Charming and Delightful

It's been a busy an and exciting week thus far. Emily's Song has been accepted into two more festivals this week, the Leeds Young People's Film Festival, happening at the end of March and the Little Big Shots International Children's Film Festival in Australia. We're excited about both of them.
Little Big Shot is great because after the main event in April, which takes place in Melbourne it travels all over Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and takes in such venues as the Sydney Opera House. How cool is that?!
It's actually quite special for me, apart from the fact that our little film could be screening in one of the most famous buildings in the world, Sydney is also the place I decided that I was going to commit to making films fulltime.
I had just finished four years of studying animation and was slightly conflicted about what road I wanted to take. While in Oz I made the decision that I was going to go back to my first love, which was film and pursue it from then on. I worte my first script "Blood. Dirt. Money" which was awful, but it lead me to meet Thomas and the first script we wrote together was Emily's Song.
So it would be quite something to return to Sydney with it and let that beautiful city know that I made it.
We also feature in this months Moving Pictures Magazine, which is a Los Angeles publication, as one of it's top 5 short films. The magazine said "...Moving Pictures identifies five of the best. They have left us Supreme Entertained and Profoundly Informed." So that was nice of them! thank you Moving Pictures.

I got to hang out with Amy Berg on Saturday. Her film "Deliver Us From Evil" was screening at the Dublin International Film Festival. It's a very moving and powerful documentary and quite frightening aswell. It tells the story of the victims of the Peaophile priest Oliver O'Grady, who molested over one hundred children during his time in parishes in California. It also tells of the cover up and the refusal of the catholic church to truely acknowledge what is going on within it's own walls. It's well worth checking out. I think it's going on limited release next month and is also up for an Oscar for best Documentary at the end of this month.
Amy herself is a very charming and delightful person. I'm hoping we will meet again on my next trip to LA. Good luck at the Oscars Amy! Kick Al Gore's butt!

In other news, I'm editing a script at the moment for a horror that's shooting at the end of March in Utah (USA). Directed by Ryan Little. It's a fun ride and should make for an entertaining friday night scare fest! Can't tell you anymore then that at the moment. But some of the stars of the american TV show, The OC are going to be in it, so it may do some business. I'll keep you posted on what happens! That's all for now.

Field of Bones

When I was in Indianapolis last October I was in a hotel room with some other filmmakers and the subject of war movies came up. I think it was because Flags of our Father had just been released that week. One of the guys, Ryan Little, had all ready made a war movie, Saints and Soldiers. While another was talking about making one about his grandfather, who recieved the medal of honour. In fact it was the fastest medal of honour ever to be given out because he was dying. I think some of the family members actually stole it so he could have it!
I often wondered whether or not I would want to make a war movie. Although I love war movies I always felt too far away from the subject to tackle it. I've lead a sheltered life, a soft life, full of comforts and pleasures and living in warmth with a roof over my head and food in my belly, what would I know about war? So I figured no, I wouldn't even try, I mean how could I understand it?
But after that conversation with the boys the thought lingered in my head. Would I? Could I? Perhaps I don't have a personal experience, perhaps I can find a story worthy of telling.
But I still needed something, something more to draw me in. I was never one of those kids who was obsessed with war and guns and plains and tanks. Then something unusual happened. I found out that my uncle was researching the geneology of our family and he had discovered that his grandfather, my great grandfather was in the dundalk fucialeers and fought in World War I.
I thought this was fascinating. So I called him up and it turns out that he did fight in the war and not only that he died on the battle field at Galipolli. In fact there is a war memorial down town with his name on it. I never realised that, I passed it everyday and never paid any attention to it and all this time it was honouring my great grandfather.
So I have begun my research and hopefully someday I will be able to tell his story. I thought finding out it was worthy of telling anyway!
I've started reading Field of Bones: An Irish Division at Galipolli. I don't know if he's in it, but strangely enough there is a mention of a Patrick Kelly (His name) and it referes to a place called churchtown, where he came from. My family lived on church street... I wonder?

