Pitching

So, I took up the challenge and submitted ‘Interloper’ project to the NFTS/ Script Factory thang and ended up at Film London a week ago with a bunch of other writers and script developers. I pitched my movie to everyone (nerve wracking but went well and got good feedback) and met the developer who I’ll be working with between now and Christmas. All good. Will blog about the movie as it develops here. I think the pitching is an important part of the development process to help articulate the story. The opening of my pitch is this:

Interloper is a gangster movie set in South London and Paris in the present day. Think SEXY BEAST crossed with Michael Haneke’s FUNNY GAMES… with an all black cast…

Opportunity knocks…

I like my Fridays. I work at a school in Liverpool for about 2 hours with a group of teachers as they plan a project to inspire and motivate kids in science. During the week we exchange texts to organise the Friday session. Am heading there now by train. I love train journeys too. Today is the first session with the kids.

In the usual rush to catch my train I put my trousers on inside out. I can imagine the last kid leaving the room after the session: “er, miss your trousers are wrong…”

Yesterday I had an interesting invite: to submit a first draft script to the NFTS/ Script Factory script development diploma. They need the first draft for 30th June 2010 and a 1 page outline for Monday. Am considering it but i still have the cycling film swimming round my head (blogging about that elsewhere).

This weekend is a holiday break at some spa place in Cheshire thanks to the boo. Hopefully I will emerge pampered and relaxed for the weekahead.

Back to planning today’s session with the kids – that’s on a private blog with the teachers and other creatives. The blogging thing is becoming a little obsessive so i feel it’s time to set up another for the feature I’m working on. Its called ‘Interloper’. It’s a movie that I hope will remove my rage against the machine. Actually it combines a lot of my favourite things… Video games, violence, trains, swimming pools and preaching.

Crack’d

Three days of no sleep has cracked my head open and the writing comes pouring out… it’s not healthy it’s not wise but there it is… Lucid moments between being not quite awake and dropping asleep and I see scenes from the films I am writing about. The characters come to life and the drama happens. I don’t have to do anything… just write it down… of course the same is true after lots of rest and not thinking about anything… I need a holiday…

Birth of a nation #futr

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I’m at Fab Lab Manchester having been enticed into a Fab Lab challenge as part of Futureeverything. The challenge is to rapid prototype a product in response to a brief given at 07.00h!

I woke up to find a missed call from Caroline, my partner in crime who wanted to brainstorm the following challenge over the phone… “Make an urban intervention in a digital world”. A fab call to action on a Friday morning!

It is a pretty cool challenge that resonates with a problem around urban space that i brought home yesterday following a chat about bus shelters with a lady from GMPTE in a shipping container on Piccadilly Gardens.  The lady wanted to get in artists to make some public art at a bus stop. And i was saying what if the bus stop is the piece of public art that brings people together whilst people are waiting for the bus. The bus stop needs to be people shaped and responsive. My point was – involve the people in the design of the bus stop. The bus stop is the piece of public art.

And then this conversation picked up with this morning with Caroline’s call to action. So right now we are rapid prototyping an urban ipod hub to bring lone commuters together, face to face, as they wait for the bus on their way to work. We have until 3pm to make it!

Here’s our timetable:

7.00h brief given

8.00h phonecall brainstorm – caroline walks back to fetch me

9.00h conversation and photos on way to Fab Lab at Urban Splash

10.00h internet searching, sketching, looking to get design spec for stand, branches and ipod holder

11.00h pfaffing about, chat with fab lab bloke and getting design onto inkscape, bit more pfaffing working out angles (no protractor) – excitement for maths and calculator usage.

12.00h Pattern cutting on wood

13.00h Assemble

14.00h Finishing Sprint – snagging

15.00h End

The finished thing is called ‘Squirrel Nation’: an urban platform to bring commuters together as they wait at a bus stop.

The finished thing is going to be exhibited in Palace Hotel from 18h00 to 20h00 tomorrow. Had great unexpected and fun day… thank you mcc, pencil tin, caroline, fab lab, futureeverything… i will sleep well tonight – missed the city debate (good job i passed on invitation to speak! not something i relish) but going to futr gig at Victoria Baths, Hathersage road tonight… and chill ahead of tomorrow’s adventure with comixed: enhanced as part of playeverything….

We win some, we lose some…

On lots of fronts, I guess the election just brings it to the fore… we win some, we lose some… (financial crisis- win some, lose some…?) it’s what happens next that counts… and thinking back, it’s also the space in between winning and losing, that difficult territory (no pun) where battles are not lost or won but something surprising, unexpected happens… when new ideas, new people are embraced. I woke up this morning feeling positive that change can happen… and today will end with me looking/ pushing for avenues for that… i want leaders that are open, collaborative, willing to listen to anyone… I’m not sure negotiations completely behind closed doors is a good sign… back to my original train of thought… We win some, we lose some… it’s what happens next that counts… this is the kind of stuff shaping the stories I want to tell… Last night in Rochdale was a great reminder of that… Tbc

#ge2010

Oh oh oh… am having the thrill of entering a new world… it’s the night of the UK elections and I am in Rochdale observing an election count. I am assisting my short film director (Cote D’Azur) as she’s VJ (video journalist) for election night covering Rochdale. My job is fetching tea/ water/ moving the tripod. There is lots of waiting… and waiting… the highs and lows have flatlined as the counting has stopped…

Rolling…

There is a lot i want to get done this year writing wise. So i hope this blog will keep me rolling on the writing front. It’s taken a while to get into a method of writing regularly and clearing the decks to actually put pen to paper. Its often about finding ways into the material stored in my head – to make it connect and start living so that i can see it, hear it and write it. As long as i am writing (or thinking about writing) i am happy. The other morning, just to get started, i went for an early morning walk through the centre of Manchester and jumped on a train to the airport and back again. The walk connected several ideas – one in particular called ‘not the 9 to 5’. A short documentary i want to make that reveals the rhythm of life outside the ‘ordinary’ working day – the stuff that happens whilst we are sleeping. Aside from that the walk cleared my head to start work on the thing i am meant to be working on ‘Cote D’Azur‘, a docudrama about a track cyclist.