Little Brown Bird festival run continues

This Friday Little Brown Bird has its Scandinavian Premiere at Minimalen Short Film Festival in Trondheim, Norway. We are the opening film of six being shown as part of the Horror: Ramaskrik presents strand of the festival, which has been running for thirty-six years. You can see the full festival schedule and get tickets here.

Closest to home and in the county where I grew up, Little Brown Bird is coming to the South Coast next month. We have been selected as part of the short film program at the inaugural Screams by the Sea festival in Bournemouth on February 10th. Find out more here.

Godzilla Minus One - a lesson in elevated genre film-making

I finally got to watch Takashi Yamazaki’s film Godzilla Minus One recently, and I’m really pleased I got to see it on the big screen. It was by far my favourite film of 2023 and it resonated with me as both an audience member and as a film-maker. I could write pages and pages about the themes that the film explores, but that wasn’t the main takeaway for me. As someone who made their directorial debut this year, I often slip into analytical mode when I’m watching a film or television show. When something is truly transcendental it’s different, I quickly forget about the script writing process, the direction, shot choices and composition, visual effects, and score and find myself washed along with the story instead. What makes this film so powerful, is the strong central characters, exquisitely crafted through both script and performance. You care about all the people you get to meet in this film and are invested in them, as their individual story arcs play out. Godzilla in many ways is a catalyst, a force of nature, an existential threat that prompts change. This isn’t just a throwaway monster movie, far from it. They draw you in via the characters, and you are with them from the very first frame to the very last one, emotionally invested far more than a kaiju movie might suggest.

I strongly believe you can create just as emotionally charged, character-driven stories in genre storytelling, as you can in straight drama. For me, this is where some Hollywood films get it wrong, their focus being on pure spectacle often at the expense of three-dimensional characterisation. If I don’t care about the central characters in a film, and don’t believe their relationships or the motivation behind their actions then no amount of visual bells and whistles is going to make me any more than a passive observer. The best cinema, like the best music, makes you feel.

Another excellent example of an elevated genre film that succeeds similarly is the 2014 film Spring by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (indie darlings who have recently become Marvel Studios creators). Before Godzilla Minus One works as a monster movie or even a disaster film, it has to function as a post-war story about the Japanese people. Before Spring reveals the terror that lies beneath the surface in Italy, this Horror/Sci-Fi/Romance has to work as a romance. You have to believe that a relationship can be established and deeply developed in a very small amount of screen time, just as films like True Romance and Before Sunrise successfully did. If they hadn’t got that central relationship right, the whole film would lose its potency as a result.

Seeing Godzilla Minus One, a film I only knew about thanks to online word of mouth from people I trust, has made me examine my own creative process again. When I look back on Little Brown Bird, the script became most successful when I worked harder on the two central characters and the relationship that binds them. If you don’t buy into Kate and her Father, you won’t be with us for the rest of our short journey. With actors of the calibre of John Rhys-Davies and Eliza Butterworth in our lead roles, we ended up with just the emotionally charged, character-driven elevated genre piece I was hoping for.

As we head into 2024 I’ll be working on another elevated genre project, feature film Bone Dry. I’ll be reminding myself regularly about how powerful Godzilla Minus One was, as I start the scriptwriting process. I might even squeeze in time for a rewatch of Spring. If I want an audience to suspend their disbelief without losing them along the way, then character is everything. If you haven’t seen Godzilla Minus One yet, I highly recommend it. It’s still in cinemas at the time of writing.

Festival update

Following Little Brown Bird’s premiere at the Marbella International Film Festival in Spain and the screening at Chapter Moviemaker, here in Cardiff , Wales, our short film has been selected for a few more festivals in recent weeks.

We won the Best Horror Film award at November’s Athens International Monthly Arts Film Festival, making us eligible for their yearly awards too. The trophy will take pride of place in my writing room.

We are also being screened at the Minimalen Short Film Festival, in Trondheim, Norway in January, as part of the Ramaskrik Presents section. It’s an honour to be selected as part of their curated group of horror films from all over the world.

Little Brown Bird premieres in Marbella

Last month Little Brown Bird had its world premiere at the Marbella International Film Festival and I made it over to Spain for the duration of the festival.  On the festival’s opening night on Wednesday 4th, and again on Saturday 7th October, Little Brown Bird played on the big screen at Red Dog Cinemas. 

We had a really positive reaction from festival goers and fellow filmmakers, which was extremely gratifying. On the final night of the festival, Sunday 8th October it was the gala dinner and awards ceremony. where Little Brown Bird was nominated for Best Short Film. The category was won by the excellent Dragunov, written by, directed by, and starring fellow Brit Robin Kirwan. 

