The World is My Oyster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Ella's World

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

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

No Life

Read it.

The Field Where I Died

The Children's Hour

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...?

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?

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.