Thoughts for the day

I’m Really, Really Pleased

That the Hurt Locker got six Oscars, it stopped the almost unstoppable lover of French Canadian horse faced music from cleaning up because we all have to see his film about Smurfs.  Due to financial complications I’ve not had the opportunity to see either film.  I am however really please that a relatively low budget film, that has a proper script and some very impressive filming techniques which also covers off some off the darker places and activities that are happening in our world - notice I said our world.  Of course M. Cameron produced some stunning low budget films in his early days - Terminator anybody? He also brought us Jessica Alb, whom I really fancied until I discovered she was the geeks choice.

So What is Your Problem?

We went to a BAFTA and Film ONE event last night to watch her film and have a Q&A with Joanna Hogg, who whilst I don’t agree with some of her choices [DOP and Camera] was very down to earth and seamed very honest. The film could have done with better sound and filming, some of that was down to the equipment it was shown on.  The story though was charming and mostly kept me interested.  It’s so much better then the last film we saw with OFVM and a billion times better then the Oxford based horsie, money and talent wasting [and this bit hurts] film maker. No it was that the producer that interviewed her managed to make it all about woman film makers.

Still Dont See my Problem?

Right, it’s not about woman, and here is the key thing, Hurt Locker is a very good film, last nights film was a good film.  What I don’t get is why it matters that these people are woman, I enjoy the films if they are made by men or woman, it only makes a difference to me if they have a chip on there shoulder.  Do I enter competition about men in films?  Now dont get me wrong, I do realise that it’s been a long journey for woman over the last few hundred years and that even recently a lot of jobs and awards have gone predominantly to men.  That is changing though and if you still go on about it, I personally think you take away from your achievements.  I really do.  So come on girls suck it up and keep up the good work.  I’m just more interested in your film making then your gender.  Unless your fit and I fancy you, that’s a totally different story though.

 So Here is to film Makers

All colours, all genders all nationalities.  Lets just make sure they are good ones and not that durge made by people unwilling to take advice who have acess to the money that should be going to people that can actualy do something worthwhile with it. Joanna Hogg spent well and made well - even if I’d like her to have the budget for a camera with prime lenses.

Laters

Chalkster

Well Actaully I Have!

Yesterday I finished the very first Draft on ‘No Balls,  Scrum Like it Hot‘, Which is the first and on one the most vital parts of film making, I’ve put down how I see the film.  It now gets past over to both Simon and Simeon for a magic touch or two, or thousands in fact.  It’s a strange thing coming to the end of the story, it’s very much like finishing a good book that you can’t put down.  You read and read it, then it finishes all to suddenly and you find yourself in morning for the characters that you have got to know so well.  And guys this is it, there will not be a sequel to this film.  that’s it for these people that have been banging around in my head for the last two and a half years.  I’ve allowed them to come to the surface and engage with me, and now they are gone.  A memory, that I look back at.  I’ve grown these people like children, carved out there personalities and now I have to say goodbye.  Of course I will get to play with them again, on the re-writes and when we film, but I cant help but just feel a small sense of loss. I think I’ll miss Izzy the most, she was the one that really took over in my head.

It goes on

I would not want you to think that, that is it, or that I’m this great writer though, I’m not.  There is a necessity to getting it out of my head and in a place where the real talent get get into it.   By putting the story down in it’s most basic format I give the guys a template that I’m happy with for them to really go to town on. It’s about being able to have something that I’m happy with, it’s the story and the way that I think on the page now, which saves many, many re-writes and so, so much time.  It will be interesting to compare the two scripts in a couple of weeks and see just how magnificently they have changed.  I must admit though, last night I felt waves of emotion and was a little bit teary.

Today

I’ll have a little tidy up and make sense of some of the bits that are not quite right.  But by jove people it’s down on paper!

LATERS!  

Chalkster

So its a new year then!

And I’m just trying to finish the structure of our feature “No Balls, Scrum Like it Hot“.  It’s nearing the end of my part of the process and I’m raked with self doubt brought on by mind dulling hangover [I really didn’t drink all that much], realisation that this is really going to happen and  that it has to be good.  If it’s not good, then I let everybody down.  Well accept for the people that want me to fail, or that don’t believe I’m capable of making it happen.  Being as pro-active as I am and driving leaves me open to a lot of danger in this field, and it makes it very very hard for me to have moments like this.  As it happens I would have liked to have had the script finished before Christmas and I’m sat here on around fifty pages.  Leaving me around twenty five more to right by the time I go to bed tonight.  I do have most of it in my head, and that is the vital thing,

ORGANIC

It’s also interesting how things change as your writing them, ou get to know the fictional people that you have invented and start building relationships with them in your head.  Some make themselves much more focal and others that you though would be.  It’s a very funny thing, and I can imagine it;s even worse for my two co-writers who now take it over from me, or do so after tonight.  It’s all very weird, and whilst  I worry myself sick about weather it is any good, I know in my heart of hearts that we are onto something just a little bit special.  I wonder if I’ll look back in 2012 and this will all be a very distant memory.  Who knows?  I don’t.

Still I’d better get on with it!

Laters,

Chalkster