Monday, April 18, 2016

Thursday, January 14, 2016

2015 - What a year!

2015 was an extremely busy and productive year, and so before I lose the memories forever (no doubt due to one too many whiskys at the bar), I thought I'd better chronicle them here.

Flawless success
So, my short film Flawless. Remember that? Well, it had a pretty good run last year. It's been shown at 23 film festivals across the world, including in New York, Lanzarote, Serbia, West Bengal, Puerto Rico, at Cannes in one of their screening tents, and at Aesthetica in York.

CERN
It was also selected for CERN's film festival Cineglobe, which meant I got to travel to Geneva and not only treat my lungs to the freshest air there ever was but also check out the facilities. The festival is dedicated to the connection between creativity and science and it was inspiring to learn more about the research that is taking place, as well as being introduced to the Borscht Corp, a film collective in Miami with some amazing films such as this one.

14/48 Leicester
I was also exposed for the first time to Leicester premier dramatic community, via 14/48 Festival - based on an idea from a bunch of cool people in Seattle, this is a festival where 14 plays in total are created, produced and performed in front of an audience all within 48 hours (7 plays per night). I took part as a writer, writing a new play through the early hours of the morning based on a theme drawn from a hat that evening, which was then assigned to a director and cast the following morning and performed later that evening. It was an amazing experience; it made me realise completely that fantastic things can be created with little time and no sleep, and also realise how lucky I am to live in such a great city that has this kind of arts community.

Circle of Two
This was a short film written in a night (albeit Jim Worrad did most of the hard work) and then filmed over 2 days as part of Colchester Film Festival's 60 hour Challenge. We were assigned a title "Circle of Two", a line of dialogue and an action that had to be included. Here is the finished product.



New films in development
I've been working on a new full length film script with Keith, Jim (aka the Flawless team) and Alison, which will hopefully be produced in 2016. Watch this space...

Novel updates
I've shelved the Banshee idea, and now am concentrating on the novel based on two sisters who are no longer witches but instead superheroes (earlier drafts are tagged "Matti"). Draft 1 is done, so as I move into 2016 it's editing time. Joy!

So that was 2015, in a nutshell. There's probably something I've left off the list, but all in all 2015 was pretty good. My plan is to keep up the momentum for 2016. Wish me luck, and good luck with your own writing projects!