Archives: Projects

Things are picking up pretty fast now, as I move further and further towards the world of work.  Today I went down to Bletchley train station to do a location scout for the short film I’m shooting in just 2 weeks’ time.  It’s unbelievably exciting to be actually preparing to do something for real that I’ve been imagining myself doing all through my time on the list and before, when I was too ill to consider actually getting on and doing it.

Now, more than ever, I’m aware that filmmaking is 100% what I want to do and to earn money doing it is my ultimate goal.  The next few weeks are going to be a kind of make-or-break time for me when I will discover whether I am actually capable enough to pull it off, or if I’m going to have to revue my plans and options and consider a change of direction.

The scout was really exciting as it really drove home the fact that is is definitely happening now.  It’ll be a real challenge and it’s already pushing me creatively more than I’ve been pushed before, but I’m absolutely loving it and thriving on the freedom to make decisions based on what I want to achieve, rather than aiming for the results someone else is going for.

I can’t wait to get shooting and turn out a really top-notch little film.  Here’s hoping it can meet my expectations and provide a launching pad into the career I’ve wanted to follow since I was in my teens.

I can’t believe my body sometimes.  Or maybe my brain.  One or the other, it doesn’t really matter because I’m just as cross with both of them for waking me up at 5am this morning.

Mondays are supposed to be my “lie ins”, with K not starting Uni ’til 11am meaning we don’t have to be up until 8.30am, as opposed to the usual 6am.  But this morning something inside me decided it wanted to be up and about at 5.  Five o’clock in the bloody morning!

Still, it meant I managed to be at least a little productive today, although I’ve managed to have one of those days where I look back over what I’ve done and realised all the things I wanted to get done and haven’t, which is mildly frustrating.

Still, I managed to fit in all of my necessary admin stuff and bill payments (although I’ve still got a mini-pile of post to go through) and get through a veritable mountain of ironing.  I can’t stand ironing, it’s the worst chore in the world, by far, and I’m also absolutely rubbish at it.  Actually, it might be the fact that I’m rubbish at it that makes me dislike it so much because it seems like so much work for so little effect.

Once I’d got all my housey bits done, I took myself off to the flicks to catch City of Ember which is not as bad a film as I thought it was going to be, although it’s a bit slow in the build-up and with a few bizarre plot strands which don’t entirely make sense.

Then it was off to Costco for our monthly stock-up on essentials and bits and pieces which we go through at such a rate as to make it cheaper to buy in bulk.  That said, I think we’d buy a lot more from there if we had more space for storage.  It’s a weird dilemma walking around the warehouse working out whether a) it’s cheaper to get it in bulk, b) you’ve got enough cash-flow to cover the up-front costs of something you might not buy for another 2 weeks and c) you’ve got enough space at home in the kitchen/in the cupboard/under the bed to find a home for it all once you get back.

Of course my days never run completely smoothly and I did have to make a minor detour back home to collect my Costco card which I’d handily filtered out of my wallet at some clever clean-up stage a couple of months ago.

From there it was to the Supermarket to get the more regular weekly groceries that are either uneconomical or too perishable to buy monthly in bulk, then round to the station to collect K and back home to start the somewhat lengthy process of packing up all the meat into dinner-size portions to chuck in the freezer until further notice.

After quickly checking emails and sorting out my plans for the week, it’s time to cook and get dinner ready, then to wash up and finally some time to hit the sofa and chill.

The best news of the day came in an email this morning, though, to let me know that I’ve won a place at a prestigious documentary pitching day at Channel 4 next Monday.  20 of us have been selected to appear in front of a panel of industry professionals and pitch our ideas to them for feedback and possible further work.  It’s really, really exciting and could potentially open a lot of doors for me at this stage in my break-out.

More of that and other new projects coming soon, so stay tuned.

A couple of weeks agao I started a new writing project with a friend – S of S&S form this blog – launching from an idea written by her other half (erm… S from S&S from this blog…) back in his college days, which is now so long ago we’re all starting to feel a little too old for our liking.

