GREETINGS & SALUTATIONS
In this edition:
Tall Story Pictures
The Play Lottery
London Screenwriters’ Festival
This week I attended two meetings with Tall Story Pictures (‘Trauma’, ‘The Bay’, ‘Bancroft’)! First off I had a one-to-one with exec. producer Phil Hunter (Apple TV’s ‘Criminal Record’, ITV’s ‘Vera’), followed by a meeting with the other selected writers and the entire TSP team. It was a brilliant experience which I’m very grateful for. To read more about it, click here!
ALSO THIS MONTH:
I entered a play into The Play Lottery, which is a great opportunity for writers to have their work performed. There’s no bias, no subjective taste. It’s simply a winner picked at random. Sadly, I wasn’t picked, but I enjoyed the experience of writing a play (something I’ve not done for many, many years). I hope they get to run the lottery again soon because I’ll be giving it another go!
JUST ONE MORE THING…
I recently had first-hand experience of the truism that if you keep going for long enough you see the change. Probably the number one feedback point from agents and production companies used to be: Your main character HAS to CHANGE. They have to learn something and be different by the end of the story.
I recently sat through a talk where the big takeaway was: Your main character DOESN’T have to change.
*HEADS BANGS AGAINST THE WALL*
ANYWAY! The London Screenwriters’ Festival is less than a week away: As always there are a raft of industry expert speakers and opportunities to pitch your film/TV projects to those who make the shows, so if you’ve never been (and can afford it) then it promises to be a weekend to give you a creative kick up the backside.
This month’s Short People Highlights
CINEMA
Dune Part 2
Paul Atreides goes from desert out-cast to full-on messiah mode in this superb continuation of Dune. Yes, it’s one of those movies which you have to see in the cinema to appreciate the spectacle and have your eardrums blown out by the score, but there’s a lot more darkness in this story (and not just dark for the sake of it because all sequels these days have to go dark: It actually has something to say), and has an array of characters who challenge your ideas of who/what they should be. If you didn’t like the first Dune then this isn’t going to change anything, although the first instalment could be considered the set-up for this movie’s pay-off.
Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire
Where. To. Begin.
Some of the characters actually have some interesting potential: Ray Stantz is a retired expert on occult hokum. Winston Zeddemore is a billionaire head of a global Ghostbusters Corporation. Janine Melnitz is his assistant/go-between. Walter Peck was a no-brainer of a bad guy return. James Acaster’s new character of Lars, a sort of Q-Branch creator of ghost-gadgets. Fine. BUT DO SOMETHING WITH THEM!
Ghostbusters II proved that bringing back characters for the sake of bringing back characters doesn’t work unless they have something interesting to do. Just crow-barring them in is not good enough.
As for the central “family” unit of Ghostbusters: Who. Cares. The family dynamic? None of it works. The only character with potential is Phoebe Spengler, but she’s stuck with some sub-Beetlejuice rip-off storyline about wanting to be friends with ghosts. Bill Murray randomly shows up FOR NO REASON (other than the money, presumably). And it all ends with lots of people on screen doing nothing. In fact, Finn Wolfhard shows up towards the end of the movie and I’d almost forgotten he was in it.
LISTENING
Seeing how I’m knee-deep in Backstabbers re-writes, here’s the playlist which immediately gets me into the correct headspace!
READING
I had a return to one of my all-time faves, Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel classic Summer Blonde. If this doesn’t end up as a film or TV show at some point (preferably made by me. Please, God?), then I’ll eat my invisible hat. It’s a collection of short stories about loneliness and the bleakness of modern life and is thoroughly worth reading.
PLAYING
With the television adaptation of Fallout about to land on Amazon Prime, I thought I’d give Fallout 76’s new update a heads-up. Bethesda has ditched the usual “board game” scoreboard, allowing the player to choose what they want to buy and when. It still means grinding and levelling up, but it wouldn’t be Fallout then, would it?
ELSEWHERE
Behind the scenes on the Oscar-winning Poor Things…
… and a great bit of mens’ talk about mental health.
Finally, here’s what else has kept going (musically) this month - ‘til next time…
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