Do you ever feel like you're waiting, not unhappily, but just nervously waiting because you feel that something is going to happen. Waiting because you know something will happen. Something IS about to happen.
Maybe it's because it was the full harvest moon last night. Maybe it's because I've painted my nails the colour of nightshade. Maybe it's because I start back at Uni next week with all that that brings.
Tomorrow I will wear a silver scarf and wait some more, until the something happens. By Sunday, I will be waiting no more.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
3rd one's the (unlucky) charm
Well I enjoyed the ride, but as of the 3rd round of the BSSC, 'Personal Organiser' is out of the running, booooooooooo. Nice to get past the first two cuts though, and it certainly gave me a boost.
Fair thee well all you other 3rd rounders - I'm not bitter!
This week I'm mostly earning as much as I can in preparation for the start of my final MA year, trying to redraft what passes for my Red Planet script (even if it doesn't get through the next round, I like it enough to want to metaphorically scrub its little face of all the first draft grime) and deciding how to best get 'Personal Organiser' made - it's a mission now... lock and load!
Fair thee well all you other 3rd rounders - I'm not bitter!
This week I'm mostly earning as much as I can in preparation for the start of my final MA year, trying to redraft what passes for my Red Planet script (even if it doesn't get through the next round, I like it enough to want to metaphorically scrub its little face of all the first draft grime) and deciding how to best get 'Personal Organiser' made - it's a mission now... lock and load!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Voyeur
Don't you love those gizmos that let you see all the different sorts of people who visit your blog!
The best so far - someone from Indianapolis found me whilst looking for 'peeping stepmom'.
Result (I'm guessing) - one REALLY disappointed surfer.
The best so far - someone from Indianapolis found me whilst looking for 'peeping stepmom'.
Result (I'm guessing) - one REALLY disappointed surfer.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Happy (belated) Blogday to me
It's finally arrived!
I started my blog a year ago (on the 15th September), and here I still am! Can't say I expected it to last, but it has served it's purpose to keep a sporadic diary of my Screenwriting MA, and has turned out to be a little addictive. Thank-you to everyone who has read or commented or generally been friendly in the blogsphere over the past 12 months. Bring on the next year - and on that note, I'm off to try and find out what I'm going to be doing in my final year at skewl.
And while I remember - may all of you non-paying Ebay bidders be smothered in honey and eaten alive (slowly) by ants. Yes.
I started my blog a year ago (on the 15th September), and here I still am! Can't say I expected it to last, but it has served it's purpose to keep a sporadic diary of my Screenwriting MA, and has turned out to be a little addictive. Thank-you to everyone who has read or commented or generally been friendly in the blogsphere over the past 12 months. Bring on the next year - and on that note, I'm off to try and find out what I'm going to be doing in my final year at skewl.
And while I remember - may all of you non-paying Ebay bidders be smothered in honey and eaten alive (slowly) by ants. Yes.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Pan's Labyrinth
I've been keeping this dvd to watch, like a special treat kept aside. Finally had a day completely off today, and took a couple of hours to watch it. Worth the wait! I've actually heard and read quite a few negative reviews of it, but I'd find it difficult to imagine anyone who wasn't moved by the story. In the short : In the Spanish Civil War, a girl (Ofelia) loses her father, and has to endure her mother marrying a fascist Spanish captain, who moves them to a new part of the country. Her mother is pregnant with her little brother. She loves fairy tales, and has a vivid imagination, but her mother keeps warning her that real life is nothing like her stories. The war is brutal, and as guerilla fighters alternately evade and engage the Captain's troops, Ofelia escapes into her stories. She chases a 'fairy' in the woods and it brings her to a land of magical fauns and monsters. As the film unfolds, Ofelia has to balance her magical life with her real life struggles.