The original script, scribbled out in a school exercise book, has the seeds of a great story in the comedy-horror genre made famous by Shaun of the Dead but plied equally well by recent Brit successes like The Cottage.

We’ve spent the last month or so between the two of us, with input from SB (I suppose the second initial will have to come into it now, since they’re becoming two separate people…) to make sure we weren’t veering too far away from his original intentions, have been hashing out a more detailed and sustainable plot-line and making the characters more rounded to help us create the right level of comedy.

It’s quite a tough project because the premise is pretty ludicrous, but the idea is cracking, which means that it’s really important to get all the “other” elements of the script right so that the audience feels able to buy in to the main idea running through it.  If the comedy is too outlandish, the audience won’t want to go with us, so it’s important that we keep it a close character comedy with just a single, slighty crazy comic element in the middle of the mix.

Today we had our second full-on writing day together.  Both of us had completed short sections of 7-10 pages each and we got our heads together to see how they were working alongside each other and that we were flowing down the same lines according to the plan we’d drawn up.  It’s all looking really good and we spent a bit of time going over the action and dialogue of the sequences we’ve written and seeing if and how it affects the stuff we’re going on to do next.

We’ve come away nicely re-energised for the next stint of writing and have given ourselves another two weeks to get the next pieces written up before we meet again to see how we’re progressing.  If we can keep the pace we’re on at the moment, we should have a completed first draft by the end of November, which would be really, really cool.

Interestingly, just the process of writing with someone else and bouncing ideas around has taught me a huge amount about how to better develop characters and story-arcs, something I think that some of my writing has lacked in the past.  It’s also seemed to click my brain back into “writer’s mode” and set me off thinking about a whole load of other projects I’d like to get cracking on.  I’m not about to try writing two first drafts at the same time, but with ideas fermenting in my head, I think this could be quite a fertile time for my creativity, which is a really nice feeling.

I was planning on going back over the last two weeks and updating the day-to-day entries of the blog to reflect all that I’ve been up to, but I soon realised that a) I’d be here all day and b) I’m not even sure I can remember exactly when whatever happened to me in the last fortnight happened.

To sum up, if you can’t be bothered to read this entire post, I have started two jobs, started a new screenplay project with a friend, pushed a short film project towards production, acquired another short film script, begun developing a slate of documentaries, watched my brother leave for a tour of duty overseas and won a Charity Times Award with the Life Life Then Give Life team for Campaigning Team of the Year.

So, biggest news first, I guess (apart from the Award, which I’ve obviously already covered), I’ve got a job.  Two, to be precise.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for some part time work up to my sixteen-hour-per-week limit to retain my benefits (and beyond which I’d need to work a considerable amount more hours) and noticed an ad in the local paper for a hotel looking for part-time bar staff for lunchtime shifts.  After going over to introduce myself and fill in an application form, I text my old boss at the Theatre in MK to ask for a reference for the bar work, since she was the last person who employed me as bar staff (albeit five years ago).

She replied positively, but then said that if I wanted bar work then they could offer me a job.  Without much fanfare, I went back for a training day a week last Monday and started my first shift of paid work for two-and-a-half years on the next night.

It’s a very bizarre mixture of feelings being back at the Theatre.  On the one hand, it’s pleasantly familiar – I know most of the managerial staff (even if high turnover means the bar staff are all new to me) and also where to find most of the things I need during a shift.  The bars haven’t changed much, apart from some of the stock having changed – Becks to Tuborg, for instance, and the appearance of Magners in the fridges.

At the same time, while it’s a safe and comfortable environment to start back into a working life, it also feels a little like a step backwards.  I’m now back doing what I was doing in 2003, before my work with the Education Department and the Youth Theatres in MK and Northampton and before the experience I gained as a Production Assistant/Youth Theatre Production Manager at the Royal.

