T h e L a m p P o s t

THINK:BREATHE:WRITE:DESTROY

2012-02-26T04:40:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year.

Yeah. Late. Nevermind.

New year, new focus. Proper focus. Two things.Two main things.

Powerless is about half way complete and probably will take most of the year to fine tune before anything happens with it. Its not a bad thing, no point in rushing these things. If I didn't have to work then all would be different. But Powerless needs to be perfect. Its my thing, my passion and I need to get it right, i need to get it down right.

I read a blog by the writer of Death in Paradise, BBC crime drama I had no interest in watching and never actually watched. But the writer is interesting because he won the Red Planet prize, something I have entered a couple of times and gotten fairly far into the process only to be let down by a rushed finished script. Anyway, his blog about how he got started with this whole thing is very interesting. He wrote that you should write what you know. However obvious that maybe, for some reason, when I used to hear that I always thought that meant, what I knew from a day to day kind of thing. Stupid right? Well, not really. But what this writer knew was crime drama. He loved it, he was obsessed with it, read it, watched it, loved it.

So as you know I'm writing Powerless, about a guy with powers. Its a love letter to comics, its a wishfullfillment thing, its a what would i have done with powers in a certain situation. Comics, superheroes... its what I know, so i am gonna write the hell out of it.

This writer dude, also went on to say that because he loved this stuff so much, he would write something thatwas original, that no one else had ever seen, that no one else could write. Now, the whole originiallity thing... cop dramas have been done to death, but its more of a 'no one can write this thing quite like me'.

So, there has been Heroes, and various other cack tv shows about superheroes, but no one has ever written Powerless. Not the way I am writing it. It's mine. And that is why its original.

Lets just hope its good.

Aside from Powerless I have been developing something that started off as a short film, but I think would really extend itself into an ace little character study feature. Its got the working title of Pangs at the moment and is a romance about a guy with an eating disorder and how love can transcend anything when its true.

NO LIFE!

Homeland is fucking awesome. Best new show on the box.

Luck is a little odd at the moment, finding it a little tough to get into. But liking it all the same. Well, i want to like it.

Alcatraz has started promisingly.

Walking Dead season 2 part two continues and I hope it continues to be good.

Sons of Anarchy season 4 is fecking brilliant.

Drive is one of the best films I have seen in ages and has become one of my all time faves. A little obsessed with it...

Whispers by Joshua Luna is brilliant.

Rachel Rising by Terry Moore keeps on getting more awesome with each new issue.

Scott Snyder is a God, as is Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis. Batman, Action Comics and Captain Swing are currently rocking my comic book reading world a lot.

TMNT are back and rule!

Mono and And So I Watch You From Afar and Feist fill my ears with brilliance.

Namaste...

The World is My Oyster

2011-12-18T03:35:00.000-08:00

So... 2011 is falling into the past. This shall be my last post of the year. Crazy year. Draining year. But a good year, almost. Had its ups and downs as do most, but certainly was a year of learning.

Powerless is still unfinished and will be completed in 2012. I don't want to rush it, i don;t want to finish it just to finish it. It has to be perfect. Perfection is a hard to thing to come by when you work five out of seven days a week. Leaves you two days to chill out, clean the house and do various other dull domestic things that need to be done, and... if you are lucky, spend some time with your lady. But... Powerless will be done. It will be a calling card. Its what I love, it has everything I love in it and everything I have ever dreamt of doing... ie, being a superhero, have a secret identity, having a calling greater than you could ever understand. So i am writing the hell out of it and will continue to do so until its perfect. Annoyingly i was hoping to get it in to the Red Planet Prize this year, and despite it being later this year and the deadline being mid January... I can't. I mean, I could submit, i have ten opening pages that i am really proud of, but like last year, they may want the rest of the script and... well i kinda dropped the ball last year and rushed an ending that fudged the rest of the script up. So, lesson learnt.

So, while Powerless gets completed over a period of time I am going to be developing a few other ideas. RUSSIA is an idea I have been playing with for a few months now and will attempt to geta treatment put together and eventually woe a local artist with its merits, but it is very high concept. And after chatting with him, i think we both need to leave high concept on the back burner. Instead we have found common ground on collaborating on something a little more fun. I'm putting some ideas together as you read this for talk in the new year. I really hope this comes about and comes together as planned. Think Regular Show meets Twin Peaks. Thats what is in my head at the moment.

