Hey guys. I haven't posted in a while, but I'm in a bit of a predicament.

In January of last year I attained legal permission from the author of a short story to write, shoot and publicly exhibit a movie based on his story. I began writing the movie and finished around March of 2006. Unfortunately, other projects came up and I had to put it off. I finally got back to it about a month or so ago. I started forming some new plot lines and began rewriting a lot of the script.

Just a few hours ago I typed the title of the story into Google so that I could reread the story. I found a video link in the search results. Yup, you guessed it. Between the time I finished writing this movie last year and now, someone else made a movie translation of this story. However, this person did so without attaining any legal permission AND publicly exhibited the movie.

Now I'm in a bind. Do I go through with the movie? My version would not be the original, but IMO it would at least do the story justice and offer more than a straight translation of the story. What should I do?

"There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me in the Head with an Umbrella" right? I remember you speaking about it. I think I know of the video you speak of, but it's also been done professionally, by another man named Chris Hood, on 16mm. He says in his documentary he's obtained permission. Sadly his main character is portrayed by a woman, which takes away from the humor and it sooo lame (I'm not a misogynist I swear!) so if you think you can do it better, go for it. And even if you can't, so what? It's a good story.

You got it, Ben. Is there a link to Chris Hood's version by chance?

I would really love to shoot this movie, but I'd also like to maintain a level of filmic integrity. I'm really not sure what to do here.

I just searched around a bit and found even more film versions of the story. This situation just keeps getting better...

The documentary is here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/content/articles/2005/12/08/...cal_tv_feature.shtml

Go to the right column, click "Video - The Umbrella Man". Even worse, the guy isn't even hitting her...he's poking her with a jabbing motion.

I swear, I'm going to up them all, cast Woody Allen in the damn thing and have the guy whap him in the head with total brute force every time.