit more than a nod, a festival equivalent of a high five would be nice, because i'd prefer not to have to pay my own air fare and, frankly, i need the encouragement) from a good film festival and best of all, a proper good airing on the tellybox.

Mission to Lars is near enough to its final edit now, its about 80 minutes long and its funny and its sad and its got twists n shit. it's good. It's got this really specific ambient pace that we nearly lost but got it back because its so key to the story, because this is Tom's pace of life, not manic mine or Will's. In the final cut Tom leads the film, and that's as it should be. He's by far the funnier sibling of the three of us. A year ago I might have said that in a patronising hands between my knees sort of a way, but this time, I mean it.

Tom has genius comic timing. One scientist told me this was in part due to f-x syndrome.

I've been trying to get some money from a grant fund to finish the last bits of film. Documentaries rarely make much dough, and the more investors we have the less we'll get. So far we've given all our time and everything for free, James, Will and I. My accounts came in from the accountant recently and I was a little alarmed at how little money I'd made this last tax year. Penny dropped though, and I forgave myself when I realised how much time I'd put into the Mission. Will and James (james especially) have spent hundreds of hours on it.

It is appropriate that the brilliant Passion Pictures are giving us some informal executive assistance, because passion is what you get paid in it seems.

All's well though and something more and more like a proper film is taking shape. So at the moment I am out pimping for money for titles, credit and music. Mike Lindsay from Tunng did the score and he gave us cool mates rates, but he ain't working for passion. The title sequence needs to explain the F-X thing, so we don't get too bogged down in it during the journey, so I went to a well known scientific philanthropic concern to try and beg some money but you need a special sized brain qualification to fill out application forms for free money/grants and I don't know that i have it.

I am better at putting on parties and going to People With Money and opening my eyes really really wide while putting my hand out in a begging action. Though not very better. I'll never be a Weinstein, that's fo sho.

Way back, just before we went to Sheffield Documentary Festival (which is dead good) in November, the photographer Chris Floyd came to stay with the entire family in Cornwall and take some photos of us three for some promo flyers. Chris is an excellent dude who walks alone, a singular chap and a real spade caller (meaning he is honest, not that he is racist).

He was the first person outside of me, Will n James to see the film and this was a bowel loosening thought. When Chris liked it I sort of knew we were going to be OK. I didn't know how OK and I still don't but I realised that this crazy little plan had exceeded what I dreamt and hoped of it already.

Here are some of Chris' pictures from that day in Boobies Bay

Boobies Bay is a small rocky beach with a good right hander at low tide. We didn't surf much this holiday, there was a lot of demotivational drinking, my family's other team game - it can put you off family sometimes, the drinking thing

Tom's pretty smart with the drinking, he tends to know his limits, and only pretends to have a hangover. When he pretends to have a hangover he stays in bed til lunchtime and then eats a fry up and a hearty lunch in quick succession.

What else is there to say? Masses, like the editor we used who had worked regular like with Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan, and who trumped all the others in the frame because she 'got it'. Like the fact that Tom has a stack of flyers with that image above on the front, which he signs for all and sundry. The fact that at Christmas Will, his wife Tiff, me, my new fella Wolfie, and Tombo, all sat round the dining room table on New Years Eve and had a right funny banter about Mission to Lars and that lead on to funny banter about stuff in general and that warmed my cockles to a good heat.

If nothing else, Mission to Lars has changed our relationship with Tom and his with us. We've all got a shared experience now, one that crosses the divide of our life circumstance and allows us to chat and laugh together. The three of us, and in a secondary way, the whole family, have been on a crazy adventure together. Its stuff like this that makes relationships and are the foundations of bonding n shit. (I wrote n shit because I am starting to feel slightly awkward about the sentimentality).

Moving on.

I should do some work now. If you want to know more, there is so much to tell, do give me a sign and let me know I am not howling into the wind like a lonely blogger with an arse of cottage cheese and no friends, let me know I am not a female Comic Store Guy from the Simpsons. And please, if you can be arsed, say a tiny prayer to the Gods of getting on telly and being liked by festivals.

You rock for reading this, thanks.

Love from Kate

sheffield international documentary festival

Been doing some journalism up at this unbelievably cool little documentary film festival in Sheffield, and, more scarily/thrillingly, putting the Mission to Lars about. Had some jolly positive feedback. Feel little in the way of self-congratulation because the truth is jumping each hurdle only reveals the next...

What is exciting is the fact that we are in a good place to apply to the Wellcome Trust for the last £30K we need. They give grant funding for documentaries with a good science angle and encourage film release to be run in tandem with outreach programmes. Meaning in plain language is that Tom, Will and I and perhaps even more siblings and parentals and stuff could hit to the road to talk and exchange ideas (did I just write 'exchange ideas', Jeez) about disability and about being a family coping with disability and most importantly about Fragile X.

Did I just type that last sentence. The water up here is affecting my head

KTW hit the road in dreamy family bonding adventure?

Er yuh, think we all know how that ends...

Anyway, about to go to my first ever round table where I get three minutes to pitch the film to a bunch of TV commissioners and distributors and sorts who can get the film seen from here to Taiwan. If I wasn't so tired (read: hungover) after a heaving drinking fest in the bar of the Mercure Hotel, which functions as a sort of Soho House up here, I'd be nervous, but I'm not. Sometimes hangovers leave you only with enough energy to function and not enough energy to overthink and flap and generally behave like a saggy old cloth worrybag. Sometimes hangovers are not a terrible idea.

There are loads of great films on here, hopefully many will make it to our telly screens. Some are super highbrow and for the head nodders only stroking their cords and others are fabulously mainstream and entertaining without veering into the reality telly box turf. I liked Autumn Gold, Sex Magic, Basquiet, ummm, just realised what time is, got to dash. But the film programme at Sheffield is here

And here is the flyer we've been stuffing in the right people's pockets when we can...

Bye bye. Thanks. Love. Kate

Tweet

A weekend in Cornwall

Watch clips of Mission to Lars here: http://www.spicerandmoore.com/category/documentaries/

After months of the film being in Will and James' hands, I started coming in to see the rushes reduced down to a rough edit that Will is taking up to Sheffield Documentary Festival tomorrow.

Aside from the odd constructive and/or destructive bit of criticism, I have to give the entire credit for turning the crazy plan into 80 minutes of movie to my brother and James at Spicer and Moore.

This last week the entire family, minus Ben, and including several grandchildren all piled down to Cornwall for a chaotic, large and noisy holiday. On the Monday the photographer Chris Floyd came down to take some promo shots of Tom for us to put on the flyers we'll hand out like kids on the beach in Faliraki while up in Sheffield. Tom and Chris got on well, Tom helped Chris set up his lights and then got in front of the camera and acted like a pro pulling all sorts of faces. It's incredible how much more capable he is when entrusted with important jobs, instead of just being passed over because he is 'disabled'.

The major message in Mission to Lars is not Tom's incompetence, but, in a way, ours, well mine at least, in understanding his disability and empowering him not smothering or bossing or big sistering him.

 After Chris had taken the pictures of Tom, we sad down round the laptop and watched the first half of the film. There was a big heap of family there. I dithered in the kitchen wiping surfaces again and again, being busy, too scared to go in, too aware of how critical the family might be. When I heard them laughing once, twice and a few more times, I decided to go and join the sitting room theatre.

The film looks good, the story's all there. Now the film goes public, we take it outside the neurotic knuckle of the production with all that our team have invested in it and ask commissioners and distributors and organisations like BritDoc and the Wellcome Trust to invest their trust in it.

This is exciting and appalling in equal doses.

More soon...