May: Persona, Small Chances and It’s My Shout

My secret New Year’s Resolution for 2012 was simple: Get Something Made.

Because, essentially, all your validation as a writer comes from people liking your stuff enough to bother about filming it/performing it/publishing it.

It was my birthday on Friday (a belated Happy Star Wars Day to you all). And I could look at the month ahead of me and feel proud for all the work that went into it. And that, y’know, I smashed that resolution in Month 5.

Persona Season 4 is currently airing through the smartphone app (get it for iDevice or for Android). As I haven’t seen the final footage, I’m excited to see how it turns out. First ep looks better than I could’ve hoped!

In Brighton this weekend? The play I co-wrote with Jack Delaney is premièring at the Brighton Fringe Festival – get your mitts on tickets here!

And now for something completely different.

While I was on the train to London on Friday, I received a phone call from It’s My Shout. For those unfamiliar, IMS is a Welsh short film scheme that’s been around for about ten years. It focusses on new talent, particularly involving teenagers and young adults in the filmmaking process.

I had submitted a short film of mine to them – Bryn Celli Ddu [Brin Keth-lee Thee] – and had received a rejection e-mail. Not uncommon, as I sent out a lot of things and therefore receive a lot of rejections.

However, it turns out they’d made a mistake. I had actually progressed through the selection process and my short film is being made this summer to be aired on BBC Wales in Autumn 2012. Best birthday present ever! (Though my fellow train travellers were probably bemused by the shrieking and hyperventilating).

And how can you, dear reader, make my month of May merrier?

Download Persona and watch avidly.

Pitch up at Brighton Fringe and watch Small Chances.

Watch Bryn Celli Ddu when it airs in Autumn (don’t worry – I’ll remind you).

Megan’s PERSONA

It’s here!

Allow me to present the trailer for Megan’s PERSONA, my contribution to the awesome Persona app drama.

I’m really pleased with the way this has come together. The fantastic Jack Delaney, talented crew and brilliant actors have done far more for this that my scrappy words – go Team Megan!

Going Pro

April is an exciting month for me! Persona Season 4 airs on Monday and rehearsals are starting for Small Chances.

I also signed a contract for my first paid feature.

While I’ll admit to being a little nervous, I’m mostly excited. The project is currently under wraps, but I hope to get more information out in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’m getting my teeth into this treatment and seeing where the ride takes me.

Of course, unless I’m suddenly inundated with requests for specs and the BBC banging down my door (dream on), I still have the day job and this is just one more step on a very long journey.

Still feels awesome, though.

Take note

I was very flattered to read that I’m both ace and adept at taking notes. I blushed a bit and felt the warm fuzzies of a job well done.

The giving and receiving of notes is the process by which a script grows into a film. I’ve enjoyed that experience with a fair few folk now and it’s completely different every time.

I don’t think there’s necessarily a right way to do it. With my friends I’ve know for over a decade, I know I can be brutally honest. And they have the same freedom with me. With a director I’m working with for the first time, we have to learn how to talk with each other – particularly when a lot of our correspondence is by e-mail.

However, I think there are some general “good practice” rules:

1) Thank the note giver before you read the notes. Your thanks should be genuine.

2) Read the notes through once and allow yourself to react. Be angry that they hated your favourite character. Grin at the fact they loved your best scene. Get your emotional, gut reactions out of the way.

3) Set the notes aside. Take a breath. Then go through them again coolly and logically.

4) Always consider the note in context. There is always a reason the note-giver is giving the note. It may be a naff reason from your perspective – e.g. “this character should be a man because girls can’t shoot” – but they believe in what they’re telling you.

5) You must address every note, even if your response is “I acknowledge this but I’m not changing anything”.

6) Sometimes, the perceived problem with your script is not where the note-giver thinks it is. This was the case as described by Phill in his post about our notes exchange. Phill thought the characters were absent from the plot. I had failed to make it obvious what they were up to. So, instead of taking Phill’s suggestion of what they could be doing, I made what I thought was happening more explicit.

Tony Jordan says the difference between a good writer and a great writer is how to take notes (so says Rob Thorogood). How do you handle your notes? What’s the method in the madness?

My Persona

[to the tune of "My Sharona"]

I’ve been relatively quiet of late about what I’m working on, but that’s because I’ve been consumed with a couple of exciting projects.

You may recall me waxing lyrical about Persona last year, the app-based drama that tells four snappy stories in a month via your smartphone. At the time, I was hoping to write one of the arcs but due to various happenings in the process, that all got swept to one side.

But Phill Barron, awesome guy that he is, kept all us wannabe writers in the loop about what was happening with the drama. So when he sent out an e-mail looking for a writer, I leapt at the chance.

I’ve been working with Cameron King, director extraordinary (you can see for yourself here) on a story that pushes all my buttons and about which, of course, my lips are zipped. Suffice to say, your knuckles will be white as you clutch your phone, aghast. We really hope to bring the drama to this app.

