2008

Another year over (nearly). How was your 2008?

Mine was suspiciously like this:

JANUARY

George MacDonald Fraser died. I was a bit upset about that.

I set out to write a feature in six days (due to some ridiculously bad time-management skills). I actually managed to write it in three … and it was shit.

I found out I had no idea what blue pages actually are. Or rather, I knew what they were, but not exactly what they looked like and how to do them. I’m still not 100% sure but I’ve come up with my own version and no one’s complained so far.

Whilst on location for ‘K‘ I managed to work out a cheap way of throwing an actor off the roof.

I got fired from a film and inexplicably became obsessed with tin foil as a direct result. Looking back on that, it might have been a teeny tiny nervous breakdown.

I learnt how to write a sex scene which won’t upset actresses, then got called a sexist by Piers for using the word ‘actresses’.

Weirdly, someone asked me to put more swearing into a script. I’ve never been asked for that before or since.

‘K‘ started shooting.

I began the script for ‘Mixed Up‘ and immediately tried to hide under the tin foil again.

I bought my first ever calendar.

And to wrap January up, BBC Three announced the airdate for ‘The Wrong Door‘.

 

FEBRUARY

I learnt how to keep actors happy. Or happier, anyway.

I finished the first draft of ‘Mixed Up‘ and for some reason felt the need to post a video of my friends and I massacring ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’.

IMDB made me happy.

After a couple of years of faithful service, I abandoned this room:

And moved into this one:

Which has a sofa for me to lie on whilst wrapped in tin foil:

And a light switch shaped like a nipple:

All to make space for my soon-to-be-arriving daughter. My old office looks more like this now:

And then I got memed. I didn’t like it.

 

MARCH

I decided ‘Mixed Up‘ was going to be my last low budget film and from now on I was going to concentrate purely on some TV specs.

I started work on two more low budget films. Since I can’t remember what they were, they obviously went the way of most low budget films and imploded on contact with reality.

I wrote a lot of shit about strategy.

Adele Silva completely failed to mention me in Hello!

I learnt taking meetings when your brain is in a different time zone is a bad idea.

I got invited to a mysterious gathering.

I learnt I used to live in Croydon – or at least that’s what the Croydon Guardian believes.

I worked out how to introduce a character without having her in the scene.

And then I got dressed up as Captain Kirk.

 

APRIL

Wow, are you still reading? Really?

I went to the thing I got invited to – a BBC shindig and chance to meet the producers of the BBC’s New Comedy Unit. Where I stood in the corner for a few hours, got very hot, very angry and completely failed to meet any of the producers of the BBC’s New Comedy Unit.

I realised there are very few female sidekicks.

I picked up even more low budget film work.

Abi Titmuss completely failed to mention me in The Sun and then promised to continue to never mention me in public. I decided not to believe she existed.

Karma Magnet turned up online. People seemed to like it.

Abi Titmuss made good her promise and failed to mention me in Closer.

I confirmed, once and for all, actors don’t really have sex in sex scenes. Unless it’s porn.

I got to write for Doctor Who. Not the show, or even the current Doctor, but for Sylvester McCoy and that’s good enough for me.

I decided some actors needed punching in the throat.

And then ‘Mixed Up‘ started shooting, so I went and hid in the Caribbean.

 

MAY

 I finally gave in and went on set. It was fun. I made tea.

Shouted at people for getting upset about not winning competitions. If you’ve entered the Red Planet Prize this year, you should read this post again.

I had a day off. That was nice too.

Someone said something nice about me on IMDB. I immediately became suspicious.

I had another shout at people for being idiots and starving themselves to death whilst failing as a writer. Get a proper job, for fuck’s sake.

Had my first, and so far only, guest post.

Wrote a short guide to dealing with notes which basically involved a lot of swearing and some minor violence.

Hmm … May was a bit rubbish, wasn’t it?

 

JUNE

I decided to murder my old spec scripts and just deleted them.

I rescued  my old spec scripts from the recycle bin and hid them where I couldn’t find them.

‘Fleeced‘ started filming – that’s three features so far this year.

Got another black belt – also my third.

Went on a bit about loving the treatment I was writing. I wish I hadn’t now.

Shouted a bit about questions and then took two weeks off because:

Seriously, who gives a fuck about the rest of the year?

 

JULY

Oh, you’re still reading, are you?

Fine, come on then.

Shall we just have one more photo of Alice?

 Aw.

Anyway.

In July I organised a museum heist.

Got invited to a screening of The Wrong Door.