Ella news.

Upcoming screenings are as follows.

London Short Film Festival 2012
January 2012Tickets and Info

Looks ace. TIckets are resonable and Ella is eligable for the Popcorn Horror award.
Here is what its all about...

The classic scary story with a twist in the tale was a staple of 1970s television; a ghost story, a vampire story, a twisted story, a story set in a not-too-distant future. This varied selection brings together a few jumps and bumps, including an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story Mute. Also includes Paul Kaye as a mysterious kidnapper in Straight Way Lost, and Buffy’s Anthony Head as a grieving father in Ella.

Prague Short Film Festival 2012
18th- 20thJanuary 2012
Info

Again, looks ace. Dan always enters shorts into awesome looking festivals. Will update with any info that appears on both of these festivals.

NO LIFE!

FIlm of the year...Black Swan/Kill List/Adventures of Tintin/Rise of The Planet of The Apes...
Album of the year... Bon Ivor
Comic of the year... Who is Jake Ellis?/DC's New 52 (pretty much all of them)
TV of the year... Fringe season 4/Bored to Death season 2/Black Mirror/Alphas/Walking Dead season 2
Book of the year... When God Was a Rabbit/The Marriage Plot/Skippy Dies

Next year... Stuff I'm excited about

Film... The Dark Knight Rises/Avengers/New PT Anderson???
TV... Alcatraz/Fringe Season 4/Mad Men season 5/Walking Dead season 2
Comics... Everything on my pull list!
Books... The Art of Fielding/The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry/The Land of Decoration

Happy Christmas/Happy New Year/Goodbye/Namaste

Ella's Big Weekend

2011-11-17T01:05:00.000-08:00

Saturday 19th November. Date worth putting in your diary, or simply remembering if you are in the Bristol area, as Ella gets a screening at the renowned and awesome international film festival this weekend.

Local news ITV Westcountry screened a segment yesterday which as a nice little tease of Ella, a little interview with our lovely producer and sneak peek at the festival itself. Its a piece on the festival really, but I like to think its all about Ella.

See it here if you wish... ELLA

Check out the festival website for times and program information. I wish I was going, Dan has told me there is a Q&A session with filmmakers which would have been great fun, but tis the season and i work fucking retail... go figure.

Video

2011-10-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

Mr. Dan has set up a Vimeo page which contains a teaser for Ella (very nice), and the last film before Ella that Dan and I collaborated on... INSIDES (which was named after an Orbital album, fact fans, plus it just fits perfectly...), which is about a guy (good uni pal Martin Murphy) going a bit mental over a video tape. That by the way is the wrost description ever.

That Bloody Kid

2011-09-17T03:32:00.000-07:00

Ella continues to wander the earth like Kane in Kung Fu.

The festival line- up has gotten a little bigger which is very cool. One of the coolest though is in Sweden. Where Ella will screen with a Dutch film called Two Eyes Staring. Follows the links to find out a bit more info.

http://www.fff.se/artiklar/2011/09/filmerna-i-arets-melies-kortfilmstavling/

http://www.fff.se/en/film/zwart-water/

And here is the updated list of where else Ella will be screening and has alread screened...

FESTIVAL WHERE WHEN

Worldwide Short Film Festival Toronto, Canada June 2011

Puchon Fantastic Film Festival Puchon, Korea July 2011

Grossman Fantastic Film & Wine Festival Slovenia July 2011

A World of Shorts Toronto, Canada August 2011

Concorto Film Festival 20-27 August 2011

MotelX – Lisbon International Horror Film Festival Lisbon, Portugal 7-11 September

Lund Fantastic Film Festival Lund, Sweden 15-24 September 2011

Branchage Festival Jersey 22-25 September 2011

Calgary International Film Festival Calgary, Canada 23 September – 02 October 2011

