Over the next three weeks, I have asked some special people to write a guest blog for me. These people are more than just friends or actors that I work with, but they are a reflection of the level of people I work with every time I rehearse or go on set. First up is Marco Radice, an actor in my last feature, 'The Dinner Party' and the star of my next feature, 'Speed Date' and a Driving Force behind MASIVE Films.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF : THE COLLABORATION OF SI WALL & MARCO RADICE : ITS NEVER DULL I CAN ASSURE YOU ..........................
The average day for Si and Marco consists of travelling into our offices in South London and starting off with a brief catch-up on what we have both been doing to grow our business. It ranges from the formality of arranging meetings, sending e-mails, making phone calls but ultimately working towards achieving something GREAT. Neither of us are in this industry to settle for “Mediocre” we never use such words as “Good Enough” OR “Ok” either in our business or private lives.We do not like using the word “Business” either ,because what we do is borne of a passion and love for the creative process and how we can affect other people with our work. Make people, laugh, cry, think of loved ones and a myriad of diverse emotions, that is why we do what we do. The enthusiasm and drive that is present when we get together is tangible. People that work with us cannot believe the energy and enthusiasm that we bring to our work EVERY day. Once we have discussed other projects on our slate of productions. we have time for an interlude of levity, where we fire ideas at each other and try to tap into one or two ideas to keep us on the boil, in creative terms.
Although, once committed to a project our commitment is 110 per cent and we are relentless in our pursuit of quality.To chose an average day in question we would leave to go into Central London around 10 am and take meetings at the Curzon on Shaftesbury Avenue. We could be meeting DOP’s , Editor’s ,Make-up artists , Actors et al but we give each person the same time and attention no matter who they are. To quote Si “No matter who you work with, everyone on set is as important as the next and ladies in the canteen making the bacon sarnies are film watchers and have opinions just as important as anyone else’s. We hope to never lose sight of this !”We then move to the glamorous location of Regent St and have an interesting meeting with a company that are trying to assist us with our afterparty. Unfortunately, in this industry a lot of people “Overpromise and underdeliver” but as we say “Every Day Is a School Day” this meeting is polite and formal but ends with little in the way of assistance. We then split up and deliver Premiere Invites or other documentation to specific people such as Danny Boyle at Independent, Jeremy Zimmermann at Jeremy Zimmermann casting, Pippa Markham at Markham, Frogatt & Irwin, Claudia Winkleman at KBJ and a plethora of other influential people within the industry. This documentation is always hand-written in pen and ink and each person written to specifically. As in this industry most correspondence, as we know goes straight in the bin. We then attend another couple of meetings with some interesting film people a powerful distributor and another well-known film finance company. It now starts to get a bit crazy as we return to the Curzon for the Academy to award Jeremy Thomas an outstanding achievement award in film production. He produced films such as “The Last Emperor” and is extraordinary. During the course of the evening we are still meeting people but there are paparazzi everywhere. (At this juncture i must thank a wonderful photographer called .Alan, he knows who he is, a consummate gentleman ) His knowledge of the film industry is unparalleled and he assisted us enormously.We had a delightful 20 minute chat with a magnificent actor, John Hurt who was delightful and very happy to give his time to us, he was both informative and hilarious and at one stage even told Si to “Sod Off “ which he loved as it was all in jest. It is wonderful when someone you have so much respect for as an actor turns out to be such a brilliant bloke.Throughout the night we had meetings and managed to speak to a very senior gentleman within Warner Bros. Which bodes very well for the future.By about 10pm (given the fact we had both been up since 6) we decided we could not wait for Keira Knightley with all the other guys and made our way to meet up with our wonderful and unbelievable Press Officer Katherine and Editor Elodie for a snack. Again, even travelling on tubes and buses myself and Si are creating scenarios which we think people would enjoy watching. I challenge anyone to travel with us on a tube and not be impressed. Anyway, you’ll have to wait for the next instalment but as most days seem to throw up such exciting things I could be here for a long time.......................“Never forget in this life, it is better to go out and make your own luck”. Arriverderci, Marco Radice