Went to the screening of The Wrong Door, met loads of people including Doctor Fox, Sarah Morgan and her boyfriend, didn’t make a tit of myself (except with Doctor Fox) and managed to steal a T-shirt:

Two days later, I had to give the T-shirt back. A handy tip – if you steal something, don’t mention it on your blog.

Learnt how to be constructive with my criticism rather than just scrawling SHIT on the script in red ink, wiping my arse on it and sending it back.

Met Gordon Robertson after knowing him via email (not in the biblical sense, that’s impossible) for a few years. He’s a nice bloke.

And then waffled on a bit about random shit to avoid having to do any real work.

 

AUGUST

Crap. Still working on that fucking treatment.

Got asked an annoying question.

Got offered a shit load of imaginary money.

Got asked if I wanted to run a sketch writing workshop. I didn’t. Then I thought I might. Then the guy stopped talking to me. So I didn’t.

Didn’t have dinner with Gordy Hoffman.

Bought a new computer:

It has touchscreen. I like touching it.

Discovered cats and touchscreen computers don’t mix.

The Wrong Door got a lot of publicity in the run up to the show – 12 of the 14 reviews I read were very positive. 2 were very negative.

The Wrong Door kicked off. So did a guy called Ben Randall who was so upset he didn’t find a programme funny he came all the way over to this blog to call me names.

 

SEPTEMBER

The Wrong Door had the highest opening of any show on BBC Three (about four people) which seemed to greatly upset a handful of Internet loonies who went on and on and on about it for fucking ages.

I made the mistake of suggesting the people coming to my blog to call me names because they didn’t find a TV programme funny were a bit mental. Several people took great exception to this and went far out of their way to call me names in an effort to prove how mistaken I was about their lack of sanity and a real life.

Got my first death threat. Actually I got two death threats and one offer to rape my three month old daughter to ‘teach me a lesson’. That was nice. Perfectly sane behaviour that, I thought.

Still working on that fucking treatment.

Had a superb meeting where people offered me lots of money. I didn’t, and still don’t, really believe them.

Got offered another low budget feature film. That’s more like it.

Yet more abuse about The Wrong Door. One guy has taken to posting insults then changing names and agreeing with himself. He doesn’t seem to be able to grasp concepts like IP addresses, I can see it’s all one guy. I assumed this was a guy because I like to think women have better things to do.

There was a new trailer for LVJ. Again.

An old project threatened to spring back to life … and then didn’t.

Finally finished that fucking treatment.

Oh and a bit more abuse about The Wrong Door.

On a serious note, all that abuse was a bit wearing. You write in the privacy of your own room for years until someone decides they want to make your work. You’re pleased, they’re pleased, the show comes out and generally people either like it or turn it off. Then a small contingent of morons think it’s perfectly acceptable to come and call you names, threaten your family and generally behave like cunts because – horror of horrors – THEY don’t like it. It’s depressing and it’s demotivating. I expected to be slagged off in papers if the critics didn’t like something I’d written. I expected to be slagged off on forums or other people’s blogs – all that’s fair enough; but the sheer persistence of a few individuals who felt the need to come here and spout off about it did actually get me down.

Until Oli sent me a cartoon. Which explained everything and really cheered me up. I decided I would find some way to repay him, somehow.

I completely failed to do some writing and in a gargantuan procrastination session, I redesigned my website.

 

OCTOBER

I revealed the one true secret of screenwriting THEY don’t want you to know.

The Wrong Door finished.

The abuse didn’t.

Took on far too much work and struggled to cope.

Found out I didn’t have a second act. Bit of a bugger that one.

Had a dream about Jason Arnopp, James Moran and an over-ground submarine.

Fixed the second act thing and discovered it no longer matched the ending.

Wrote a whiny post about writing treatments in the hope a certain producer was reading and would let me off for not turning in a treatment he was expecting. It didn’t work. Turns out he can’t read.

Wrote a writer’s vision for a sales pack – I don’t have any vision.

That guy’s still answering himself on The Wrong Door posts.

Found out I’m a celebrity.

 

NOVEMBER

Is anybody still reading?

Why?

Are you fucking mental? Go outside and play.

November:

The second-act-less treatment went to script stage. Bugger. Now I have to write the fucking thing.

Saw some footage from Fleeced. Was pleasantly surprised.

Found out I’m an anal bastard.

That loon is still at it, still posting bile and answering himself. It’s been three months!

Didn’t get an email from Kristen Kreuk.

Made Alice do some writing for me:

She’s better than me, so I banned her from using the computer.

Got horribly busy.

Actually did some work.

Ate some soup.

Got upset about writing the first ten pages of a script.

