Accidental Holiday

Had a week of rest and celebration by mistake. Absolutely no writing done, but spent a lot of time in pubs and even watched a couple of films! This was partly due to a series of social engagements falling in the same week, but mainly because I'd spent two and half weeks doing nothing but writing and even though I told myself I'd move straight onto the next project it was never going to happen that way.

JC has got back to me about Hit the Big Time and loved it which is good, and a huge relief. He's going speak to director Helen and co-star/co-producer Jason and then send me all their notes together which makes sense. At least I don't have to worry about seeing them at the Ten Dead Men premiere next week now - I was worried that if they hated it I'd have to avoid speaking to them all day!

I mentioned paid work a while back - basically I'm putting German subtitles on The Penalty King:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382222/

...for the director Chris Cook who runs the excellent monthly Moviebar night at the Cornerstone pub in Brighton:

http://www.moviebar.co.uk/

...which incidentally is one of the occasions I got very drunk this week - always a brilliant night and you get to see loads of cool short films too! Anyway, I won't go into too much detail about the subtitling as it's not really writing-related, but it is one of the main things I'm working on at the moment.

Luckily, I've got a bit of extra time! Unfortunately it's due to bad news. Phil (producer of Ten Dead Men) is no longer going to Cannes. Which means I don't need to get the Vicious Circle script done for May, but it also means the script isn't going to Cannes either. I'm still going to write it as I've done a lot of prep, but my deadline is going to be end of May now. It could also be the last project I work on for Phil and Modern Life. It's early days yet, but I've turned down an offer to write their next film, a horror film to be filmed this summer, as there was just no way I could do it with the work I've got on at the moment. And to be honest once I have cleared my slate a bit I want to concentrate on some of my own scripts for a while. I'm not ruling out working with Phil in the future, and the serial killer script may well be resurrected someday, but I've already advised him to start looking for other writers.

So not as busy as I thought. This weekend I need to run through the final cut of Ten Dead Men (which is amazing, by the way - the sound guys have done an excellent job and the colour correction is superb) to make sure the dreaded continuity script is still accurate. I don't think too much has changed so it should be fine. Then I need to get some Penalty King subtitles done before a meeting on Tuesday. And finally, and most importantly, I need to write the third and final draft of Dark Future for Glenn - a project I'm still really attached to but have been neglecting for a while. All that and I've got an insurance exam next week - I'm not even going to go into that here, but yes, the day job is starting to creep into the evenings, and probably needs beating back with a stick.

Quick update…

Haven’t updated this for a while as my brother Pete was visiting last weekend. He was a finalist in a competition for E4 to design a new E-Sting (the bits of animation they play between programmes) so we went up to London to a big party where the results were announced. Pete didn’t win, which was really annoying as his was clearly better than a good majority of the others, but we had a good night and it was nice to see his name plastered all over the walls and big TVs in the Design Museum. And there was a nice moment earlier in the day when we saw a complete stranger watching his entry on a big screen and laughing in the right places. There was also lots of free food and booze so I was pretty happy! We spent most of the rest of the weekend watching films and discovered that Howard the Duck is not as bad as I remember it from seeing it as a kid but definitely much weirder.

While I haven’t managed to write much there have been a few developments on a couple of projects. I finally met up with Glenn on Saturday to discuss the final draft of Dark Future. Unfortunately I hadn’t had time to read the script beforehand so I’m not sure I mentioned everything I wanted to, but Glenn had some useful feedback so I’m confident I can get on with the next draft now. I don’t know whether the Dark Future trailer is going to Cannes this year or not, but I’m using Cannes as an overall deadline for everything at the moment. And it’s not that far away!

Not much Ten Dead Men news at present, although I did get a proof pdf of the spin-off comic which is fantastic. It’s turned out really well considering it was a bit of a rush-job on my part written at a time last year when I was busier than I’ve ever been. The script definitely would’ve benefited from another draft but for the most part it makes sense and should be a really strong prequel to the film. It features most of the major characters from the film and has some important story points such as how Ryan met Amy and how Axel saved his life. This will probably make no sense right now but it will once you’ve seen the film! Anyway, the comic will hopefully be going up on the Ten Dead Men website at some point so I’ll post a link when it does. Until then I've posted one page below and there are a couple of pages on the official blog here:

http://tendeadmen.blogspot.com/

Other than that I’ve just been working on the Vicious Circle script which is coming along nicely. My main dilemma at the moment is whether to plan it out scene by scene to ensure a strong first draft, or to write a rough first draft based on what I’ve got so far and hope I have time to write a second. I’m leaning towards the latter although anyone who ever taught me scriptwriting would advise the former!

Shooting script and various outlines…

Apart from deciding I hate going to the cinema, I did actually do some work last week. Mostly I worked on the shooting script for Ten Dead Men, which was fun but very time-consuming. The final cut is only 85 minutes but it took three solid evenings to transcribe all the dialogue and at the end of it the shooting script was only 40 pages long. I did keep the scene descriptions to a minimum, but what took a lot of time was noting down the timecode for each scene. I’ve sent it to Phil and Ross and am waiting to find out if there’s any more work that needs doing on it or not. If it does need to be more detailed or anything like that then at least the transcription part is done. Despite watching the film in such great detail I still think it’s great. I had a Word document open the whole time to note down any feedback or criticisms I thought of while I was doing it, and by the time I was finished all I had was a couple of suggestions about moving odd bits of voiceover that didn’t fit – otherwise I’m still really happy with how it’s turned out.

The other exciting 10DM news is that Phil sent me the first finished pages of the spin-off comic that I wrote ages ago. It's essentially a 22-page prequel in comic-book form, explaining how Ryan quit the business and why he owes Axel his life. I'd forgotten all about it, but the artwork looks great so I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished issue. I'm not sure exactly what will happen with it, whether it will go into print, or be a DVD extra or just go on the website, but it's something else with my name on and as far as I remember I was pretty happy with the script.

This weekend I’ve mainly been working on Vicious Circle – the script Phil wants me to write to take to Cannes and the reason the serial killer film has been put on hold. Today was the first time I’ve really worked on it and I’ve come up with loads of ideas already. Given the time constraints though I’m considering just going straight for a draft rather than bouncing treatments backwards and forwards for months. At least that way even if the draft is still a work-in-progress by May, at least there will be a draft for people to look at.

Speaking of treatments I finally heard back from JC and Helen about the Hit the Big Time treatment. Overall the feedback is positive, but JC’s main concern is the multi-million dollar budget the current treatment would require to be shot. So the main thing I need to do is tone it down a bit. Also Helen wants it to be more of a road movie – at the moment the characters spend most of their time in or around California and the original idea was to have them going across the whole of America. I’m hoping the ideas I’ve got already can just be adapted slightly to reflect a lower budget and longer road trip as I’ve only got a few days to rewrite it.

Short horrors are going okay. The one I’m directing is progressing at a steady pace. We did a camera test last week to see how the seafront would look at night and it seems fine. This week we’re meeting our director of photography and scouting the last couple of locations and then it’s just going to be a matter of drawing up a storyboard and finding a lead. The other one (on which I'm writer only) is slowing down a bit. There are 3 drafts now but I’m still not sure the director is happy with the script. I’ve suggested a fix and am still waiting to hear back.

And finally I’ve started to work on one of my own original projects again. There are a few reasons for this, but mainly because writing for other people can be hard work and I need to work on something that’s completely mine for a change. Also there was a moment a few weeks ago when I was asked if I had any scripts to show an accomplished director who happened to be looking and I didn’t have anything that was ready. Anyway, with everything else I’ve got to do work on this new script is going to be minimal, but I have started putting together an outline at least.