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RAVERS is coming to cinemas in select cities in the US!!

If you’re reading this, you will have likely found your way here from one of my posts. I want to thank you so much for being interested! This film was so much fun to make and I’m so excited to finally be able to share it with you. IN CINEMAS TOO! I really didn’t think we’d have this chance, so I hope you go and check it out. We’re a small indie film, so we don’t know how long it’ll stay in screens.

Official Release Date: Friday – September 18, 2020!

Check it out! Especially a soundtrack like that needs to be heard loud!

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Revisiting Old Skills and how to make them stick

The Covid-19 Pandemic has forced us all to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. Many of us decided to learn some new skills or hone existing ones.

For me, it was an opportunity to revisit a few old skills of mine. Playing Electric Guitar, Music Production, and DJing, all of which were part of my previous life as a Producer/DJ. It’s been over a decade since I’ve properly attempted any of these. Revisiting them was a great opportunity to reflect upon my abilities in the present.

However, I was unable to successfully revitalise two of them…

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So I started Vlogging…

Well this is an interesting development. Thanks a virus, London is now on lockdown. And though I’ve self isolated for about a week before that, it became increasingly clear that this would not end any time soon.

I’m not one who cannot keep his mind busy, but the idea of potentially not filming anything for months filled me with an uncomfortable longing. So I suddenly had an idea. I had all these DVDs and Blu-Rays which I hadn’t touched in ages and I thought, why not watch them all.

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10 lessons I’ve learned from directing my second feature film.

Making a second feature film is actually a fairly rare occurrence. Less than 3% of directors get to make two more films after they’ve made their first one. So in order to be part of those 3%, I needed to do some homework by critically looking at how events unfolded and where I can learn my lessons for the next film to come.

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Adapting Sandman

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is my absolute favourite comic book series. Ever since I first read the books I’ve been wanting to make a film based on them. But of course, a feature film was going to be out of the question. Unless a studio hired me to make it, it was never going to happen. So it was always going to be a short film in the near term.

My immediate instinct several years ago was to just make a trailer that would be pure fan service. But I never really got around to making it, and I’m glad I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been very good and wouldn’t have had anything interesting to offer. No characters, just visuals which I didn’t have the budget for.

Then last year I decided to revisit the idea of a Sandman film. But a proper film this time, not just a trailer or a pipe dream.

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Advertising and Social Issues

In 2017, two prominent examples have popped up where a corporation has decided to ‘participate’ or ‘jump on the bandwagon’ of a social movement or issue to promote their own products. In March, State Street Global Advisors commissioned the “Fearless Girl” to stand opposite the famous “Charging Bull” on Wall Street in New York. And in April, Pepsi created a new advert featuring Kendall Jenner participating in racially diverse protests, paying tribute to Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street.

However one worked and people generally embraced it, while the other infamously did not as Pepsi pulled the ad within 24h.

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Scenes in Real Time

I remember having discussions about the use of slow motion with film school colleagues at the time. Some of my friends thought little of it, because they considered it a cheap tool to make things ‘cooler’ and added nothing of substance to the material shown. I’m more of the school of thought that slow-motion, if used wisely is a wonderful tool to heighten a moment. One friend of mine considered slow-motion the most unique film experience, since you can’t replicate it in any other art form and needs to be elevated as such.

To explore this topic further, I decided to take scenes from films by several different directors and effectively took the slow motion out by speeding the slow-mo shots up to real time. Is anything lost or gained by doing so? Does it harm the scene or improve it? Or does it just change the context of it? Here are some examples:

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Video Essays on filmmaking

There are many great things about YouTube, but one amazing thing that has come about are video essays. My kids and I regularly watch Kurzgesagt – In a nutshell or Vsauce or Veritasium, which are great channels for popular science video essays, and  often make far more interesting science content compared to anything you can find on TV.

That also applies to the growing number of video essays on filmmaking. Here are a few examples of essays that I particularly enjoy. I highly recommend subscribing to all of these channels: Continue reading “Video Essays on filmmaking”

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Common Mistakes in Script Development

I wouldn’t be surprised if one of your first thoughts right now is “Who the hell are you, and what do you know about script development?” Now that is a fair question and I have to say, there are certainly many people out there that have done what I’ve been doing over the last several years for MUCH longer than I have, and have done so successfully. Also there are great books written by incredible authors which are essential reading.

I don’t expect you to take my word with absolute authority. All I’m setting out to do here, is share what I’ve learned in those 9 years since I started developing feature film scripts. And as someone who looks at development from a writer’s, director’s, and producer’s perspective, I have seen what makes script development hard, what makes it easy, and at least what makes it interesting. Continue reading “Common Mistakes in Script Development”