I guess the way to look at it is that as long as I have the income I need to pay all of the bills, the Theatre work is only three or four evenings a week, which frees me up to work on my own projects during the day time, for which I have a lot more time free now that K has started at Uni.

Thursday was her official first day and it was a bit of an epic one.  The commute means that we have to be up at 6am to get to the station for 6.45/7ish for the 7.11am train to Euston.  Luckily, looking at her timetable for the term, it seems that she only needs a 6am start two days a week, getting a lie-in on Mondays and Thursdays and having Fridays off.  It is very much an atypical Uni course however, having as it does, a full timetable of lectures and lab time.  Monday mornings and Fridays are all the time she has off, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are all 6-8 hour days.  It’s intimidating for her and it’s going to be tough, but I know she can do it and I’m sure she’ll be fantastic as a Speech Therapist – even if that is four years away right now.

As well as starting at MK Theatre, I also went to catch up with my old Education boss at MK, who has now moved to the Grove Theatre in Dunstable, about 20 minutes down the road from me.  Whilst catching up with her, it emerged that she had another Youth Theatre Assistant position opening up to help out with running the Sunday afternoon YT sessions for the eldest two groups of the Grove YT.

Naturally, I jumped at the chance to leap back into the deep end and get my hand in again.  Last Sunday, I enjoyed my first day working with the YT in the first session of term and enjoyed it immensely.  It’s hard work – much harder than the MKYT, actually – but the young people who attend the sessions offer much greater opportunities for rewarding work.

As well as the Grove’s YT, I have also just started work on the school’s project I’m doing with Suze and her newly minted Catalyst Theatre Arts Ltd company.  At the moment, it’s not 100% clear what my role will consist of, as I’m largely there to support the school and do what they need me to do to ensure they make the most of the project.  It’s exciting for me as it’s the first time I’ve worked and been engaged as a “proper” artist, being seen as a practitioner in my own right and not as an assistant or general helper.

Personal project-wise, I’ve now got a producer on board my short film, which will be going into production over a weekend in early November.  We have offers out to cast at the moment and are hopefully of getting a couple of recognisable names, although it largely depends on their schedules, as I’m keen not to push our shoot dates back.

I went to a Screen South roadshow this week, which highlighted the pots of money on offer for short films in the South East of England, but all of them require the director (that’s me) to have a show-reel of stuff they’ve shot before.  This is a bit of a classic Catch-22, but since this film can be shot for next to nothing, I’m hopeful that even though I’ll miss this funding round, the script I’m developing at the moment will be a possibility for the next round.

I’ve also just started writing a feature project along with a friend of mine who’s as keen as me to get writing again.  It’s a low-budget British horror-comedy which we’re hoping will be quite saleable, or at leat easy and cheap for us to make ourselves if that turns out to be the more likely option.

Beyond the fiction stuff I’m working on at the moment, I’m also developing a trio of documentaries.  Two of them are quite immediate and one is longer-term planning.  One, in fact, I’ve already started shooting a video diary for and am currently working on establishing links with the Armed Forces to see if I can take it further.

It’s been a manic two weeks and blogging really took a back-seat to all the other things I was running around doing, but I’m sincerely hoping that having more time in the day to achieve the things I need to will enable me to keep a more day-to-day blog of the things I’m up to.  I’m aware of how great a resource blogs can be to keep tabs on people and gain encouragement for the kind of life it’s possible to lead post-transplant, so I really do hope I can keep it up.  Please keep checking back and feel free to berate me if I’m lax again.

I spent most of this afternoon in a meeting with Emma and Emily, two of my fellow Trustees of Live Life Then Give Life.  I say fellow Trustees, what I actually mean is my superiors – as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the charity respectively, they’re far more important than me.

Anyhoo, we spent a good few hours pouring over the construction of a firm business plan for the charity, something that Emma has been pushing for us to do for an age, but which all of the Trustees have been unfortunately lax in organising and offering in-put for.  I’ve been one of the worst offenders, knowing how important it is, but never setting aside the time to think about it properly.