One of the best things about being part of the festival was getting to spend so much time with other filmmakers, comparing notes and discussing the writing and filmmaking process was a real highlight of the week. I’ve been to a number of film festivals before in my capacity as a VFX Producer, so it was a really good feeling to be there representing my own work and as a filmmaker in my own right. 

Our next screening is at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff on Monday, as part of their monthly Moviemaker event which makes us eligible for next year’s BAFTA Cymru awards.

Cast and crew screening for Little Brown Bird

On Monday night we invited our cast, crew, Indiegogo crowdfund backers, and guests to see Little Brown Bird on the big screen in Cardiff. Producer Daniel J Harris from Eat Sleep Media introduced the film with me, giving an insight into the development process while trying our hand at being a comedy duo!. After the screening, I was joined on stage by lead actress Eliza Butterworth (The Last Kingdom, A Town Called Malice) for a Q&A.

Introducing Little Brown Bird with Daniel J Harris

Q&A with me and Eliza

I was a nervous wreck all day prior to the screening, I was worried about what to say to introduce it and unsure whether the film would be well received. I put myself through the wringer unnecessarily though by assuming the worst. From the moment I saw the name of the film on the door of Screen 1 in Chapter Arts Centre to the very last question at the Q&A, I felt relaxed and incredibly at ease, As soon as I joined Dan at the front of the auditorium all those nerves disappeared.

The audience reaction was extremely positive, which I was thrilled about and the Q&A was littered with interesting and insightful questions. All in all, I think it was a massive success, and it felt like all the hard work, the self-doubt, and the persistence had paid off. Next week we take the film to Marbella International Film Festival for its Festival Premiere, and I’m excited to see how it goes down on the Costa Del Sol too. It’s been an incredible, life-changing journey and it’s far from over yet. So many people have helped me along the way and I will forever be grateful to them all.

Storyboard artist Mike Collins, production assistant Cerys Hodgson, me, producer Daniel J Harris, Eliza, DoP Mark Nutkins

Everything is rewriting

There’s an old adage that all writing is rewriting, and I firmly believe that to be true. Through the process of directing my first short film, Little Brown Bird I’ve come to realise that everything is rewriting.

The obvious rewriting is the twenty or so versions of the script itself, which began life as something with far less substance than where we ended up. Taking on notes from writing mentors, my producer, and other writers I trust was the first part of the process. Much of that involved strengthening the central relationships and removing unnecessary dialogue and superfluous exposition. Each round of amends kickstarted new thought processes, and ways to strengthen things and make the story even better.

Then things shifted to the logistical, as the shoot became closer to reality, the casting, the location, the funding, and the amount of time we had to shoot, all these things lead to changes to the script. Some changes were very purposeful surgeon-like tweaks and others were very much happy accidents when I was backed into a corner with nowhere to turn. Some of my favourite aspects of the script, and in turn the film, were caused by restrictions and things I realised weren’t possible - necessity is the mother of invention.

Once we arrived at the location, me and our DoP Mark Nutkins had half a day to get used to the farm we were shooting at. We started to think about how to use the space, and what we wanted to do with the camera along with some initial staging and blocking conversations based on our shotlist. These conversations lead to rewrites and it was extremely cathartic to do those on set, looking around the real space rather than the version of it in my head (as our only location recce had been a virtual one). Seeing the farm encouraged me to trim back dialogue and lose some lines that we didn’t need thanks to how well the location worked for our film.

On the second day, and our first day of principal photography finally got to work with our lead actors in person at the location. A morning of staging and blocking conversations, discussions about intent and emotions and some all-important rehearsals helped shape the script even more. Once I saw the relationship between Dad (John Rhy-Davies) and Kate (Eliza Butterworth) played out before me, I knew that there would be looks, gestures, and touches between them that did far more than what was on the page. That led to more rewrites, honing some dialogue, making other lines work better for the three-dimensional characters I was seeing before me, and most importantly removing lines that weren’t 100% needed. This process carried on throughout our three-day shoot. Overnight I’d be rereading the next day’s pages in bed and deciding what could go and on-set I’d be giving notes that included changes to the dialogue as we moved between takes and scenes. As I became more confident about what we were making, more and more of the dialogue got stripped back.

