Spinning Plates

A Filmmaker's Journal

Things have gotten very busy again. After a delay on editing The House on Lidderman Street (which I won’t go into), we are now blasting through and getting the cut locked. I have a great young editor named Ryan Robinson, who is working like crazy, as well as the score being written and recorded by James Justice (yes, that is his real name. Cool, innit). A lot of work on the sound is still needed, but we’ll get there.

I wanted to be a lot further along with Lidderman by now, but sometimes things just aren’t meant to be. Still, it’s happening now, and I’m hoping to have a very close to finished film by June. If not done done. In time for my 50th birthday.

Yep, 50. I really don’t know how I’ve got here. Still waiting to feel like a grown up.

In other news, The Wilding is close to the finish line. I’m off to That London in May to attend a cast and crew screening. Very excited about that.

I am also in Post on a short documentary I was hired to direct for Warwickshire District Council. I shot for two days on that in March. It’s nice to get an actual paid gig sometimes. Keeps wolves from doors and all that.

What else? Laura Living Backwards is screening at two film festivals on the same day - the 12th of April. Director Kate Horlor will attend the screening at the Bedford Independent Film Festival, where, we’ve been told, Laura has been nominated in all 19 of their awards! Crazy.

Then Kate will meet me later that day at the Coventry Phoenix Film Festival at FarGo Village, where Laura has been nominated for Best Short, I believe.

I will also be part of a panel of feature film directors at the Phoenix Film Fest. My panel is on at 15:30 for an hour.

On the writing side, Ash Price and I are still working on our screenplay, which we hope to turn in to the producer and the director over Easter. That one has a hell of a lot of potential and already seems to be getting some pretty major attention. Here’s hoping…

My regular collection, Matthew Waldram, and I are also cooking up a new feature idea, which we want to begin scripting after Easter. From one script straight onto the next. That’s how I’m going to roll this year.

I’ve also just done another pass on Rick Roberts’s gangland feature, Improper Bastards. It’s turned into 118 page crime epic! I bagged myself a very small role in it as well. Rick is in pre-production on both that one and Zero Hour (which I also scripted), and hopes to shoot them back to back later in the year. Not sure which way round yet though.

I feel like I’m definitely in some kind of transitional period between being a writer (and occasional director) of short films to being a writer (and occasional director) of feature films.

I also want to try and find time this month to write my short story for April (I plan to write a short story every month this year), and I think I’ve got a kind of twisted werewolf story brewing. Should be fun.

And… the new edition of Dead Leaves is almost ready for the rollout. Can’t wait to hold it in my hands!

All in all, there’s some serious plate spinning going on at the moment, but I thrive off it, I’ve come to realise. I get twitchy when things are too quiet. And, I guess, as the Big 50 looms, I’ve gone into fury mode to try and get a lot of stuff done before I reach that half-century milestone.

On the upside, I’m too busy for a mid-life crisis. I can’t afford a sports car, anyway. Not that I’m interested in cars.

ONWARDS!