Tatum O'Neal, WilliamForsythe and Michael Harris are the stars and Scott Saunders the director of TheTechnical Writer, an independentfeature which went into production in New York City this week. The film marksthe first feature from production outfit Damage Control which was formed in NewYork by David Leitner and Michael Yanko to produce low-budget films withcutting edge technology.

Co-writtenby Harris and Saunders, the film is the story of a man (Harris) with bothagorophobia and an acute social anxiety disorder whose self-imposed secludedlifestyle is invaded by the arrival of two cosmopolitan neighbours (Forsythe& O'Neal).

Other producers on the filmare Saunders, Harris, Susan Leber and James Calabrese. For the production ofthe film, Saunders (The Headhunter's Sister) secured use of two new MPEG IMX MSW-900P DigitalSuper 16 camcorders from Sony Electronics, a set of Zeiss DigiPrimes lensesfrom Band Pro Film/Video in Los Angeles and a full-resolution MPEG-2 Xpriediting system also from Sony. New York's Du Art Film Laboratory, whichwill produce the 35mm blow-up, donated editing space to house the Xpri system.