The next round of rewrites happened in the edit, working with our editor Luke Andrews. His initial assembly cut had removed some lines of dialogue, to get out of scenes quicker or to allow the actors’ performances more room to breathe. As we went through new versions, and I gave my notes, we ended up cutting more lines, including some that had been my favourites during the writing process itself. Ultimately the script purely serves to inform the finished work and is not gospel, and in contrast some lines that felt throwaway on paper have become extremely important due to the shape of the edit and the power of the central performances from Eliza and John. Making this film has taught me a lot about directing, as it was my directorial debut, but it has taught me just as much about writing. The message I’ve taken away from this whole experience is that less is more, throw it all out there and then keep removing things until you have fulfilled your intention. Don’t be beholden to your own words, embrace change, enjoy collaboration and rejoice in something far greater than the sum of its parts.

We have locked the edit on Little Brown Bird and are partway through our colour grade and sound mix. Our score from composer Robert Reed was signed off on Friday, that also had a similar process to the script, paring things back, removing things, and honing the overall piece so that the intention and emotions were just how they needed to be.

Our film is being submitted to festivals in the coming weeks and there will also be a cast and crew screening, to include many of the people who backed our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. I’m very proud of Little Brown Bird and every rewrite has been part of that process, I can’t wait to share it with the world.

Little Brown Bird - It's a Wrap!

I’ve written four short films since I started writing for the screen again and two of them have been produced. The first to be made was Packaged which was developed via BBC Writer’s Room as part of the It’s my Shout scheme. It was directed by Lemarl Freckleton and aired on BBC Two Wales and the iPlayer. 

The second one Little Brown Bird was produced by Daniel J Harris, for Focus Shift Films and Eat Sleep Media.  This time I was in the director’s chair and I brought Packaged cinematographer Mark Nutkins (The Split, Bridgerton) along for the ride. I’m very glad I did as his experience was invaluable.

What started as a lockdown script called Shortest Day had been honed into Little Brown Bird and we went into shooting on Version 19. Though by the end of filming, we’d moved up to Version 21, more on that later. Three years after the first draft of an idea from 2019, with the support of the Isle of Man Arts Council, our exceptional cast and crew descended upon Moorhouse farm. 

Our cast was led by John Rhys-Davies (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Robin of Sherwood) and Eliza Butterworth (The Last Kingdom, A Town called Malice) who were both an absolute joy to work with. Hearing my words coming from their mouths was surreal at first and their performances were so captivating there were times when I felt like clapping from behind my handheld monitor. 

As a writer who stumbled into directing in their late 40s, I feel like I learned as much about writing as I did directing during our intensive three-day shoot.  Filming on the Isle of Man meant no in person recee, we had photos of the location and had done a video call with the farmer, the wonderful Paul Costain, and our brilliant art director Richard Fryer had also scoped out the place, but it’s not the same as having been there in person. So we had a few hurdles to climb before we shot a single frame. 

Here’s how things went. 

Saturday 1st April - 

A long drive from Cardiff to Heysham. 

Ferry to the Isle of Man. 

Checking into our accommodation. 

Crew meal in Peel. 

Sleepless night! 

Biggest lesson:  We are all in this together. 

Sunday 2nd April - 

First time visiting our location.

Recce and initial blocking with Mark, the DoP.

Going over set dressing with Richard. 

Recce for exterior shots. 

Rewriting on set to allow for the location. 

Met with Eliza on set. 

Shooting exterior shots. 

Another poor night’s sleep. 

Biggest lesson:  Location specifics always mean script changes. 

Monday 3rd April -

Meeting John. 

Meeting the rest of the local crew and our lighting team. 

Day one of filming.

Blocking, staging, and rehearsals. 

Filming our first drama scenes. 

Things went very well. 

Poor sleep again. 

Biggest lesson: Staging and rehearsals will lead to more rewrites. Less is more, keep stripping things back, especially dialogue. 

Tuesday 4th April - 

Meeting the rest of our cast and Rick, our stunt coordinator. 

Blocking, staging, and rehearsals.

The hardest day, the most complex scenes to film, and the most decisions and adaptions needed. 

Emotionally and mentally draining but worth it as it all came together. 

Another poor night’s sleep. 

Biggest lesson:  Don’t write such specific beats in action scenes. 

Don’t rely on specific visual images for timing, this isn’t comics! 

Wednesday 5th April - 

Final shoot day. 

Less pages, so much more relaxed. 

Meal in Douglas, thanks to John Rhys-Davies 

Emotional speeches and farewells. 

Slept like a baby! 

Biggest lesson:  When you surround yourself with talented, dedicated people anything is possible. 