Screamfest LA LA, USA 14-23 October 2011

Court Metrange Rennes, France 20-23 October 2011

Razor Reel Fantastic Film Festival Brugge BELGIUM 29 OCT – 5 NOV

SITGES International Fantastic Film Festival

Spain 6-16 October

Encounters Short Film Festival Bristol, UK Nov 16-20 2011

Abertoir Horror Festival Wales Nov 2011

Puerto Rico Horror Festival

At the start of the year Dan came to me with the idea that we had been throwing around last summer to see if we could put Ella into some kind of feature treatment. We pitched a ten page treatment he had me write to SW SCREEN and low and behold the crazy bastards went for it, giving us a development fund and support to rewrite and rethink the concept of ELLA as a movie. I thrashed out story and treatment ideas with Dan till we bled and co wrote the treatment with him. He is now writing the screenplay, the first draft of which has just come across my desk(top).

Found this artcile online...

... the South West-backed chiller is called ELLA, from director Dan Gitsham... No further info was given in the trade break, but Fango did a little digging and found it’s evidently a feature expansion of a digital short of the same title from the same creative duo, also funded by South West. This ELLA, which world-premiered last month at Toronto’s 17th Worldwide Short Film Festival, was written by Gitsham and James Driver and stars BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’s Anthony Stewart Head (pictured above and right), Lisa Backwell from the UK version of SKINS and Joanne Lancastle.

Read the full article here.

Right... back to Powerless...

WATCH: The Regular Show, New Thundercats, The Fades, Fringe, LOST, Stewart Lee, Teen Wolf, The Killing
READ: Christopher Priest, The Marriage Plot, Skippy Dies, Stewart Lee, DCnU Action Comics, Detective Comics, Justice League, Locke and Key, Moon Knight, Ultimates...
LISTEN: Bon Ivor, Explosions in the Sky

The Wolves Act I and II

2011-09-08T05:17:00.000-07:00

Rewriting can be an absolute pleasure. When it flows and works and feels like perfection itself... words, perhaps ironically, fail in describing the pleasure.

It can feel like an act of betrayal though. You have thirty, forty pages of a script that you clearly liked cos you were fucking writing it for the last few months and then suddenly, you wake up in the middle of the night with fresh thoughts and you look at that body of work and think, fuck you, you piece of crap.

Its odd.

Thats kinda where I'm at the moment.

Its a massive part of the process and some who don't write, or who aren;t familiar with what you are doing will think that you have just wasted a ton of work and a ton of time.

Not true. All part of the process.

My danger is rewriting ad infinitum.

But I feel I am on an ace path. Streamlined, fun, thought provoking,action packed...

I'm back on POWERLESS, which is an idea that has been brimming for about four years and has changed from super depression to whimsical super depression to super whimsy to super whimsy depression comedy social drama... its somewhere in the midst of that. I'm trying to get to feel like a comic book, the sort i read and look forward to each month. I love comics, have loved them since I was a tiny kid, so to see a TV show that does justice to the things i love would be a dream come true.

Heroes was probably the only show that managed it... and even then it only managed it for a season. Season 2, 3, 4 sucked large amounts of balls.

So... yeah, writing going good.

NO LIFE....

Kill List... British hitman movie crossed with Rosemary's Baby and The Wicker Man. Awesome, brutal and mental.

Easy A... Really surprised the shit out of me how much I enjoyed this.

EEEE EEE EEEE... Mental little book about depression, boredom and hating stupid things and the bears, hamsters, moose and dolphins that feel the same. Loved it.

Skippy Dies... Amazing book.

A Rage In Harlem... Brilliant, crazy piece of old school crime.

Bon Ivor... Just in love with everything Bon Ivor at the moment.

LOST... Starting season one from the beginning. I LOVE THIS SHOW! Now own all on bluray, it's like watching for the first time. Looks and sounds amazing.

Sons of Anarchy.... Finally getting round to watching season 3. Brilliant.

Skippy Dies

2011-08-04T04:37:00.000-07:00

So, summer. Fuck summer.

Moved on to pastures new.

Powerless is now back in the crossheirs and is going very well. Structure sorted. 30 pages written. Character fully formed. Villian created. Villian is sharp.

