BBC - Mark Kermode's film blog

Tuesday 29 March 2011

Was brainstorming ideas for The PUb Game VT and I came up with

'Pub Cribz'
Acts as an introduction for the teams and their respective pubs
Aiming to last between 0'60" and 3'00"
Going to have the look of a parody of MTV Cribs (Epic Movie's take on Cribs):


Working on an intro for VT

Intro:

Pub Cribz barges through doors of the local boozer: blindly stumbling around the pub this week, we find out who's propping up the bar and who's designated driver

gaining no barred access to the nations best barrooms. This week's Pub Cribz takes us to Kent and The Fox in Maidstone.

> It will include fast cut edits/multiangle around the pub led by the team captain, introducing the teams and the locals, in that MTV Cribs-whataretheydoinghere-kind of way. juke box, games machines.

> have something rediculous Written on the chalk board

> There will be an introduction to the beer garden and its water features;

> outside we see the "supercars stashed in the garage", basically, "my Mum's mondeo"

> Could include the famous look into celebrities fridges, perhaps a carton of Um Bungo and a pack pork scratchings?

Calling Cast!

Posted a casting call to www.mandy.com with the help of Cat and Helen gave a general description of the programme.

Exec. Producer - Helen Curston. Pilot for late night alternative game show with pub theme (30'00'). Produced and originated as part of major project on unique Broadcast Media degree programme, delivered at professional TV studios in Maidstone. Project supported by industry expertise in technical and content production. Airing on YouTube. Excellent experience for up coming talent - boost your showreel!

Included character breakdowns

To play Pub landlord 'Larger than life' presenter with comic talent and screen presence capable of ad-libbing. Studio experience preferred

Co-host to landlord. Needs to be able to ad-lib, studio experience preferred

Cat posted a similar post to www.castingcallpro.com

Watch this space for responses...


Beer pong game testing for the pub game.
Experimented with timings (1'00",2'00",3'00")
Played with different size cups, various amounts of cups.
Fun to play, good to watch.

Monday 28 March 2011

Pub Numbers

The Flower Pot Inn 01622 757705

Drakes 01622 600 056

Earls (0)1622 751286

Druids 01622 758 516

The White Rabbit 01622 692212

Oak on the Green 01622 737 976

The Swan – Jackie - 01622 751264

The Thirsty Pig 01622 755 655

The Ashes 01622 692 457

The First and Last 01622 683 151

Walnut Tree (East Farleigh) 01622 726368

The Cherry Tree 01622 726 122

The Society Rooms 01622 350910

Muggleton Inn 01622 691527

The Windmill 01622 880280

The Early Bird 01622 734237

The Dog and Gun 01622 759046

The Lobster Pot 01732 843775

The Spitfire 01732 220754

Coopers Cask 758 934

The Fox & Goose 737675

The Fox 729 530

Here is a list of numbers I found numbers for contributors on the internet for Casey to ring.

We followed up The Fox pub on Fant road and I spoke to Mandy the land lady, I left her our details and organised a meeting for Monday 4th April to meet the Pool teams. Many mentioned 3 characters who'd be perfect for the show.

Watch this space...

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Chip off the old Attack the Block

Very incisive interview with Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), click above, highlights include Joe Cornish, 1st time feature film director, divulging an interesting way to research a film:
I’ll tell you what I did for the dialogue in Attack the Block is I figured out the story in treatment form. Then I got an illustrator friend of mine to draw drawings of various plot points. Then I went around loads of youth clubs in South London, talked to big groups of kids. I talked them through the story. I showed them the images, and I said to them, “What would you do if this happened? OK, then this happens. What would you do? Then this happens.”

I recorded everything they said. We went to 20 or 30 of these groups with 10 to 15 kids in each, recorded everything they said. I went home. I treated it like foreign language course, like Linguaphone or something. I put headphones in, and I typed it all out. So I ended up with three massive files of debates and reactions.

Then my first draft I built out of it. So a lot of the lines in Attack the Block were actually said by real kids – “too much madness for one text” – those are real things real kids said in response to my narrative. Because I not very street; I’m a tiny bit less street than Prince Charles and I could not have…I had to be authentic, so I had to go to the source.

I like Joe's openness here, he doesn't know how people on the streets act so he goes full out to discover this. Seems like an awesome way to absorb a culture and discover character background and behaviour.