Painted the lounge, got high on paint fumes, wrote a load of shit about writing sketches. I have no idea what my point was.

Got a request about re-writing. Wrote a loooooooooooooooooooooooong post about it.

Got sacked from a project I didn’t know I was involved in.

Learnt that A and B are the same thing.

Talked about bookcases and wallpaper. No idea why. Probably trying to avoid working.

Got all arsey about the word ‘what’.

That lone loon’s finally stopped commenting. I miss him, the crazy bastard.

 

DECEMBER

Hooray! December! This post is finally over and we can all go home!

Assuming any of you are still here.

Met some more writers in the pub: Paul Campbell, Danny Stack, Lara Greenway, Michelle Lipton and Oli … as well as the normal crowd. They were all nice. I told Danny and Michelle the secret which isn’t really a secret – just something I don’t bother telling people. Danny immediately left the pub, Michelle wanted to hug me.

Got angry with ten imaginary people because there were ten of them.

Panicked. Finished the script.

Cut out every other word in the vague feeling it might make it exciting and mysterious. It didn’t.

Told people how to wait. Not sure why, probably avoiding some other work.

Declared my love affair with Apparitions. Which I still haven’t seen the last episode of. I’m a fickle fucker sometimes.

Had some fun. It was fun.

Met James Moran. Told him the secret which isn’t really a secret – he seemed to find it funny.

And there you go. That was 2008 for me. How was it for you? 

Secret tease

For reasons I don’t quite understand I’ve been asked not to link to the teaser trailer for Mixed Up. Which is gutting since I think it looks great and I want to shout about it. The really stupid part being it’s already all over the net.

Well, not all over. It’s not, for example, in the pages dedicated to fly fishing, donkey punching or the history of ‘The A-Team’; but it’s definitely in there somewhere.

If you were to type something like, I don’t know, ‘MIXED UP TEASER TRAILER’ into Google you’d probably find the YouTube version instantly. In fact, you’d probably find the top search would be a link which was almost exactly like this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zZEi0iGcp6k

I wish I was allowed to link to it directly; but since I’m not, I won’t. However, if anyone decides to spontaneously hunt it down, watch it and report back … well, that’s hardly my fault, is it?

Staten Eliot – Mixed Up

I was hoping to link to the spanky teaser trailer for Mixed Up; but it’s not quite ready yet, so I can’t. Instead, here’s my first ever guest post from one of the stars of the film, Staten Eliot:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

The strange thing about filming is as soon as it’s over it feels almost like it never happened.

So what was it like, the night shoots, Croydon, Beanos …?

A great part of shooting a film is the concentrated experience that it is. You start, at most, knowing one or two people  - who by chance you have worked with before or have met through mutual acquaintances – and by the end of it you know everyone intimately, even down to the smell of their sweat.

MIXED UP has been no different. Line the crew and (most of) the cast up, blindfold me and 9 out of 10 sniffs I’d get them right (some more pleasant sniffs than others). But sweat aside; it’s been a great shoot. Beano’s has been a marvellous location to shoot at and apart from a party scene at the end of the film, scheduled to shoot at the beginning of June, we’re finished.

That is to say we the actors are finished because as any of you that have had anything to do with a film before will know filming the footage is only halfway (if that) there. Now comes post-production (Editing, sound mix, grading et al) and then the festivals, sales agents, dristibutiors and all the other meetings, discussions and plans that have to go on. But for us the actors we’re almost there.

And it has been a great shoot.

From Lee Otway’s ability to create the funniest, crudest and most disgusting adlibs, breaking the cast and crew into laughing mush even at 4am in the morning (‘What’s your name … Jiz?’ took 17 takes as Aadel our DoP kept laughing so hard the camera shook violently up and down, While ‘I wouldn’t mind watching her on the bog’ took a record 23 for similar reasons) to the legend that is Sylvester McCoy waving hack saws around, barely in control of his limbs, while spouting anecdotes left, right and centre in a tiny basement workshop, in the middle of Croydon, in the middle of the night. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The beautiful Adele Silva played ‘Cat’ the girl my character ‘Simon’ falls for and between her and Zara Dawson, who plays ‘Sam’, they kept me and the rest of the cast supplied with various brownies, Haribo, gingerbread men and microwave popcorn (a must when watching I am Legend on a lap top at 3am with 2hours till your next shot).  Zara also did a marvellous job of seeking out little scenes of action for me to film with the camcorder that became affectionately know (or feared depending who you were) as Stat-cam. Footage that will be cut as a video diary later in the year.