Being locked in a room with the girls made us focus properly on the bits of the charity we needed to focus on and work out our strengths and weaknesses, where we’re good and where we can improve.  It also gave us a chance to analyse where we can best fit in with the rest of the transplant charities in the UK at the moment.

Obviously, still being very much in the planning stage (the other three Trustees have to look at and approve our ideas, for starters), I can’t really go into a lot of detail, except to say that I think we have finally identified what we do best of all and are now hoping to commit ourselves to rolling it out as our “thing” which we can use to promote organ donation in this country without treading on the toes of everyone else in the Tx community.

One of the key things we have identified with Live Life Then Give Life is our fantastic standing and relationships with people in the transplant community, both transplant professionals, people affected by transplants and other charities themselves.  Because of this we all saw it as being vital that we strive not to replicate, but to complement other people’s work.

Too often in the charity sector you see organisations compete with each other for the same people’s cash, the same people’s time and the same pots of money and in the end it can be counterr-productive.  Live Life Then Give Life’s core aims are to promote organ donation in the UK, so if working alongside other charities suits a project best, that’s what we’ll do and if we can see that another charity does something better than us, we’re not going to try to replicate their work, but attempt to support them however we can to achieve the same goals that we are.

So the plan is coming together and the potential for Live Life Then Give Life as a charity is huge.  I can’t wait to be part of it.

This week we have been rudely invaded by the real world.  After 10 months of existing in a perfect little post-transplant bubble, the time has come to look at things that people out in the big wide beyond have to spend time looking at.

With K off to uni in 3 weeks and counting, she is, naturally, going to have to give up work.  The full-time commitment of the course, coupled with the 3-hour daily commute is going to sap every last bit of energy she has, making weekends a time for rest and recovery and not for the usual kind of student money-making that normally earns the bookworms a crust.

So it falls on me to start winning the bread for the house hold.  It’s a very strange position to be in, seeing as I haven’t been in paid employment since I left Northampton Theatres in April 2005, nearly three-and-a-half years ago.

One thing I’ve learned from friend-of-the-blog Emily is that returning straight into a ful-time job post-transplant is a bit of a no-no.  Although I now have more energy than I think I’ve ever had in my life (barring, maybe, my early years), that doesn’t automatically equate to being able to put up with the stamina required for a full-time job and the stresses and strains that go along with that.

Instead, I’m going to be looking for something smaller and more part-time, but then I hit the thorny issue of benefits.

At the moment, I’m still covered by incapacity benefits because I’ve been under doctor’s orders not to work.  The idea of incap is that in order to help you return to work, you are allowed to do a certain number of hours of paid work per week without incurring penalties on your benefits.  The trouble with incap is that once you pass the 16-hours-per-week threshold, you lose everything – there is no middle ground.

And it’s not just the incap that you lose.  Incap comes tied in with an entitlement to various other benefits including Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, which basically means my rent and council tax are paid for me as my income isn’t high enough to cover them.

So, all-in-all, the loss of benefit will cost us in the region of £800 per month.  That’s an enormous gap to try to cover between working 16 hours per week on benefits and finding the rest of the money once you cross that line.  In effect, it means that you are forced to jump rom 16 hours per-week all the way up to a full-time 30-40 hour week with no middle ground and no safety net, beyond returning to incapacity benefit.

It sounds easy enough to try out full-time work and use the Incap as a fall-back option if you can’t cope, but that’s forgetting the psychological impact of going back to “illness”.  Everyone I know post-transplant has faught an incredible battle to get themselves back on their feat and rebuild new lives in the wake of a truly life-changing blessing.  What all that effort means, however, is that none of us want to return to the perception of “illness” that dogged us for years both before and initially post-transplant.

