Twisted Showcase Series 3: Part 3

I do try to keep these short, honest! This might be a long one. It concerns The Drugs Don't Work, and it'll be long because this took a lot of explaining to people. It became a big worry of an episode. One we had to keep belief in when a few people around us had no belief in it.

Here's the film if you've not seen it.





The starting point for this was to write an episode crammed with stuff, a different spin on the slacker/ stoner buddy comedy, a look at the cliches of people having fun, ghosts, drug dealers. Hopefully there's more in there. Me and Rhys discussed it loads, especially one think I tried to do was to fill this episode with subtext, hopefully it's bursting with it. We talked about how the two main characters are living in the past, they dress a bit retro and it's like they're trying to re enact someone elses' version of fun, maybe what their older brothers did, or what they've seen in films, but they do it all wrong.

I wanted to have many twists in there, well not too many, but a satisfying amount, and I wanted it to be funny. An episode I wrote for series 2 was meant to be funny but didn't work, and I'm not sure I've nailed comedy, especially directing it.

We had problems with this before the filming. Mainly, people just weren't clicking with the script, and we didn't know why. There was a line of dialogue I'd left to subtext that was crucial to be in there, which Hannah George spotted when she read it for me. That was sorted, and still people weren't going for it. Me and Rhys thought it could be that they were used to the Seth Rogen or Kevin Smith style stoners, where these two characters were more bumbling idiots. They are not cool, hopefully their relationship is quite sweet instead. It became so bad that in the end I had to direct it with lots of help from Gordon Mitchell, the director of Payback.

On set we called this our epic, we had four cast members, that's double our usual. And cramped in a small living with our three crew members, it got hot, and over the long shoot it got deranged. There was plenty of laughter on this one. Especially during the scene where Mad Mary appears to suck out the soul from Sexgun Phil (which is only the beginning of strange character names in Twisted Showcase). It got ridiculous on the set having to shout 'NOW SUCK'

Unfortunately I couldn't make the end of the shoot and had to leave early, this left the outdoor scene to be shot without me, and can you believe it, it went completely wrong. If you watch the film again you'll see the characters discuss bermuda shorts, but why as the mid shot only covers the characters top halves. Oh dear. It was probably the only scene of the day that no coverage was got, as I said it was a long and deranged shoot, and hopefully we get away with it.

And it was all made up for by some stunning special effects, so good we had to show them off in the trailer. Hope you like them too, they lift the series up by looking so impressive I think. They seem expensive.

There's plenty more stories from this one, but I don't want to make this too long and boring, so any questions you have leave them in the comments and I'll answer them for you. And come back next week for my thoughts on episode 4, Confession.

Twisted Showcase Series 3: Part 2

There is a sense of loss when you release something you've written. It's not yours anymore, its the audiences to do with what they want, have whatever opinions they want about it. That's how I felt after releasing Payback, excited everyone was loving it, but there was  this sense of loss. How apt to release Toilet Soup in the second week, a film which questions peoples opinions.

This one was not written by myself, although I think I had a hand in the ideas when it was being put together. This was written by Twisted Showcase co creator Rhys Jones. Here's what he has to say about it.

"Toilet Soup, like many things I've worked on, began life as an absurd and disgusting joke. It was just something silly Robin and I were talking about via text late one night. I can't exactly remember what it was we were talking about, but it was very childish and somehow the idea of a deranged toilet attendant force feeding people Toilet Soup, to teach the ignorant a lesson, came out of that silly conversation. Throughout the writing process this idea of ignorance was fine tuned into an attack on the arrogance of some Internet trolls, that hateful stupidity I'm sure we've all been witness too online. I really like that we put a message we felt strongly about into this absurd gross out film. Makes me smile.It was different from anything else we had made, but still embodied Twisted Showcase in a very surreal way. It was decided that I would write it, because I liked playing around with dark and absurd ideas, and Robin would direct, because he wanted the challenge of directing a comedy. It was very twisted showcase in that way - "you'll do this and I'll do that and we'll make a film and we'll just go do it, yeah?"

Which thankfully remembers all the stuff I'd forgotten and sums up our way of working once it's time to make the film. We just go ahead and do it. But we'll work on scripts forever beforehand.

Since my role was more on the shoot, which are all one day shoots for Twisted Showcase, most of my tales are from that. A cold November/December, again Rhys would remember the dates better than me. Maybe he should write these. Where's the best place to be in the cold, why a toilet of course. 

Luckily we were cheered by Norman Lovett, we couldn't believe we got him to star in our film. When we were planning the series Payback and Toilet Soup were the first two scripts we had and we knew who we wanted to star in them, so launched our crowdfund to make sure we got them.

If you've not seen the film yet, now would be a good time to catch up.

So the cold was an issue in starting the day, luckily the pub we were filming in made us some coffee, turned the heating up, did everything to make us feel at home, and we shot mostly chronologically in the one location. Shooting the bucket scene last in the day, more of that later.

The line I remember being delivered most was "backstabbing arselickers" Gets stuck in your head after a few takes. 