Unfortunately Stat-cam missed the first rehearsal Lee and I had together.  We were sat in a coffee shop a few hours before filming was scheduled to start, running lines. Lee got a little over excited and proclaimed at full volume while jumping on to his chair, ‘Get off Simon, you little Gnome Bitch!’ which proceeded with us being asked, gently and politely enough, to leave … and from that moment on the tone was set.

So now we are almost at the end, but not yet, not quite yet. The gig scene is still to shoot and still the wrap party is to come, then we have screenings and the such. But for now the team that was MIXED UP is parted … but only for now … there’s still plenty of time to get Lee’s song ‘Gorillas on fire’ on the Stat-cam, something everyone must see performed at least once in their life time …

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Staten Eliot is currently finishing production of his first feature film as both producer and actor: DRAWN. More info, clips etc can be found at:

http://uk.youtube.com/Drawnthemovie

http://www.dailymotion.com/DrawnTheMovie

or join the facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drawn/12164327604?ref=ts

 

Lull

I’m at a bit of a loose end today. It’s not that I have nothing to do, it’s just I have nothing to do right now.

I’m working on lot of different projects, both film and TV stuff, and they’re all at different stages of development: some are one page synopses, some 4-5 page outlines, some 10 page treatments and a couple are already scripted. It’s a conveyer belt process whereby I write one stage, get notes, then move onto the next. Because there’s always a gap between finishing one stage and getting the notes, I can work on multiple projects at the same time without any problem.

Right now, I’ve completed the current stage for each project and can’t move forward without notes from the producers/directors. The problem being, they’ve all buggered off to Cannes.

Which leaves me kicking my heels wondering what to do with myself. I could, theoretically, start a *gasp* spec project … but since I’ve got a meeting tomorrow about a new film project, starting my own seems like a waste of time. Why write something you then have to sell when you already have people who want you to write things for them?

I could get a head start on the next stage of each project, but until I get the notes I could be running in completely the wrong direction. I’m not that bored.

There is a slight worry on the horizon. I have this vague fear that everyone’s going to come back from Cannes all fired up and determined to forge ahead … all of them. At the same time.

That would be completely impossible.

Well, I say impossible; more like very difficult, to be honest.

A position I don’t want to be in, at the very least.

Still, that’s all in the future. Today, I have nothing much to do. So instead of anything useful, here’re some more stills from Mixed Up.

Mixed Up – on set

So I finally caved in and went to visit the set.

Well, I say set; but really it’s just Beanos as is. The shop is so quirky and interesting to look at, it needs no dressing or enhancements. Every corner is incredibly filmic and just looks amazing on screen.

Mandy and I stopped in for a few hours on the way home, just to poke around a bit and so I could show my face. We met the core cast members: Adele Silva, Zara Dawson, Lee Otway, Katia Winter and Staten Eliot along with a handful of technical people whose names and jobs I can’t remember.

For which, yes, I am deeply ashamed; but it was late, I’d been up early and I’m generally a bit shit.

Director Lawrence Pearce and Producer Jonathan Sothcott, seemed on good form – despite eleven days (nights) of consecutive night shoots. In fact, given the exhausting schedule, everyone was quite upbeat and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Despite visiting the set of a movie I wrote, I completely failed to see anything bring filmed or to take any photos proving I was there. Although Staten did trick me into giving an interview for the EPK. I say trick, but it wasn’t very complicated: he shoved a camera in my face and started asking questions. It wasn’t until he was halfway through that I realised this was in fact an interview and not personal curiosity.

After that, a girl took us to one side and showed us some of the raw footage from the shoot so far. I’d love to tell you her name and her job, but … I can’t remember either. I’ve since discussed this with Mandy and our over-riding impression was of a lime-green bra and a quite spectacular pair of breasts. Not, I hasten to add, quite as spectacular as Mandy’s; but to be fair, she is heavily pregnant and is therefore cheating.

After closely consulting the credits on IMDb, I’ve decided she was probably Rosemary Hill, the camera assistant. I’m not 100% convinced of that, but for the purposes of this blog she is now called Rosemary.

So Rosemary showed us the raw footage, which looked fantastic. There was no sound, but Rosemary helped by filling in most of the dialogue.

At this point I started to feel a little ashamed. Earlier, Staten asked me if I had a favourite line in the script; and I was forced to admit I can’t remember a single word of it. It’s been a while since I worked on the script and I’ve worked on several other projects since then; but surely I should be able to remember my own dialogue?

Apparently not.