Summer Movies:

Captain America - Awesome fun.

Transformers Dark of the Moon - Loud and smashy and great.

Super - Horrible, depressing, funny, violent and very sad. Kinda Loved It.

Super 8 - Cannot Wait!

Rise of The Planet of the Apes - Looks Awesome!

Hobo With a Shotgun - Aboiut to watch.

Summer Music:

Bon Ivor - Wonderous and beautiful.

Explosions in the Sky - Amazing. Pure. And. Simple.

Slow Club - Monday Morning train journeys to work have gotten better.

Summer Novels:

From The Mouth of The Whale - Undecided.

The Tiny Wife - Kaufman's best? I loved it.

Skippy Dies - Brilliant in every way.Highly addictive.

Embedded - Never have i found reading a discription of a head exploding more fun.

Summer TV:

Teen Wolf - Enjoyable fluff.

Chicago Code - Shame it got cancelled.

Battlestar Final Season - Astounding.

LOST on bluray - Fuck yeah!

New Thundercats - HOOOOOOO!

The Regular Show - HOOOOOOO!

Bring on the Autumn.

Ella Around the World - Reviews Round Up

2011-08-04T04:34:00.000-07:00

Some great reviews from Ella's first batch of festivals...

'A perfect mix of blood and pathos, the destruction of the nuclear family has never been

more perfectly illustrated (and married to Little Red Hiding Hood tropes!) than in Ella.'

Angie Driscoll, WSFF

'...quite possibly one of the more perverse re-imaginings of Little Red Riding Hood I’ve seen'

Final Girl Project

'Increased attention on cinematography and the gravitas of the veteran thespian go along way towards

making this tale of a man dealing with horror in the family stand out from the pack.'

Exclaim

'...a nearly wordless and intense subversion of the Red Riding Hood story.'

Critizise This

'Haunting and unsettling'

DVD-NIN-CHILE

'...a gloriously messed up Red Riding Hood tale.'

Torontoist

Screenings & Festivals:

Worldwide Short Film Festival 2011 (Toronto, CANADA)

Puchon Fantastic Film Festival 2011 (Puchon, KOREA)

The Reviews Are In

2011-06-04T02:03:00.000-07:00

Ella recieved it's first international screening on June 3rd in Toronto as part of the CFC WorldwideFilm Festival's Midnight Mania Creepy slot.

It seems to have generated some positivity!

Very exciting and cool to see this little film on the world's stage.

Check out the reviews here...

Review 1

Review 2

Review 3

Review 4

Do Deers listen to Kings of Leon?

2011-05-16T10:22:00.001-07:00

Ella's World

2011-05-16T10:05:00.001-07:00

Ella gets its first worldwide screening at a film festival in Toronto! Very exciting!

Ella has been entered into the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto. Its an awesome looking festival and I really wish i had the dosh to go over and witness Ella with other people. Its a pretty big deal, with some brilliant shorts on show,some including somebig movie stars.

Ella is apart of the Creepy Midnight Mania which starts on Friday June 3rd at 11.59PM exactly.We are second on, in what looks to be a really great night of scary shorts.

Here is what they said about it...

Anthony Head (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) stars as a gun- toting man with blood on his hands, a dead wife on the floor, and a daughter loose in the woods. Who is the hunted and who is the hunter in this seriously sinister reworking of Little Red Riding Hood?

Very excited about this, they have given us an awesome write up and used an excellent still from the film. Very happy indeed! Check out the links for more info.

Soundless Sounds

2011-05-04T04:07:00.000-07:00

Undan Hulu - Olafur Arnalds, And They Have Escaped The Weight of Darkness

There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease - Young Mountain, This Will Destroy You

Missing Children, Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy

Why So Serious, Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard, The Dark Knight OST

Moorestown, Sunkillmoon, April

Jackrabbits, Joanna Newsom, Have One On Me

When You Loved Me

2011-05-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

No Life

2011-03-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

Read it.

The Field Where I Died

2011-03-14T02:50:00.001-07:00

The Children's Hour

2011-02-16T03:11:00.001-08:00

Lisa Blackwell, she who portrayed Ella in the awesome short film I wrote last year will appearing alongside the wonderful actresses you see in the poster above. Very awesome. Just wish I could afford to go. It's very expensive!

