A Sunny Day

Two blogs in a day?! What are you unwell?

Probably, but: 1) I couldn't wait to get this out there and 2) I'm avoiding starting any real work at the moment.

So basically Sundown; First Light has been on the back burner for a while but now it's back with vengeance. I've got a really talented artist involved (Rael Pastorino) who has produced some amazing work for the project. Check it out below:

It's got DARK in the Sundown world but I think that I like it even more now. It's amazing to think that when I first wrote the screenplay that I was seeing it as a western version of Pirates of the Caribean but has now morphed into something that I think is more fitting for its themes and message.

Keep on the look out for more things coming up soon on Sundown we're hoping to get something out there as early as February/March weather that be through a publisher or Kickstarter - this is going to happen!!

NFTS - Documentary to Drama course

I'm panicking, I've got five minutes left to finish what I'm shooting, not nearly enough time to get everything done that I wanted to and onto of that I've still got this nagging thought in my head that the last take of the previous set up isn't really working for me but it's still the one that I really think that I want to use in the edit and on top of all of that I've just remembered the idea that I had for another shot late last night is never going to happen! It's only a tiny taste of what it means to direct drama but I'm already hooked!

Last week I had the pleasure of going on the NFTS Documentary to Drama directing course run by Dan Reed and the NFTS short course department. The week long course was five days aimed at converting documentary filmmakers into drama directors for the small (and big) screen. It was great to hear how things really are rather than the methodical approach of how you should make a TV show, this was actually how things got made and the sacrifices and decisions that you had to make. Using the skills of taping racist protestors, kicking footballs over the back wall of the North Korean embassy and chasing Chuck Norris making the small docs that I've done I was hoping that converting to producing a drama short would be easy where there weren't so many variables to think about and there wasn't the possibility of ending up in a gulag. How wrong I was.

After the first two days of intense seminars with Dan and other visiting guests (Stuart Harris - Cinematography, Elaine MacKenzie - 1st AD and Karen Lindsay-Stewart - Casting director) I had a solid idea about what my task ahead would be. From Monday 7th October to Tuesday 8th I had learnt more about what it means to be a director that I had in the rest of my life. I was deconstructing everything that I watched (Why is Walter White framed like that? How come Rick is doing that? Why does Jess have to be shown to be looking at that?) All of a sudden I was thinking about everything not just as a loving representation of a script but as a process in itself. Just as a script can't have any "dead weight" hanging off it, the same is true of the actual finished product. The camera has to be involved with the telling of the story, helping the viewer work out the relationships between characters and the subtexts of each scene.

I had a lot to think about on day three when I was given my assignment, to produce a scene from The Changeling as I saw fit. I was given a scene where Christine confronts Jones about how the boy that they have given him isn't her son. I wanted to play it differently from the original just to try something new and see if I could do it so I made it so that Jones is trying to close this case anyway that he can - fully knowing that the boys isn't hers but seeing the "job" as a personal and professional success. He tries to get Christine to accept the situation anyway that he can eventually threatening her that if she continues to look for Walter that he will make her the prime suspect. On the other side Christine realises that Jones is trying to fob her off and wants to get him to keep looking. I didn't want her to be this hysterical stock female character who weeps and begs Jones to keep trying to find him so I made her strong and cold to him knowing that he hasn't done his job properly and fully certain that her boy is still alive. To try and make it more apparent that Jones hasn't done the job to Christine's satisfaction I had her "straightening" his office out during the conversation that they have so that when he gets back to work on it everything will be in the right place. The actors that I got for the scene were brilliant (Paul and Abi) and really helped me out realising that I was new to the game, steering me through the process whilst picking up on how I was trying to direct them perfectly delivering great performances.

Filming was tough - we had two and a bit hours to get three minutes done. Although this sounds like a long time when you're new to this it flies by and before you know it you're wrapped and you can't remember exactly what you did but you're hoping that your well prepared plan was executed - but it might not have been. I wanted to experiment with stuff to see what would work and what wouldn't, I knew that the main objective had to be to make something that I was proud of but as a task on the course I could take a few risks with the set ups.

In the edit suite after breathing a sigh of relief realising that everything was there (and if I can say looked and sounded remarkably good thanks to the team of students and ex students who worked on it with me! Thank you again to Susi, Matthew, Nik and Isobella) I worked on getting the final (rough) cut together with another ex student (Nicolas) who after only needing a short conversation understood exactly what I wanted out of the scene and with what seemed a few movements of his hands across the keyboard he had cut together exactly what I wanted. It has cemented in my mind that editors are indeed magicians and do not get the praise that they deserve!

At the end of the course we all screened our films in the student cinema and had them deconstructed by Dan. I was happy with my feedback and it was nice to talk about why I did certain things with someone who has to make these kind of decisions for a living. The minute or so that we spent analysing just the one ten second shot that I had put in over another more conventional one is something that will stick with me - it really allowed me to better understand the decision making process for a director and is one that I hope to replicate when/if I'm trusted behind the lens of a camera again!

Anyhow - the video is attached to the blog - let me know what you think of it! Now it's just to try and get myself a gig directing Doctors or if I wish really, really hard the next season of The Walking Dead!!

Update - How to Write a movie in 21 Days

So... I've decided to do it - I'm going to take on the challenge of writing a first draft of a movie in just 21 days using a book by Viki King called, you guessed it; How to Write a Movie in 21 Days.