Just an Idea, Still a Dream

I had an idea to set up a production company. I all ready have one, Emily's Song was produced under the name Pale Stone Productions, which is the name that goes over anything I do with Thomas, my co-writer, it's not really a production company, it's just what we call ourselves.
Recently I have been wanting to spread my wings and explore new avenues of creativity. I have a lot of ideas and thoughts that are very much seperate from what I am doing with Thomas. Emily's Song is very much a family orientated film, and 'The Race' is a family sports drama. When I'm on my own I tend to lean toward fantasty, horror and adventure. They were the kind of movies I loved as a kid growing up. Back to the Future being my favourite movie of all time.
My own two feature scripts are horror films. And I have two new ideas for fantasy based adventure stories. One is called "The Dreaming Tree" and the other "The Adventures of Sir William Wren and Alan Blessington", they both tie in to each other. 'Adventures' is the first and 'Dreaming Tree' is a far away sequeal.
My own shorts are comedic fantasy pieces with creatures and monsters and talking animals, very much along the same lines as Jim henson's Storyteller.
I'm not sure how I'm going to go about doing it. I need people, I need help and of course I need money!
It's just an idea at the moment. But it's something I want to make a reality. My dream is to have my own studio. To have a creative working environment that is building these wolrds and fashioning these creatures and stories into existense. I want to go to work everyday and walk into a workshop that smells of glue and rubber and sawn wood and see amazing landscapes being essembled and monsters standing ten feet tall in the corner.
Then file into the production offices where the walls are adorned with concept art of the latest project and artists are drawing to their hearts content at their desks and computers. And then I go to my office to work on the script, storyboards, music, photgraphy and find calls waiting from Spielberg, Lucas and Jackson all wondering who things are going.
It's just an idea, still a dream... but someday.

On My Desk

On My Desk: Scripts, "The Wolf of Nevermore", "The Perfect Word", "Bad Moon" and "The Race". There's a few note books, I usually have a couple for each project, depending on how many I get through. I've started using Moleskin note books, which I like. They're expesive, but there's something about them that makes using them a pleasure. Nice size, nice paper, they're black and they have that elastic band that holds them together so you feel like Indiana Jones everytime you finish writing something.
I'm also reading Peter Jackson's Bio by Brian Sibley, which is very interesting and enjoyable. I'm a huge Jackson fan, I love all of his movies (Apart from Kong I have to say!) But everything else is just breathtaking to me. It's slightly uncanny how his childhood resembles my own, many of the stories are very similar... things like dragging unwitting friends off into the woods for a weekend to make a movie! I've been there! Now I just have to make a bunch of amazing films before I'm 46! Easy!
And of course my trusty Mac, what would I do without it. I'd also recomend to any writer to have a window close by! We get little enough sunlight as it is and it's always nice to be reminded that there is in fact a real world out there!!!

You know, for the kids.

It's been a while since I've but seeing as no one reads this anyway I don't suppose there have been many chomping at the bit to read the next instalment... anyway, here's what's happening.

I've been writing a lot, an awful lot. I've been trying to get several scripts done for the end of this month, two feature scripts and two short scripts. One of the shorts all ready existed, it just needed polishing and some adjusting. I'm trying to get it down from 14 pages to 11/10 pages. So that went well, it's called Puca and is about a young boy named Harvey and his imaginary friend, "You know, for the kids".

The other was a three page short story that I wrote years ago that I always thought would make a fun little movie, so I wrote that into a 20page script, which I feel is bit long at the moment, but we'll see. It's called 'The Perfect Word' and is about a young man looking for the perfect way to describe his love for a beautiful young maiden, with unexpected results.

Those are the shorts, they all ready existed elsewhere so they didn't take too long to get sorted. Next step for them is to apply for funding to the Irish Filmboard and see if we can't get one of them made. Who knows though, the filmboard is a tough nut to crack, sometimes I wonder if it shouldn't just be called The 'we only make wishy washy depressing bleak Irish films about child abuse and nuns' Board. But we'll see.
I'm also going to approach Jim Henson's about the possibility of a co-production. I spoke to them before about building the suit for Puca, but their fee was twice what the entire film cost so screw that! Anyway, maybe is they'd like to produce it. Can't hurt right?

Now, the feature films, a whole other kettle of banana fish.

Thomas and I talked about pushing hard on Puca, doing what we did on Emily's Song and getting out there to try everything to get it made. Which is what any film needs to get done. There are no two ways about it, you're either 100% committed and giving everything you have or it's not getting made.

