Yesterday I recorded this excellent podcast with Giles Alderson and Christian James for the FilmMakersPodcast – we did it in our store room at Ealing studios which is remarkable acoustically dead. We chatted about filmmaking tips and tricks, screenwriting strategies and about being a creative. Give it a listen below. Onwards and upwards! Chris Jones […]
So I just returned from the cutting rooms of ‘Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation’ where I interviewed my good friend Eddie Hamilton about his experience editing the movie, and his journey to this point. I have known Eddie for 20 years now and this podcast is classic Eddie Hamilton advice and worth its weight in gold. […]
‘Creativity is not a talent, it is a way of operating’ John Cleese Following from my post a few days ago on strategies for manifesting creativity, I remembered this excellent seminar from the early nineties with John Cleese on the very same subject. It’s total gold dust from writers and filmmakers and you can listen […]
Ahead of the London Screenwriters’ Festival, I headed up to Warner Brothers studios North West of London to record a podcast with one of the most successful feature film producers in the UK, Paul Webster. Recorded in his production office. Paul was hot from the set of ‘Pan’ (with Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried and Rooney […]
Jen Handorf, veteran of five Brit low budget horror flicks, shared her experience at the London Breakfast Club today. It was an insightful conversation with a producer who has been prolific in production and effective in distribution and sales. Listen to the podcast below… Having worked on so many films, Jen has managed to distil […]
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 […]
I posted a link from ‘Planes Trains and Automobiles’ on Facebook last night (above), as this movie as well as ‘Uncle Buck’, have endured as trusted comedies that, no matter how often I see them, still move me to tears and stitches. What I love about the scene above is the sheer craftsmanship – all […]
For the opening of The Guerilla Film Makers Masterclass, I asked Rhys Davies to speak about his experience making ‘Zombie Undead’, a micro budget horror that he successfully sold in the UK. You can watch the video above. I was particularly pleased in that this session was to be followed by Gareth Unwin and ‘The […]
Yesterday, we hosted a cracking ‘Script To Screen’ event at the Apollo Cinema with writer director Jonathan Newman on the opening weekend of his feature film ‘Swinging With The Finkels’. You can hear the whole podcast by signing up to our ‘Script To Screen’ email list below – just add your email and we will […]
Did you know that the biggest short film market in the world takes place in the heart of France? Just six hours from London, with hotels that cost under 50 Euros a night? Should you go to sell you film? Film Maker Mazin Power decided to throw himself in at the deep end by attending […]
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 […]
I recorded this podcast ahead of our two day documentary workshop at Ealing Studios on September 4th and 5th, to give you a flavour of some of the insights our delegates will be receiving at the workshop. You can get more information about it and read feedback from past delegates at howtomakeadocumenray.co.uk What’s extraordinary about […]
Last Sunday I was a guest on Hollywood based radio show, Film Courage, with David Branin and Karen Worden. I Skyped in for the interview and we enjoyed a full hour of robust film chatter! You can listen to that show here on my blog (using player below). Their show is a terrific and inspiring […]
Film festivals are a great way to platform your film, to get it in front of audiences, and even to help cut deals with distributors. But they are also a quagmire, a cash and time drain, and sometimes, bitterly disappointing. Last year I spent a good six months touring the world with ‘Gone Fishing’ and […]
As Christmas closes in, after three days of editing and mastering the opus of all wedding videos for my girlfriends sister Maria, I can relax into a delightful evening with the final two episodes of ‘Dexter’… Mmmm, lovely Christmas eve! I have had a lot of feedback from the Apple TV blog, mostly about both […]
In a week of loose ends, the kind you get when a production wraps – stuff that’s gone missing needs finding, stuff that you put off as the production dominated your life needs doing, invoices appearing and sifting accounts until it all ties up and of course, a little sleeping, I find myself writing a […]
During the Cannes Film Market, I recorded an audio podcast with Derrin Rammage from Maxim Media, an Arizona based sales company that specialises in ultra low budget horror films – and when I mean ultra low budget, I mean it, kind of around $20k! He always has a huge catalogue of titles that to my […]
During my trip to the PGA Awards a few weeks ago, I hooked up with Sheri Candler, an LA based film marketer. We quickly hit it off and so I recorded a podcast with her, sat in her car of all places (actually it’s a great recording environment). The podcast is about an hour long […]
Last year, film maker friend and writer, Stuart Hazeldine, made his debut feature. You may recall he was good enough to come and speak to us all at the studios, about his experiences in Hollywood as a writer (recently, he wrote Knowing with Nic Cage) – you can listen to the podcast here. So his […]
Last week, I recorded a podcast over Skype with author of Machinima For Dummies writer, Hugh Hancock. The podcast was suggested by Hugh after he took the online Gone Fishing masterclass (you can read his glowing review here), and we discussed many things, including a whole new evolutionary step in film making which I call […]
In the final of our Christmas Podcasts, we have a documentary double bill for you. Last year I interviewed Australian film maker Simon Van Der Spoel about his self funded and very successful doc about Aussie Spitfire Pilots, ‘Spitfire Guardians’ – the trailer is above. Since then it’s been mastered to DVD and you can […]
Right now I feel as busy as I do when I am in actual film production. It’s incredible just how much needs doing for Cannes, for the next project, to sustain all that unpaid work and keep food on the table and a roof over my head! I have been working on the poster, which […]
