Month: April 2009

Network Updataria

It’s been a busy few weeks, so I thought I’d let yawl know how things are standing for me and my network of fellow travellers as we move into film-making season. 

This Friday sees me and thinking girl’s eye candy Clive Ashenden in Cambridge for the third Super 8 film festival. Code Grey is the final film of the Friday night competition screening. If anyone’s around, and fancies saying hello, we’d love to see you. Hopefully we’re doing a Q&A afterwards, which should be fun in a nerve-wracking kind of a way. 

Before that, I have a drive to return to Simon Aitken with the finished version of The Making of Blood + Roses on it. This has been a solid learning experience for me, and well worth the struggle. It’s pushed me a bit creatively, which is always good. That ol’ spiritual kick in the pants that’s conducive to opening up the mental sinuses.

If you’re going to mix your metaphors, you may as well do it thoroughly.  

This is another step towards the completion of Simon’s feature, which is now starting to pick up heat following good reports on MJ Simpson’s blog and Zone Horror. I’m seeing him tomorrow, where I can hopefully pick up some pre-Cannes goss. 

Also going to Cannes this year, Michael Booth and Paul ‘Cop’ Coppack of Pleased Sheep Films, who’ll be toting round a rough cut of their second feature Bar Stewards. Their first film Diary Of A Bad Lad is doing really well at the mo, and will be out on DVD soon. Well worth a look if you like a bit of pitch-black mockumentary action. Bar Stewards looks like it’s gonna be a good ‘un too – although a bit less dark in tone. 

Congrats and a Short Film Corner appearance also go to the makers of  Sertoli Sertoli Sertoli, featuring the talents of Lewis Shelborne and Kiki Kendrick – most of our crew on this year’s Straight 8, Time Out.

Speaking of the 8,  we’re in that quiet period before we find out who’s made the grade, who’s got screenings, and which of us will be among the lucky 12 that get shown in a tent at Cannes. Nick Scott, Fiona Brownlie, me and DocoDomsy and hundreds of others are quietly gnawing thier fingernails down to the elbow and wondering.  

Next week, I shall be writing again, and not thinking about Straight 8. That way, madness lies.

Ranting lemonade label from embittered screenwriter

Ranting lemonade label from embittered screenwriter:

I feel this guy’s pain. Spotted by a Boing Boing reader, who picked up a couple of bottles of lemonade from a stand in Malibu, only to find this on the label…

THANK YOU FOR INVESTING IN MY MOVIE!

My name is Matthew and I am one of the best screenwriters in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the television networks and movie studios don’t know that yet. As it stands, the decision of which films get produced are left in the hands of emotionally-immature, substance-abusing ex-lawyers who live in dread paranoia that everyone in the universe is out to get them. They spend the bulk of their time spying on their fellow executives, composing nasty counter-intelligence rumors and spreading them through their network of FA-BU-LOUS, yet cunning assistants.

Much of the actual work, like ‘reading’ is left to a gaggle of twenty-something interns who are all the product of George W. Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy. To these bimbos, nothing in the world existed before 1995, and the most reading they’ve done has been through text messages. They believe that good writing is something that fits into 160 characters, all performed with the thumbs. :)LOL!

Needless to say, I’m making my own damn movie and you just helped! All of the profits from this amazingly refreshing drink are going into my independent film. Why? Because I believe in the spirit of America – CONSUME AND DESTROY! POOR=BAD/RICH=GOOD! WAR IS PEACE! YOU-ESS-AY! YOU-ESS-AY! YEE-HAW!

Any-hoo, if you work in ‘THE INDUSTRY’ as a common below-the-line slob and would like to work on my film for less than you’re worth for no other reason but to satisfy my giant ego, send your resume to: malibu.monkey@verizon.net.

If you’re a producer with a distribution deal, somewhat sober, and capable of actually reading a screenplay by yourself, shoot an email to me as well. I’ll be happy to send a script to you along with your stupid submission release agreement boilerplate wank-rag.

If you are an actor, congratulations on making it this far. It’s a lot of words. Who’s a good boy? You! And you are very special. Plus, you serve specials at the restaurant. Special food served by special people to special people. Okay, I admit it. I’m just jealous because you are better looking than me and get all the hotties. Girls who go for me are all smart ‘n’ junk. Plus, they sag. And you’re in SAG. Isn’t that special?!

Agents, entertainment lawyers, managers and all other Pimps of The Antichrist can do us all a favor by simply killing yourselves. If you can, try to attempt a single moment of original, creative thought by finding an entertaining way to do it. Like performing seppuku with a champagne flute during the lunch rush at The Ivy. Or hang yourself from one of ‘O’s’ in the Hollywood sign with a noose made from your Kabbalah strings and rubber cancer-awareness bracelets. Either way, die bloodsucker! Die!

Cheers!

THANK YOU FOR INVESTING IN MY MOVIE!

(Via Boing Boing.)