Thursday 6th April - 

Amazing morning exploring the local surroundings in a trailer behind a quad bike 

Ferry to Liverpool.

Long drive back to Cardiff. 

Biggest lesson:  Live for the moment.

Just over a week later, I’m so proud of what we achieved over just a few short days. Going into the edit soon and I’ll update about that when I can. You can find out more on IMDB.

Little Brown Bird - Cast Announcement

In two weeks’ time, I’ll be heading to the Isle of Man to direct Little Brown Bird, a short film that I began writing during lockdown. I wrote about it here previously under the original title, Shortest Day.

Our cast is led by two fantastic actors- Eliza Butterworth and John Rhys-Davies. We’ve also assembled an excellent crew, including multi-award-winning cinematographer Mark Nutkins.

Cast members Eliza Butterworth (The Last Kingdom, Town called Malice), John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones)

The film is being produced by Daniel J Harris for Focus Shift Films and Eat Sleep Media, with support from the Isle of Man Arts Council and Gorilla Post Production.

Two of my good friends are also on board as collaborators, with Mike Collins providing storyboards and Robert Reed composing the music.

Storyboards by Mike Collins (Freakhouse Graphics)

Most of my free time in recent weeks has been spent in HoD meetings and doing rewrites and adjustments, while Dan and his team have been working tirelessly to pull everything together for the shoot. More to follow on the project soon.

It's been a while.

Looks like i haven’t posted in almost nine months, so I thought I’d stop by with a quick update. Having been too busy to post here, as you might imagine I’ve also been too busy to get much writing done. After a super productive 2020, in contrast I’ve written very little in 2021. Aside from a few days here and there I’ve barely typed a word since June.

It’s been a difficult year for a number of reasons and the combination of being robbed while on holiday and experiencing the busiest ever year in my day job, left me with no free time and more importantly no real headspace.

Robin of Sherwood sadly fell through, so I won’t have a story in the annual despite my previous announcement and post. My friend and collaborator Dave Clifford does have a pin-up in the annual though, which I’m very pleased about.

Seven Shades, the comic series I do with Dave has kept going this year, I’ve written dialogue for one issue and written the plot and pages for another (we work Marvel style). From what I’ve already seen our second ‘season’ is going to blow people away.

Shortest Day is the short film I’ve written that I’m also directing, This year involved lots of rewriting, as well as working with my DoP and producer on the look and feel of the film, along with sourcing funding, casting etc. You’ll be hearing lots more about this in the coming months.

Last Respects is a feature film script that I started work on in January but had to shelve for a while when things got too crazy, I’m aiming to pick this project back up in December and into January, with a view to getting a first draft done.

In the day job at Bait Studio my VFX Producer skills have been put to good use on Casualty, Coronation Street, films L.O.L.A and The Last Train To Christmas (which is coming to Sky next month) and a Netflix series I can’t talk about yet that comes out in 2022. So I’m still getting to immerse myself in stories and productions, all of which help me as both a writer and director.

Here’s hoping that I can find a bit more balance in 2022, and make some headway on these projects and the others that i have bubbling away in the background.

Writing the Hooded Man

If you watched my recent interview with Matt Stevens you will have heard about my next comics project. I’m still pinching myself that I have the opportunity to write an official Robin of Sherwood story.

Growing up we were spoilt for choice with so many action-adventure shows on TV and like most kids my age I devoured them all. Those shows totally dominated pop culture in the 80s and they definitely occupied a lot of my time. I had Airwolf pyjamas, I sang the theme tune to The Fall Guy in a class assembly and I used to read all The A-Team novels. I also wrote a script for an A-Team episode which would qualify as fan fiction these days.

Along with Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider and Street Hawk I never missed an episode of these shows. One series however transcended the others and continues to occupy a very special place in my heart. Robin of Sherwood had the distinction of being a new British adventure show. It played into my love of history, it had a brilliant ensemble cast and the story was set in a place that seemed very familiar to me. It looked like what was outside my window.

I grew up in rural Dorset, so it was easy to head into the woods to pretend I was in Sherwood Forest. To this day whenever I’m in a woodland area, the distinctive theme to the show starts to play in my head. That was another big part of the show’s appeal, the groundbreaking soundtrack by Clannad.

The third and sadly final season of the show featured Jason Connery as a new Robin. Unlike his predecessor, Michael Praed, he never had an Annual to accompany his tenure on the show. So Barnaby Eaton-Jones, who has done such a great job with the full cast audio adventures and books, is creating one. And I have the immense privilege to have written a short comic story which will be appearing in it. Pre-order information will follow very soon!