It sounds like a fun challenge and gives me a time frame to actually get something down on paper rather than stressing about this being right, or that sounding authentic or even basic stuff like character arcs and tropes - you just write what you're feeling at the time and hope that everything comes together at the end. It's called the Inner Movie Method - basically you "watch" the film unfolding in your head and write it down as you think that you see it on the screen. All the tweaking, character description, malarky that goes into actually writing a polished screenplay comes later in a second or third draft.

So I did a little work before I started so that I didn't entirely have the fear of the great white page and came up with a couple of ideas before settling on what I was going to write. In the end I settled on an action/comedy that I've had kicking around for a while and seems the most formulated in my mind. It's called The Deck and was the result of too long spent on CNN late at night. I found out that there was a crazy/genius guy who at the height of the hunt for Bin Laden decided that he could do with the reward for his capture and set off into the hills of Pakistan with little or no knowledge of what on earth he was doing to bring the worlds most notorious terrorist to justice and collect his pay check!

I decided that I wanted to make the piece a little more comedic and write it as if myself and my friends had one day thought that it would be a good idea to go after one of the "deck" of most wanted terrorists as put out by the CIA after the latest Iraq war. Unable to relate to the hunting of terrorist all that well and for obvious reasons not being able to find all that much about how one goes about doing it online I thought that the closest experience to actually being involved in a fire fight was playing on COD. So The Deck became a bunch of avid computer games players out looking for what they considered a "soft" terrorist in the hope of picking up some easy money using the "skills" that they leant when they were behind the sticks.

Obviously it needed a little more and I crafted the lead character Stu into a recently unemployed investment broker who is now unable to pay for his fathers medical bills and after realising that he's never going to make it onto the pro-circuit with his "team" of gammers who are unable to work together to win a qualifying spot he decides to convince them to turn their attention to heading out to the middle east. Though Stu might be hiding something from the group that will shake them all and could mean an end to even their current tenuous partnership.

On day 1 you have to write pages 1-10 (or the ordinary world - establishing where the hero was/is before they set off on their adventure. It has to show the overall tone or theme of the piece and set up the questions that will be answered during the film). I started the group playing for a spot in the finals of the MLG Call of Hero's tournament in Vegas each at their respective homes. It all goes horribly wrong where none of the guys are willing to work with each other and eventually the other team win and the gang falls out for the first time.

Stu then heads off to an interview at Happy Burger where he is turned down for the job because he is over qualified and the paranoid manager thinks that because he turned up in a suit he must be from head office being sent as a spy. He then leaves for the hospital to see his dad who, with no medical care to pay his bills, is looking to be turfed out of the hospital.

It's as far as I've got and it's only a first draft but I'm happy with how things are going so far and I'm enjoying discovering what I want to do with the characters so far on the fly making me learn new things about them with each new scene that I put in.

Anyhow keep up-to-date with the blog to find out where The Deck goes!! Once it's finished I'll be more than happy to have people read it - just give me another 20 days!!

peace,

- Ted

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!!

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,

Filming the 'Chasing Chuck' sizzle reel and a little advice for people filming an "on the street" documentary.

For the past two days I’ve been filming for a sizzle reel for a documentary that I’ve wanted to make for a long time called Chasing Chuck (See previous posts for the full expose; but basically we want to take aspiring comedian Dave to prove his manliness by fighting Chuck Norris and writing his set for this year’s Edinburgh show and in the process examining what it means to be a modern man.) The shoot went amazingly well, the crew were great what we got in the can was perfect and everything seemed to run smoothly, I just can’t wait to see the edit now.

But instead of praising everything and everyone that was involved with the adventure of getting the thing made (which would be easy, everyone that we ended up working with and actually interviewing was a blast it’d possibly be a little boring to read) I’ve decided to talk about just a few things that I noticed while filming during the day that might be of use to people who are looking to make an “on the street” documentary.

Firstly, this experience has made me realize that “people” are a funny bunch, and it seems that without any prompting they have a predisposition to hate me. I’m sure that in normal circumstances I could get on with just about anyone; crazy racists and shoe bombers aside I would quite happily have a pint with anyone and enjoy their company but when I have a camera in my hands all of a sudden it seems that I have the inability to like anyone because of the way they seem to behave around it. I’m not talking about the nice people who agreed to be filmed in the interviews, they were great, (thanks again to everyone who did get involved) but “the general public” that we harangued off the streets of London for just a few minutes of their time to talk about something.

It seems that people no longer trust anything that can make an exact replica of their face and record precisely what they’re saying. They seem to think that once the magic box has recorded reality we’re going to somehow doctor it to make it appear that they’re stupid or alter things around them to take the mickey. Not only was the box going to capture their soul and make it look ridiculous but I was the one operating it and I should be ashamed of interrupting their busy day of going from the trainport to their desk to ask them some very simple questions. In one case it was even me asking politely for them to sign something after the interview to say that they were happy to be filmed because it would obviously lead to more interaction with me and potentially have them agree to supporting genocide if you were to believe the questions I got asked for what was simply making a mark on a piece of paper.

After some deliberation in my own head I realized that it wasn’t anything that we’d particularly done; we were approachable, friendly and polite to anyone that we found and didn’t even start the camera rolling until we’d got the all clear from any subject. The blame solely lied with the TV crews that have been before us and how popular a certain media sharing website with more videos of cats on it than a crazy old ladies phone.

