Wednesday, August 27, 2014

PRODUCTION

As two feature projects I've worked on, one as the writer and the other as script editor, gather momentum towards production early next year, I couldn't resist reflecting on how both these projects came about and how quickly they have progressed over the last month or two.

BROKEN BOYS

Having already adapted COWBOYS CAN FLY for producer Sean Langton of Trebuchet Film Production, from the novel of the same name by Ken Smith, I was asked if I could help out and work closely with the writer Julie Grady-Thomas on BROKEN BOYS, guiding her as she wrote the next draft. To her credit Julie really got stuck in and wrote an awesome script she can be very proud of.

Since then the project has landed a multi-award winning director in Jan Dunn and has attached an awesomely talented cast in Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Suranne Jones (Scott & Bailey), Thomas Turgoose (This is England) and Reece Douglas (Waterloo Road). BROKEN BOYS is due to go into production in January and this is all down to the talented people who have worked so hard to make the film happen.

CONDITION

David Luke Rees and I were originally attached to a feature project (as director and writer respectively) which unfortunately didn't work out. However, ever the optimist, I didn't let the opportunity go to waste and contacted David to see if we could work on something else together, after being very impressed with his award winning short film TO MEET IT WITH AWE. Then in February he came to me with an idea. We both loved what we came up with and it grew to the extent that in May I handed him the finished screenplay.

Thanks to David's magical networking skills CONDITION was received incredibly well and it wasn't long before David was able to set a date for production in February of 2015. He is now stupidly busy setting about pulling everything together for his feature producing and directing debut.

It has been a fantastic year thus far and the first two months of 2015 are just going to be AMAZING!!!!!!

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

HOLIDAY

On Saturday I'm off on a well deserved holiday. And I need one.

As I was deciding what to take with me to North Cornwall I thought I'd do a quick little experiment on Facebook. I asked whether I should (a) just take a notepad and pen with me to jot down ideas, (b) take a notebook and the laptop and work on one of my specs, or (c) take nothing, leave it all behind, clear my head and come back refreshed.

I was quite surprised with the results. There were seven votes each for A and C, with a mix of writers and non writers across the two. Personally I though all the writers would have said A and the non writers C.

What really surprised me though was that only one person said B. Yes he is a writer and obviously understands fully the addiction that is developing stories. There is no break from it, not on holiday, not when you're asleep, not even when you're on you seventh pint of beer in the pub with your friends. Writing is more than a passion and more than a job. It's what you have to do everyday, because if you don't it would send you mad. So why did only one writer insist I take my laptop?

Could it be that life gets in the way of writing for most people? I can't speak for anyone else, but I do believe writing has to come first in your life, if you want to be a success at it, if you want to be more than just good and more importantly if you want to make money. Nothing else can be allowed to get in the way, despite how much you would like to go off and do other things.

Having said that if I don't spend time on the holiday with the family I will be in a great deal of trouble with my wife. So as a compromise I'll just take my notebook and pen, after all I don't need the laptop as I have a writing program on my iPhone. I'm sure I can sneak a few pages of writing in here and there while I'm hiding out in the loo from the kids ;-)