Monday 14 March 2011

A view of the exhibition installation of
"Hidden Truths: Bloody Sunday 1972"


Sunday (C4, 2002)
Sunday tells the story of an infamous day in Derry, North of Ireland and how the events of that day were subsequently covered up by the British Government of the time. On Sunday 30th January 1972 a peaceful civil rights march against internment (imprisonment without trial), organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) ended with 13 marchers shot dead and 15 wounded. It became known throughout the world as Bloody Sunday. Told primarily from the perspective of the Derry community, juxtaposed with the British Army/state's preparations and reaction to the day, Sunday communicates the forensic and emotional truth of what happened.

McCann, Eamonn.
 (1972). What Happened in Derry. London: A Socialist Worker Pamphlet
(http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/bsunday/mccann.htm)


Rossville Street and Joseph Place, with the City Walls and the Walker Monument in the background. The rubble barricade, on and around which five people were killed is bottom left.





Photograph: Christine Spengler/Sygma/Corbis




http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/melaugh/portfolio1/index.html

Friday 11 March 2011

My Lamb to the Slaughter Word Cloud

I took the text from all the work I have done so far and entered in to a Word Cloud. The colours are significant: The green background is the Irish emerald green, the it appitamises the reasoning behind The Troubles. The whites and red represent both the blood and peace and the Ulster/northern Irish colours. The sky blue is going to be a prominant colour in the coulour palette to my film.

Thursday 10 March 2011

Submarine (Adapted from Joe Dunthorne’s 2006 debut novel)

The debut feature from Richard Ayoade is an affecting coming of age comedy that feels genuinely original, made by someone who's clearly in love with cinema.






Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) is a 15-year-old Swansea schoolboy with problems. A pathetic, but calculated, attempt at bullying earns him the affection of his desirable eczematous classmate Jordana (Yasmin Paige), who introduces Oliver to the thrills of pyromania and dictates to him what he should be writing about her in his diary. Oliver is troubled by the state of his parents' marriage, noting that the dimmer switch hasn't been lowered in their bedroom for some time. His father Lloyd (Noah Taylor) does an academic job nobody understands or appreciates, while appearing to be always teetering on the verge of breakdown, and Oliver suspects mother Jill (Sally Hawkins) to be having an affair with her old flame, the mullet-haired new-age evangelist Graham (Paddy Considine). Oliver hardens his resolve to keep his parents together, and to lose his virginity to Jordana. Adapted from the novel by Joe Dunthorne, the debut feature from The IT Crowd actor Richard Ayoade is both a delight and a revelation, an affecting coming-of-age comedy that feels genuinely original, made by someone who's clearly in love with cinema and its possibilities.



Ayoade retains a very literary feel, structuring the story around a prologue, epilogue and three parts as well as making extensive use of voice-over narration to capture the sensibility of 15 year-old Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts).

Sub marine Trailer from Soma Chea on Vimeo.
Putting together a trailer for Lamb to the Slaughter with potential songs over the top. After talking with Simon and playing around with songs, I feel it needs a slow, acoustic feel with no lyrics. here are a few


The Doors - The End (instrumental)

The Smiths - Please, please, please, let me get what I want

Nick Drake - Black Eyed Dog

Radiohead - Reckoner



Composer
Philip Glass (The Truman Show, The Illusionist)


Jonny Greenwood (There Will Be Blood)

Supporting Cast


Tom Hughes (Cemetery Junction (2010), Silk (2011)) - Patrick Maloney
  • Breadwinner
  • Monotone
  • Rehearsed



Brendan Gleeson (The Guard (2011), Michael Collins (1996))

Mary's FATHER

Height:

 6' 2" (1.88 m) 





Main Character

Laura Pyper - Mary Maloney (Omagh 2004, Emma 2009)
Showreel
Native Northern Irish, Belfast

Height:5'2" (157cm)
Weight:7st. 4lb. (46kg)
Playing Age:16 - 25 years


  • Mouse-like and delicate
  • Weak Willed
  • Not independant
  • Bright Smile, Big eyes
  • Suburban housewife
  • Neat
  • Adoring 
  • Routine, creature of habit
  • She sews - a creative
  • Not such an accomplished cook
  • Prim and proper
  • OCD


Costume and hair. Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Northern Ireland Conflict Photos

My first outline: Fiction Adaptation

Lamb to the Slaughter
An Original Short Story by Roald Dahl
Adapted for the Screen by Will Tippett
30' Drama
TX - BBC4 8:30pm