So after thinking about we figured that there is no real commercial value in shorts. People are hesitant to invest in a film that's probably not going to make any money back, and there's no garuntee with shorts. So we figured to make another short would just as difficult as trying to get a low budget feature made, where there would be commercial value, so why not make a feature?

So we put Puca to one side and started writing our first feature script together. A family sports drama about cycling, called The Race.

It was an odd choice, I'm not a sports fan, but I've grown up with cycling, my dad does it, my brother, my uncles, friends and friends of the family, I guess it was our family sport. I always loved the atmosphere at the races, such a buzz. And Thomas the same, his family cycled too. His brother Stephen came seventh one year in the Ras, Irelands longest and toughest race, which takes place over eight days.

We had been developing a feature script about three friends who decide to go to india following the death of their best friend. While there the discover the have nothing in common with one another, it was their friend who held them together and madness ensues! It was based on Thomas's mental adventures in India, which I always felt needed to be made into a film.

Anyway, one day while reading Empire magazine i found out that Wes Anderson was making a film about three brothers who trek across india following the death of a friend... Bastard!

I just thought, now matter how different the script is investor, producers or studios are all going to say the same thing "Didn't Wes Anderson just make that film with Owen and Luke Wilson and Bill Murray?" What hope would we have?! So we shelved it. But I know some day we'll take it down.

So one disallusioned day while sitting staring out the window I said "Let's make a cycling movie", thomas's eyes lit up and I knew we were on the road again, literally. I always had this idea about a dad beyond his prime who comes back to ride the Ras and shows everyone who doubted him that he could do it. That's as far as my idea went. So Thomas and I went with that and developed the Race.

That part remains, but it's slightly different now. It's about a forgotten australian cycling champ who almost died following a crash twenty years ago, he broke his neck and was left in a coma. Although not paralized he was warned that if he crashed again he could be, or even killed. His wife made him promise never to cycle again. It starts twenty years later. He's now living in Ireland and working on a building site. We soon realise that he didn't keep the promise, not only that but he's been keeping it a secret from his wife and not only that, now his two sons cycle, and they're good. It's when they decide to cycle the Ras that the trouble starts.

We're really happy with the script so far. We're half way through the second draft and it has changed so much from what we started with. But all for the better. Last night we took out one of our favourtie characters. Henry, the grandfather, a really quirky spritly old man, who was a delight to write, we even had Peter O'Toole in mind for the casting and every time we thought of Peter O'Toole doing these things is was great.
But it just wasn't working overall, they were great scenes but they were getting in the way of what the film is about, the couple and their relationship. So we took him out.
It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do writing, but one of the easiest at the same time. As soon as he came out the script improved ten-fold. We gave his actions to another character, folding two into one and creating one great character instead of having two ok characters who were fighting for attention.

If there was one piece of advice I could give to anyone starting out writing it would be this, be fearless. Don't be afraid to tear down the walls you've built, tear apart the things you love. Don't be afriad to take an unexpected path, it may lead to a dead end, but you'll never have to wonder. So often there are fascinating magical things down those unexpected paths.

Right now we're trying to get the script finished for the start of febuary. The next step is to get an agent. we have a guy expecting the scipt so hopefully he'll like it. David Wolstencroft, who i met at heartland, recommended him. David's a good writer, he's had two novels, Good News Bad News and Contact Zero, he created the BBC show Spooks and wrote Shooting Dogs, the Micheal Canton-Jones film with John Hurt, I'd recommend any of them.

We're also talking to a producer about the prospect of gettig this thing made. A guy from hollywood who produced Shadow of the Vampire, with Willem Dafoe. So fingers crossed he likes the idea.

So more news on the ongoing of The Race here soon.

On top of that I was writing my own feature script over the last month. A ghost story called 'The Wolf of Nevermore'. I've been very careful and secretive about this one, I shant devulge any information regarding the story yet. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time, over ten years.



I've always wanted to write a ghost story, but it's harder then I ever imagined, certainly in film terms. Everything has been done. so often I went down a certain avenue to find that it had been explored before and although I didn't conciously do it I'd find that many of the themes and even scenes were similar to other horror films. It's hard to be orginal in such a distinctive genre. But I think the thing about originality is not to try to be different, but to be honest. I think if you're honest with your characters and your storytelling then it will be original becuase it is 100% ocming from you and no one else.