For years now we have slowly seen the creep of more and more shocking reality TV that ‘forces’ the viewer to watch the camera pan across various scenes full of mostly idiots arguing in grunts, slurs and half-finished sentences with one another; that with some “clever” editing make it “appear” that they aren’t awfully bright (one could argue that the damage had already been done and no amount of pre-warning could make them anything other than what appears on our screen). Anyone that we went up to seemed obsessed with the idea that they were going to fall victim to this curse and they would just be the next in a long line of people who would have scorn heaped upon them with witty twitter hashtags and even possibly a full page spread in some red top paper if they tried particularly hard to say something moronic.

What was also of interest was that some participants that we found were entirely genuine and often insightful into the issues when off camera, or didn’t know that they were being filmed (but had agreed to it). When they saw the little red light flickering they became a “character” of themselves, either deciding that this was going to be their chance of a fifteen minutes of fame or again wanting to ‘play’ and idealised version of themselves where they would come across how they wanted to be seen rather than how they actually are when nothing is being made into a permanent record.  There was a strange mix of a hatred and distrust of the camera to a longing to be in front of one, sometimes within the same person. This distrust ranged from the suspicious: “Where’s this going to be shown?” to the outright indignant: “F**k you putting that camera in my face.” (At this point the camera was trained on a rather attractive looking pigeon on the floor that at least one hundred meters away from the aggrieved party). My favourite of the day was one Dave approached one “yoof” and introduced himself and told him the project was all about masculinity, the wittiest and most charming response that he could utter was: “Well that’s gay.”

But it wasn’t just the people in front of the camera that sometimes wanted to ‘play’ at being themselves. Sometimes people couldn’t help but wander behind the interview to flick a hearty and well-earned finger at the camera, after all they had altered their route to do just that for all the banter that it was worth. I wondered about the Lumier brothers when they first filmed workers leaving their factory after a hard day’s work completely oblivious to the birth of one of the greatest inventions of the last century, and now I had someone dancing behind my shot who given the chance would expose his genitals if he had more beer in him. For this I again entirely blame the rise of reality TV.

Although there seems to be some vitriol being poured on the general public my beef is not with them but society in general. We’ve made us like this. In the age of the sound bite and constant access to information the image lives on regardless of how small the screen you’re watching. This project will most likely end up on a website and Youtube with additional footage shot when/if we get the cash to turn it into a feature documentary that will be a great success for everyone involved and be the first feature film that I will have made, but it will at best make the festival circuit and get a limited release on DVD.  However, even then people seem uncertain at how they might be portrayed and what responses they might possibly receive from even the lowliest of internet trolls.

Another possibility of this distrust might be the rise of the mockumentary where a presenter starts proposing questions of an altogether irrelevant nature that are designed to make the participant look silly. Borat, Trigger Happy TV, however Keith Lemon is trying to entertain people who watch ITV 3, the list goes on. Is it that this brand of humours stunt has spoilt the possibility for other filmmakers to gain genuine and insightful comments from the man (or woman) on the street through fear that this might all be a set up?

It may also hark back to previous statements that I’ve made about social media. Our life online is something that we like to keep as an idealised version of ourselves; detagging unflattering pictures on nights out, affiliating only with groups and pages that will further our online persona (regardless of how far from our real-life one) and only talking about things that will further convey the “idealised” us. If well in the future finally an alien race descends on the charred remains of our planet with huge “B&L” logos littering the landscape with the lone Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth class being there to welcome them, and the only records they have of our existence are the servers at Facebook they might think that we lived a life of complete hedonism and blissful happiness, and just happened to enjoy pictures of cats being amusing as a side gig. Those who were none participants in our documentary might have wanted to ensure that although they might (most likely would) have never see the collected footage of them they were uncertain if anyone else might have a chortle of their representation. 

So after this little rant how would I advise you dear reader on getting the most out of on-street interviews when filming your own documentary?

1 – Be professional at all times. This includes what you wear, who you bring with you and how you act. If you have some kind of uniform wear it (just a polo shirt with the logo of your production company on will do or even simply the word “crew”). Don’t bring your mate who’s a bit of a dick on the shoot, only have the people around you that you trust and know will act responsibly and respectfully around people. Finally, act like a film crew. Most silently watch the monitor and let the presenter do their job while you do yours.

2 – Once you’ve got permission to film just start rolling. Brief your presenter that once they’ve got someone agreeing to be filmed get them to start asking a few questions that seem entirely innocent but are actually more to do with the documentary than first appear, just a: “What do you think of…” will do, it’ll come across as more of a chat than an interview. On the flip side of that make sure that once permission has been granted you need to start rolling straight away. Dave would often have some brilliant back and fourths with some subjects about the project before we’d even hit record that we missed. We got everything that we needed but there were some nuggets that would have been nice additions to the piece.

3 – Get a production manager/assistant that will do the release forms for you. On the shoot we had an amazing PA called Elspeth who we could not have done the shoot without. She was able to get all of the legal stuff done as we were off filming the next interview that we had secured so that we could maximise our time filming.

4 – The three “R’s” Reassure, Reassure, Reassure – Make sure that your participants know what they’re getting into but keep telling them that this is something serious that you’re doing, you have passion for the project and are not out to make them look silly. After the interview be entirely transparent, give them your details and ask them to get in touch so that you can send them the link of the finished thing and ask them to contact you if they’ve said something that they’d rather not show (you might decide that it’s gold and you’re not going to take it out but at least have the dialogue with them and practice the 3 “R’s” again.