So the search for so-called “gainful” employment begins.  Where am I going to end up, who knows?  As long as it pays the bills, I have to be happy with it, but I would much rather have an opportunity to do the things I want to do with writing, filmmaking and educating than have to sit in a call-centre 37-hours a week.  Hopefully, the 16 hours I need to start off with will enable me to carry on with my personal projects and find a way to make them pay.

Watch this space!

Tonight I popped down to Euston station in London to meet with the director of the film I’m producing on Sunday.

I was pleasantly surprised that he was much more prepared than I expected him to be. There were a lot of questions about the shoot I hadn’t asked him and was expecting pretty negative answers to, but he answered all of them and showed himself to be very ready for the mini-battle ahead over the weekend. He even offered me a place to sleep for the two nights of the shoot, which was great.

I have to say I’m very excited to be involved in a film project again. It’s been a long time since I last was and although I’m not in my ideal position of directing, I’m loving producing at the moment. It’s all very logistical and analytical, which is really good fun and suits my skillset really well. It’s also a lot more creative than people think, since if I come up with a problem that I think we need to get around, it’s my job to think up alternatives and present them to the director for discussions, rather than simply highlight the issue and get him to do the donkey work.

I’m a little sad I didn’t get involved in this project earlier, but I clearly missed his first call for a producer. It’s no the end of the world, though, and coming on board now means I’ve got the fun part of the shoot to deal with and be there for then I get to over-see post-production, where I hope to learn a lot more about certain aspects of it, before heading off to trail the film round the international festivals, if we can admission. Should be great.

I figured I’ve taken enough time off fitness and exercise since my admission with CMV, so I’m back on the treadmill and all the other torture devices at the gym in a bid to make sure that all the weight I’m currently putting on goes on in the right ways, not just around my stomach and face as seems to be the case at the moment.

I surprised myself at how little of my aerobic capacity I had actually lost, I did a lot better on the bike and rower than I thought I was going to and then fitted in a really good upper-body resistance workout, which I’ll be aiming to do twice a week and also a twice-weekly lower-body work out on the day after the uppers. That’ll be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday so I have 2 days rest between weights sessions for specific areas and then the weekend off.

I actually really enjoyed the session today and I hope that I’ll quickly pick up the gym-addiction that I had started to develop before my incarceration.

I also did a second Untouched photo-shoot with a friend from the Theatre today, which went really well – he’s very photogenic and we came away with some good shots and some fun ones, too. I’m really liking the look of the natural light and the challenge of getting the shot I need right there and then. I’m also getting more and more used to the intricate settings of my camera – learning how to use things I’ve always had on automatic before, but which now enable me to better control the image, which is vital when I can’t play with it after the fact.

Also chatted to J, the model, about setting up some Theatre/Film projects in the not-too-distant future: he’s like me, looking to occupy himself and to experiment with things in a small environment, but he’s on the acting side and I’m on the behind-the-camera side, which is quite a useful combination. I also think he may be as driven as I am, which will definitely help us spur ourselves along.

This afternoon I met with two of the old MK Youth Theatre who have set up their own project called In Vitro for their own production company, Thrust Theatre Company, which I’m incredibly impressed with. They’re very on-the-ball when it comes to the money side of things, having worked out a completely balanced budget and ways to raise the money quickly and easily. Budgeting is one of the hardest things to learn and get right when you don’t know a lot about production in theatre, so I’m really pleased that they’ve paid it so much attention and not just gone in blind with the hope they can put on a play somewhere.

The play itself, written by one of them and to be directed by the other, is also very good. It’s very “issue based”, but that’s no bad thing for a young people’s theatre group aiming at a certain market, and they have things to say on the issues which need to be listened to by some of the adult population in this country.

They’ve asked me to be involved, which I’d very much like to be – I’ll be going along to most of the rehearsals and being a sounding-board for their ideas and helping them through the process in any way they need, sort of like a mentor, I guess, which is a little scary as I’m sure I’m not old enough to be a mentor to anyone.