There are lots of descriptions of the plot and characters out there, so I won't repeat them myself, but what prompted me posting was remembering an entry on Lucy's blog here which discussed rights and responsibilities especially in a horror context. Pan's Labyrinth has been largely advertised as a magical fantasy, but some of the complaints I've seen seem to centre on whether or not it deserves this title. Most of the 'disgusted and disappointed' seem to think it is most definitely a horror. I don't think it is, but therein lies the thought that intrigued me, and reminded me of Lucy's blog entry. Many people seem to have been horrified and surprised by the violence - some calling it stomach-churning - which I do have to take issue with. As discussed in Lucy's blog, the new range of 'torture-porn' titles that came out recently are to me (but not to everyone out there) stomach-churning, and you would have to pin my eyelids to my forehead to get me to watch anything along those lines. But 'stomach-churning' is subjective, isn't it. Makes life interesting that we don't all think the same (but to all of you who don't agree with my opinions on this - you're all a bunch of sickos, naturally).
Pan's Labyrinth is certainly a film with considerable and brutal violence, but whilst I couldn't watch some of it (though hearing it was almost as bad) I would defend its necessity to anyone. If I watch a film where a man is beaten to death with a bottle - in context - and for a reason (in this films case, to demonstrate the brutality and indiscriminate nature of war and those who hold the power in it) - then it should be unpleasant to watch, without being gratuitously depicted for entertainment's sake. When someone is cut with a knife, it looks painful and bloody. It looks 'real'. No slow-motion splatter or '54 bullets before they die' going on. Even in the fantasy sections, the violence is handled in a 'real' and occasionally horrifying way. This is definitely not a film for children, although maybe if they saw what a real knife can do to someone's face, they might respect them a little more, something they won't get from watching all those nice, clean stabbings (with ferraris, models and palm trees in the background) in all those ubiquitous crime dramas that stodge up the schedules.
I'm still thinking about Pan's Labyrinth a few hours after watching it. In a strange way, particularly for a magical fantasy/horror (however you want to describe it) it's the most 'real' film I've seen in a while. I recommend it. I thought it was brilliantly realised and involving. It didn't make me feel good but I did enjoy it. I'm not sure I came away glad or sorry at the end. Maybe that's the sign of a great film.... you tell me.
There are lots of descriptions of the plot and characters out there, so I won't repeat them myself, but what prompted me posting was remembering an entry on Lucy's blog here which discussed rights and responsibilities especially in a horror context. Pan's Labyrinth has been largely advertised as a magical fantasy, but some of the complaints I've seen seem to centre on whether or not it deserves this title. Most of the 'disgusted and disappointed' seem to think it is most definitely a horror. I don't think it is, but therein lies the thought that intrigued me, and reminded me of Lucy's blog entry. Many people seem to have been horrified and surprised by the violence - some calling it stomach-churning - which I do have to take issue with. As discussed in Lucy's blog, the new range of 'torture-porn' titles that came out recently are to me (but not to everyone out there) stomach-churning, and you would have to pin my eyelids to my forehead to get me to watch anything along those lines. But 'stomach-churning' is subjective, isn't it. Makes life interesting that we don't all think the same (but to all of you who don't agree with my opinions on this - you're all a bunch of sickos, naturally).
Pan's Labyrinth is certainly a film with considerable and brutal violence, but whilst I couldn't watch some of it (though hearing it was almost as bad) I would defend its necessity to anyone. If I watch a film where a man is beaten to death with a bottle - in context - and for a reason (in this films case, to demonstrate the brutality and indiscriminate nature of war and those who hold the power in it) - then it should be unpleasant to watch, without being gratuitously depicted for entertainment's sake. When someone is cut with a knife, it looks painful and bloody. It looks 'real'. No slow-motion splatter or '54 bullets before they die' going on. Even in the fantasy sections, the violence is handled in a 'real' and occasionally horrifying way. This is definitely not a film for children, although maybe if they saw what a real knife can do to someone's face, they might respect them a little more, something they won't get from watching all those nice, clean stabbings (with ferraris, models and palm trees in the background) in all those ubiquitous crime dramas that stodge up the schedules.