A Worthy Pursuit

A beautiful, sunny spring week here at X&HTowers, so of course I am dedicating it to an indoor project. More specifically, the Making Of Blood And Roses, as mentioned previously.
As with everything I do on a film-making tip, there has to be a new challenge. And here, it’s a fairly major one.
Simon, friend, fellow film-maker, has provided me with a drive full of footage gathered while he was shooting B+R back in 2007, with a remit to make something mildly diverting he could stick on the DVD as an extra no-one would watch. Keep it to 10 minutes. Simples.
Except all the footage could only be read by Final Cut Pro, the finest editing package around (Avid? Ptui! How 20th century), a package about which I know nuffink.
This leaves me in a slightly awkward position. I have had to “acquire” a working copy and serial number of FCP and then teach myself how to use it. I’ve promised Simon delivery on Friday.
Like I said, I believe every project should include a challenge.
So far, progress has been snailpace but in the right direction. There have been many sorrowful glances at my iMovie icon (a simpler package, but one I know backwards and that is perfect for these short projects), and much swearing. A lot of monosyllabular exclamations too, along the lines of “what?”, “how?”, and a particularly pitiful version of “whyyyy…” But also, as the dim light of understanding has started to filter through the canyons of my mind, “aaaahh”, and “riiight”. I’m not pretending to be any kind of expert, and I’m sure I’m working in a completely opposite way to the right one, but damned if it’s not falling into place. I can see the film now, and know what needs to be done. Who knows, if this goes well I might even be investing in my own copy of FCP. Mayyybe.

I’d have the dratted thing finished by now if I was cutting it in iMovie, mind.

Blatant pluggage

I’ve been involved in the making of a new horror movie for a little while now, and I’m incredibly pleased to note that the final trailer for that film, Blood and Roses, is now up on the official website. I’ve embedded the YouTube link below, but please do check out the site for decent quality versions.

It’s also worth looking at the associated site My First Movie for director Simon Aitken’s blog, where he extensively documents the troubles, trials and tribulations of getting a low-budget film from script to screen. It’s an honest and open account, and it’s inspiring and exhausting in equal measure. I count myself as a film-maker, but Simon’s one of the rare breed that’s gone out and made that mythical and more importantly marketable entity – the first feature. He’s off to Cannes in May to get it out to the world. It’s going to do really well.

Why? Well, it’s a dark, sexy exploration of betrayal and reinvention, fueled with an evil sense of humour and a vicious final scene that makes you twist uncomfortably in your chair at how much you’re agreeing with the nastiness being meted out on screen. With stand-out performances from thinking girl’s fancy Benjamin Green and Brit scream queen Marysia Kay, the best way I can describe it is Twilight for grown-ups. Seriously worth your time when it starts hitting the festivals this year.

Declaration of interest: I colourgraded Blood and Roses, and am currently working on the short Making of documentary. As Simon has mentioned here.

The photo accompanying the piece is of me, pretending to grade.

Busy Week Off

I’m on a train, heading back home from That London. It’s late, and I won’t be in bed before midnight. On any normal Wednesday night this might be an issue. But my working life is changing shape for the next few months, and I am no longer a slave to the standard routine.
Once again, I have been shifted onto a night shift at work. The difference is that I have decided to embrace that life, complete with benefits and pitfalls, and am going to try to make the best of it.
I’m working a seven-day fortnight, which is a week on, week off deal. Obviously, the week on is a prize pig. Six 12 hour days on the trot. 72 hours crammed into one long working week. The compensation is that week off. Careful holiday planning can help take the sting off, and I find that I’m getting more things done in the down time, as opposed to monging in front of the telly. It’s early days yet, and I’m sure that’ll change. The worry is how long it’ll take to recover from the on week, and how much desperately needed sleep is going to eat into that time off. That is something I’ll have to see about, although I can’t pretend it’s a situation I’m looking forward to much. I guess if I start posting in monosyllabic grunts, then you’ll know how well I’m dealing with it.
For the mean time, I’m just enjoying the benefits of a late night out without consequence. The reason for my late train journey? Finally, I went to see Watchmen. A faithful, loving adaptation of one of my favourite books. Surprisingly sensitive in places, jaw-droppingly crass in others. I didn’t mind the change of ending, although it’s a worry when you find yourself thinking that the only reasonable opinion in the room is coming from Rorschach. And I never really even noticed Dr. Manhatten’s big blue dong. I guess the storytelling must have worked out after all.

8 and Out

I’m bone weary, barely able to focus. The frontal lobes of my brain are in a knot. A thunderstorm of a headache is making slow progress across my brow before settling in behind my eyes, where it will force jabs of pain out through my tear ducts.

I feel fantastic. The final push of effort has been completed, audio has been tweaked, polished, sweetened and uploaded and we are done for Straight 8 09. Dom has done some fantastic work over the last week in getting the found sound and atmos we’ve gathered into a cohesive whole. The cacophony he’s created all sounds the way I imagined it when I wrote the script for Time Out four score years and ten ago.

We’re quietly proud of what we’ve achieved so far. Now all we have to do is wait and see if we’ve made it into the screenings. And as anyone who’s made a Straight 8 will tell you, that wait is the toughest thing of all about the whole process. We’ll see.

Fist bumps and hugs to everyone that got their film into SFL on time this year. You’ve done something great, and you’re part of the hardcore. You’re film makers in the very purest sense of the word.

Be proud tonight. I am.