Research Notes #1

The second draft (the numbering system is already faulty given the number of drafts I've had from Mr Screenwriter over the last week or so) has got me a) thinking - mainly how well it's shaping up and how much this film will hit a chord with people - and b) doing research.

Obviously, Robert Bolt and I have been doing 'research' on this subject for years. In other words, we have both been reading around the whole topic of UFOs and have also had first hand experience of people like Mr Smith. Believe me, I have met people so paranoid there are no words in the Oxford English Dictionary for them. Herr Bolt would agree, as he is the man - out of the two of us - who actually met the real- life Smith. And was perturbed by the lunacy.

But back to my research: I've been re-familiarising myself with the likes of Betty and Barney Hill, the Mothman, etc, but have been freaked out by a very strange alien encounter at South Ken tube station, in broad daylight. A woman asked a little man in a mac with a big head if he was lost, and he replied to her telepathically. This was weird, although she couldn't say later on whether it was all telepathic or not. Anyway. Decidedly odd and no mistake. She felt there was something obviously strange about him, although he wasn't threatening. On the contrary, he was more nervous of her than she was of him. She gave him directions to where he wanted to go - the Science Musuem - but when she followed him, he vanished.

It's funny, we tell ourselves 'we've heard it all before' and 'it's all hearsay' and so on and so forth, but I was quite surprised at how primeval the South Ken thing was for me. Got under my skin. Mainly because it was almost normal. But not quite. I think that is one of the reasons Smith will speak to people. The film is saying, life's weird. Get used to it. And maybe the aliens are just as lost and confused as we are.