I'm still thinking about Pan's Labyrinth a few hours after watching it. In a strange way, particularly for a magical fantasy/horror (however you want to describe it) it's the most 'real' film I've seen in a while. I recommend it. I thought it was brilliantly realised and involving. It didn't make me feel good but I did enjoy it. I'm not sure I came away glad or sorry at the end. Maybe that's the sign of a great film.... you tell me.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Post Mistress
Bored - cheap listing day on Ebay which means i HAVE TO BUCKLE DOWN and list lots of things when the fees are cheap. However, it is sunny outside and I don't wanna (stamp). Here's a slinky little number by 70s designer Colin Glascoe that will be going up later.
Day started off ominously when I got that dreaded 'couldn't deliver your Red Planet entry you LOSER' message this morning. After I'd finished levitating, I checked the Red Planet website and they're allowing resubmissions phew. Copied a bit of the 'refusal to deliver' message in my email to prove I wasn't just being tardy. Fingers crossed.
Monday, September 03, 2007
I Don't Want It
Forgive me Father for I have sinned.... am I the only person who really, REALLY can't get into 'Heroes'? Someone help, I need guidance and absolution.
Scarlet Terror
Got my Red Planet entry in by the skin of my teeth before Saturday midnight. Their website suggested they'd accept until Sunday but I didn't want to chance it so drank too much caffeine-laden Pepsi and jittered my entry in.
I think it's a good concept with legs for a series, interesting characters, but I'm pretty certain the synopsis will let it down - I just had a blank when I was summing up the idea (even though I know it inside out - I know the focus, the arcs and pay-offs), but had to cut my losses before I chewed it over so much it resembled something stringy. Hopefully they'll go on to read the script as that works better.
Of course it's all hypothetical, maybe my concept of 'good' is rubbish, and conversely, maybe my concept of 'bad' is in fact incredibly skewed. Who knows. Still! Good to have been hassled into getting something together that I've been mulling over for a couple months. It may also prove the basis for the next module on the MA when we draft a half hour script which I've been hoping will turn into the pilot for a TV series.
Things to do :
Sort out notes from the EIFF;
Email a Producer I met at said EIFF - nothing ventured, nothing gained;
Watch 'Tribe' that I've been religiously taping, and am dying to see (hope it doesn't disappoint as the last series was so absorbing);
Work on my feature thriller 'Finding Dead People' which needs a savage redraft and edit. There's enough going for it to spend the time, and a couple of the characters inspired my Red Planet entry so it feels timely (note to self - start CLEARLY NUMBERING DRAFTS, as I have a few different versions floating about and will have to judiciously work through them all to find the most recent as I DIDN'T NUMBER THEM the first time round - arse);
Sort out all the other day-to-day crap that has fallen by the wayside whilst I was whooping it up film festival stylee last month - the least of which is a leaking gutter. Rubber gloves where art thou?
I think it's a good concept with legs for a series, interesting characters, but I'm pretty certain the synopsis will let it down - I just had a blank when I was summing up the idea (even though I know it inside out - I know the focus, the arcs and pay-offs), but had to cut my losses before I chewed it over so much it resembled something stringy. Hopefully they'll go on to read the script as that works better.
Of course it's all hypothetical, maybe my concept of 'good' is rubbish, and conversely, maybe my concept of 'bad' is in fact incredibly skewed. Who knows. Still! Good to have been hassled into getting something together that I've been mulling over for a couple months. It may also prove the basis for the next module on the MA when we draft a half hour script which I've been hoping will turn into the pilot for a TV series.
Things to do :
Sort out notes from the EIFF;
Email a Producer I met at said EIFF - nothing ventured, nothing gained;
Watch 'Tribe' that I've been religiously taping, and am dying to see (hope it doesn't disappoint as the last series was so absorbing);
Work on my feature thriller 'Finding Dead People' which needs a savage redraft and edit. There's enough going for it to spend the time, and a couple of the characters inspired my Red Planet entry so it feels timely (note to self - start CLEARLY NUMBERING DRAFTS, as I have a few different versions floating about and will have to judiciously work through them all to find the most recent as I DIDN'T NUMBER THEM the first time round - arse);
Sort out all the other day-to-day crap that has fallen by the wayside whilst I was whooping it up film festival stylee last month - the least of which is a leaking gutter. Rubber gloves where art thou?
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