Cat and Mouse

Has it really been two months since I last blogged? Time has just been flying by here. Since I started at Apple 6 months ago I can't quite believe how fast the time has gone. In those 6 months I've been largely busy at work, but I've been writing too, much more than I was last year in Indianapolis, and getting back into the swing of being creative.

It's been great. I'm so thankfully to have my evenings back, my weekends, a normal schedule, where I can carve out a little time to write, and plan, and dream! I'm still working on 10 Days in December. It's taking longer than I had hoped, but that's OK, I want it to be right and that takes as long as it takes. I still hope to shoot it this year, but I'm behind on the script. I still have not finished the first draft and it's going to need a lot of work.

I'm 107 pages into the first draft, which is a fair aul wedge of paper. And it's going to get longer, I think I'm only on day 5 of the 10 days! So there's going to be a lot of fine tuning. But right now I'm just concerned about getting the A to B to C out of the way, then I'll go in and find the romance, the subtly. I want to believe the characters are falling in love and have the audience to believe it too. SO it's going to take a bit of tinkering.

One thing that has been keeping me from working on it is the fact that I've been doing some writing for The Tom and Jerry Show, for Warner Bros. This is something of a dream gig. I've long wanted to work for Warner Bros. Growing up and seeing their logo appear at the start of a movie, there was something magical about it. And almost every time I visited LA in the past, I would take the WB VIP Tour of the back lot. I love that place.

Not to mention growing up with Tom and Jerry, the fact that they are legendary character, and that I am a graduate of Animation. There are a lot of things coming together in this one thing. It came about when a friend of mine, Robert Zappia, with his production partner Jim Praytor, took over running of the show. Robert emailed me one day a couple of months back and asked if I've be interested in throwing a couple of pitches at them. I said I was.

I wrote 25 in total, they approved 3. My two biggest learning curves were trying to write something that hadn't been done before, which as I'm sure you can imagine is extremely difficult for a show that's been around since the forties. And fitting the style of the current show. But I think I cracked it. We took one idea and ran with it, submitted it and soon it was approved.

It should go into production soon, storyboards first, then animation and hopefully it will be broadcast by the end of the year. It's pretty amazing. It was great fun to write, and I had plenty of moments as I wrote "Tom chases Jerry" where I had to pinch myself, because this was the actual Tom and Jerry I was writing!

So writing is great right now. I'm enjoying it again and having a professional gig as a sideline is a dream come true in itself, add a couple of legendary animated characters and Warner Bros. Studio to that and I'm on cloud nine when I think of it.

And I'm starting to think of other projects too. If I have to delay production of 10 Days till next year, for whatever reason, the script, money, schedule - it's dawning on me that trying to shoot a feature in Ireland while working full-time in America might be an undertaking too far, BUT, one I'm not giving up on - so I'm thinking about doing a short film if that happens.

I'm also thinking about my other projects, things I've mentioned here and things I would still love to make, Pipe Dream, Float, The Wolf of Nevermore. It's all still there. Still in my head and hopefully in my future somewhere. But for now I'm just enjoying the writing and having the opportunity to do that again, as much as a full-time job and two small kids will allow, but it's more than it was last year, so that's fine!