My research involved picking out some episodes to rewatch on blu-ray, though I didn’t need an excuse to dive into the third season again. I also bought a copy of the original annual on EBay, so I could get a feel for how the comic story in it was done. When I was writing the story I dug out my vinyl copy of Legend and let Clannad’s music transport me to Sherwood Forest, Nottingham and Wickham. Being part of Robin of Sherwood, even in a small way, is as big a deal for me as if I’d been able to write Spider-Man or Batman. I can’t wait for it to be illustrated and then available to have on my shelf.

Annual Mock-Up Cover by Colin Brockhurst for Robin of Sherwood: The Knights of the Apocalypse crowdfunding in 2016.

The Fierce and the Dead chat

I was lucky enough to be interviewed by guitarist Matt Stevens, from the band The Fierce and the Dead for their YouTube channel. It premiered yesterday.

We discuss comics, screenwriting, and music and you also get an exclusive reveal of what my next comics project is. It’s a childhood dream come true! Give it a watch and make sure you listen to The Fierce and the Dead and Matt’s solo work, they are great and have been the backdrop to many a writing session.

Do you have to show the Ordinary World?

As I work on my current screenplay I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of the ordinary world in film story structure. The old maxim that I’ve read in countless books and articles, and been told on various courses, is to use the first ten pages to present the protagonist’s ordinary world. 

This could be Kansas, Tatooine or The Shire presented in stark contrast to where the main characters have to go on their hero’s journey. That does feel important in mythical stories that revolve around a quest, as per Christopher Vogler’s Writer’s Journey and its inspiration Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a thousand faces. It can also be used as a way to show the calm before the storm, be that Amity Island or Kingston Falls prior to the status quo changing due to a killer shark or some post-transformation mogwai.

The story I’m working on relies on a character’s arrival with no precursor, which made me wonder if that’s something I can pull off. Two movies I watched recently made me think differently about the need for the ordinary world section of a script.  I rewatched In Bruges for the umpteenth time, it’s a masterwork and one of my all-time favourite movies. Writer/Director Martin McDonagh never shows us the ordinary world of our two hitmen. We start…well In Bruges.  And the film is all the more powerful as a result.

I also saw Hell or High Water for the first time recently and Taylor Sheridan’s Neo Western script doesn’t give us a glimpse of life prior to when the two brothers start to rob banks together. We sare thrown headlong into their first robbery at the start of the movie. In a way both these films treat their protagonists like forces of nature, they themselves are the catalyst for chaotic change.  Perhaps this is where the distinction lies. 

This week’s episode of the screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes talked about another well-trodden piece of advice - enter late, exit early. They mentioned how important this advice is to a screenwriter approaching scenes when they are starting out, but that with more experience you know when to ignore this for dramatic effect. I think the same case can be made regarding the need for an explicit ordinary world being shown on screen too.

It’s interesting to consider that in a story where the hero returns home at the end or where the outside force is removed from a place we never left, you need that reassuring opening to bookend the ending. The opening image and closing image of Blake Synder’s flawed, but interesting Save the Cat® approach.

In Bruges, Hell or High Water and the script I’m currently working on the lead character is more of an anti-hero and their ordinary world needs to be more oblique. Their journey isn’t aligned to the mythical approach to storytelling in the same way, so doesn’t need to rely on the same tropes. Perhaps with that in mind ignoring the instinct to show the ordinary world is the right thing to do after all. Time will tell.

Halfway through the month

January is usually a long month, but the fifteenth of this month crept up on me when I wasn’t looking. Here’s an update on how things have gone with my two challenges to kick off the year.

My plan to write 90 screenplay pages in 30 days hit a bump in the road a few days ago. By the 11th I was well on course, having written the 33 pages I needed to by that stage. Then I hit a bit of a wall, as I was working from a loose beat sheet I didn’t have anywhere to go when I was struggling. I was merely pushing the pieces around the board at that point, overwriting scenes and focussing far too much on the dialogue which was becoming increasingly verbose. So I gave myself a few days off, thinking that the deadline I’d given myself might not be realistic. Stepping away from the written word was actually very productive, while on a run this morning a key plot point fell into place. And by the final few kilometres, I was reworking existing scenes while the main characters spoke to one another in my head. This weekend, along with some rewrites to my short film script, I’ll be working on these changes but with less focus on the word count for now.

On the running front as of today, I’ve raised £810 for Mind, the mental health charity, and covered 35.4 miles of my 50-mile target. So after 50% of the days, I’ve done 70% of the running I need to do. I have a feeling now that running has become a form of writing that I might go a little over my intended target. So far so good, I’m looking forward to more running and writing in the next fifteen days.

