Archives: Film

The alarm wakes me at 8am, which is the latest I’ve been up all week (I figure I deserve it). I get out of bed, shower and rouse K so we can make our 9.35 train to London.

We get in to Town and K heads off to Angel to Uni, where she’s meeting her study group to polish up their joint project while I head down to Waterloo to meet up with HC, a filmmaker friend of mine. It’s good to finally see her as we live a life of constant “we must meet up” messages and rarely manage to find time that both of us are free to actually do it.

We pick each other’s brains about various work-related thing, as well as chatting about new projects we have on and our hopes and plans for 2011. The hour-and-change we spend in a lovely little South Bank café1 passes way too quickly before I’m back on a tube and headed North to Angel.

I meet K to accompany her to a meeting with her Uni that she’s organised to try to sort out arrangements for her placement this term, which goes very positively and we’re in and out inside half-an-hour.

K smuggles me in to the uni library using one of her study-mates passes and I stick my head into their room to say hello to the group and thank Sc for her card. They carry on working and I sit in the main library study area and battle (unsuccessfully) with the WiFi before giving up and settle into preparing a business plan for the new project I’m working on with CR that doesn’t require ‘net accesses.

While I’m working I get an email from a Twitter contact who was involved in Danny Lacey’s LOVE LIKE HERS offering me a Line/Co-Producer role on her new short. As it’s on my Blackberry, I can’t read the script, but I file it away to come back to later once I’ve got chance to access the ‘net and read it.

I also get an email from THE PRODUCTION OFFICE commissioning me for 12 new eps of THE LOWDOWN for them this year, which is a really nice boost. I’ve had great feedback in the past on the videos I’ve done for the show and it’s always flattering to be asked to come back and do it again. I accept without hesitation.

When K wraps up her study group, I pack up my things and we stroll back up to Angel and grab the tube to St Pancras, where we’ve just missed a train home. There’s one every half-hour, though, so it’s not the end of the world and we hit Foyles bookshop to kill some time, with me wading through the business section as a bit of market research.

We hop the train and ride some, K zoning out with tiredness while I read an eBook on her iPad for the first time. I’m impressed at how nice it is to read on it, as I’ve only used it for games and “useful” apps before. The workflow for reading PDFs is a little fiddly, but once they’re on there, it’s great.

We get home and swing by KFC for K and I whip myself up some chicken mayo sandwiches from the leftovers in the fridge2. We watch some SIMPSONS while we eat, then head up to the movie room and the PS3 to stream the first ep of FAMOUS AND FEARLESS that we missed on Monday, which we jump through the key moments of before coming back down to tonight’s Sky+’d final. It’s such an odd show – potential to be very, very good, but the live studio format necessitates quite a lot of padding. That said, if it weren’t live it wouldn’t have the same edge to it, so it’s a bit of a conundrum for the producers. It’s great to see Chris Evans doing good TV again, though – I miss TFI FRIDAY.

It’s late once F&F is over (well done Charley Boorman) and we take ourselves off to bed where I read for all of 10 minutes before conking out.

1. Earl Grey for her, green tea for me, both served in little bowls [↩]
2. K’s not a sandwiches kinda girl [↩]

New Year started, as most do, at midnight. K & I were down at the Black Bottom Club in Northampton for the second year running. This year was a little different, with a rocking indie band as opposed to the more chilled jazz band of last year. Different, but not worse.

After seeing in 2011 we eventually rolled back home after a detour to drop S&G off at theirs around 2.30am. I drove, which meant sobriety for me, but K was not so hampered by the restrictions of driving laws and just about managed the stairs to bed before crashing out.

Being in bed after 3am, I was pretty disappointed that my body decided to wake me at 10am. Granted, 10am is a pretty good lie in for me, but I felt like I could do with at least a couple more hours.

I get up, grab some brekkie and make some tea and sack out on the movie room sofa to explore the 007 game K picked up for me this week to go with the free PS3 she got on her new phone contract just before Christmas. I get one stage in (the pre-credit sequence) before her ladyship awakes and comes to join me.

I shut the PS3 off and come downstairs, making us both tea. We opt for a movie and flick through the Sky planner, eventually settling on SAVE THE TIGER, a Jack Lemmon flick from the 70’s that neither of us have seen or heard of. Turns out to be pretty good, but halfway through K’s not liking it and heads off to catch some more Zzz’s. I finish the flick while updating the blog and being sure to pimp it on Twitter before shutting down to head up for some kip myself.