Outline


Act 1


1) Front room of a terraced house, Northern Ireland. Its dark, a woman lands a clean blow with what appears to be a frozen leg of lamb, on the skull of her victim. Silence follows.
2) Calmly, she reaches for the telephone and twists the dial. Her FATHER answers the phone, MARY confesses.
3) The father is a Loyalist Paramilitary and former Detective, she glances to the walls where photographs hang; he was a highly decorated member of the Police. 
4) As Mary stares at the cold lifeless body lying at her feet - her husband, the man she had murdered was a close associate of her Father: he drops the phone and makes his way round to Mary’s house.
5) Mary, while she awaits her Father, straightens her self out and takes a stammered breath. An alibi as she knows will ensure her innocence. Her Father enters, she tells him of PATRICK'S affair and her jealous rage and ensuing struggle. 
6) The father keeps a chillingly calm head. Mary who is in a panic-sticken state starts to question him, he reveals he is a member of the loyalists. He knows how to dispose of a body.
6) Her father has shot and killed countless people during the Trouble's, he insists Mary's husband is just a victim of the conflicts. The father leaves, ashen faced.
7)Mary takes off through the front door and down through the shadowed Londonderry streets. Gunfire is heard on the other side of town.
8) She spins and enters a green veneered grocers, a smiling SAM O’NEILL welcomes her behind the counter.
9) They discuss her meal and what to enjoy with a roasted leg of famously tender Irish lamb. After exchanging a smile she leaves.
10) Cut to calling the police. In a suitably panicked voice she lifts the phone and turns the dial.


Act 2


11) The squad car arrives fast, 2 officers enter and one eyes her with suspicion as the two trawl the house for clues. More officers arrive as she slumps into her chair.
12) The body is taken away and the Police officers search the building for the murder weapon.
13) The suspicious officer, SGT. O’MALLEY turns to Mary for questioning. O’Malley discovers she is the daughter of a famous Detective and his former mentor. His mood changes from mistrust to empathy, the other officers discover this and they soon believe she is innocent. 
14) She offers the Sergeant a tumbler of whisky and the others are soon persuaded to take a nip.
15) O’Malley and the officers are urged to put the lamb in the oven and soon begin to tuck in. They agree the murderer would not be carrying the weapon around for longer than they needed. They joke it could be beneath their noses.
16) On leaving O’Malley turns to Mary who is sat staring bleakly. He comforts her on the passing of her husband. As he turns away she smirks.
17) Her crime of passion looks like the work of Unionist Paramilitary. Just one more statistic in the Northern Ireland conflicts.




Nothing beats supper at Mary’s.


The Troubles in Northern Ireland rage. A young housewife toils with guilt and innocence in war torn suburbia. Will her sanity prevail or her web of deceit become unravelled.



northern irish and motivated my conflicts there - looking to set my fiction in NI during the troubles.



Monday 7 March 2011

Me on Ludshott common
Safe Haven project by Jo
 

Note: set design at 2:00. A great insight into gameshow formatting. 

Ultimate screenwriting links page

Pub Games

G day Bruce

player 1: gday bruce
player 2: gday bruce
1: say gday to bruce bruce
2 gday bruce
3 gdyy bruce
2 say gday to bruce bruce
3 gday bruce
4 gday bruce
3 say gday to bruce bruce

the game goes on like this but if sumone fucks up then 3 fingers need to be drunk and ur name changes which confuses things even more

Names:
0 mistakes - bruce
1 mistake - sheila
2 mistakes - whack another shrimp on the barby
3 whack another shrimp on the barby and giv it to bruce
4 whack another shrimp on the barby and giv it to bruce whos married to sheila
5 tie me kangaroodown
6 ur out the game - down a pint to buy ur way back in

remember only the person who made a mistake changes there name




Thursday 3 March 2011

40 Likes - Final Treatment

1 x 30’ Pilot
BBC 2

Broadcasting yourself has never been easier. I believe audiences require an innovative way to introduce user content and 40 Likes delivers. As web based communities begin to collide with the multi-channel world, 40 Likes endeavours to provide a unique place to present viral visionaries.

Showcasing the best of YouTube from one off shorts by aspiring film makers, to off the wall clips by every day small screen icons, we will be delivering the best-of-net to a lively, 40 strong studio audience, who like YouTube, will be for one night only, our very own subscribers.

40 likes features the latest online morsels in full, prefaced by up and coming Stand-up performer Charlie Meyrick* in his own inimitable presentation. 

Our host will introduce contributors from the web and invite the 40 audience members to pick the cream of the crop during the shows finale.

