Thursday 27 February 2014

Better late than never Recap

Was meant to do this blog late 2013. It's mid February now - anyone else struggling to keep up? So far 2014 has been a flurry of projects and exciting news - nothing sharable yet, sorry. But what I can do - more for myself than for anyone else - is just recap on things that happened in 2013. Easy for me to forget what an eventful year it was.

  • January started well with a meeting regarding a project I have since referred to as GOLIATH.
  • Twisted Showcase Series 2 Part 2 went out over January - March. CLONE ALONE and SOMETHING AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS being two of my favourite episodes.
  • The second of the above films was the first I'd consider myself director of. I'd sort of directed EYEBALL and IDIOTS GUIDE TO MURDER, but this felt like my first 'proper' step in that *ahem* direction.
  • March/April time also saw a few meetings. Some of my first on my own. I'd had a few with Twisted Showcase but this was flying solo. Was particularly honoured to get a meeting at RED productions in Manchester, as their output is phenomenal.
  • April also saw me complete GOLIATH, oh yes, Dark Arts Films commissioned me to write it after seeing the treatment. 
  • Another brilliant BBC TV Drama festival in the summer.
  • A wary step into crowdfunding in the summer to ensure Twisted showcase Series 3 off the ground. It was successful, which I still can't quite believe and will forever thank people for.
  • London Screenwriters Festival was a great experience where I met loads of fantastic people.
  • One of the greatest things of last year was having writers whose work I love take the time out to read mine.Thank you to all who did.
  • We managed to film 2 upcoming Twisted Showcase episodes before the end of the year. I've just seen the final cut of one. I did a very high pitched laugh at the end. Working with Norman Lovett was a great experience. Red Dwarf was one of the first shows I really got into, post cartoons, and he was one of the first acts I booked when I used to organise the comedy night at Alexander's in Chester.
  • Managed to get some one liners onto BBC Radio 4 extra's Newsjack. The thrill came when I received my first payment from the BBC, it came through the post all official like.
  • Got my first full read with feedback from BBC writersroom for the Twisted Showcase episode AFTERLIFE, was pretty chuffed to make the final 5%, followed that up by making the final 15% of the last call out, which although slipping makes me feel good that I've been up there the last two call outs. Shows a bit of consistency.
  • I'm sort of slipping over into this year now - so it's probably best I stop here for now. 
I mentioned on Twitter recently about blogging a diary of my next project from planning to completion. Let's see how far I get with that.