film. And so we financed the development of it ourselves. My partner and I just paid for the development of the project out of our own pocket and he went to South Africa. He shot some test film of his friend Sharlto Copley , who's not a professional actor as such. He's an old buddy of Neill's ... they used to know each other when they were young and Neill wanted Sharlto to be the lead in the film. And he's actually really, really great. You'll see that for yourself when you see the film. But we'd never met Sharlto so we sent Neill to South Africa to shoot a little 10-minute test of Sharlto and to shoot some more South African stuff just to sort of inspire the story. And then he came back and we wrote a script with him -- or, more precisely, he did the script and we sort of helped him and advised him with the structure and stuff. And then it was all go and we raised the money through QED , an independent finance company. And it all happened quietly and below the radar. GB: That's an interesting point you make about a tendency of new filmmakers to celebrate material they love as opposed to creating something entirely new. I suppose it makes sense that homage and craft are less elusive than unique personal voice... PJ: I can understand it because when you're a young kid or a young adult and you're wanting