5 – Get more than you need – It’s better to have and not need and need and not have. You might interview twenty people in an hour period but only some of them (3 at most) might have some golden lines that drive the project forward and give you insight into the topic that you’re looking at. Don’t settle for someone just muttering a phrase that you want to hear get that extrovert that will talk at length about a topic that’s close to their heart!

6 – If the topic is something risky start with a few warm-up questions and then hit them with the biggie in-between another set of easy ones. It’s called “the shit sandwich” in management terms I believe.

7 – Get someone amazing in front of the camera to begin with. I cannot stress how important this is. We had Dave on camera for two days and he didn’t put a foot wrong. He was professional, passionate and a great performer. We could have had him narrating paint dry and it’d be interesting.

Anyhow, I think that I’ve ranted enough for today. I want to thank everyone who did end up speaking to us and hope to get the edit done by the end of August. Watch this space.

Updates - 'The Light', 'Source Material', chasing 'Chasing Chuck' and others...

Long time no blog - after getting into a good rhythm of churning out something each day I find that I've fallen by the wayside recently but after a successful shoot on The Light I'm now back in the game and ready to tell all you happy people out there a little about what I've been doing for the last week!

So I've just finished my time on the set of The Light directed by the winner of this years 'Enter The Pitch' competition Simon Cookson. It was a great experience and presented me an opportunity to see another perspective on making short films and learn a lot during the four days that I was on set. The piece looks amazing and I can't wait for the opportunity to see the finished product in January 2014 at the premier at Pinewood studios. Have a gander at some of the behind the scenes stuff from the shoot on the 'Enter The Pitch' website:

http://www.enterthepitch.com/the-pitch/

Other than that I've been keeping myself busy with all the other projects that I've got floating in the air at the moment. The rough cut of Source Material is now finished ready for some colour grading and hopefully an original musical score that will really turn what I think is a great short film into an amazing one!

We're still chasing Chasing Chuck - tomorrow I have a meeting with Dusthouse in London to get some advice and mentoring that will hopefully help shape the project and am happy to announce that we have the wonderful and talented Dave Chawner on board now as the man hard (crazy) enough to fight Mr Norris. Dave is a stand up comedian who is rapidly making an impression on the stand-up circuit who is perfect for the part and is even currently working on a show that focuses on masculinity in the modern world that is perfect for the documentary! Check him out here:

 www.davechawner.co.uk.

Also, Dark Matter is looking increasingly exciting with the producer sending me over some incredible production packages that he's put together that have really cemented the idea of the piece on my mind. I just can't wait to get cracking on it.

The only, slightly, bad news for the day is that we're now looking elsewhere with Aftercare - the first avenue that we approached the series with has been half shut so we are looking for ways around it to see if others in the BEEB might be interested in taking it on board. Everyone in the camp is still very hopeful that it's going to go well and someone will take an interest in it so we're still plugging away and just waiting for that magic yes!

IdeasTap Austerity poem

So IdeasTap - possibly one of the greatest arts resources on the internet at the moment offering young artisits across all forms of media. Fancying myself as a bit of a poet I entered this one with a little ditty about Austerity - all feedback is welcome and why not have a stab at it yourself if you think that you might have something in verse that would be up to it?!

http://www.ideastap.com/Opportunities/Brief/80137951-2216-41ff-a304-a1cd00f201e4#Overview

Possibly a little socialist for my tastes though you do find out a lot about yourself delving into the creative mind!

Austerity

By

Ted Wilkes

What if for a day

there is this place

where the rich are expected to pay their way

and not draped in opulence and disgrace?

                “A fair share for all” is the rally cry

                And then I awake without a dry eye.

What would the world be if we all paid our tax?

We’d only have other problems to solve.

It wouldn’t be the Bullingdon club who scratched each other’s backs

there’d simply be another corrupt power to dissolve.

They promise us this, they promise us that

in the end what else should we expect

besides another career politician in a different hat

with yet more principals, now in power, they reject.

Let’s look at what we have on offer

to run this island and abuse our coffer.

The Tory Toffs, the party of mam and dad.

The economy may have been in the loo

when you started and I’ll agree that’s certainly bad

but fix it now! It’s what you’re in power to do.

And then there’s the alternative with Ed minus a brother he stabbed so hard

with two wars to their name on the countries American express

who can’t be trusted with more than a Tesco club card

and now they simply expect us to do more with less?

Then there’s the liberals, the less said the better

savaged between the two like a dirty yellow bird

strutting around pretending to matter

as if anyone would care even if they could be heard.

“Oh isn’t it dreadful this Austerity thing.”

Goes up the chant

“If only it was that I was able to sing.”

Then I could be famous with no need to rant

and have all those things I deserve. Like that bling.

People; this all may be the Government’s fault

but there’s only one way that we can fix this mess.

“It’s those bankers who’s the problem.” I hear you exault

well let’s do something about it I would finally stress;

                We should band together and be united as one

                And change the world to better than what’s going on.

The Spec Script - Waiting on Warner Bros.