So I took several very personal stories and melded them into this piece and I'm happy enough at this stage. I'm finished the second draft and I think it's paced nicely and has an overall good/unsettling feeling. I need to iron out some kinks but I hope to have it finished for next week.

This one has been different form anything else I've written because of how carful I was. Usually when I have an idea for a script I'll pen it down, then I'll spend a few weeks writing ideas about the story, characters, scenes, whatever comes to me, in no real order. when I feel like I've gotten a good feeling, I'll staart on the narrative structure, that doesn't take that long because alot of it is their with the characters and their lives. Then when I feel i'm ready I'l sit at my computer nad blast out a first draft in a very short period of time, three days to a week, with very little sleep. What I get at the end of that is usually a 200-250 page draft that just tells everything about everything and is way to much. My job then is to get that down to 100 pages.
The first fifty is easy, the next fifty is harder, the next twenty is painful and the final leg can take a month to do. But over all it's four month process.
This one was different. I spent a year thinking about it before I put pen to paper. when I eventually did it was probably six months before I started typing and when I started typing I was very careful, I did just splat it out on the page. I edited as I went and took every page as seriously as possilbe. And when I got to the end it came in at 95 pages, which is a perfect length for a horror feature script. So that made me feel good.
I know I'm building it up hear! But I don't think it's finished, I know it needs a lot more work and I have to be careful with it. Some days I hate it and think its terible, other days I'm happy enough to keep going with what I have. I just hope it does justice to what I've been hoping for all these years.

the next step is send it to an actress who's expecting it, she's well known and in her homeland quite a big star. She's also an incredible gifted actress. I wont say who she is yet incase she says no, but if she likes it and wants to do it it will be very exciting. So more on that at a later stage.

So that's all my movie news for now. Emily's Song continues to do well and is selling at one of europes biggest markets Clermont-Ferrand this week, so fingers crossed we get some buyers. Even if not we still have a year of festivals ahead of us. So who knows where it will take us. It has all ready completely changed my life, such is the magic of movies.

Until next time.

Frank

Some of the short filmmakers who recieved the Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland film festival pictured with actor Jon Voight - Cristine Spindler, Anna Christopher, Me, Mr.Voight, Diego Quemada-Diez, Varda Hardy.

End of Year Report

(David Wolstencroft - creator of Spooks, writer of Shooting Dogs, Me, Ilkka Matilla - producer of Mother of Mine, Varda Harda - Director of Window)
It's been a while since I wrote here, but seeing as no one reads it anyway I guess it doesn't really matter a hell of a whole lot. I should try some promotion!
Meantime, let me update noone on Emily's Song. It's gooing well, a bit slow at the moment, but that's ok, a wjile back we stopped entering festivals because we were getting so delayed that we never thought we would finish it, but we did and now that patch of not entering has come back around and we're in a bit of a dry patch.
But that's ok, it's a much needed breather and we are sending it back out there. Meantime we're busy. more on that later.
It's been a good year, admitedly I thought I'd be somewhere else about now, in a place where I was finally making some capital at this. But as with anything worth doing and worth doing well, it always takes a lot longer then you first expect. But apart from that things have gone well. We got Emily's Song finished, we got into a few festivals, we won an award, we traveled across the world with the film, we got a distributor and now we have worldwide sales for the film sorted, we finished our first feature script, our TV show script and two short film scripts. I myself wrote a feature script and I am currently working on a second with a well known and very talented actor all ready interested.
So it's been great, really I can't and shouldn't complain. This year I think has been about building the foundations for, not only next year, but for the rest of my career. I've met a lot of great people, made friends in the industry and made a lot of useful contacts. I've all ready started talking about developing projects with a couple of them. I may also go back and re-develop a project with some comedians I did some work with a couple of years ago. We're talking about doing someting together in the new year, but more on that at a later date.
So I'm leaving this year with a sense of accomplishment. I may not have achieved what I thought I would but I can safely say I feel like I've done a lot more.

