The Week in Review

I really should make more of an effort to blog more, at least once a week, I've only written 20 blogs all year! That's it, from now on, every Friday, there will be a new blog. 

So it's friday. The week in review... balls! This means I have to come up with something worth writing! 

Well, work on Night is progressing well. We had a writing session this morning that was very tough but went well. I think I'm finding that we're morning writers. We get about three good hours in and then we're zonked! I mean, I can write for hours by myself, but it's much more leisurely, I can set my own pace, take breaks and take it slow. But when Thomas and I write together it's pretty full on. But it's good.

The local paper did an interview with me about Bill, For Short that was in this weeks paper. I'd add a jpeg or something but my computer wont let me upload files over 2kb! It's a joke, but it's one it's last legs. The disc drive stopped working, then the ethernet connection, now the screen stays black when I wake it up from sleep and I have to re start it to get it going and the internet connection keeps dropping... and it's only 2 and half years old! That was €1300 well spent! Great investment. Go Mac!

Anyway, the interview in the paper just talked about how I couldn't attend the premiere of the film in Indianapolis because I'm getting married, to Maryann, who I met at the same festival two years ago after see picked my film when she worked there! It's all very romantic!

News on Emily's Song again. It will be screening in November in Australia across 8 screens nationally as part of a Heart of Gold Film Festival retrospective. So that's great news. It means Emily's Song will be seen by many more people. So that's over two year ES has been screening around the world. And it will continue to do so, as we also sold to minimovies.com.  

I think that's everything. Tune in next Friday for the new weekly Pale Stone Productions update.

News

Here's an article from Crewger.ie. Crewger is a new website for independent filmmakers. 

Bill's Got Heart

I'm proud, excited, delighted, thrilled to announce that Bill, For Short has made Official Selection at the Heartland Film Festival.

It's more then I could have hoped for or imagined was possible. After all, we shot the film in a day and a half for no money! But the idea for the film took a year to form and it came from an honest and meaningful place. 

In many ways the film is reflective of the man it was about. It was made for no money, but it came from the heart with nothing but honesty. Like my Grandfather, a poor man, never had much money but he was always honest and always loving.

The festival opens on October 16th in Indianapolis and during that week Bill, For Short will screen eight times across the city.

Emily's Song won the Crystal Heart Award at the festival in 2006. In fact I think my first blog here came just before that festival. Wow! That mean's this blog is over two years old! Anyway, It's a great festival and I'm only sorry I can't go again this year. It looks like they have a good line up of films. Their opening film is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

Hopefully this will be the start of more for Bill, For Short, but even if it is not I'm excited to be a part of Heartland once again.

As I wont be able to attend I'd like to thank everyone involved for the work they did. My brother Noel for giving up his weekend to walk around in 50 year-old uncomfortable shoes in the cold and rain. To John Lawler, who's abounding energy and enthusiasm drove the film and skill as a cameraman helped capture some wonderful images. To my Mother, for delving deep into her heart and past to find painful memories that helped me get a clearer picture of Bill. And to Maryann, my fiancé, for encouraging me to tell this story, it probably never would have been done if it wasn't for her. Thanks all.

Nighty Night

Hello,

First my apologies for not having posted in a while and not posting that well when I have! Did I mention that I have moved all unrelated material to 'Asides' over on the left? So anything that is not directly related to Pale Stone Productions, stories, poems, thoughts etc will be posted there.

Unfortunately there's not much going on at the moment. Except for the fact that I'm preparing for my wedding, which is less than two months, so that's mainly what I've been doing.

I am writing a new feature script with Thomas however. It's called NIGHT. It's based on an idea Thomas had. We've been trying to get to it since July, grabbing a week when we could and a day or even hour here and there. But it's going well despite that and I'm enjoying writing it a lot. I'm very excited about it I have to say. 

I could say when we hope to shoot, Thomas and I will co-direct, but I'd just look foolish when that doesn't happen! So I'll keep it under wraps until I know for sure. At the moment we're just trying to get the second draft done.

I don't want to say much about it though, story wise, at least not yet, except to say that it is dark and violent noir like thriller. So it's very different from anything Thomas and I have ever written before. We do tend to gravitated toward drama and comedy. 

However, on my own I tend to go for the darker stuff, BLOOD DIRT MONEY, the terrible first feature I wrote that brought Thomas and I together was in the same vein as this one. BAD MOON and NEVERMORE are both dark and violent. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying this one so much!

We should have this draft finish soon I hope. Stag parties, Weddings and honeymoons might delay things, but hopefully not too much! 

We also have something special planned for this particular script. Something I've been thinking about doing for a long time and something that always comes up when a new script is finished. But I wont tell you. I'll just show you when it's done. It'll be posted here first.

OK, that's all from me for now. Hopefully more soon.

Here's an interesting interview with Chris Nolan on The Dark Knight. I've added it because he talks about Noir. Enjoy.

SDGI Finders Series

I went to the Screen Directors Guild of Ireland Finders Series event  a couple of nights ago. Tomm Moore picked up the SDGI Finders Series Award for his Animated Feature "Brendan and the Secret of Kells" 

It was a fairly dull night over all it must be said. I'm sure other people had a wonderful time, but I think I would have rather been anywhere else. But it had its moments I suppose. Met some old friends, made some new ones. John Carney gave a short speech, which was funny. Michael Apted did too and then made the presentation. I met him at the Heartland Film Festival, he's a nice man.

The award was set up between the Irish Director Guild and the American Directors guild. Where every year they select one filmmaker and their feature and fly the to the states for meetings with distributors in hope to find American distribution for said film. Last year "Kings" went and was successful. So it's a great prize.

There was some footage of the film shown last. I have to say it looks wonderful. It really is like nothing I've seen before. I hope it does well for them, but I'm sure it will.

a few links:

http://www.cartoonsaloon.ie/

http://blog.cartoonsaloon.ie/

http://sdgi.ie/index.php