What's in a name...?

2011-02-16T03:05:00.000-08:00

Feature Names...

Forest of Leaves
July Flame
Monster
Autumn's Daughter
Daughter
Father
The Forest Inside
Coldwood
Cold World
Leaves
The Gone Away World
Forest of Ash
Family Ash
The Cold
Ash

and Ella...

What if Clark Kent was Chicken?

2011-02-13T02:59:00.000-08:00

That's the question. That's the pitch for what I am developing at the moment.

Powerless has been with me for around four years now and has developed from depressed superhero suicide note to a pontificating scaredycat's dreams of hope and fullfilment. Currently in the treatment stage, a stage that I have now only just started to enjoy, to make sure the story is sound and the structure is bulletproof. This is hopefully gonna be a specscript that I can submit as a pilot or as a script that demonstrates my stengths.

Ella is done. Ella has had a screening at Bafta. It sat, alongside the other shorts that SW Screen invested in, in front of press, scouts and talent. Was screened last and well received, think it was on most people's lips when the lights came back on. May be wishful thinking. But Dan and I are not done yet with Ella. Oh no. More information when it becomes available, but suffice to say, I am excited.

Violent Crimes made the list of second rounders at the Red Planet Prize.A full script was required after the initial pitch and ten pages were well received. Unfortunately the script didn't make the final round. Red Planet has said the competition was very tough this year, which may be true, but ultimately I feel in hindsight Violent Crimes wasn't focused enough and failed because I hadn't developed it fully. Ah well.

NO LIFE!

When God Was a Rabbit -- Beautiful first novel from Sarah Winham, set to be one of Waterstone's 11 books and authors to keep your eye on this year. Personally, i think this is the first must read of the year. Stunning in every respect.

Black Swan -- Should win more awards than it actually will. Aronofsky returns with an awesomely twisted beauty of a film. Not his best, but this is a guy who only makes exceptional films.

Who is Jake Ellis -- New book from IMAGE, brilliant and intriguing.

Boardwalk Empire -- Amazing.

Pangs

2010-11-28T03:06:00.001-08:00

First post in an age and it will be brief.

First and foremost, you must hop over to Dan's website. Very nicely put together with info on all his short films including the two I have co written with him and some ace photographs fromthe various productions.

Ella is nearing completition. After a few sound hiccups, we are nearing the finishing line. It had a showing to cast and crew back in October and went down a storm, which is great news.

Violent Crimes is out there in the wilderness.My fingers are crossed, but I am not too hopeful. Its a decent script, maybe the ideas are way above my station and i have bitten off more than i can chew and it most likely needs some editing, but i hope the writing stands out.It has gotten through to round two of the Red Planet Competition, which is awesome.

Hands are tied by the madness of Christmas and my job in an awesome bookstore, so writing is few and far between.

Have a few projects on the go, including two short film ideas, both are skeletons of scripts. There is a script I keep going back to over and over again, well, there are many, Powerless is one that is quite personal to me. I have found a new way to tackle it, to make it more personal, more contempory and less miserable. So pretty excited about that.

NO LIFE...

Morrision's Batman run.... fuck me the coolest brain frying thing ever!

Monsters... cannot wait to see this.

Scarlet... Brian Michael Bendis is God.

Mad Men... continues to be all that is awesome about TV.

The Event... Lost meets 24, but more 24 than Lost.... nothing can replace Lost.

Fringe... except maybe Fringe... which is bloody brilliant.... but could never replace Lost.

Lost Encyclopedia.... all kinds of awesome geekery

Sons of Anarchy... Its taken me a while to go from liking to loving this show.But fuck yeah, brilliant!

No Life

2010-07-25T11:16:00.001-07:00

Inception - Christopher Nolan is a genius. This film is genius.

Batman The Return of Bruce Wayne - Fucking brilliant.

The Passage - Greatest Novel Ever!

Joanna Newsom 'Have One on Me' - Beautiful, enchanting, wonderful. I love it!

Justified - Find it, watch it, love it!

