Updates Galore!!

So the past few days have been a little hectic but I've been getting things done!! Yay!

The website for 'Chasing Chuck' is, hopefully, about to be up and running - here's a little sneak peek if you're interested!! (I'm so excited about this and hope that everyone loves it, and obviously we get wad of cash to get making it!!)

A little sneaky peek of the website.

Me working hard on the site to get it finished by the end of August.

Also, I've decided that my writing output has slid into non-existence over the last few months so am making a huge concerted effort to churn out a few more projects before the end of the year! I'm looking at hammering out two first drafts of two new projects over September and October using Viki King's How to Write a Movie in 21 Days  - more to challenge myself to see if I can do it than anything else. Be sure to check out all of the blogging that will go along with it! I'm also keen to get a few short films written that could possibly go into production next year!!

In other news I've got another 1st AD job working in the North that I'm really excited about on a short film called Nah.

I'm also getting increasingly excited about this idea that I had a while ago called The Sitcom Showdown  - it's started off as educational tool that is loosely based on the "writing process" that I go through when trying to come up with ideas for TV to help me look at new combinations of characters and situations but then I thought that it might actually make a cool card game that people could play at dinner parties or other writers might use when they're lacking inspiration.

Have a look at some of the beta tests of the cards here:

Examples of some of the character cards for The Sitcom Showdown.

I'm hoping to get a mock-up set made by next week and start road testing it on some unsuspecting friends. I'm then hoping to take it into schools and colleges and then even maybe get it on Kickstarter to try and see if it's an idea that might have some legs to it. If not I've had some fun coming up with it and I'm hoping that it helps my own writing in the future!

P.S. I'm still writing Between Lambs and Lions - I'm hoping to get it finished soon!!

A chicken on 'Chickens'

Today I finally got round to watching the new offering from the brains behind the wildly successful ‘The Inbetweeners’ that was a breakout hit on Channel 4 a few years ago that was a perfect antidote to ‘Skins’ and rather than cast a group of too cool for school teenagers running around taking drugs, having plenty of sex and staying up all night it showed me my own pre-university years in full glorious HD where any fun usually had to happen before midnight when I was due home and the only sex I was having was with myself and the strongest drugs that I could get my hands on were caffeine, and I didn’t even like coffee.

Simon, Will and Neil is that you?

Recently, I read the exemplary book We Will Not Fight by Will Ellsworth-Jones on the conscientious objectors during World War I and began to sympathise with the young men who although they refused to fight were embroiled in a war of their own between their conscience and the views of their communities. I consider myself a bit of a “conchie” (read coward) and hope that it a world with professional armies and peaceful democracies I will never need take up arms as I don’t think that it would sit very well with me. Wrestling with my own worries of war I became interested in the topic and began to become very interested in the men who daily had to have white feathers pressed into their hands and the lengths that they would go either for their political, religious or moral views.  So I settled in to watch what I sure would be a witty ride through a village in 1914 that would have me equally laughing and thinking about the men who couldn’t fight in the First World War seeing them in a different light. I was disappointed.

We have a problem in the UK that we seem to glorify the horrendous conflict that occurred between 1914 and 1918 on mainland Europe that killed millions and can be argued as the first time that war was performed on an industrial scale. We call it the “Great War” and remember it with the words of Siegfried Sasoon and bibles stopping snipers bullets. We reduce it to “our boys” fighting against the evil “Hun” who ate babies and worshiped the devil. If anything we were doing France a favour by driving out the “Boche” and restoring order in mainland Europe. As Winston Churchill said: “History is written by the victors” and it’s only written that way because we won. In another reality we would hear how Germany was entitled to the same great Empire that the once great nation of Britain had and because Africa was taken and America was now on its own the only place left to invade was across the border. It was only what everyone else was doing at the time. But this isn’t a history lesson, this is a review of ‘Chickens’ (but I promise that we’ll come back to this later.)

“Conchies” didn’t just not fight out of fear, or this radical idea that killing another human being for whatever reason might not sit well on his religious or moral conscience. Often socialists out of political principals refused to shoot at their fellow man because it would be possibly killing another socialist brother. They believed (like all good “pinkos” do) that wars are fought for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. The poor and well-meaning are sent to do battle against the ideologically different and brainwashed for another either to make those back at home richer or simply prove that one system is better than the other. If the “proletariat” who would form the majority of the rank and file of the army collectively laid down their weapons it would be impossible to have a war as no matter how many bullets there were with no one to fire them it would be a very quiet front line. However, this isn’t a lesson in socialist international politics this is a review of ‘Chickens’ (but I promise that we’ll come back to this later.)

