How Many Shopping Days Until Christmas?

(Well, every day is a shopping day nowadays, so it's 283 by my count.)

I've posted about it before, but thought I'd do a proper update on the Christmas TV project that I'm currently working on. It's been bubbling under other projects that either I or the director have been working for over a year - check any old posts tagged 'Santa Baby' - but now all systems are go, and it's shaping up to be very exciting.

The piece started work as a writing exercise with a writers' group I used to run long ago: a ten minute comedy short film set at Christmas. It came very close to being selected for development money from Screen South, but then they plumped for my other script (which became my first short film 'Lent'). Then, I pitched it on the weekly Wednesday Shooting People bulletin, where it caught the eye of Colin Stevens. Colin has made a number of short films (some samples of which are on the net - check 'em out) and we started out with a regard to making it as a short.

As we were developing it, and I was doing a few rewrites, Colin and I both came to the conclusion that the premise had potential in it to fill a half-hour TV broadcast slot. Colin has a few key production contacts who were interested in the premise. And the story fits into the family feel-good Christmas tale tradition, so it certainly would feel at home in that medium. So, we put our thinking caps on about to how to change and restructure the tale to fit thirty minutes, without stretching the material too thin, and without putting a dent in the central magic of the idea.

This effort culminated in a meeting last week, where we agreed the final changes and amendments over lunch in Canary Wharf. It was a very good meeting, with both us pretty much in accord about the shape of the thing, and both very enthusiastic about getting started. I'm now ironing out the storyline and turning it into a detailed synopsis document. Soon, we'll be going out selling this to other people, pretty hopeful that we can find some collaborators who are as enthusiastic as ourselves.

All being well, Colin will be launching a web presence for the project soon; I'll report on this when it happens. I'll also be blogging and tweeting about any developments as they happen. Watch this space, and wish us luck!

New Year, New Meme

Happy New Year! I didn't expect to stay away from the blog for the full twelve days of Christmas, but it was a fantastic and furious time: lots of fun, lots of relatives visiting, lots of damn-the-recession fine food and wine, and my son (two and a half years old, so just this year getting what the season means) is still not sleeping properly at night because he is still so excited. I'm exhausted.

It's been mostly a holiday: I've nibbled at various pieces of script work over the last two weeks, but not chomped down hard on any one thing yet (this is a nice analogy isn't it?! Erk!). So, there hasn't been much to post about really. I've produced a whole five pages to reach 25 out of 60 on the Life Support pilot. So, I'm buckling down (or buckling under - whichever's good) to do a bit more before the big bad day job starts again on Monday (when, no doubt, my screenwriting effort will go up, but then I'm a contrary bugger, clearly).

Anyway, Piers has memed me with the 'what are you good and bad at' question: I'd say, from all the feedback so far that I'm better (I wouldn't claim to be good at anything necessarily) at characters and dialogue. I need to work harder on pitching my work, and on handling notes better in a rewrite. I won't pass the meme on, as I think everyone I know has already been passed it by someone else I know. Hello all of you people I know, by the way; you're looking well - is that top new?

P.S. A nice bit of luck - I was one of fifteen Shooters picked out of the hat for the Screenwriters' Festival launch party next Tuesday. Anyone else attending?

Progress Report (and ‘Power of Three’ Call Out)

It’s August already. Phew! I’m still keeping busy and have lots of projects on the go, which is great for my morale but doesn’t do much for the frequency of postings to this blog – I apologise for any breaks in transmission you may be experiencing. Still, there are already many (almost too many) lovely things out there to read and view: Robin Kelly has been posting on a method for developing a screenplay to enter into the Red Planet prize that I recommended highly. And head Shooter-scribe Andy Conway’s podcast with Tony Jordan is a must listen.

Besides enjoying those, here is what I’ve been up to:

Shorts. I’m in development on two 10-minute shorts with two wonderful directors, ‘Santa Baby’, a comedy, and a drama, ‘Second Date’. More details as things progress.

Radio. I’m currently finishing the latest draft of a 45-minute radio play, ‘Lollipops and Samaritans’. This will be sent in to the BBC Writers’ Room as my “Invite Next” script.

Features. Through August I will be redrafting ‘Sold Out’, the film screenplay that was short-listed in the Euroscript competition this year. The producer that I met through the Cheltenham Festival ScriptMarket wants to see the next draft, and Screen South may well be prepared to provide some development funding for it. This is encouraging, and makes up for some less good news on the feature front - the separate, paid feature gig that I had a chance of getting seems to be on hold at the moment. I still have hopes that it’ll happen one day, though.

TV. I’ve submitted something for the TAPS Nations and Regions showcase for Soap Writing. Has anyone else taken part in this scheme in the past, or applied to it this year? Fingers crossed for you, if you have.

Red Planet. I’ve completed a first draft of a 30-min TV screenplay called ‘Normal’ which is a possible entry for Tony Jordan’s screenwriting competition. I’m looking for kindly bloggers who are able to give me some Power of Three feedback on this script: if anyone is interested, please e-mail me (the address is in my profile). I will, of course, be prepared to return the favour. Cheers m’ dears.

That all seems much more impressive written down. I thought I was being lazy over the last few weeks: for a start, I took a couple of days out to read the Harry Potter book when it came out, to avoid seeing any spoilers posted on-line by insensitive souls. Great read. Can you believe that she killed off [censored]?