A challenging January

2020 is almost over and I’m already thinking about 2021! I’ve set myself two challenges for the first month of the year.

I’m running 50 miles in 30 days to raise money for Mind, the mental health charity. I’m a little bit nervous as I’m very much a newbie runner, with only a few weeks practice under my belt. After such a strange year for so many people I really wanted to do something to help people who are struggling this winter. https://moveformind.blackbaud-sites.com/fundraising/petes-prog-jog-january

The other challenge I’ve set myself, as well as averaging 1.66 miles a day is to write 3 pages a day too. My goal is to write a 90 page screenplay during the same 30 day period. I’m thinking that I can use each write to work through the upcoming scenes and effectively write them in my head, so all I have to do in the chai mr is type! It will also help me have something positive to focus on during the runs, so my mind doesn’t drift to the pandemic, leaving the EU, climate change, an argument I had on Twitter, impostor syndrome or my own mortality. None of those is likely to help me complete the miles.

Wish me luck. I’m excited about both challenges, despite some trepidation and I’m looking forward to having both things to focus on during what notoriously feels like the longest month of the year.

2020 - the most unusual of years

Back at the start of the year when Covid-19 was first mentioned we had no idea how surreal the rest of 2020 would be. Outside of the trials and tribulations of a global pandemic, it was a good chance to take stock, prioritise, and reflect. I grew a beard, got to know my neighbours, took some virtual singing lessons, and got fitter with the help of a personal trainer! It’s also been an important year on the writing front, as I used the time to write more and to focus on my overall goals. Here’s a little round-up of a very productive twelve months.

The Screen

I’ve taken some huge leaps forward in 2020, largely thanks to the two mentors I was assigned this year. Through BAFTA Cymru’s Share Scheme I’ve been working with BAFTA-nominated TV writer Robert Evans and via ScreenSkills Mentoring Program I’ve been coached by script development consultant Mar Vila Barcelo. They’ve both given excellent notes on the various projects I’m working on and helped me to rebuild my confidence as a writer along the way.

Mentors Robert Evans and Mar Vila Barcelo

Short film - Shortest Day

As always I like to keep myself busy and I do my best work when I’m spinning multiple plates. Short film Shortest Day, an idea from just before lockdown started, has come on leaps and bounds since working with both mentors. I’ve also made the decision to direct it myself and I’m currently working with a producer to help make that a reality. More on this project early in 2021 as things start to take more shape.

In tandem with this, I’ve worked up a TV pilot and after completing a number of versions it almost feels ready to take out into the world.

I’ve also been working on a Feature Film script with my longtime collaborator Steve Aryan and we’ve reached around the halfway point of our first draft. I’ll be working on the next few scenes in the coming weeks before handing it back to Steve.

Comics

The companion comic to Robert Reed’s Cursus 123 430 album that I worked on with Matt Rooke was completed this year and came out recently to a very positive reaction.

Dave Clifford and I have continued working on our supernatural Western series Seven Shades through this difficult year. Issue 1 of our second season is complete and Dave is currently painting Issue 2, our seventh issue overall. If you’d like to catch up before the second season is launched you can get our first four issues here and our over-sized season bridging story Hell’s Belles here.

Flux, which I co-write with Steve Aryan hit a bump in the road this year. We completed Issue 2 and were set to launch our Kickstarter in March, just as the pandemic struck. With so much uncertainty around things, including how to post out issues, we’ve had to put things on hold. We should regroup in 2021 to come up with a new plan, hopefully.

In better news, I am currently working on a project for a Licensed Property that sits squarely on my bucket list. I can’t say much yet, but my plot has been approved by the editor and one of my favourite artists is collaborating with me on the strip. I’ll be scripting it fully over the festive period and there will be more to follow on this early in 2021.

In amongst all the negativity, uncertainty, and sadness that this year has brought into our lives, I’m pleased to have been able to get so much done. With a bit of luck and a prevailing wind, there should be lots of exciting things happening in the coming year.

New music project - Cursus 123 430

I have once again had the opportunity to work with artist Matt Rooke, following our previous collaborations for Deep Purple and Europe for Bait Studio. This time we’ve created a comic together to accompany the new solo album by multi-instrumentalist Robert Reed (Magenta, Sanctuary).

The story behind the electronic instrumental concept album comes from Les Penning (Mike Oldfield), who also provides the narration on the LP. My role was to condense and adapt his overarching narrative into a comic script, before bringing Matt on board as the artist. It was a really fun project to work on and getting to listen to the album as I wrote the script really helped me visualize what was needed on the page.