Still, it’s another project, another little bit of variety in my life and it’s something else to be interested in and excited about. Can’t wait.

Last night I headed down to London to meet up with an old, old schoolmate who’s now working as Press Officer for a small record label and shop called Pure Groove. They were having a film night of music videos in their Smithfield shop to which Ben had invited me to scope out what’s going on in the music video scene at the mo. The intention is that between the two of us we’re going to start producing some vids of our own, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but it’s taken the kick up the rear from Ben to get me really going.

There was some really interesting work on show last night, from some well-known bands and artists and some from bands I’ve not heard of. That’s not saying much, mind, since my musical knowledge is pretty much up there with my knowledge of particle physics, although I do know what I like (which is most things, really).

I’m hoping that I’m going to be able to get myself together to start pushing myself creatively again now I’m back on my feet and full of energy. I’ve just instigated another new project, which I’m also really excited about.

It’s called Untouched and it’s a photography project created as a reaction to all the heavily-airbrushed “perfect” pictures we see of celebs in magazines these days. My aim is to create images of people using only natural light and with no digital manipulation at all.

Hopefully, if the shots turn out well enough, I’ll be able to set up an exhibition at some point and maybe even sell them, but for now it’s more of a hobby-project to get me back into a fully creative mindset. The great thing about it as a project is that I have all that I need to get it underway right now. I’ve got a good-quality camera and a good bunch of friends willing to model for me, which is all I need. Incidentally, if you’re interested in modeling, drop me a line here and we’ll get together.

Under pressure from outside sources (no names, Lisa), I have forced myself to my desk to write an update.  I had – honestly – been intending an update for a while, including some back-dated film reviews (it’s been a busy week on the film front) but just haven’t seemed to find the time to do it.

My energy is still coming in fits and starts.  After a busy and productive week last week, this week has been a little more relaxed and less work-focused.  The new issue of CF Talk is taking shape, but is now at a stage where I’m waiting for our writers to draft their articles and send them in, leaving me without a great deal to do other than sit and wait.

Live Life Then Give Life is going from strength to strength since our charity registration came through and there are a number of projects being mooted between us as I speak, sadly none of which I’m at liberty to disclose just now.  If you live in the Manchester area, though, what this space over the next couple of weeks because we may have something exciting to announce.

I have also got myself back on the writing wagon, having taken my Headliners screenplay up to 40 pages and still going, which had really excited me as I whenever a hospital is around and about I seem to lose a great chunk of my creativity and imagination.

In fairness, I suppose it’s not the hospital so much as the condition I’m in.  After all, if a hospital stay is called for it means I’m not doing well and if I’m not feeling well then, as has always been the case, my creativity and artistic expression is the first thing to go.

Next week I’m due to give a speech at the Ipswich Press Ball about CF, which I’m really looking forward to – black tie events always excite me, mostly because the old performer in me loves getting dressed up and being the centre of attention.  Unusually for me, I have actually written my speech this time.  It’s not long, only a couple of minutes, which I would normally busk my way through relying on my natural charm, wisdom and eloquence, but clearly my faith in myself has deserted me.

Actually, quite apart from this being a posher and more official deal to the kind of speech I’ve made in the past, I also had some strong ideas for the speech that I didn’t want to lose in the weeks building up to the speech.  In the process of getting my ideas down on paper I got carried away and ended up writing the whole thing.  After the ball, I’ll pop the text up on here for you all to peruse and tell me where I went wrong.

Other than that, not much has been happening, really.  Although looking back over what I’ve just written I realise I started by saying I’ve not been doing much but have now clearly proved I’ve actually been quite busy.

Next week is hopefully dedicated to CF Talk and preparing articles for submission to the designers, with a short break away in Ipswich at my Godfather’s place for a couple of days of proper chillage before the Ball.

Promise I’ll have more updates on the boring things soon, and won’t leave it so long.  Mind you, how often have I said that…?