E L L A : First Blood

2010-07-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

The first cut of Ella has passed my eyes and I adore it. It's a beautifully shot film with an emotional core that has really lept off the pages that Dan and I crafted over six months. Almost there. It's gonna be brilliant. Our cast have done an amazing job of bringing these characters to life. It's so surreal to think that those characters we both lived with for so long are now flesh and blood, walking and talking and growling and shooting and crying and shouting and maiming animals.

Violent Crimes has now finished. I have finally completed the newest draft. Aside from Ella and a brief diversion into the world of Powerless last year, Violent Crimes is the first full script I have finished in ages. I am so pleased with it. It's a tad too long, but that doesn't matter at this stage. All that remains is to fine tune it and get some feedback and get a first season outline written up and get it out there.

Ella FX

2010-07-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

Andy Chappell provided the excellent make up and effects and general gore for Ella and completely stunned me with how ace they were. Very freakish. Check out his website for more coolness. His Predator is very very cool.

Speaking of which... Predators... waste of time. Dull. Not as good as Eclipse, which was also pretty fucking dull.

Violent Crimes

2010-07-16T07:41:00.001-07:00

Darkness Rising is something that has been rattling around my brain for bloody ages. Over the last few months when breaking from Ella I have been rewriting a script that is about ten years old. It is now completely revamped with a new name. Now called Violent Crimes, it tells the tale of the worlds most angriest police man.

Anyway, each year Tony Jordon's Red Planet Pictures has a competition, asking firstly for the first ten pages of a script. Today I entered the first ten pages. Fingers crossed please!

Mount Kilimanjaro

2010-07-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

In January 2011, me and my girl are hoping to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of The Rainbow Trust Charity. They are a charity that support families with terminally ill children. A brilliant charity to get behind. If you have any spare cash and wish to sponser me on this massive undertaking then please visit here and give what you can.

Thank you!

Ella has been shot... twice, once in the gut, once in the head....

2010-07-13T02:22:00.000-07:00

July 8th - July 11th.
Deep somewhere in Somerset I got very sunburnt as Ella was commited to film (or some digital variation of film). Cast was magnificant, crew was amazing, the weather was bright and sunny, hot with a few light showers, days were long, tough and satisfying, evenings were full of excitement, stress, worry and not enough sleep.

Ella is now filmed and it was awesome.

Dark

2010-06-13T08:30:00.001-07:00

It's a sunday and I have a horrible ear ache.

There is some tossbag outside blowing what sounds like a trumpet at random intervals. It kinda sounds like some strange mating ritual between elephants, or cows, or rhinos, or Lions? Or ducks? I don't know, sounds fucked.

Ella... or as it may now go back to being called Dead Rabbits is nearing its shoot date.We are currently casting at the moment, I say we, I'm at home right now while Dan and Sophie audition people and scout for locations. I've just finsihed the lastest revised draft of Ella as we try and get it perfect for a shooting script. Its going good. Its going well. I just can't wait to see this thing become life. Its very exciting.

Darkness Rising... or Dark as it is now called. Managed to write about seven pages today, introduced the big bad in the form of Michael Elliot, evil doctor, complete nut case, but I have tried to approach it differently from the millions of drafts that I have tackled in the past. This is the second draft that I am looking at currently, trying to make it a workable script that I love and want others to love.

But I think I am done for today.

Alan Wake awaits.

Ella

2010-05-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

As of right now the short film Ella is entering preproduction!

I am over the moon. I am so excited that this crazy little script that myself and Dan have been pouring our heart and soul into has been recognised and will soon become flesh and blood and blood and dog's faces and blood and a bit of blood.

My writing has been validated, it has been chosen it has been looked at and now is having money thrown at it.

Its an amazong feeling!

Now the hard part begins, pre-production! Actors, locations and crew are going to be gathered together to make this awesome little short.

More soon...

Graphic Moments

2010-04-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

The short film previously entitled Dead Rabbits has entered the final leg of possible funding. A final development draft was pushed off into the ether on the friday just gone. I have to say I'm happy with it. Its good, its depressing, its pretty horrible and made more so by some beautiful little moments that stick in your head due to the emotions they stir up, and the fact that those moments are then crapped all over by something nasty. I love the fact that rereading the script left me with a nasty taste in my mouth.