So these last few weeks have been a little hectic and more importantly quite devoid of any new ideas being worked on as of late (a few have been generated but nothing actually written on Courier New on a blank piece of paper! However, what I have been doing is writing a spec script for the Warner Brother's Writers' Workshop over in the US of A (http://writersworkshop.warnerbros.com/) it's a programme that the studio runs to try and bring in new writers to compete for a position on the staff of one of their shows. Graduates from the programme include: Terrance Winter (Boardwalk Empire), Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives), Greg Garcia (My Name Is Earl) and Felicia Henderson (Soul Food). As you can imagine competition is tough with out of nearly 2000 submissions they only select the top 10, though they're better odds that winning the lottery!

In order to be considered you have to write a spec script of a show of your choice - after my rant the other day about Community losing its way as of late it would be rude really if I didn't give the opening episode to season 4 a crack - so that's just what I did. I took one of my ideas - The Inception spoof and decided that I'd run with that one.

Working on the screenplay I was constantly out of my comfort zone - I hadn't created these characters - I could never know them as well as the people who had first penned them but it was important that I tried to get their voices right else the show wouldn't ring true. It was the first tip that I'd give to anyone writing a spec script - you have to be a fan, and not just any fan, a super fan. You have to be able to take the characters you're writing about and bring them into your world. I thought what would Abed think about gay marriage, how would Troy react to there being no service on his phone, what would Annie do if the group split up - and there I had my story.

Watching back a few episodes to freshen my memory about some of the idiosyncrasies of the characters I realized that Jeff is really the main character of the show even though it has become more of an ensemble piece as of late,  and with him graduating at the end of series 3 it left the group at a crisis point that they probably wouldn't realize until it was too late. I thought that Abed being unable to cope with Jeff's absence would again try another of his and Troy's high-jinks to solve the problem and convince Jeff to return to Greendale by going into a dream within a dream within a nightmare.

However, with the group parted the boys had to try and bring them all back together before they could even attempt to break into Jeff's mind. I had a little fun trying to reunite everyone before they finally all met back up at the study room to begin their adventure.

Once they got into Jeff's dream the big twist was that he wanted to come back to Greendale anyway as he missed the group and was really dissatisfied with his return to being a lawyer. I played a little with the ending too bringing the spinning top motif from the ending of the actual film - giving it a little wobble - hopefully everyone will know what that means and won't spoil the ending of Inception to much for anyone who hasn't seen it!

From writing the spec script I thought that I'd try and impart a little wisdom from my own experience to help out anyone who is thinking about writing one for next year's programme or even for a bit of a giggle:

- Know the characters that you're writing about - as I said before be a superfan - get the characters out of the world that you've previously seen them in and see if they still live in your head as they do in the series - that's when you know that you can tackle a spec script.

- Tweet/Facebook/Email/Stalk the writers of the series - never before in the history of the world can you easily access the people who actually write the show for a living from the comfort of your own home. I sent out a couple of tweets to the guys who write the show and got a response from Chris McKenna! *girly squeal!*

- Take risks with the series - don't go crazy and flip the world on its head but do something out of the ordinary - creativity will excite the reader and make them aware that you're a writer who will come up with something completely different in the writers room (if you ever got there) a good trait to have.

- Do the obvious - if you've got this far with the blog you're probably a writer and know how to write a good script - carry those rules into writing a spec script; make it about the human condition, write from the heart, proofread the darn thing once you've written it!

Anyhow what I really wanted to do was to see if anyone fancied giving the script a once over to see what they thought - fan or not of the show - it's linked from dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1rz8szazgofblu5/Community%20S4E1%20It%27s%20a%20dream%20within%20a%20dream%20within%20a%20nightmare.pdf

'Source Material' Shoot

'Source Material' is an idea that I have had kicking around in my head in one form or another for about 6 years now. It's something of a cross between Stranger Than Fiction and the Adjustment Bureau where a 'coder' (Chuck) who works for a company called 'The Corporation' who are in charge of writing "life" as it were. Without them keeping the narrative of things ticking over everything would go to pot, or at least so the bosses of The Corporation do.

Chris and Ted trying to discuss shots even though it's late

 Chuck has always thought that he was destined for greater things. In his mind he should be in charge of writing for the President but instead he has got landed with someone boring and mundane. In previous drafts of the script Chuck is constantly trying to move to writing for someone who is deemed a "success" and eventually decides to alter the narrative so that his character accidentally becomes one. This then spirals out of control with him having to fight for the control of his characters soul eventually having to meet him and directly intervene in his life in order to save him.

Ben Rosen getting a touch up before he goes on camera

In this short version it was simply that Chuck meets the girl (Kate) that he thinks that he is meant to make his character fall in love with and in turn falls for her too. He then only has a limited amount of time to rewrite the narrative in the hope that no one from The Corporation finds out what he has done. However, was it all meant to happen his way with the ending shot seemingly being another coder sat in the lobby writing away as Chuck lies in bed happy with Kate.

A very happy Austin at the bar

Basically the shoot was another great experience for myself and BottleRocket Film. We've come on leaps and bounds from our first outing together on the 48 Hour SciFi Challenge and hopefully when Source Material is cut and finished this lessons that we learnt will show. The cast were great, the crew were amazing (and a special thanks to the staff at Ennios in Southampton who were amazing hosts for the two days that we were with them!) and we managed to not only film everything that we wanted but actually finished a-head of schedule and a tiny bit under budget!

