On 6 August 1967 my father, magician and escapologist Bunny Neill, was challenged by the Jersey Sun to make a daring escape in full view of the public at the St Hellier harbour side. There were conditions...
He was to be covered with a canvas bag through which his arms and legs would protrude, his limbs then handcuffed and the handcuffs secured to a metal rod which was double padlocked. He was to be placed into a wooden crate, the lid nailed shut and then lowered into the sea to a depth of twenty feet, all of this overseen by the Jersey Police Force.
As well as a retelling of the story, The Escape is also a tribute to the memory of my Father, who died in May 2006. With the backing of Bristol based Production Company Hidden Shallows, and what we hope will be lots of backers who believe in the project, we will recreate the escape as a short film at the Bristol harbour side this summer.
Thank you for taking the time to find out more,
Jessica Neill
Hello everyone,
It's been a criminally long time since my last update so I thought it was high time I let you know how it's all going and what your money has helped us to achieve. All filming is now pretty much complete, although we are planning to reshoot a very small part of the opening scene. But all we need for that is a lift to Clevedon, a couple of hours and a sunny day so nothing too onerous there.
That aside, we've got a rough cut together that is now with the composer who has very kindly committed to writing the theme for us - very exciting! As many of you know there is no dialogue in The Escape so getting the music right is critical. Matt has some great ideas and seems very excited to be involved so we're very much looking forward to hearing what he comes up with.
Once we have the music we can do the final edit and then try and coax a colourist to grade it all so that it looks the right age. Goodness knows how long the next few steps will take but I hope to have a screening in Bristol before next winter sets in so we're working to the imaginary deadline of end of September. But everything seems to take about 3 times as long as we think it will, especially as Simon and I both have full time jobs and are doing all this in our spare time, so we'll see about that.
We are definitley getting there though, very slowly but equally surely!
Thanks again to all for your continued support and interest in the project. I will make sure I don't leave it so long until the next update!
Much love, Jessica x
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