So, yeah, script is done for now and handed in. It's new name is Ella, written by myself and Dan Gitsham, its about a family unit that has completely broken down, and the father, feeling guilt over his inaction to prevent this brake down from occuring goes out to fix it once and for all.

A while back I began writing up many of the loose ideas that Dan and I had discussed into a graphic novel. I loved the ideas we had and thought they could work, if nowhere else, as a graphic novel. And they are working very well indeed. I am currently rewriting the first 40 pages, shifting the tone and focus a little more towards the ideas of the short film and mixing in the rather nastier ideas of the graphic novel. The graphic, while still following the short film about being a family breaking down, the story here looks at the reasons why this has happened and why the father takes so long to react to it, it looks at the relationships behind the breakdown and shows the cracking of their lives. Arthur Miller, the father in the graphic novel is the main character and we follow him on a journey that takes him full circle where he must confront his demons and understand why he is the way he is.

Its pretty bleak, and pretty harsh, but is very cool. Its something new for me to be writing. Horror that is. I have never really tackled horror as full on as this (both short film and graphic) and why I am finding it so interestingand fun to write is the understanding of where the horror comes from. Many times in the past I have thought, 'right, lets create a horror, lets write something horrific and nasty' and i always found them falling flat, or I would get bored, and thats because I approached it all wrong. This short and graphic can be seen as a horror, but can be seen as other things as well. Its a horror due to the situations the characters fall in, its a horror because it plays on your fears, its a horror because it goes to some dark fucking places and makes you question yourself and your feelings, it makes you think what would you do if you were in this place.

If all things work out, this could be something of a huge stepping stone for my writing, funding on a short film will be out of this world, it will be amazing, and if the graphic novel people dig the script i am writing and the prospect of having a book out there with a disc strapped to it containing a fucking awesomely written and directed short film... well... fucking ace!

NO LIFE.....

The Box... Just watched this the other night on bluray, looked amazing, but more importantly, was fucking amazing. I love Richard Kelly's work, Donnie Darko is flawless, Southland Tales is brilliant and underrated and misunderstood... but The Box, possibly his best so far, weird, tense, paranoid madness awaits. I loved it!

Sons of Anarchy... I miss The Shield since it finished so amazingly afew years ago now, and now I have found its replacement. BIker gangs, Hellboy, violence, and some truly brilliant writing... Everything The Shield was but with bikes in it.

Dr. Who... New Who is pretty good. Like Matt Smith, love Karen Gillan, loved the opener of the season, but is slowly making me loose interest again.... hmmmm...

Shuddertown... Awesome new comic from IMAGE.

Nemesis... Makes Kick Ass look like shit. So it says on the cover. Miller's new book is great and so far a little bit more fun than Kick Ass.

The Sword... One more issue to go... one hell of a rug pull at the end of 23... cannot wait!

LOST... Nearly finished and I am very sad.Don't want it to end, but I am loving the game changing madness of the last few episodes. THE BEST THING ON TV!

Dead Rabbits

2010-03-24T07:31:00.001-07:00

The short film that I am working on has now entered its fourth (possibly more than that) draft, officially its the second draft and has, as of this morning been sent off to be poured over by various people who know what they are talking about. The working title of the short was Dead Rabbits for a while, and before that was known as Hide and Eat. It has a new title currently, one that is as interesting and subvertive as its themes and contents. It's a film about fatherhood, nature, masks, death, birth, smoke, blood, dogs, friends, empathy, shit, eggs, broken T.V's, scratches, copying and most importantly, its a film about love and how it can lead to your downfall. And it does all of this in just nine pages!

This has taken up a huge amountof my time at the moment, along with work, so GATCOC has fallen a little to the side, but I shall be returning to that as I have about a week away from the short. Really looking forward to some feedback on it.

NO LIFE!!!

2010-03-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Occupying my brain currently...

LOST Season 6 - final season, mind blowing and there are only seven episodes left till the end. THE END. I am now very sad. Truly, very very upset by this.