If you like Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, or John Carpenter then I think you will really enjoy the record which the comic enhances. You can hear some of the album in this promo, complete with animation by Rob’s long time collaborator Peter Pashen.

You can pre-order the album here and you can find out more in this Prog Magazine article.

Surviving lockdown as a part-time writer

In the first few weeks that the UK went into lockdown we were inundated with articles online about how much extra time people now had, and what amazing creative things they would be getting up to as a result. As someone who didn’t go out that much to begin with, who is working from home with the addition of a homeschooled teenager, I actually think I have less time available than before. I’m not sure that creativity is fuelled particularly well by global pandemics and the anxiety that is associated with them either.

It definitely took me the first month or so to find my feet and restore the balance and structure that I need to function as a human being, let alone as a part-time writer. Working from home, keeping in touch with family and friends, being available for the other members of my household and still squeezing in some writing time, it’s been a real shift mentally far more than the physical act of staying in.

One big challenge for me is the reduction in thinking time, that’s hit me much harder than having to stay home has. I’m rarely alone at the moment and I when I am I want to get some writing done, but being at the keyboard is only a small part of the writing process. Travelling in the car, being at the gym, having a solo pint before a gig starts, those were the times I would spend breaking story in my head, or wrestling with a scene or mulling over a plot point. That time is sorely lacking during lockdown, so I’ve had to adjust how I approach that part of the process and do more thinking while typing instead.

I’ve managed to get very behind on my podcast listening too, not only has the removal of car and gym time meant less chance to listen to them, the sheer volume of extra episodes while show hosts are in lockdown (not to mention new shows appearing) has made it impossible to keep on top of things. As some of my listening is to hone skills and not just be entertained that hasn’t helped either.

One show I have dived into during the past week or so is one of my favourites, On Story podcast from the Austin Film Festival. They have a new weekly strand AFF At Home, which comes out every Wednesday and gives you focal points to think about to reignite your screenwriting spark. I’m a few weeks behind, but I’ve been really enjoying them, the episode on Action & Description in particular resonated with me.

Spark Your Story

Character

Dialogue

Setting

Action & Description

Comedy

Writing for Episodic

Fiction & Nonfiction Adaptation

Animation

How Do You Know When You’re Finished? – May 27

I’ve had some good advice on calls with some writing mentors too in the past few weeks, which have really helped me focus on what I want to get done and how. My collaborators have played a key part in helping to keep me motivated and enthused too. The final pages for Season Two Issue 1 of Seven Shades (our sixth issue) arrived in my inbox recently, courtesy of artist and co-creator Dave Clifford. Writing Marvel style means I have some gorgeous painted artwork to look at while I dive into writing the dialogue for the second half of the issue.

I also had a brilliant Skype call (maybe the last one as we follow the world over to Zoom) with Steve Aryan to discuss one of the projects we are co-writing together and that gave me the chance to do one my favourite things, breaking a story. We’ve spent a lot of our time on projects scripting, planning production, or running a Kickstarter and I’ve really missed the giddy rush from chatting through character motivation and plot points together.

My main takeaway from trying to write while staying home is that staying home doesn’t automatically guarantee more time or inspiration, no matter what other people would have you believe. My natural tendency is to give myself more to do each day than I can realistically get done, so I’m doing my best to move to a ‘do what you can’ approach. If you’re busy, if someone needs you, don’t beat yourself up because your thirty page plan only got three pages in, try to set realistic goals and smaller daily ones. “The only bad workout is the one you didn’t do’ is on the wall at the gym I’m currently unable to go to, but I’m trying my best to apply that same philosophy to my writing. Doing some, no matter how little comparatively is better than doing none.

I just need to stop the part of my inner voice that’s saying, ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t make the most of this lockdown time” from getting in my way, see also avoiding the twenty four news cycle and my ongoing frustration with those who can’t follow the staying safe guidelines and I should be ok.

Writing and not writing

I try to adhere to the ‘write something every day’ school of writing. Sometimes that’s driven by pure inspiration, sometimes by specific deadlines and on others by a ‘place your bum in the seat and get something done’ mentality. The last one has been a big part of my approach in 2020, for a variety of reasons including reading THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*** book by Mark Mason. I’m glad I read that just before all this kicked off, that’s for sure.

