It's official: As of today, Claustrophobia is now available on DVD in the kingdom of Norway. If any Norwegians are reading this, go to your local video store now and rent it. If they don't have it, ask for it! I am very eager to know how it fares, or even if anybody can find it. It's like sending a child off to war: "Please, if you hear anything, tell my movie that I love it and that I hope it's okay." The best thing about this release is that the distribution company - an outfit called SF Norge - is actually using my original artwork for the DVD box. Yes, this is the same artwork that users of this very web site once chose in an online poll. So even if my stateside distributors don't trust a subtle, artsy approach to DVD box art, at least those classy Scandinavians do. By the way, my first film Foreign Correspondents will be released for DVD rental in Norway on December 22. The check came in for it, so it's safe to say it's going to happen.
I am also - for those of you following - now 24 pages into the Dial 9 to Get Out script. Actually, I've written 28 pages, but 4 of those pages are from a later scene that just popped into my head and I wrote it. I do this sometimes: I get a line of dialogue in my head, then in my haste to jot it down before I forget it, I wind up writing an entire scene around it. So the writing process often becomes one where I'm just filling the blank pages between already-written scenes.
My work on that Army project is long over. The whole thing turned into a mess, in my humble opinion, so I'm glad I'm no longer involved. Especially since I'm currently saddled with two web design gigs, one of which is for the Hollywood studio MGM, for whom I did some of my first web design work way back in 1995. It's good to be making money, but as my friend Thomas Lakeman (who has contributed to the List of 9 a couple of times) warned, it's dangerous to have that feeling of accomplishment when it's for something you don't want to do with your life. In other words, I can't get too comfortable doing this, because I don't want people to think "Oh, that Mark, he's a web designer who makes movies as a hobby." Screw you, I'm a filmmaker!