It was not easy. We made it difficult for ourselves. We could have done a horror film and had a studio finance it with much less difficulty. However, by financing it through pre-sales we could avoid working with a studios money which means you have far more freedom to do the movie you want to do. Ultimately HOL will benefit.
Control is king.
A common complaint in South Africa is the lack of development time, especially in terms of scriptwriting. I think this is a mistake that most filmmakers make. It took Blair 2 years to percolate before it was shot. We have know been working on HOL for two years. We tried a couple of different things in the HOL process that were difficult but proved successful.