I am sharing this rare interview with Stuart and Mark that I recorded after a screening of EXAM, a cracking British thriller set in one room. Mark, who died a few days ago, was a very close friend and also the editor of EXAM. I just wanted to share this footage as so little exists […]
Next Saturday I am hosting a special screening of my debut feature film ‘I Am The Prize’ along with in depth discussion on how I did it and how you can to. So… Making a micro-budget comedy feature film in 21 days is nothing if not educational. Here are my top 7 learnings: 1. Lack […]
The film market can sometimes be seen as a battle for eyeballs between the studios and lowly independent filmmakers – a kind of David versus Goliath showdown. There is no way your no-budget indie will ever make as much money as a studio film. No way you’ll ever be as well-known, and no way you’ll […]
As creative people we often beat ourselves up. We could have done more. We should have done more. Everyone else seems to be doing so much better. Hmmmm. Social media amplifies this as we watch other people share their successes with us. Even though we know these are often rose tinted, heavily edited, photo filtered […]
Over the last few weeks we have been making a Christmas film, commissioned and funded by Speak Life. It’s kind of what would happen if Meet The Parents bumped up against actual first century Nativity, set in Richard Curtis World of London. Episode one just went live (watch on this page) and has at this […]
Guest post by Ewan Thomas, Writer / Director I started working in the film industry 10 years ago, in post-production. But I’d always wanted to shoot my own film, so I moved to London wanting to “make it” as a film director. Shoot my first feature film. This means facing challenges and obstacles – so […]
Recently I was invited to introduce ‘Arthur and Merlin’ at the BFI, a new British fantasy epic shot on a remarkable budget. I asked director Marco Van Belle to share some of his experiences so if we choose to shoot an dark ages epic in the woods, we’ll know what we are in for! Over […]
Library music is a great resource for filmmakers. I am a huge fan of Audio Network with their simple and hugely cost effective pricing. I used them first (and extensively) on my Oscar shortlisted film ‘Gone Fishing’ (though not all music was Audio Network, but ALL was library music). However, one down side of library […]
Why You Should Consider Virtual Filmmaking For Your Next Project Guest blog post by Hugh Hancock, filmmaker and author of Machinima for Dummies Everyone knows that it’s impossible for micro-budget filmmakers to make a CGI animated movie, right? It’s horrendously expensive. It’s brutally slow – hours of rendering for every frame. It’s so technical that […]
A few weeks back I went to the BBC to record a lively debate on the state of British indie filmmaking, with Dominic Brunt and Marc Price. You can listen to the podcast above. Dominic Brunt is a TV actor turned director, whose recent release Before Dawn is receiving critical acclaim and Marc Price hit […]
Free or near free online digital tools allow us to create amazing web presences now. Our companies, our projects and even ourselves are well served by these online tools that can help convey what we are trying to achieve for almost nothing. But at some point, we all have to enter the physical world, meet […]
‘Spaced’, ‘Hot Fuzz’, ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim’… Edgar Wright at the London Screenwriters’ Festival! At the eleventh hour, Edgar agreed to join us at the festival and delivered an inspiring session to a crammed cinema of screenwriters and film makers. Please remember to add your comments on the interview below. If you […]
As a film maker I am in the business of communication. It is the cornerstone of my business. Communicating big ideas with the world. Communicating stories with financiers, backers, actors, producers and broadcasters. And communicating with my community, sharing my journey and sometimes asking for help. As I write this I am downloading 79 emails. […]
Dave Reynolds, who you may recall from The Production Office, finally released his horror movies Zomblies on YouTube, and so I asked him to write me his top ten tips for shooting Zombie movies. You can watch the FULL MOVIE above too (remember to go full screen and switch to HD). Dave and his team […]
Being in a room with 370 energised, passionate and determined film makers for a whole weekend is something that inevitably creates an electric atmosphere of possibilities. And while many of the film makers present have been thanking me for their own experience and breakthroughs at the Guerilla Film Makers Masterclass, I have been reflecting on […]
Following last weeks post where I offered blog readers the contracts you could use on your film, I thought I would add a list of tips for contracts. I called it the ‘Top Ten’, but of course, like any contract negotiation, that expanded…! So it’s a top fourteen! You can read about the free film […]
Following last weeks successful podcast with IndieGoGo’s Danae Ringelmann (listen here), I promised I would follow up with a series on crowd funding. This is the second in that series, the final one coming next week in the form of a specific ‘how to’ article, but for now, here is a podcast I recorded today […]
So much has been blogged, ranted and hyperbole-ed over the past week or so after Amazon announced its big new idea, Amazon Studios. Many eloquent people, not least John August, have added to the debate, so I will try to avoid what has been said before. And I will keep it short too as we […]
This week has been a white knuckle ride for me. I am writing this with a pounding head from the workload, the stress and the queasy feeling of being pulled backwards, forwards, up and down… There were so many times when I paused and turned to Judy Goldberg and would say… ‘this is it, this […]
The dust is settling on our frantic Corporate Film and I feel a little like I have been at war for three weeks – but earned some money for the extended script development process that sits ahead of us. So much has happened with our, as yet, unannounced feature film project too – contracts have […]
Sara has been busy submitting to festivals and we have had a huge response from certain groups. Broadly speaking, we have been unsuccessful in the UK and Europe, and very successful in the USA, especially California. We in fact have a nexus of festivals culminating in three, yes THREE award ceremonies in Arizona and LA […]
With dread in my heart, I approach now, the writing of the next project… And I take the first step… While I can write, I find it very hard. Much harder than I think many other writers do. I find it extremely draining, emotionally and physically. And there is a maximum of about three to […]
Last night, editor Ediie Hamilton came round to my flat to watch the directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven that I had rented on BluRay from Amazon (it's an improvement over the original cut for sure as it makes sense and does not feel rushed). It stopped playing three times as we watched, due to […]
I have just mailed out to the Seminar and Premiere guests for Gone Fishing… We still have some places left so if you want to come, click here… You can read more about this course here too… Welcome to the Gone Fishing Premiere and Seminar, January 12th, 2007 at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly (map and directions […]
Having just completed the Masterclass in Vancouver, I decided to head up to the hills (Rocky Mountains actually, and nothing like a hill) and rest before starting work on my redraft of Rocketboy – with a view to possibly resetting the film in North America. My redraft is the second part of the ‘Gone Fishing’ […]