I realise as I’m getting upstairs that I’m not actually tired enough to sleep, so I wonder what to do with myself. I to-and-fro up and down the stairs, make some coffee and a cuppa for the not-sleeping-either K and leave her to try out her new Mario 25th Anniversary edition game on the Wii.  I head upstairs to the movie room and throw on WAR OF THE WORLDS as background while I do some stuff online.

No sooner is it on, however, than I change my mind and decide it’s about time I sort the DVD collection out. It’s been randomly thrown on shelves since we moved in August and it drives me nuts having to hunt out the film I want to watch when I used to be able to grab it from my stack without a bother in the flat.

I empty the shelves and discover I’ve got enough DVDs to entirely cover the floor and I set about constructing a heavily-geeked up system of storage, based on genre, director and other random categories.

Around 4,30 I finish up the sort, although still with minor adjustments to be made, and jump into the shower before we head over to my ‘rents for a New Year’s dinner of roast lamb with all the trimmings. Awesome meal down, we chill with the ‘rents and play some Bananagrams1 before heading back to ours and getting in just after 9.

K retreats to bed, nursing a delayed hangover and over-eating-itis2, while I jump on the corner sofa downstairs, legs up, old episodes of ED from Sky+ playing the background while I download the NYE pics and write this, the very first ‘new’ post on the combined archive blog.

I note my paunch staring at me as a look down on the laptop screen and realise just how important my fitness goals for this year are. The belly will be banished.

Despite aiming for a 2 ep max, I end up on the sofa until nearly 1.30am at which point, 5 eps in to a mini-ED-a-thon, I close up shop and head upstairs.

1. an awesome game that both Mum and I bought for presents this Christmas, based on our deep love of playing a friend’s version [↩]
2. a sad curse of my Mum’s extraordinary cooking [↩]

I tweeted a link to this video earlier, but it’s such a great summation of why we filmmakers do what we do that I felt I had to post it up on here.

This captures all of the endlessly changing feelings we all go through as we battle to bring our baby to the screen. Enjoy! And, if you like it, do the guys a favour and vote for them, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNNEwFqQCB8

Well this is just a whole big bunch of brilliant:

Not sure about the 3D, though. The rest of the Marvel universe have managed to be all kinds of awesome without needing a 3rd dimension, so I’m sure Thor can, too.

I caught Gareth Edwards’ new, much-lauded flick, MONSTERS, at the cinema yesterday and was mighty impressed.

It’s by no means perfect – some of the characterisation is a little rushed, while some of the more minor characters are almost ignored as “featured extras” and a couple of the action sequences don’t pack the punch they maybe could have, fear-wise – but I really, really enjoyed it.

The best thing I can say about it is that I loved it for the movie it is, irrespective of the budget and visual effects work that went into it.

A great film is a great film and I’m always slightly disappointed when I come out of a flick and think, “That was great, for the budget they had.”

I’m really hoping Gareth Edwards is snapped up to write a “Rebel Without A Crew”-style book about the making of this film; I think it would be hugely inspiring to all those filmmakers with the talents to do what he’s done but without the balls to go out and do it.

It makes me want to shut myself away for six months and learn the ins and outs of AfterEffects so I can do the same thing.

I’m writing this at an almost respectable 7am, but considering I’ve been awake all night it doesn’t feel like the start of a new day.

Why have I been awake all night, I hear you ask? Or is that the voices in my head? They crept in about two hours ago and are pretty insistent on staying there. But I digress.

I have a weird and wonderful brain that kicks into gear at random moments, which is fantastic for creative and lateral thinking, but not so good when it steps up to overdrive just as I settle down for some well-earned kip.

And so it was last night, when my head hit the pillow mere minutes after hitting on the most amazing concept for a HUGE new project. The real beauty of it, though, is that it’s not a ‘new’ project. Rather, in a flash of awkwardly-timed, knock-out inspiration I found a way of tying together no fewer than FOUR existing projects into one symbiotic whole.

For those of you familiar with transmedia storytelling, hold your groans. I haven’t just wedged a bundle of ideas together into one unconscionably complicated and sprawling hole. I have – you may be surprised to know – actually thought it through.

Some of the ideas were already concrete in my head, other were more shapeless and still others were small moments of “wouldn’t it be great if I could…”. But they all shared a common theme that I just hadn’t identified before, a theme which will – hopefully – over the coming few months, be explored through a wide range of stories and across a variety of different media; not least, I suspect, this blog.

