Arrested development: the importance of having the right producers onboard

It has been a long time since I had the time, focus and energy to write a proper blog update. The summer has flown by with busy ‘summer fun stuff’, a busy workload at the agency, selling our house and looking for a new home... and the developments (!) of my feature project, ‘Shadows’. This blog is about the trials and tribulations, the hopes and the disappointments and the false dawns and frustrations of film development.

Sometimes I get the
feeling  I've been here before!

Microbudget film

I recently read an article about microbudget filmmaking on the excellent website Filmmaker Magazine.

The piece was very pertinent to how I work and spoke, in part, to the aesthetics I aspire to and am drawn to.

I'm not one for written manifestos like the Dogma movement, but I do believe that microbudget filmmaking can be a choice and an ethos. It allows for a voice to be heard rather than be drowned by the big bucks and interfering execs.

Now more than ever, with the advent of affordable HD technology, desk top post-production and avenues of online promotion and (maybe soon) distribution, there is more of a reason -- and more of an avenue -- for independent filmmakers to get out there and create a sea change.

As I develop my project, Shadows, I have my eyes focusing more and more on this option of filmmaking with levels of creative freedom and democratic production we have maybe never seen before.

To read the article by Scott Macaulay, just click here.

Where has the week gone?

A week working with my four and half year old son... a new found love with Playmobil...  and storyboarding against the clock...

Screenplay: the final lap

The last couple of weeks have been 'spent' on the remaining 10 or 12 pages of my Shadows re-write. I say 'spent' because only a very small percentage of time writing a screenplay is actually dedicated to writing (I speak from my own personal experience and this won't apply to everyone). The rest of the time is spent doing anything... absolutely anything... other than writing. I'll listen to music, do some photography, process pictures, reading blogs, looking at other photographer's work on the computer, spend money on eBay, see who's Twittering little gems of info, read a magazine or book... anything... but write that script.

A busy end to the year

I have been itching to update the blog, but I have been so busy lately that there just hasn’t been the opportunity. The run-up to the end of the year is looking very hectic and I cannot wait for late December when I return home to the UK for Christmas and the New Year with my wife and son.

Here's a quick update on what's been going on to keep me away from blogging...

17 Fantastic Uses of Shadow to Enhance Photographic Composition

17 Fantastic Uses of Shadow to Enhance Photographic Composition

Back on the screenplay treadmill

PCKNAEZ3C2ME Back in 2005 / 6 I had a feature project called ‘Shadows’, based on a screenplay I had written, almost ready to go. The potential financing package fell through and the producer at the time suggested looking at other means of getting the project into production.

By then, two things were happening in my life that prompted me to put the project, and filmmaking in general, on the back burner. First and foremost, my wife was pregnant with our first (and only) child. Added to this, we had become heirs to a dilapidated 400 year old farmhouse that we decided would become our home. The task was immense. It was clear that I couldn’t focus on a film project properly with these things happening in my life... and I certainly wasn’t going to pack my bags and disappear for a year playing movie-maker while leaving my wife with a new-born baby to contend with and the renovation of the farmhouse.