But highlights of the day were cameraman Gordon Mitchell's comments. Forgetting Norman Lovett's surname in a moment of nerves he called him Mr Norman. Amongst many others which I won't repeat to save his blushes.

The most embarrassing moment, was filming the bucket scene. Never had to film anyone pretend to poo in a bucket before. Thanks for that moment Rhys. Luckily I think the cringe factor comes across and make that scene both bizarre and funny, and well timed in the film.

To get a little filmy for a second, my favourite thing about my direction is a tiny mise en scene detail. You can tell I've taught film. But, I love that the characters have something in frame to highlight them a little, cleansing soap behind the toilet atendant, and Andrew Lomax has a horrible, seedy looking condom machine. I remember when we sourced the venue, going in and that was my first thought. 

I really don't see myself as a director still though, even though I've directed 3 or 4 Showcase episodes now. Last week I even saw one of them 'Something at the top of the stairs' on the big screen. Visually it made me think, "Wow, maybe I underestimate myself"

Talking about big screen viewings, Toilet Soup was the first Twisted Showcase film to be seen by people as it appeared at Cardiff Mini Film Fest in their comedy strand. Me and Rhys went down to Cardiff, did the Doctor Who Exhibition, visited Ianto's shrine and ate like kings before heading to the fest. The viewing was a nervous affair for us both, but was quite well received, even if some people were baffled and one person commented that it was a depressing film. Maybe he was the type of person to post ill thought out opinions online and needed to see the truth by drinking some Toilet Soup

Next week: The Drugs don't work 

Twisted Showcase Series 3: Part 1

September was busy. If you didn't notice Twisted Showcase Series 3 was rolled out, 5 new weird episodes. I use weird as a positive as well. If you do too you'll probably like the series.

Over the next few weeks I'll be showing some love to this slightly neglected blog, by writing a series of blogs on Series 3 of Twisted Showcase. The inspirations for the episodes, the build up to releasing them, the feedback,  and anything else I can remember about that insanely paced month that took us from a strange box to an empty sofa.

So, today see's us 'repeating' series 3 on our site. I say repeating but it just means we host the episodes in order of transmission on the home page again, you can watch the episodes whenever. They're constantly there for you. Anyway, today is the start of that happening, and Series 3 begins with Payback. If you've not seen it, here's the episode for you to watch before I go and blow all the twists for you by discussing it below.




To digress again slightly, the series didn't really start with episode one for us, a few weeks earlier we released the trailer for the series, which in itself created quite a bit of buzz and was a pain to put together. I truly hate editing and only editing along to the music of Secateurs made it bearable. To cut what could be a long and arduous story short, I like the finished trailer, it's odd with some great shots to sell the series.

And onto Payback, which again starts by going back in time, because it's the oldest idea of Series 3. It goes back to before Twisted Showcase even began. It was the first thing myself and Rhys Jones were going to work on.

It began as an angry rant against banks. We all know they're evil, well one bank in particular took money off me and shouldn't, at the time I was in a tight spot, but years later I've got that money back and changed banks. At the time I really wanted this story told so I sent Rhys the script, as it was then, and he was going to direct. It was a lot longer, a bit more noir like, and riddled with cliches and overwrought dialogue. We liked it at the time though, but Rhys was struggling with what he wanted  to do, wasn't sure if he wanted to direct it. It stagnated and after writing some other stuff together we hit upon the Twisted Showcase idea. And somehow Payback got forgot about.

I could be wrong, but I believed we felt it didn't fit our domestic setting remit, it felt like it took place in a movie world more than our down to earth domestic weirdness that Twisted Showcase provides. Plus it had effects shots, how the hell are we meant to do those.

How it didn't get picked up by us for Series 2 baffles me, especially when you see some of the things we did choose to make for Series 2. What were we thinking?

In planning series 3 we realised we needed to up our game after we rush released a lot of series 2. We needed great actors to lure people in, and we needed to re-establish Twisted Showcase, which we felt we had started to do come the end of Series 2, but to take that further we yet again went back to the start of our series. We needed to get Gareth David Lloyd back.

We knew we needed a script with a great lead role, something worthy of a Gareth's acting talents. some of our ideas are all about the idea rather than the central role, Eyeball for example. For this we needed the role the whole film would hinge on. I think this thought influenced other episodes this series too, but it stated here. And one day I called Rhys after having remembered Payback and questioned him about the idea and how we could make the script better and beef up the lead role.

Mainly this occurred in the opening scene of them playing computer games, which also led to needing someone who can match Gareth and appear to be friendly whilst on rewatch's being obviously sneaky. We'd worked with Ally Goodman on Clone Alone where he pulled off dual characters well. So we knew he could handle this.

The other scene which changed the most was 'the feet' scene. I really tried to push the darkness, but also the black comedy of that moment. You can either be horrified there or have a dark laugh at it. I love scenes which challenge you as to how to react.

The main influence from the start with this one was Stephen King. I'd just finished a collection of his short stories, I think it was Night Shift, when I started Payback and loved the economical ideas that tapped into day to day fears in extreme ways. I thought this would be a good little twist for us as we have usually mixed the domestic with either the bizarre of the offbeat, but to mix it with something completely extreme would be something different. Which was why we decided to launch the series with this one.