This is going to be a HUGELY ambitious project, but one I passionately believe in. I’m going to need a lot of help and support along the way, but that’s what you, dear reader, are there for. Together we can not just explore, inform and entertain, but hopefully expand and engross as well.

Here’s to 2011 and a new world of excitement. Won’t you come and join me for the ride?

PS – regardless of project-related bloggage, there’s going to be a lot more content on the blog in the weeks and months to come, so stay tuned (or come back more often than you have been…)

At last! After three weeks of mad cutting, re-cutting and finishing, I’ve got through all three days of the London Screenwriters’ Festival Video blog. And I’m quite proud of all three, if I’m honest.

Here, for you delight and delectation, is the final day of the festival. You can also read about it on Chris Jones’ blog, too, and show your support on my Vimeo page, if you’re so inclined.

Wow.

That was an event. And a half. And probably another half again.

Three days of early starts, 1.5 hour commutes and running around like a loony with a camera in his hand. It was truly a remarkable festival – the constant feedback I was getting talking to delegates and speakers both on- and off-camera was overwhelmingly positive. Even the negative things being said were all fairly minor niggles, and all delivered with a sense of wanting to improve the festival for next year, not to criticise what happened this year.

The festival staff were truly phenomenal, from the top of the tree with Chris Jones and David Chamberlain’s constant calm under immense stresses right down the tree to the runners and volunteers who never seemed to stop but never complained about it, either. I’d love to name them all, but in truth I’ll forget someone and really offend them

I also really connected with a few of the delegates and volunteers and sincerely hope that we’ll enjoy ongoing and fruitful friendships and relationships.

I’m now sat on the sofa at home lazing around watching flicks and digitising the 8 hours of behind-the-scenes footage while trying to digest all the tidbits of information I picked up from talking to people throughout the weekend.

If I’m having trouble making my brain work today, I can’t imagine what the delegates who were actually IN all of the sessions are feeling like today.

I’ll hopefully be back in the next couple of days (in the breaks between cutting together the 3 days of material I’ve captured) to give you my impressions of the lessons that emerged throughout the weekend.

Until then, it’s time to kick back, chill out and try to fend off this empty feeling inside with no rush to Regent’s College to be met with the same smiling, warm and friendly faces I’ve been seeing for the past three days.

It’s been…. emotional.

Over the past 6 days I’ve given a (very brief) Lowdown of what to expect from the London Screenwriters Festival: how to pick your schedule, what to focus on and how to make the most of it.

The easiest way for me to summarise it is just to link to all of those blog posts:

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6

But that’s a bit of a cheat’s summary.

Day 7: Final Checks, Please

In truth, if you’ve not prepared yourself for the festival by now (starting at 10am tomorrow (Friday) with a sit-down natter with Tim Bevan), you’re not going to get as much out of it as you’d hope to.

There’s still time, though! You can still sit down and run through the schedule; you can still work out your goals for the festival itself; you can still brush up on my networking tips and find out how to connect with the right people in the right way.

What you can most usefully do as a delegate of the festival, which will also help ensure the demand is there for a repeat event next year, is to blog, Facebook and Twitter about the whole thing while you’re there.

There are myriad people with myriad reasons who cannot come along and I know they’ll be watching with eagle eyes for tips, tricks and tools that emerge from the festival. If you’re on Twitter, use the festival’s hashtag #londonswf to spread the word in a format that people can easily follow. (And, as a bonus side-effect, you may even pick up some new followers in the process).

If you blog, be sure to give us your opinions in a quick run-down when you’re finished.

And talking of finished, I promised one last networking tip in yesterday’s blog: Follow Up. If you meet someone exciting, interesting or just plain useful, make sure you grab their card from them and as soon as you get home (Monday morning), drop them a line. It’s just a memory-jogger and a “pleased to meet you”, but that single point on contact could stand you head-and-shoulders above the other delegates who make the same connections but either wait a week to touch base or fail to make contact at all.

Most importantly of all, be sure to feedback to LSWF after the fact. Only by telling them what was great (and what wasn’t) can you be sure to get more of what you want next year. And, in the cold, hard world of arts cuts and huge losses, if you want to see the fest again next year, your testimonials are going to be a MAJOR selling point for them when they’re looking for sponsors, supporters and speakers for next year’s event.

Go in peace, leave in pieces and enjoy every moment – after all, it’s about you.