And the winner is…..

The End

The winner of “Best Horror” at the 2014 Limelight Film Awards was no other than our short film, The End.

It’s been a long time since I worked on this short film script and saw it go into production. It was very a very surreal experience sitting in the gorgeously decadent, art deco venue, The Troxy, in London’s east end watching a clip of our film played as the nominations were read out.

There was so much talent at the award ceremony, including of course my fellow film makers – Director and Producer, Raj Pathak, from We Are Heroes Films, cinematographer, Louis Vella  and special effects aficionado Nik Karma from N-FX. The two actresses also attended the ceremony; Shelley Draper (who provided an immensely compelling performance of the mother in the film) and Eva Nicholson who played her daughter. Director, Crash Taylor unfortunately couldn’t attend the event.

(My one regret is that we didn’t get pictures of the event – we all went up as a team to receive the award and the official photographs have never been released of all the winners. Note to the organisers – there’s a lot of PR each of the film awards winners would probably love to generate for the awards, so its a shame these haven’t been available!)

Of course for us this isn’t The End – but only the beginning of the end. With a feature length film script already written, a crew that’s raring to go all that’s left is to gather together more investment – I say ‘all that’s needed’ of course this is one of the trickiest elements of getting a film made. I’ve no doubt it will be another long wait…. but it will be worth it!

 

 

Award nomination for The End!

A couple of days ago I got the fabulous news from Film Director, Raj Pathak (We are Heroes Films), that we’ve been nominated for an award at the Limelight Film Awards, due to be held on June 9th!  It’s a highly prestigious event to be held in the Troxy, a beautiful Art Deco venue in East London.

Not surprisingly we’re nominated in the Horror category – and if we go through and win ‘Film of the Night’ then we’ll get a massive £10,000 production budget – as you can imagine I’m hoping this might go towards making the feature length version! It’s especially good timing as I’ve just submitted the completed script to We Are Heroes.

Even if we don’t win, the nomination alone is exciting and has only been made possible by the combination of such wonderful talents as Crash Taylor, Raj Pathak and N-FX special effects. Not to mention the amazing crew and actors – especially Shelley Draper, who really brought all the emotion of her character off the paper and onto the screen.

Fingers crossed!

 

Free screening – one night only

 

Although I’m not able to be there, I’m delighted to promote the sequel to ‘Don’t Go In the Basement’ event. A free night of shorts from Nottingham and the surrounding areas. No theme this time, so it’ll be a proper mixed bag. There will be music video’s, live action shorts, animations and other surprises. You will laugh, you will cry and naturally, given our obsession with horror, there will be some scares along the way.

My zombie short The End will be screening there. (I’m busy writing the prequel so no rest for the wicked!)

Doors at 7.00pm, first film starts at 7.30pm prompt.

NASH Interiors
17 – 19 Carlton St, NG1 1NL Nottingham, United Kingdom

Occupancy

When a property developer visits an abandoned house, advertised as a development opportunity, he encounters two macabre sisters, unwilling to share occupancy.

I’ve spent most of the last year splitting my time between finishing my novel and writing a number of short films.

Occupancy will be the first of my scripts to make it to film. The film will probably only be around 3 minutes in length and its main purpose is so the director can work with the location and some of the actors we intend to use for a zombie film (which I script edited/co-wrote). The film is being produced by Cold Water Canyon pictures by a very inspirational guy called Crash Taylor.

He’s written a bit more about the process of making the film and the people involved here:

http://coldwatercanyonpictures.com

Crash Taylor is an award winning photographer turned cinematographer. He has infectious enthusiasm and, being from California originally (now based in Nottingham), a very positive view of life. Crash puts his all into every project. Many of the scripts we’ve worked on have gone back and forward via various film script critics, to ensure they are the best they can be before anyone shouts ACTION!

Also in the pipeline is a ‘store hold-up’ short film and a slightly longer short called Watching Over You. Watching Over You is my favourite of all my scripts so far and is the one I desperately want to see made. The script is being put forward to the BFI to see if we can get funding – if we can then it could really become something special – fingers crossed.

It’s nice to be able to blog some positive news – let me know how things are going with your works-in-progress…?

Long time…..

Anne of York, Sister of Edward IV and Richard III, Aunt of Queen Elizabeth of York, Great-Aunt of Henry VIII and his siblings, with her 2nd husband, Sir Thomas St. Leger (Photo credit: lisby1)

No see…..

Gosh it has been a very long while since I last gave my blog any attention. Life gets busy doesn’t it? I’ve never been too busy to write but I have been busy enough to realise I have to prioritise what I write and unfortunately the blog had to go on hold.

Some amazing things have been happening over the last few months,

Finding Richard III – OK I can’t claim to have ‘done’ that, but it was a fairly major piece of news in my life. It was only a few years ago that I became so very interested in this enigmatic character and began to attempt to write about him – a fact I mainly kept to myself and those I knew had an interest themselves. It seemed strange to see him suddenly propelled into such a spotlight. Before the discovery of his body I had come to the conclusion I was not a good enough writer to create the kind of work I feel would most aptly, in my own eyes, portray the complexities of his character. I still feel that way, but the ambition is not lost, just set aside to grow quietly in the background, until I’m ready to attend to it again.

More script writing – I never had any ambition to write film scripts and yet that’s what I seem to have spent most of my time doing, certainly in the last six months. One script, ‘Watching over you’ is in production – the casting has taken place I believe and another, shorter film (probably 7mins long) is now in pre-production too. We’re having difficulty finding a convenience store or petrol station shop willing to let us film there – so if you know of anywhere (esp in the Nottingham area) please let us know!

The novel – I just don’t know what to do about this ‘thing’. It is so close to having being finished and yet I’ve stalled. Partly due to my attention being taken by the script writing, but that’s not the full story.  I intend to send some pages off to a competition, but the closing date is drawing near and I haven’t submitted. I’m also going round in circles in my own mind about whether or not to send it for a second full critique – which will cost £100s – but might be the final push I need to get it good enough to send to agents etc. But I don’t want to waste money – Ive already spent a fair amount on it, in writing courses and the first critique – but then I should have faith that its worth it. So what should I do? Stop faffing I imagine!!

When do you know it’s ready to show the world? If you’re a published writer, let me know. If you’re not, let me know if you have a theory!

Keep going writers, never give up, never surrender 🙂

Related articles

• Dean of York calls in police over Richard III hate mail (yorkshirepost.co.uk)
• Friendly face of Richard III unveiled after remains find (thetimes.co.uk)