We had a great preview clip to the episode too, which was really tense, too tense for SFX who decided not too host it, but they did help out next week. Starburst were fantastic with the series from the off, they really embraced it this year and hosted this interview with Gareth David Lloyd.

I hope that's provided some insight into Payback. come back next week for Toilet Soup.

Twisted Best Of

Last week we had a limited release teaser trailer for Series 3 of Twisted Showcase. Hope you got to see it in the 24 hours it was online. It offered  a first glimpse of Gareth David Lloyd, Norman Lovett and Sarah Louise Madison from Series 3.

Over the next few weeks, there will be stuff flying at you for the build up to the long awaited Series 3. So, is there a better time to look back and revisit the best bits from the first two series.

Go on, go take a look at my favourites bits over in this CULTURED VULTURES ARTICLE

Twisted tips on crowdfunding

First and foremost a huge thanks to everyone that contributed to the Twisted Showcase Series 3 crowdfund. It wasn't a process I particularly enjoyed, but it allows us the opportunity to bring you the series 3 we've imagined. And I promise it's coming soon.

So, that's a positive from the experience, and hopefully you'll see it as an even bigger positive when you finally get to see the episodes. The production has gone really well, and we're all really excited about it. Just the last few things to sort out. The finish line is in sight, which is a glorious feeling.

Another positive I hope to get from the experience is to help other people out there with their projects, one of them currently ongoing and so close to reaching their target. Danny Stack and Tim Clague are making a film for kids, starring kids, and they're not really made anymore. The audience are crying out for films like The Goonies and Explorers, and there's no one better than these guys to deliver it with Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg? check out the site www.nelsonnutmeg.com and also go  here and pitch in whatever you can to help get this made.

For anyone thinking of funding a project this way, you can learn from our mistakes, or just read the story of how we found the experience. That's why I wrote this blog, so hope you enjoy it.

One of the first pieces of advice we got on out crowdfund was to PREPARE.

Unfortunately, we'd already launched our project by then.

A lot of people mentioned the quality of out pitch video, or lack of it. Basically we just set up a camera and waffled, when editing together, we included some out takes, which we thought were funny and added personality, but probably made us seem unprofessional.

What we knew we needed to get across were our selling points.

These were mainly our cast : Norman Lovett & Gareth David Lloyd, both have a sci-fi fan base from the shows Torchwood and Red Dwarf. Targeting sites that cover those shows was a strategy.
We've found during our two series of Twisted showcase that names like this attract viewers in, therefore we have made it a vital element to Series 3. We have also announced Sarah Louise Madison, who has appeared in Doctor Who, since.

Our other selling point was our background. We have already produced two series of Twisted Showcase and have achieved far more than we ever expected with it. It'd be stupid not to use this background to help sell the idea a little bit. In fact I've become quite sick of saying we were the only British independent web show to be named in the guardian top 25, this may be the last time I ever say/type it.

Now for the hard and horrible stuff. Crowdfunding is like having a full time job. It's non stop, working to a target. And it can feel uncomfortable. Well, it did to me and Rhys anyway, and if you're of a similar disposition it might do to you as well.

I've said since it can feel like begging, especially as we've made the series no budget for two series. why not do that again? It was an impossibility. I don't know how we did do it. Probably explains the debt. Also we wanted to make Showcase bigger and better. And that would be my second tip, make sure you believe in what you're doing. you make it the best it can be. If people are going to pay up front for your thing you have to pay back that trust. It's why we worked on Series 3 from January 2013 until now. A long process for a series that will be over after 5 short episodes. But hopefully worth it for us and for everyone that watches.

As the campaign went on we went quiet. BIG MISTAKE. Never let up, it might annoy some people on social media, but you can't let people forget, keep it in their mind. Thank everyone who contributes. We found when we got a funder, two or three more would follow quickly.

I'm not a genius on these things, but we did make our total, so if you have any questions let me know. And I wish you all the luck with your crowdfunding campaign. In the end I think we found it wasn't really for us, so if plans come off for our future we'll be trying something a little different.

But before that - Twisted Showcase Series 3.

Wales Comic Con panel

If you've not heard by now, I feel like I've tweeted about it a lot, but Twisted Showcase Series 3 has a great cast attached - Gareth David Lloyd, Norman Lovett and Sarah Louise Madison.
Myself and Rhys Jones were lucky enough to have Twisted Showcase panel and be joined by these cast members recently at Wales Comic Con.

Here's how much I enjoyed it.

But it wasn't just me, look this proves our great cast.

There has also been some great pictures from the audience who were at the panel. They have allowed us to post them on the website, which we will soon, so keep checking back. We also have an interview we did for Calon FM which we'll hopefully be able to upload soon. There will also be trailers. The place to make sure you catch all this, as always www.twistedshowcase.com

Q & A at Cultured Vultures

I was approached to do an interview with the great people at Cultured Vultures. There site is over flowing with great stuff. Check out my interview there 

INTERVIEW