Before CV-19 had such a big influence on our lives, I’d actually been very productive. Too productive in fact to actually remember to keep things updated here. Revisiting a few comics projects paid dividends and I have three mini-series pitches in with one publisher and one in with another. Some of these are co-written by my longtime collaborator Stephen Aryan and I’m hoping to hear about them all soon. I also finally took my horror screenplay idea and worked it up from the initial one page synopsis into a full twenty page treatment and sent that off to a producer to look at. One week into March I was on a writing roll with lots more planned for the coming months too, and then things changed.

There’s nothing like a global pandemic to knock your muse off course and to make you unable to get your head into the right place to get things moving. Things became overwhelming very quickly and the bit of my brain that comes up with ideas went into shutdown almost overnight. It wasn’t just due to mental space, physical space played a part too. My home office, where I do most of my writing, has become my weekday 9-6 actual office which has made me less inclined to stay there in the evenings or to get in there before my working day starts. So my usual write every day writing routine ground to an abrupt halt.

Thankfully things loosened up for me last weekend and not beating myself up for not writing actually helped with that. Making use of housebound weekends now seems like a far better plan than trying to force something out Monday to Friday. Last Saturday I wrote the dialogue for the first half of the next issue of Seven Shades, that book is done Marvel style so having Dave Clifford’s pages in front of me was a gentle way to ease myself back into creative thinking. The second thing that I managed to do last weekend was a short script for the BBC Writer’s Room’s InterConnected opportunity.

““*New Opportunity* We want original scripts, 5-10 minutes in length whose 2-4 characters now find themselves in isolation, but connecting via video conferencing. 4 will be produced with professional actors & released on BBC platforms.” ”

I spent about a week thinking of ideas for a script, all of which just didn’t quite feel right and seemed either contrived, too obvious, or not really workable with the constraints of what was needed. In the end not thinking about it allowed my subconscious to work it’s magic and then forcing myself to sit and write it meant that I got it done before the pending deadline.

With over 6800 scripts submitted my chance of having mine produced is extremely slim, but I’m pleased with what I came up with and it was a cathartic process from a writing perspective and also as a personal way to say something about the crisis too. Re-energised I have a couple of other potential new things on the horizon, it’s very early days on both projects and they might come to nothing, but it’s good to have things to focus on during these uncertain times. It’s also ok, I keep telling myself, to not write today and maybe even this weekend at all, as it’s just as important to switch off occasionally as it is to try and keep getting things done.

Flux on hold while the world is on lockdown.

The Kickstarter campaign for Issue 2 of Flux was due to launch today, so I was expecting to be writing a post here extolling the virtues of the sci-fi series written by me and Steve Aryan, with art by Maysam Barza, colours by Pressy, a cover by Azim Akberali and letters by Sean Rinehart. However, the world and everything in it has changed beyond recognition since we completed work on the issue.

Since the CV-19 virus outbreak has taken hold of society and shows no immediate sign of loosening its grip, we have taken the decision to put the campaign on hold until things settle down. We did toy with doing a digital only campaign, but our backers preferred the idea of including physical copies still, so ultimately ,despite people being willing to wait for those copies, we felt it best to hang fire. With so many people, ourselves included, concerned about the health of loved ones, their livelihood etc it felt like the best course of action. We’ll be back bigger and better later in the year.

To give people something to read during social distancing and while staying at home we have put Issue 1 up on Gumroad as a reduced price of £1.99 . So you can pick it up there if you haven’t already and please do share the link around.

This year I have mostly been working on...

Most of my writing time at the moment has been screenplay related, as I’m working on a feature length script currently. It’s been good to dive into something completely fresh as all of the comics I am working on currently have been around for a while in some shape or form. 

For this film script idea, I did the initial synopsis last year and I’ve been working up a 16 block outline and full character bios this week before I move onto working up the full outline next week.

I’d forgotten how much the character bio stage really helps in the earliest stages of a new project, by working out how characters are perceived and what their relationships are with each other I’ve found new ways to build up the conflict and tension, above and beyond the main A plot.  I’m still using the same simple questionnaire I’ve used in all writing mediums for about twenty years, which I thought was from taken from the Teach yourself Screenwriting book by Raymond Frensham, but I’m actually not sure where I got it from. It’s pretty basic, but it really helps me get an understanding of each of the key cast members and their voices start to arrive during this stage too. 

Name: 

Gender: 

Age: 

Physical Appearance: 

Childhood/Earlier Life: 

Main character traits:  

How are they perceived? 

Do they control? 

Morals & beliefs: 

What do they want from life? 

Relationship with other characters: 

What is their goal? 

Who is preventing them from reaching this goal?