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