30/05/06
Salam Pax: Film
Salam Pax: The Baghdad Blog is set to become a film.
Marc Evans, the director of films My Little Eye and Snowcake, will direct the film with a script from Ross Klavan, co-author of the Joel Schumacher film Tigerland.
Co-produced by FilmFour and the film company Intermedia, filming is expected to begin in the autumn.
Polly and I were talking about this last night, provoked by a conversation about the Friday Project (short story: turn blogs into books) and whether that’s a sound business model. I don’t know why SPTBB didn’t do so well as a book, but I don’t think it could have been published that much better. What TFP does, which is different, is to use the web (and blogs) as a talent scout rather than as a printing press, so that if someone can write a blog, it follows they could write a book. In the case of Salam, it didn’t help that the book was already available, in its entirity, online – and that the story wasn’t over when it went to press. That and war fatigue I guess.
Still, it was and is an excellent book and blog – and although I feel a little bit odd about meeting him and getting drunk together in the Groucho bar, I’m sure it’s not and I shouldn’t.
I wonder if FilmFour will want to use our promo as the opening credits?
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# Comment by Rick's Room @ 10:58 am, June 6, 2006:
What TFP does, which is different, is to use the web (and blogs) as a talent scout rather than as a printing press, so that if someone can write a blog, it follows they could write a book.
Are you sure you’re not unwittingly repeating the spin from Friday Books? (This is the thing Scott Pack is rumoured to be involved with?)
Of what they’ve done, quite a few of them are just edited down versions of websites. And I’d question whether someone that writes well for the screen, and in the environment you’re looking at the screen, will necessarily be a good writer in a book format.
Besides, if doing web-to-print is not a technical thing, but a way of finding new authors, then why restrict yourself to web authors? Other than the massive likelihood they won’t have an agent and will be more flattered to be approached…
By their list shall we know them. And ignore the gimmicks and look at their list qua list. Poor!
# Comment by peter @ 6:03 am, June 7, 2006:
I’m not intentionally repeating the spin from TFP. And Scott Pack is actually, confirmed as involved in TFP, despite it’s apparently obnoxious publisher.
Indeed, they shall be known by their list. And judged upon their sales.
What I admire is their differentiation (which is obviously very important) and the manner in which they have convinced both Pack and Cheetham, and possibly even some VC’s and other private investors, to put their money where their mouths are.
I don’t even know if they are restricting themselves to web authors, but using blogs as the starting point for finding that talent. One would imagine it would be stupid to ignore talent just because it didn’t have a blog.
By the way, great podcast from BEA about the long tails’s Chris Anderson and his blog.
http://bookexpocast.com/?p=15