Hey! Wanna be a movie producer?

It's been a bit of an Iain Banks Appreciation Society at our office recently. I've long been a fan of his "literary" fiction, since I read Song of Stones and Complicity years ago, and I really enjoyed his recent coming of age novel Stonemouth. Meanwhile Paul, the News Editor, has been steaming his way through the sci-fi, which is published under the name Iain M Banks. Paul's deep into the Culture series and persuaded me to give them a go - I'm Use of Weapons and Player of Games to the good and embarking on Excession next (wish me luck). I guess you could say we're fans. But it's not just his books. It's also the fact that he's a thoroughly decent bloke – as can be gleaned from this interview we did with him in July – and, as of September a fully signed up Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Association. He even said that New Humanist was his favourite magazine. Dude!

All of which meant we were delighted to see that there is a project afoot to make one of Banks' short stories into a film. Independent producers Paranoid Android, with a track record in low budget Zombie films, have optioned the story Piece from Banks himself (it cost them the price of a pint apparently. Like I said Dude!) and plan to start filming in December. They've already got Sean Pertwee on board and they aspire to make an Indie short with high production values for the festival circuit. 

You can hear a short interview I did with Rob Jones from Paranoid Android in our latest podcast. Since they are a small independent they need money for the shoot, so they've set up a Kickstarter page to crowd source funding for the film. Don't miss your chance to invest. They are already more than a quarter of the way to their target of $20,000, and with your help they'll reach their target within the required 43 days, and start shooting before the end of the year. We'll keep you posted.

Rob Leese Jones from Paranoid Android is interviewed about the project in our latest podcast - have a listen from 7 minutes 20 seconds in.