Emily's Song

This is 16 minute short film about two young brothers and how they help their father deal with his grief long after the death of their mother, Emily. It's a heartwarming, often comic tale about how two clever lads use their skills, talent and ingenuity to work together to save their family.
It was shot last summer in Drogheda, County Louth in Ireland over two weeks on a budget of €15,000. Which has since crawled to €20,000 in post.
I co-wrote/produced/directed with my production partner Thomas A Kennedy. We wrote the script back in 2001. We then moved onto writing other projects, including a TV show script, three feature film script, anther short and an animated film script. We eventually decided that we had better make one! We chose the first one we wrote together, Emily's Song.
There was only the two of use for a long time. Ivan McCullough came on board first of all as Cinematographer and Jason Byrne as the dad. It went from there.
Also in the film are local actors Shane Murray-Corcoran (King Arthur, Angelas Ashes) Eric O'Brien and Melanie Mulroy. With comedians Dermot McMorrow and lending his voice, Colum McDonnell.

It was a tough two years. As I said before it took a lot longer then expected. First of all a couple of people let us down with regards to helping us posucing the piece... well, one person did! Promises were made, months passed and promises were broken and much time was waisted! We learned a valuable lesson. That problem caused us miss out on applications to what would have been much needed funding. Bt we time it wrong and pretty muc missed everything... not thats there's much.
But as I went through that process and I'm still going through it, I have discovered something. The folks with the funds seem to want you to do one on your own before they will consider you, which I guess is fair enough. We were kind of walking in there saying "Hi, we have no professional experience in this area, now give us loads of your money so we can get some?!"
the answer, I think, was always going to be no.
So we put our hands in our own pockets and found our funding. Houses were mortgaged, loans were got, saving were flittered and souls were sold. But it came together.
Many dates were set and many false starts were had, but we eventually arrive at a shooting date that seemed to suit everyone who'd signed in blood. June 20th 2005 to july 7th. Two weeks of movie mayhem folks.

Now as I said Thomas and I were on our own for a lot of it and I was on my own for a lot of that. While Thomas was off doing things like, working to support his family, reassuring his wife that he wasn't insane and having kids and stuff I was unemployed and going insane trying to build everything for the film, write the music, cast the thing, raise more funding, get big name irish actors to work for free (They all said no!) paint my house for shooting, gather items for set dresing, find someone to supply food and all that kind of stuff.
Again I remind you that I was on my own for mmost of that... Thomas did paint a shelf white the day before shooting, that was good. Kidding... Thomas was incharge of the other slightly impportant matter of finding a crew. Which he did, and what a crew, a great team of talented young men and women about town. They were swell... sorry, went all roaring twenties there.
Serious, they were amazing, so kudos for finding them, kudos to them.

I have to say I've been very lucky in this respect. If I hadn't of hooked up with Thomas I don't think I would have managed to make my first film so soon. He had a huge well of talent and resources he was able to tap, due to the fact that he has been lecturing in film for the past seven years at the National Film School IADT.
I was lucky. I can't imagine what it must be like for a novice, same as I was, trying to go out and make a film for the first time without those kind of contacts. Straight away I had access to professionals.
But that's equally daunting. Rather then what I'd been doing before, which was making half arsed films with friends who also didn't have a clua how to make films I was going to be directing people who had worked on more professional shoots then I could hope to make in my career... should I be allowed to have one.
So one thing that hold true, whether you're in my position, your position and whatever position... know your film, know your characters and for gods sake, know the story you want to tell. Becasue no matter what experience you hav, you're the one who has to keep that story in your head and your the one everybody is going to turn to when things are going slightly off track and compromises are being made, scenes are being dropped and actors are wanting to change lines - it you the turn to to find out how else you want to tell the same story that was the reason they are all here and the reason you're spending all your money, all you parnters money, all you parents money and all everyone elses money who happen to be in a twenty mile radious!

But it's not all about that... it gets like that at times, especially during the shoot. After all, everything we'd been planning for a year now had to happen in two weeks. So yeah, it get's insane. But there are magical moments. And more about thsoe anopther time.

Finishing Up

I start my Blogger blogging at the end of a great journey. That of the making of my first film, a short entitled 'Emily's Song' starring Irish comedian Jason Byrne. It's two years in the making, which was a lot longer then I thought it would be! But we got there and next week we'll be finish the blighter!
So in this blog I'm going to reminisce about it and talk about future projects and all that stuff. I've rescently been asked to lecture in film produciton following my experience so I might prctise here! So maybe I'll empart some useful info to those trying to make their first film and those who've made a few films can laugh at me and all the mistakes I'm making. Either way, hopefully someone will enjoy this!