Ted directing Austin in the opening shots

Personally I learnt lessons from being involved in helping out  on The Fitzroy and watching Andrew direct that piece and had a much greater understanding of what it is to be a director. I'm not at the point where I understand everything about the craft but I'm slowly getting there I think.

More direction of Austin in the lobby scene

The lessons that we learnt are much the same as before but now with the need to be looking at more ambitious shorts we know that we have to start attracting not just more people to work with us but have to also start looking around for more money. Out of necessity we have frequently had to either be in our own films (Chris Richards is now a staple motif in our work - some might call him a modern day Hitchcock!) and often we have had to share a few roles amongst each other that isn't ideal but I think that we've managed to pull it off. In future productions I think it is now essential that we ensure that there are enough people to fill each role in the film and stick solely to their jobs.

Emma and Joey at the table in the restaurant

I am also indebted to my friends who came along and helped out on this production for nothing other than my eternal love and respect. Everyone who we called on stepped up to the plate and really made the film their own. It has really made me think hard about how I would like to conduct myself if I were ever to really make this filmmaking malarky my full time job, I would want to ensure that everyone on the production was treated as fairly and equally as possible right down to how the "profits" of the film were distributed.

So to the future. I've got until mid September when my year is up and I'm happy with what I have achieved so far on this adventure; but there is no real money in short films and unless we get lucky and one of our videos manages to gain thousands of views we're never going to establish ourselves as a legitimate production company. We've got plans to make another few short films this year but after we have maybe got five or six under our belts I would really like to start looking a tackling a feature film - hopefully as early as late next year. This is obviously a pipe dream - but if you can't dream big, what's the point in dreaming at all?!


If anyone wants to see some more photos from the shoot, or keep up to date with BottleRocket's adventures like our Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/BottleRocketFilm

We've got some time in the editing suite booked on the 5th June so look out for the rough cut making an appearance shortly after but we're hoping to have some original music written for the piece that will accompany the final cut hopefully before the end of June!

Another poem - this time to try and win something!

So I got all clever and decided to try and write a poem to try and get on a course with the London Screenwriting Festival and John Yorke - I thought that I'd put it up here so that you can see my attempt too!

My name is Ted Wilkes and I’m a young writer who quit his job

in hopes of finding my dreams with the humble pen.

I would find this course a great way to exercise my frontal lobe

and give me the chance to find my creativity again.

I’d love one day once I’ve written a screenplay of my very own

to also don an academic robe

and allow me to teach others to pay off their student loan

by selling their scripts around the globe. (Or at least Harvey Weinstein)

I will give this course my all, and promise to behave

and not just learn myself, but help others with the goals they wish to reach

and one day soon if the critics do rave

about my work I shall remember this course in the Oscar speech.

Enter by sending your own little ditty - or just a couple of sentences about why you deserve to win to this address: contests@londonswf.com 

Where do ideas come from?

There is nothing more satisfying in the world than having that moment of inspiration that leads to a fully formed idea, or even just half of one, flashing across the inner movie screen in your head. When you start seeing things come together in your mind, scene after scene from fade in to fade out with the credits rolling. 

But where is it that ideas come from?

It’s one of the questions that people have been asking me a lot recently and to be honest I don’t really have a clue how or where ideas for screenplays pop into my head. They seem to happen at random and without much warning and often as quick as they come unless I write them down – they’re gone!

I’m a great believer that everyone in the world has a story to tell that would be great on the big screen. That great love lost, that passion that you have for something no one else knows about, the big secret that you’re still keeping from secondary school.

Though how do you know that one story your bursting to get out on the page will be any good? That’s the beauty, you don’t and you never will unless you start writing it and let the inner movie in your head run free. Start looking at your flashes of brilliance as a window box that you have to nurture each and every day adding a little water (ink) here and there, letting it see the light (giving it some breathing room) trying new things to help it grow – taking your characters on a journey that might not have an ending just yet but by the time you’ve finished writing you’ll have a beautiful little herb garden prospering around you. I think that I might be confusing metaphors here; but I think that you get the picture. Write every day and let your imagination run wild – you can always edit it later.

Anyone who says that: “I’m not creative enough to be having ideas all the time” wind me up. We’re all creative in our own ways – we find ways to express ourselves all the time and you have to take your own way of expressing yourself to the page. I once got told that the muscles you need to write are just like any other in your body – if you don’t use them they get weak and flabby. You need to write to be able to learn to write – so basically what’s stopping you!

Finally, for those of you who still might be struggling to find your opus or muse I know that actually getting started is the hardest part, that’s until you get to the middle of ACT II and you feel that you’ll never see the end, and after that there’s how you get to the end look back and realize that you hate everything that you’ve written. What I’m trying to say is that writing can be hard, but only as hard as you make it. When I’m ever struggling to write I just remember this little ditty and it all seems so simple again:

Want to be a writer but don’t know how or when,

Find a pad of paper and grab a humble pen.

So you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve finally finished the self-empowerment seminar and here are a few tips that in my six months of writing full time that I’ve found have helped in the creative process:

-          Write little – Unless you’re one of those people who can sit at a screen for hours on end typing away work in short busts with little breaks in-between! You’ll get more done in that time and can reward yourself with treats and breaks that helps structure your work day. I’ve found it really helpful to buy myself a desktop egg timer (called boss). She makes sure that I work for 20 minutes straight (with no break or internet) and then get 5 minutes off after 20.

-          Write often – I don’t entirely believe in working on the same project every day but you should at least be writing something 365 days of the year. Put simply writer’s write stuff. Get a blog, a twitter account, email people, just get something down on paper at least once a day every day. My address is 4pagesormore for a reason – it’s what I aim to do every day without fail.

-          Write to a deadline - It’s amazing what having a self-enforced deadline can do to you. But don’t just trust yourself to keep to the deadline tell everyone you know that you’re going to complete this screenplay in a month and they are to hound you to read it if it’s not done. You’ll be surprised how a little peer pressure can get you working away rather speedily.

C. Hunt dancing with a chicken in his underpants, and apparently we're still all doomed!

So after my second week on set with The Fitzroy I'm tired but so so happy to have been involved with what I know is going to be such an amazing finished film! The time that I've spent on set has been invaluable and I've learnt so much about how films actually get made and all the little things that go on during the shoot that no-one ever really tells you!

Now more than ever this last week that I've spent on the set has shown me that this is what I really want to do with my life and that by hook or by crook I'm going to end up making films regardless of what is thrown at me! It was just the best experience being surrounded by people who are passionate about films, and the project and all of a sudden the stuff that I was doing locked away in my bedroom typing away became really relevant and I wasn't just "crazy Ted at the pub" talking about characters that only existed in my head!

David Gant as the hilarious Mr Thompson rehearsing his catchphrase to camera! 

Dedicated students Kat and Briony working in the art department and on deadlines! 

Me in the corridor set at the end of the day. 

The art department working late to change the set for the last three days of shooting.

The Green Rock River Band playing on set! Amazing music and the guys kept us entertained!

Photo of the cast and crew - just like in Primary School at the back because I'm so tall!

Have a look at some of the pictures of the shoot - it was a seriously amazing experience both professionally and personally. If there are any film/media students reading this get yourself on Kickstarter now and look around at some of the projects that are nearing completion. Like me you'll have no money to be able to give them but get in contact and offer your time - it might even be better than a donation and the experience that you'll gain will be invaluable!

We’re all Doomed!

I have been so, so, so busy lately that I haven’t really had time to be blogging as of late but all I can say is that currently I’ve been having a brilliant time on the set of The Fitzroy – see the pictures below. Although the art department isn’t really my thing, I can barely hold a paintbrush properly, I’ve really started enjoying it and with my niche in heavy lifting I’ve found plenty to do moving stuff around!

Day one heading onto the sub for the first time.

How do you steer a submarine? Here's your answer.

One of the navigation rooms in the sub.

Exterior of the submarine - it would hold 75 guys at a time on there - grim.

At 6ft 6 and 250Lbs navigating the sub was a challenge - apparently heading through the portholes looked a little like: "The Sub was giving birth to me."

Cast and crew watching rushes from the previous day.

Torpedo room/Hotel bathroom.

The guys that I’ve been working with have been great and I’m only hoping that all of the experiences that I have on feature sets are this pleasant. The only issue that I see is that the mornings are very early and the nights are very late but I suppose that you soon get used to them.

Now, with three days “off” before I head back to the set in Acton and do some of the studio stuff I’m back to work writing and trying to produce the two other short films that we’ve got planned for the remained of this year and see where Aftercare and Dark Matter might lead!

Dark Matter Meeting!

I once again find myself in Shoreditch. I definitely not cool enough to be here, but with my hat pulled down I do a good impression of trying to blend in!

Great meeting today with Nick to talk all things webseries related and I'm pleased to report that Dark Matter is going really well! We've created such a complex world that can be told really cheaply and with so few characters. It's going to look the nuts when we start filming hopefully mid May!

The only problem though about great meetings is that there's now plenty of notes that need typing up and loads of ideas that need formulating! Time to start the grind!

BottleRocket Film and the adventure of the 48 Hour Film Challenge.

Check out the finished product of our 48 Hour challenge here: https://vimeo.com/63654852

Just before the challenge started picking our four things to put into the film.

Never one to back away from a challenge I decided that I was going to sign BottleRocket Film up to the London SciFi 48 Hour Film challenge. Competitors are given a title, a line of dialogue, a prop or action and an optional theme and a little over two days to write, shoot and edit a 3 to 5 minute film that they think would be worthy of festival contention. It can’t be all that hard really can it to churn out something in 48 hours, can it? But with a judging panel that has on it benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Guillermo Del Toro (The Orphanage, Pans Labyrinth, Hell Boy) it couldn’t just be something it had to be good, really good.

Rather than simply tell you what we got up to – though there will be a little of that – I thought that I’d try and offer some helpful hits as to how best to survive one of these 48 hour challenges and how we overcame obstacles that were thrown at us that might one day be lying at your feet.

Before the challenge

Before we even started we decided that we really wanted to try and find one location that we knew that we could use for most (if not all) of the film so that we at least knew that we would have somewhere to film everything if stuff got desperate and had somewhere that we could call our “base”. Luckily one of the members of our team (Mike Peel) works at Regents University in London that were kind enough to let us film there for the weekend. It took a huge weight off our minds knowing that no matter what was thrown at us we always had somewhere to go for the weekend that had plenty of locations that we could film in. Lecture theatres, a canteen, exterior shots etc…

After locking that down we realized that we’d need a cast. We decided to put up an advert on the Star Now website http://www.starnow.com/, which is increasingly becoming more and more useful for our productions as we are able to reach out to actors with briefs and gather, what have been to date, talented people who are looking for a break and anything that might add to their portfolio. We put out a casting call that was concrete enough so that people would be able to get an idea of their time commitments but gave us the flexibility of being able to gather loads of people from different backgrounds, ages, races, sexes. This gave us a huge bank of actors (well over 50 people replied to the post) that we would be able to phone around and it wouldn’t matter if one or two of them had changed their plans before the weekend. Being in London really helped as everyone who wants to work in media seems to head down there at some point!