The episode will be formatted into a series of links, which will be separately broadcasted onto YouTube in the form of playlists:

The pilot show will include:

Comments
A sideways look at a compilation of the funniest/strangest/badly spelt comments the tube has to offer.

New Talent
A place for new music to be found and shared liked and disliked. An exciting new band will perform live.

Animation
A smorgasbord of quirky clips to enlighten and enrage, brighten or darken your day.

Crowd sourcing
User-based films and shorts from big brands to Indy bands 

Audience Interaction
Opening the floor for the audience, they will rate they’re best clips, like or dislike.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

"I like the idea of making films about ostensibly absolutely nothing. I like the irrelevant, the tangential, the sidebar excursion to nowhere that suddenly becomes revelatory. That's what all my movies are about. That and the idea that we're in possession of certainty, truth, infallible knowledge, when actually we're just a bunch of apes running around. My films are about people who think they're connected to something, although they're really not."
Jean-Luc Godard


"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

Anton Chekhov

Editing is as important as the writing. "I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil."

Truman Capote

Ways to Create a twist

Chekhov’s Gun – The term Chekhov’s Gun refers to author Anton Chekhov’s assertion that “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” With that quote Checkhov combined several writing tips into a very simple statement. Don’t dwell on frivolous detail, foreshadow your outcomes, and hide your revelations in plain site. A good example of this is the rock hammer from The Shawshank Redemption. Andy receives it for seemingly innocent purposes but it ends up being key to the plot. The twist relied on that bit of foreshadowing to provide a third option to the question of whether Andy was dead or alive in his cell.

Unreliable Narrator – When the point of view character influences the narrative by filtering information or manipulating the understanding of events from the preceding story, that character becomes an unreliable narrator. A perfect example of this is The Usual Suspects in which the story is told to investigators by Verbal who leads them to the wrong conclusions. Another is Fight Club, whose narrator is so unreliable, even he doesn’t know it until late in the story. The twist, of course, comes when we in the audience get to see things as they actually are, rather than the manifestations of the narrator.

Anagnorisis - This most common twist involves revealing the hidden nature of a character or object. Think Luke Skywalker’s parentage, Charles Kane’s sled, or when Neo wakes up in The Matrix. All of these twists rely on a reveal of information that completely changes the story up to and from that point. Neo can’t understand the world as he used to before he learned what the matrix was, nor could Luke hide from the conflict created between the evil in his family and his mission to destroy the empire. This twist is perhaps also the easiest to deploy as all it requires is for the author to withhold the vital information until the climax.

The Least Likely Villian – Another commonly used twist is to conceal the villain throughout the story and in the end reveal that it was someone known the the protagonist all along, someone above suspicion. Watchmen uses this twist, revealing Adrian to be the mastermind behind the killings and, ultimately, a plan to fake an alien invasion. Typically this twist is combined with a red-herring, a person of interest pursued by the good guys but is really just a misdirection.

Non-Linear Timeline – Similar to in medias res but a more extreme example, non-linear timelines can lend surprise to otherwise straightforward plot elements, sometimes even reversing the entire timeline so that resolutions precede their conflicts. Pulp Fiction makes use of a jumbled timeline, telling multiple stories while beginning and ending at the same point in time.

Ambiguous Ending – When curtain falls or the last page is turned, does the audience really know what’s happened? What will happen? Leaving the story open ended lets the reader infer a meaning to the events in the story that can constitute a twist or a straight forward interpretation. See the series finale of The Sopranos. Does Tony live? Does the family carry on with its business as before? Or does he die violently either there in front of his children or at some later time? The twist is that we don’t know and we have to imply. This can work well, as in the close of Inception, or create controversy, like the aforementioned Sopranos.

Not Over Yet РWhen the action winds down and our characters are taking a breather in the d̩nouement, the forces of evil spin up again to let the audience know that while this story is over, the war is far from won. Most recently seen in The Crazies when our heroes escape only to walk right back into the same trap.

Hero to Villain - When after the ultimate battle the hero emerges victorious but changed into the very thing he was fighting. This is a twist most often associated with horror stories. The filmed version of 30 Days of Night has the hero turning into a vampire in order to defeat the invading hoard. In Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick himself becomes leader of the necromongers after killing the Grand Marshall.

Deus Ex Machina – From the Latin “god from the machine”. This twist comes when an unsolvable problem is miraculously resolved by an un-foreshadowed intervention. Unless used for comedic affect, this strategy is frowned upon. A useful implementation of the technique can be found in Monty Python and The Holy Grail when, while being chased by an animated monster, the animator has a heart attack and they are miraculously saved.