Simon Bird and Joe Thomas are very, very bright guys having both graduated from Oxford and I’m sure they know all of the above. I understand that they need to make it funny but they’ve missed a huge chance to make the comedy relevant and socially biting as well. Instead they decide to recycle their tried and tested ‘Inbetweeners’ banter. Simon (oops I mean George) is still chasing after a girl who doesn’t want to be with him, Will (oops I mean Cecil) is the well-meaning looser who just really wants to be at the front but being a little flat footed and short he has to resort to darning socks with the WI in the village, and Neil (Whoops I mean Bert) is the mentally challenged idiot who just wants to get laid. You can see the formula, and don’t get me wrong it was good the first time but it’s now time to move on. Could it be that we are actually looking at the great-grandparents of the gormless teenagers from the popular show?

Some of it is funny, but not the laugh out loud funny, or the; this is getting so awkward I’m going to have to hide behind the sofa funny. It raises a titter and nothing more. The comedy comes in the treatment that the three heroes face at the hands of the female only population of the village burning effigies of them and general snide remarks of their lack of manhood at a time when their country needs them most. The milklady is a particular favourite hurling their day’s rations at the wall of their graffiti daubed house.

Maybe because I am passionate about the subject I wanted more from the show. Less knob gags and more of a look at the endlessness of war that this century finds itself in (especially relevant as it seems that we are being sold the same story of Iraq again over the current conflict in Syria, admittedly with a little more evidence this time). Comedy after all is most successful when it says something about the times we live in, and it may be 1914 in the village but I’m sure that the parallels can’t be seen in today’s conflicts. But this is “light entertainment” so we might as well just tell a couple of jokes about how men are desperate for sex and have a little misunderstanding about a hankie. Maybe if Will’s [damn it Cecil) has a hot mom – that’d be funny wouldn’t it?!

I repent - I've indeed been a bad blogger

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I know that there aren't many people out there who tune into this blog on the regular but for those of you who do I am really sorry that nothing has appeared over the last few weeks. It's not that I've been any busier than before I just thought that I'd give spouting drivel a rest for a while - but now I'm back and yah'll have to listen to be again!

I thought that I'd use the first blog back to update on everything that I'm doing at the moment if that's alright - I've got a few things cooking up about various bits and bobs but everything is a little half baked at the moment and I want to try and get stuff right before I put it up!

Anyhow in the style of a doctor doing their rounds these are the following prognosisis for the projects that I've been working on.

Chasing Chuck - Shouldn't even be at this hospital, it's well ready and being a little too active at times. We're hoping to have the website up by the end of the month for anyone and everyone to see! All we want now is the cash to turn it into a full feature doc!

Aftercare  - is dead, dead as a doornail at the moment. There's nothing going forward or backwards. The last feedback that I had from a contact at Talkback, after a rather promising start, was that no-one will ever make this; "it's too clever" was the main line of thought. I've never thought that could be considered much of an insult but apparently "being clever" doesn't do well on TV and despite protests of The Thick of It and Newsroom there was no reply, but no change of mind. Disappointing on all accounts but now it's time to grieve and move on.

Jezza might never get the roasting he deserves.

Dark Matter - The ambitious webseries that I'm working on with a producer and director is alive and doing well. I can't really say much about it as currently I'm sworn to secrecy by a contract but I'm about to explode with all this information running through my head. The second that I'm allowed to Facebook and Tweet about it watch out as there's going to be a social media tirade heading your way.

Between Lambs and Lions  - I was approached by a producer after last year's Enter the Pitch film competition to write a feature length version of the pitch that I put together called Between Lambs and Lions about a corrupt government in the future. I'm ever so close to the finish line I just need to really get my head around the last few scenes and I'll have another complete screenplay that I'm excited about. Basically, it's looking good but I don't want to jinx it yet by saying either way.

Sorry - but I'm trying to give nothing away

Enter the Pitch 2013 - Is just about to head in for surgery in the next month. I've been waiting a year for this operation and by gum I'm going to make the most of it. This year's pitch is again along the democracy lines that Between Lambs and Lions was last year. However, I'm now updating the message it's all about an Edward Snowdonesque whistleblower and her dilemma about is she doing the right thing in a short called Tides of Change. See a shot of the trailer here:

Sundown; First Light - There are a few more artists other than Sam on-board now but at the moment it's a little like herding cats - more chasing is required so it's a little akin to looking after grandma in a home I'm sure she's there getting on with stuff but I'm trying to keep the doors locked so that she doesn't scarper to the park to feed the ducks.

Sitcom Showdown - Now this is a baby of mine at the moment and I'm loving and caring for it in the maternity ward and it's still a little wrinkly and ugly so I don't really want to show you it yet but here's a sneak peak. Hope you like it.

Anyhow I might post something a little more serious tomorrow!

peace,