What was great was that we got as organized as we could before the shoot but gave enough room to be flexible if things were to change on the day. Once we had cut the actors down to half (there was no point in having 50 people holding off on their weekend plans when we might not use all of them) we sent round a guide to how we thought that the weekend might go (having never done one of these before it was all pretty much a guess). Just something simple outlining the steps that we thought we might take to getting the film finished. It seemed to help us as although the timing was entirely off we did go through the process step by step and it was useful to see what was coming next.

Finally on the Friday night it was all about getting a good night’s sleep – as there wasn’t going to be much after this.

Saturday

In order to ensure that everything was ready at the venue most of the team headed to Regents 

University straight away but muggins here was left to do all the registration and such at the South Bank Centre. Straight after grabbing all of the stuff that we needed I was on the tube formulating ideas on the Iphone and telling the others in the team the four things that we had so that they could do the same.

Deliberating the script

Once we were all at “base” we quickly formulated the idea:

John Manhattan is the Caretaker. As the last human, he is tasked with keeping the knowledge of humanity alive. He creates projections to keep him sane during his solitary life, locking them away when he tires of them as he cannot bring himself to destroy them. One simulation escapes from the safe, or so he thinks...

Opening shots

There was no time for second guessing and by 1400 we had all of the cast in place and had begun some of the initial photography. It was a great help that we were working with such talented people who knew how to work independently, I trusted entirely, were able to be flexible and were willing to contribute ideas. Filmmaking is a collaborative art and this really is obvious when there’s a tight deadline and you’ve got a small crew together!

A few of the shots on day one.

Oddly one of my favourite moments of the whole challenge was at about one in the morning on day one when we had Joe and Hannah (or male and female leads) running around Regents University for the final shot of the day. There was a wedding downstairs that we were competing with for sound so had to film at the quietest moments. Although it was late everyone was still putting on a good performance and was keen to make sure that we got the shot right. I was really humbled to see that they were as keen as I was to make this a success!

After the first day we started looking at the footage that we’d gathered and set sound man Chris to start synching all of the audio and had DOP Mike dumping all of the footage onto the computer. Although it was late and tiredness was setting in spirits remained high and we were able to get past the wall by laughing and joking around (when appropriate – and sometimes when not!). A HUGE thing before entering into this challenge is knowing that you can work with the people that you are going into it with and that you’d trust them to do this thing themselves on your behalf if you had to. If you’re not certain that a team member is going to function well on four hours sleep try and find something for them to be doing that weekend rather than being involved in your project. I was so lucky that the team that we worked with were great, otherwise I don’t think that I would have got 

through it in such good shape.

We had planned to edit the days shoot that night but everything was rolling into one and eventually at around 0200 I couldn’t stand anymore and went to sleep (Kirsten wasn’t long after). Mike and Chris both crawled in at around 0400 – I dreaded waking them up in just over three hours’ time to start day two.

Mike proving to us that the safe is "safe"

Sunday

Because we filmed so late into the night on day one we didn’t have all that much to film on day two just one set of exterior shots that we managed to rattle off before 1200 and another reshoot of something that we weren’t happy with on day one and it was all done before 1300 and the dreaded edit could begin.

Editing fuel

In the edit we all took on various roles and each person on the team contributed to a different part of the post-production stuff. Chris took on the sound again finishing up a few things here and there, I started chopping away at the clips that we had gathered and Mike set about colour correcting everything and looking at splashing a little VFX here and there. Again we managed to keep ourselves awake and in the zone with some humour (Mike at one point was instructing me how to do something on Final Cut and thought it would be funny to try and make it delete everything by holding “command + A” and then pressing “delete” – just to see if I would do it – turns out I am that thick and, probably through tiredness, we all fell about laughing – and crying)

Overall the whole thing turned out pretty well and I’m really pleased with what we accomplished in 48 hours with no money! Check it out if you can here: https://vimeo.com/63654852

Tips for those brave enough to try a 48 Hour Film Challenge:

One of the biggest tips that I can give for this process is never be wasting a moment, if you’ve got any downtime film some exteriors, start cooking up an idea for an alternative shot, offer to make everyone a cup of coffee (believe me that helps more than anything!)

Get people involved who you trust implicitly and know that you can spend at least 48 hours with without wanting to kill!

You’re going to be tired, hungry, too cold, too warm, stressed, confused, puzzled, or all of the above at once – get over it! You can sleep when you’re dead.

An army marches on its stomach. Make sure that you are liberal with snacks and food – if you have any sort of money make sure that some of it goes into feeding the cast and crew – it’s amazing what people are willing to do if you feed them.

No matter what you are feeling when you’re shooting (especially if you’re directing/leading the piece) never let anyone know that you’re not sure what you’re doing. You’re a filmmaker god-damn it and you’re making a film, people better get on board with this – and it’s going to be kick ass.

Once you’ve come up with an idea don’t second guess – get going with it – you’ve only got 48 hours after all!