Oh well, Rosemary filled in the blanks and showed us numerous scenes including some of Sylvester McCoy’s and Billy Murray’s. It all looks wonderful and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

Everyone I met was very complimentary about the script, but as discussed before – they would be, wouldn’t they? Furthermore, there just seemed to be a real buzz about the production. It’s going well so far, but time will tell.

And that, apart from a cup of tea* and a biscuit, was pretty much it. We came, we chatted, we slipped off before the cameras rolled. Still, at least I can say I made the effort.

* A cup of tea I had to make myself, and ended up making one for two other people. That’s right, I was teaboy on my own movie.

Mixed Up stills

A week or so into filming and apparently everything is going well.

“The best thing I’ve ever worked on” was one wildly over-enthusiastic response.

Hmm … well, we’ll see.

For those of you who haven’t checked out the Facebook group, here are a few stills:

Lisa McCallister and Faye Tozer … with Lee Otway and Staten Eliot hiding off to one side.

Katia Winter and Giles Alderson.

Adele Silva and Zara Dawson.

And of course:

Sylvester McCoy, obviously repairing the TARDIS there. I think the next Doctor should definitely carry a big bastard drill around with him. There are very few problems in life which can’t be solved with a big drill.

“EXTERMIN– Argh! Get off! Jesus Christ, he’s drilling through my head!”

There are a load more stills, but I’m not 100% certain which ones I’m allowed to show you. There are one or two I’m pretty certain aren’t for general consumption – but I’ll post updates if and when I’m given the all clear.

Remarkably, so far I’ve only had one ad-hoc re-write: a new cameo to squeeze in another bit of named talent. It appears they’re just filming what I wrote without fuss … either that or they’re just making shit up on the spot.

Either way, it’s forging merrily ahead.

I’ll keep you informed as I find out more.

Mixed Up Facebook

Even more Mixed Up goodness: there’s now a Facebook group for you to needlessly throw sheep at.

There’re even pictures of Sylvester McCoy with a drill and the odd bit of cleavage.

Those are separate photos, by the way. It’s not Sylvester’s cleavage. Not that that would be a bad thing, I’m sure he has a very nice cleavage – it’s just the ones on display are a little more … more.

So go on, join up or become a fan or both. All your friends have and you don’t want to look stupid now, do you?

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13670566917

Mixed Up bits

Bit of a pointless post really; but hey, it’s early here.

Firstly: Mixed Up is now up on IMDb – that means it’s real. Officially real, as opposed to the imaginary project it was yesterday. Which obviously means my IMDb page now has another credit. I know this is a sad bit of worthless self promotion but … no, I have no defence. I just want people to look at my IMDb page.

You can be amazed, jealous, bored, dissmissive … whatever. Choose your own reaction.

And secondly, there’s now an official website other than the myspace page: www.mixedupthemovie.com.

There’s fuck all on it at the moment, but it’s there.

And with those pointless words, I’m off to breakfast.

The filming so far …

A couple of days into production of Mixed Up and here are my impressions of the shoot so far …

If you look dead centre of the horizon, roughly 4210 miles in the distance is Beanos.

Looks good from here.

Kick off

Mixed Up starts shooting today.

This is good news, I like it when projects start shooting – there’s a lot less chance they’ll fall apart and disappear. It’s not a guarantee of course, but it’s marginally less likely.

What impresses me most is the speed with which this has all come about. It was the end of November last year when the director, Lawrence Pearce, took me to peer through the windows of Beanos and mentioned something about a slacker comedy.

Since we’d met to talk about a different project, I thought we were just idly chatting on the way back to the station. It wasn’t until a week later I learnt I was writing it.

Lawrence provided the story, I provided a synopsis followed by a treatment and started the script near the end of January.

That’s three months from typing FADE IN: to the director yelling: ‘ACTION!’

That’s pretty quick.

By way of contrast, there’s another project I’ve been working on which is still going SEVEN YEARS down the line. SEVEN FUCKING YEARS! Three months? That’s the way it should be. All films should work like that.

In those three months (or less really, since it took three weeks to deliver the first draft) producer Jonathan Sothcott has secured funding and a great cast: Billy Murray, Adele Silva, Lee Otway, Zara Dawson, Abi Titmuss, Anna Brecon, Terry Stone, Giles Alderson, Katia Winter and of course, Sylvester McCoy.

Great cast, great location, great director.

Great script? I don’t know, people seem to like it. I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen the final product.

Despite my own paranoia, I have high hopes for this one. It’s exciting and it’s happening right now. No messing about, get the script, get the money, make the film.

I love it.

Having said that, with production starting today, I am, of course, going to go and hide in the Caribbean until it’s all over.