Our story will be part of Persona’s fourth season, due to air around April – no doubt I’ll chew your eat off about it closer to the time.

Meanwhile, January? Pretty freakin’ cool.

A Whole New World

I’ve been knee-deep in development work for my projects this past month, responding to some thought-provoking notes on Steampunk Assassins from Ste Russell at Loves Me Not Films and attempting to whip The Greenwich Problem into shape before sending it out to producers.

However, three opportunities came along this week that had me dusting off old projects and exploring their potential.

The first was a call for feature screenplays based in and around Europe, which required writing a treatment for said screenplay. This seemed like a perfect fit for The Local, my Script Frenzy screenplay about an English doctor joining Welsh villagers in their fight against a construction company. A very “local” European story!

Unfortunately, I loathe treatments and I haven’t done a pass on The Local for about four months, so I needed to re-familiarise myself with the ins-and-outs of Act 2 to try and sell my story. Still ongoing, but my personal editor is on it.

The second is news of a relaunch for a new media series for which I was going to write before it got shelved. I had to flick through all my old e-mail correspondence from January (neatly filed, thank God) before I remembered what the script was even meant to be about!

And the third is a brilliant competition from The Immersive Writing Lab through Circalit – creating a storyworld.

Until today, I had little idea what I storyworld was but: think Star Wars. Think The Matrix. Think Battlestar Galactica. It’s a whole societal concept suitable for a multi-media platform.

Do I have something that might fit those requirements? Step in, Overambitious Island. There’s a reason I labelled the project with that daunting title and it’s because it’s a novel concept for which I developed not only an entirely new society but also a language. Yes, I decided I wanted to play Tolkien and have a go at amateur linguistics.

Remarkably, I can still wax lyrical about their education system, their core religious beliefs and their extensive martial arts. I can even remember the reasons the more right-wing elements of London hate their guts.

The lesson is this: if you were once enthusiastic about a project, you may set it to one side, you may even despair of it ever being worthwhile, but you should always keep an open mind about its future.

Except if it’s about dream heists. I mean, you could develop that thing for ten years, and nothing would ever come of it…

Waiting for Go

I hate waiting.

I am an extremely impatient person. The acquiring of a smartphone was such a blessing because I finally had something to do while waiting for appointments, friends to show, trains to arrive.

Right now, I’m waiting to hear back from six different writing opportunities. Two – Laughing Stock and Phill Barron – have graciously kept me updated at regular intervals.

Another is one of my friends, who I know has started a new job. One month of waiting down, probably another one to go.

There’s a competition I submitted for that I haven’t heard a whisper from, so I’m assuming a silent rejection on that front.

And then someone I hit up for a short collaboration and an answer to a Mandy.com ad, which left my inbox barely two days ago. Obviously, I’m not expecting a response to those just yet, but they’re adding to my pile.

Surely, someone wants to e-mail me!

Then I remember that it’s Saturday and normal people have lives.

Time to make more product then!

Be My Valentine, Persona

So, for those living in a cave, Persona launched yesterday!

A two-minute soap opera? Downloaded daily to your phone of choice? For an incredible £1.50 A YEAR – and only £1.19 on the iPhone?

Dude, why are you not watching this?

The Story Boss is Phill Barron and I know Season 2 features the work of Laurence Timms. Which means this thing is hot on screenwriting talent.

Also, I know how one of the Season 1 storylines plays out – and really, it’s gonna be good. Tell your friends.

As an aside, having tried both, I prefer the iPhone app, but it doesn’t matter as long as you get your daily Persona fix.

And why am I so excited about this? One – I think it’s an awesome, crazy idea. And two – I might get to write some it.

How does one get Persona?
- Text PERSONA to 87474
- Download ‘Persona Drama’ from the App Store

Simples!

The slow steps of a journey

I’m working evenings this week. Basically, this means I get to do mundane things during normal working hours – like go to the bank and pick up my prescription – and then work an eight-hour day at the end.

Disruptions to my schedule tend to go badly for my writing routine. I know that I write in the evening after work. I now need to get used to writing mid-afternoon with a cup of tea – but only for five days. Shift work drives me crazy.

However, the first draft of The Greenwich Problem is finished. A lot of work to go and a month to do, but I’m letting it rest a couple of days. I’ve pitched another plot to Persona, so we’ll see how that fits in.

And my friends at Realm Pictures have a sexy new website and a sexier showreel. Watch out for the sneak peak at their upcoming underwater feature:

Tis the season

A belated Merry Christmas and an anticipatory Happy New Year!

Well, Steampunk Assassins isn’t yet at its final draft, but let’s extend the deadline to New Year and see how it goes.

I’m thinking through my entry to Laughing Stock 2011, which we will call The Greenwich Problem. My current dilemma is sub-genre: do I go for Science Fiction or Science Fact? That will determine the content of the comedy and the overall series direction, though the characters and setting are fairly fixed in my mind.

And I’m waiting to hear where I could slot into this year’s Persona schedule. While we wait, here’s a teaser for us all: