ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

9 years, 7 months ago - Marlom Tander

Now that is brilliant.

What is really frightening is that I've met film people who I can see watching that docu and totally not understanding at what point the producers moved from handwaving bullshit to wing and prayer it'll be alright on the night to fraud.

9 years, 7 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Indeed! And it has some good life lessons in there too - don't be that actress producer too dazzled by the finance and glamour to stop and ask where the £800k went, for one. And don't even bother talking about £20M for a project with first-timers, it's embarrassing, no legitimate investor will invest £20M without a bond, and first-timers are not bondable!

9 years, 7 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

And if you're going to try to pass off Michael Caine as a casting suggestion, don't spell his name Michael Kane. Ouch!

9 years, 7 months ago - David Graham Scott

Yes, I saw that. A great documentary! Thanks for mentioning it. I see very few posts on here about good TV docs. Do people care about the art of documentary making?
Anyway, thanks for introducing some new focus for the bulletin.

9 years, 7 months ago - John Lubran

Those guys were so ham fisted it's a wonder they got as far as they did. I guess it was the scale of the fraud that dazzled its victims, Of course it pales into insignificance compared with the $30trn scam selling worthless debt perpetrated by banksters with the connivance of governments (of any left or right wing dogma). One could hardly make it up that they are in the process of doing it again; there really ought to be a documentary about that. The scale of that fraud is so vast that it seems we're all too dazzled to take a sensible view. We keep voting then back in while arguing the merits or otherwise of two cheeks of the same arse! Oh gawd it's such a pain that dinosaurs still rule the Earth

9 years, 6 months ago - Alwyne Kennedy

Just watched it. Same scam as (almost) pulled off by Richard Driscoll, who claimed a film cost £15m when it only cost £1.5m. His big mistakes included presenting an invoice to the tax people for acting work done on the film by David Carradine... work dated after Carradine had died. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10726202/Worst-film-ever-the-legend-of-Eldorado.html

9 years, 6 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Good read Alwyne, thank you

9 years, 6 months ago - Alwyne Kennedy

Oh, seems he's now out of prison (assuming he did go to prison). And he's up to his old tricks - http://british-horror-revival.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Driscoll

His crowdfunding for a new film ( or re-edit of an old film, or whatever he's up to) managed to raise only $85. No need to wonder why.

I had a small run in with him myself. I bought some audio kit off him on ebay in 2013. He'd used an alias on ebay, but I soon identified him and learned that he was dodgy, but exactly HOW dodgy I didn't know until his tax rip-off case appeared in the papers. And yes, he did rip me off too - the audio kit was close to being junk. Mouldy junk. He also sold a dune buggy on ebay a few days later to a buyer on the continent for a significant sum, and the buyer never saw the car.

All in all, a doc on Driscoll would have been even more entertaining than the Landscape of Lies doc.

9 years, 6 months ago - Stuart Wright

I spoke to the director of the doc on the Britflicks podcast http://www.britflicks.com/podcast/23812/PodcastBritflicksTalksWithBenLewisAboutCHANCERSTHEGREATGANGSTERFILMFRAUD