London. 1977. Dread. The Enfield Poltergeist is streaming on Apple TV+ October 27. Today the trailer drops for a project I have been dying to share about since before the pandemic. Last year, just as I had begun shooting splinter unit on Mission: Impossible 7, another project went into production. The Enfield Poltergeist is a […]
Your Mission, should you choose to accept it… July 16th, 4pm, The Ealing Project, W5 As you may know, I run the London Screenwriters’ Festival, but I am a filmmaker first and foremost. Last year I was given the opportunity to direct Splinter Unit on Mission: Impossible 7 and 8, which I of course accepted. […]
Every few years we reach out to our delegates and ask how we can best serve them through the festival and our related courses and projects. Now that we are in a post pandemic world, we have seen dramatic changes in the industry, in our writing community, and in the way that people want to […]
Voice recordings with excessive background noise or reverb, have always been a challenge if you don’t have the right kit in the heat of the moment, or the location is uncontrollable from a sound perspective. And bad sound makes ANY film or video less watchable. Adobe are now testing a new tool that replaces sound […]
I just ran a firewalk for Shine PND and one of the Warrior Mums was kind enough to write a post about her journey. Over to Laura Wyatt… During one of my first sessions at Shine there was a serious buzz of excitement from Lauraine! She’d just been part of a group of Shine mums […]
Last week I recorded a fabulous Desert Island Disks inspired show for Screen To Screen on Soho Radio. It’s a great listen to play in the background with some personal favourite music to boot. Hosted by the dynamic duo of Liz McMullen and Steve Harcourt (Liz who I met through The Impact). It’s a true […]
About three weeks ago my Facebook account was hacked. I don’t want to go into details of the ‘how’ as it was a sophisticated hack, and I am still unsure of how they did it. The bottom line is that the platform is very far from secure. Tumbling from this I then also lost my […]
One week in and not we are not even a third of the way there… LondonSWF365 seems to be doing exactly what we had hoped… Elevating energy, inspiring action, feeding the creative soul, loading the mind, and connecting like minded folk with their tribe. It’s exceeding even my own expectations and I had VERY high […]
Buckle up… Nearly a month of screenwriting events begin tomorrow at 7:30pm, all live and available to watch on demand after for one year. We have over 100 sessions set up and around 50 world-class speakers. Now, here’s the biggest reason to join us: Momentum. For many of us, February will be a tough month, […]
You can now get the book on Amazon HERE. As ever, debate among the judges was heated, but we finally arrived at a list! Please do leave a comment on this post, and if you are not on the list, keep going, it’s an insane job to judge art. We may also sneak some bonus […]
Last week we premiered the first of four Xmas films we made, that film, episode one, is about to sail past 200k views. Here for your pleasure is Episode Two, The Girlfriend. Expect a blog soon by DP Don McVey about how we created the Nativity in the most extraordinary of limited conditions. Onwards and […]
As a kid who loved horror films, seeing ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ when I was WAYYYY too young, on a scuzzy VHS tape down at my friends house (cos this family had the only on VHS player in the road), is an event seared in my memory. I was shocked, stunned, upset, excited… I felt […]
When was the last time you backed up all your data, including your scripts? One screenwriter who wrote a script for The Impact 50 lost their work as they accidentally saved the wrong draft on top of their most recent draft. That’s a simple mistake to make, but can be catastrophic. And how many of […]
The Star Wars universe and characters give access to young hearts and minds to powerful truths and beliefs about good and evil. But most importantly for these young hearts and minds, it unlocks and unleashes courage and potential to take a stand for their OWN truths and beliefs. JJ Abrams knows this and there are […]
I want to invite you to something rather extraordinary. This Summer I am running the Guerilla Filmmakers Masterclass one last time and I want you to come and be a part of this final and remarkable chapter. I love the masterclass, I have been teaching it for 15 years now and trained over 3,000 filmmakers, […]
My good friend and cinematographer Vernon Layton shot a film (he was also a producer it) last year called ‘Day Of The Flowers’ and I am planning a Script To Screen event with him and the film very soon, but in the mean time, if you get chance, try and see it on the big […]
One of my favourite parts of the London Screenwriters’ Festival is the Scriptchat section where, after selected sessions, there is an opportunity to go sit round a table with a speaker and chat further with them in an informal setting. More than anything else at the festival, this reinforces the feeling of screenwriters as a […]
The new Guerilla Filmmakers ‘Breaking Into Hollywood Pocketbook’ is now selling well via our site here (http://www.guerillafilm.com/the-hollywood-pocketbook/) (in both hardcopy AND ePub / PDF, as well as Kindle here. I have had several requests for information about sending a spec script to LA, and so I asked Gen her opinion on what trips up a […]
I wrote a Tweet today about how I felt. It said… ‘Success is so often a mirage. The journey is so much more important than the destination.’ In response I received an anonymous message today that put into words with more eloquence than I can muster… Hi Chris, The sad news of Tony Scott’s death […]
Over the last week I suspect I have read over 500 two page scripts for our ‘50 Kisses’ competition – and the whole team (Steven, Vanessa, Tom, Alex, Sal, Gail, Michelle, Alli, Sam and Judy) have read all 1,870 scripts multiple times –and finally, one week late but full ‘re-read’, we will announce the winners […]
If you like the video above, you can get access to the whole four hour seminar online by heading out to http://americanindependentsday.com and signing up free. I hope you enjoy the advice Ted and Christine offer, they have made over 100 movies and won Oscars, BAFTA’s, Sundance, the lot! Onwards and upwards! Chris Jones My […]
Legendary concept artists Ralph McQuarrie died on Saturday, aged 82. For so many film makers of my generation, his artwork fired the imagination and adorned our teenage bedroom walls. And his work was instructive for personally, as it showed how a stunning artwork could bring a story vividly to life, all before a frame of […]
My throat aches, my muscles are seized up and may head pounds. But I feel FANTASTIC! The Guerilla Film Makers Masterclass was an extraordinary success this year, anyone who was there will testify to the magical atmosphere. I am so exhausted right now I stall can’t think straight, but I just wanted to touch back […]
If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. That’s the motto for Guerilla Film Makers for sure… It’s also what happened to me this Christmas… one highlight being the moment the locking wheel nut key, the only way to remove a wheel on a car (my tyre had blown out), slipped and bounced out […]
Above – short film ‘Treevenge’. Beware it is a SHOCKER and VERY GRAPHIC! But also hilarious! Enjoy! (Mum, don’t watch it, you won’t sleep for till next Christmas!) To celebrate Christmas in a way befitting guerrilla film makers, I thought I would share this short film ‘Treevenge’, plus an interview with the film makers from […]