Our Tragic Universe - Scarlett Thomas - The only book I have really been excited about and its not out for another couple of months and I am 100 pages into it! A perk of working in a bookstore are proofs! I have one and I am loving it. Every page. Very inspirational, has set me on my path of understanding Omega Point theory.

Caprica - Tough going, quite slow, but brilliantly written and a true grower. Not the LOST replacement I once thought though. Fuck knows why i thought that!

Fringe Season 2 - Continues to get better. Walter is an ace character!

Mad Men Season 2 - Almost at the very end of this season and its brilliant. So much better than the first season and that was brilliant too! In everyway. Season 3 is sitting on my Sky +

Buffy Season 8 - Twilight, the big bad for season 8 has been revealed. Annoyingly i kinda knew who it was, but it still shocked me. Most recent issue confused the shit out of me though. I don't know what the fuck is going on.

The Sword - Its almost at its end. Why does everything i love come to an end?

Well... not everything, just media wise. My true love continues!

The Point Of It All

2010-03-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

Because I'm an idiot who has just had nine days off work and thought he was due into today, when in actual fact I'm not due in until tomorrow...(bloody 15 minute walk, 10 minute train journey,another ten minute walk and then do it all over again for nothing... mumble grumble)... I was up earlyenough to get my arse into gear and get some work done. Proper work, not that stuff I actually get paid for, but writing.

The last week has been ace for many a reason, but one of the best is amount of writing I have managed to get done, both physically, ala actual typing at this computer, and mentally, the amount of shit i have managed to get noted down, planned, blocked out and most importantly thought about. Its been ace, and having an extra day of it has been awesome.

I am now well into the first act of The Girl At The Centre of Creation, an idea I had a few years ago. Its developed into something pretty cool, cooler than I could have imagined at the time of coming up with it. Its still basically the same story, good versus evil, but I have been doing some research into Omega Point theory and string theory and whole bunch of crazy science theories that have set my brain running wild with story possibilities. It has given this story of good versus evil and whole new canvas to play on.

Its about a 30 year old woman who works in a book store. Her husband wants a divorce, she still loves him, this divorce has come completely out of the blue. Her boss hates her, sick of her drama and she has just been in a pretty horrendous bus crash, and just like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, hasn't got a mark on her. That's pretty much the first act there. Its coming on nicely.

One thing that has benefitted this new script is the work I have been doing with Dan Gitsham whom I shared an eventful university experience with, whom i have worked on a few shorts at said uni with and co wrote a short called Insides. We are collaborating on a short film project that was born out of few emails back and forth shunting ideas about. The current work we are doing on this project is character and backstory and its amazing how well it has opened my brain and mademe realise that I don't really know my characters very well at all until i get to know them.I know that sounds dumb, but the amount of times i think its fine to throw myself into a script knwoing them in my head and writing a substandard script that mainly falls down on character is ridiculous. So yeah, usually i go in having met my characters, shaken hands with them and then think i can write their fucking life stories. Again, i know its obvious, but you really truely need to get to know them before you can write them. I'm usually pretty bad at all the prep work that goes into a script. i get anxious and impatient, i want to tell the story and tell it NOW! But this collaborative work Dan and I have been doing has been awesome.

The Girl At The Centre of Creation

2010-03-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

It's strange starting up something new after using something else for so long. You get used to a certain way things work, you get used to the feel of things... but i kinda felt the need tomove away from it. Currently i have all this kinda bumf over on myspace,but i just kinda hate. Tried to jiggle it about and make it look a bit better but just ended up making it look more of a mess.So, i am gonna be using this to blog on from the time being i think.

Anyway, GATCOC is going nicely. Still developing the whole thing. The only thing really down on paper is the teaser. I am following the layouts of US drama at the moment as its what i know, and its a really cool way of setting things out. Been doing a heck of a lot of research in Omega Point which is informing and enriching the central idea of this show. Very much enjoying this. Characters too are coming together very nicely. Spent the afternoon watching Hitchcock who is a master at taking a character apart in front of your very eyes.

Also, short film work is coming along nicely, again character work is making the rest of the pieces fall into very nice places...