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Drafting Invisible Girl

27/8/2014

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This holiday weekend, I spent the whole of Saturday and Monday writing a different short script for the ishorts deadline. As I was “with muse” for the first time in months, I turned my attention briefly to Invisible Girl to try and shoulder my way through the script notes I received from Lucy a few months ago.

Rather than reading through my last abandoned draft with the same despair I had when I left it, I read it eagerly and GOT what needed to happen in order for it to click. I could read off the page where the problems were BEFORE I referred back to Lucy’s notes.

As it was, the notes were enacted in about 45 minutes as I reengaged with the characters and the story and a new draft was sent out to the interested parties within the hour.

I’ve had a couple of people come back already – one Lucy, with two slight “have you thought about this” notes and two, Judy – my good old LSF buddy – who I am committed to put a script into ishorts with. Both positive. Both “I get it”. Both “it’s almost there”.

We are, on Invisible Girl, for the record on draft ten. I reckon it’s about 90% there. And it’s the last 10% tweak that will make the difference. It’s the sense check, comedy pass, director pass, logistical pass, characterisation pass and “anything I can think off to make sure I’d be happy to send it to my dream actors to ask if they want to be involved” pass.  

It goes to show me two things – I am a slow learner, by the way, and need to re learn this lesson once every six months or so.

1)      Time gives perspective on scripts – you need to let scripts marinade and you need to give yourself the perspective to be able to react to the notes sanely and rationally. IF you dash in feet first and try and “fix” something you don’t agree is broken, you’ll fuck it up.

2)      Scripts will “pop” in when ready – Take the other script I spent a considerable amount of time on Saturday and Monday on – it’s called Dans le Boudoir and is about Body Image and Boudoir Photography. I’d called about four writer friends at the tail end of last week about this idea AND spoken at length to my friend Mel about Boudoir Photography to get the insights I needed from her angle. I love the idea, I know what I’m trying to do but the script is not right, the story is not working…it too will need the perspective marinade and a whole heap of thinking time before I can be happy with it.


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The Power of Deadlines

21/3/2014

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Last week has proved to me how powerful a deadline can be. I already know this - from setting dates for shooting and working toward it - but this week took my belief and reinforced it ten fold. 

Shit happens. It happens everyday to everyone but for writers sometimes that shit is the difference to whether they go find some time in their own head and get something written, or whether they decide it's all too hard and don't write, thus missing an opportunity.

Stuff was happening all around me. At work - a high pressured contract was reaching delivery point, this week I had three meetings with very senior figures in a not insubstantial organisation to show progress and demonstrate what happens next. Family wise - death of an aunt, tooing and frooing on arrangements and spinning plates to keep eye on arrangements for a funeral.

In the midst of this, last Friday was the ifeatures deadline. I'd already bowed out of writing one treatment as I got a bit too carried away thinking I was further on than I was with it - so the second treatment, Project O, which I was developing with Producer Roxy Holman HAD to happen.

Come Monday the treatment was nowhere near where it needed to be and I was running out of time, patience and ideas with it.

The easier thing to do - with some perfectly valid excuses - would be to politely explain I couldn't do it but I chose instead to stick with my commitment to writing the treatment and making it happen.

I pulled in an SOS favour from Lucy Hay on Monday night concerned that the latest draft was a turd. While not an 100% turd, her notes confirmed the plot - as I laid it out - had the skits.  Roxy confirmed with a set of eerily similar notes - my take, if twelve Russians tell you your drunk, stop drinking! 

I stripped it back to the concept and started rebuilding the story block by block - from here I sent over a potted new structure to the two of them. It was on the right track, but with a few more  notes, I fluffed it even further. A near all nighter and a lot of coffee, the treatment was with Roxy for Friday Morning.

//As a side point, the above ability to strip it back to concept and rebuild can - in my honest and humble opinion - only happen fully when you are at a treatment stage with the idea. The moment you start getting into first full drafts etc, you're married to how it happens and then need a shit load of distance to change things.//


I have no idea what it will do in I features - I hope it goes through. It's a brilliant scheme and I'd love to see Project O developed further but the process to getting it to this point has been great for me already. 

I did it! I fucking delivered on something that at the beginning of the week most people would walk away from. And when you are trying to transition from "amateur with credits" to "professional seeking payment", you have to pull out the stops and deliver on things even when you don't want to, when the circumstances around you give you excuses not to, and when everyone else would have walked away.

You have to dig deep. No-one says this shit is easy but few tell you how damn hard and draining it is. You have to keep turning up, when you don't want to.

Bottom line - even if it doesn't get into ifeatures - the story is better, the treatment is better, I hit the deadline, the producer knew I delivered and the project has a momentum. That to me is a win.

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The Green Door - Top 10% in Blue Cat

2/2/2014

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Thrilled to find out today that The Green Door is in the top 10% of the Blue Cat Screenplay contest.

Pretty damn good. I've had some great traction with The Green Door, I know it needs another redraft but so far

1) It was staged and won the Women's Work festival in Chicago
2) It was a finalist in the 1 in 10 screenplay contest
3) It narrowly missed Nicholls Quarter Finalists (of 7000 entries - of which the top 300 go through, it was in the 300-400 bracket)

4) It got me into the Edinburgh Film Festival Talent Lab

Not bad for a Spec - the Quarter Finalist are announced on 15th Feb, so fingers crossed until then.


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The Green Door - Finalist in the One in Ten Contest

3/11/2013

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Having just about come down from the fabulous reading Pride Film and TV did on The Green Door in Chicago, I got another bit of good news on the script this weekend.

It is now one of 12 finalists in the One in Ten screenplay contest, which champions the best of LGBT scripts worldwide.

I'm really pleased about this and am hoping with the great insight the staged reading provided to do another draft before taking it forward.


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The Green Door wins Chicago Women's Work festival 

20/9/2013

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Just got back from the Windy City, where The Green Door won the Women's Work festival. Thank you to everyone involved in staging this production. It was amazing to watch and amazing to get the audience feedback at the end of the reading.

After Cancer Hair is shot and in post, I'm going back to do a rewrite on The Green Door based on your comments. In the meantime, I'm still enjoying being the winner!

Check this out WINNER WOMENS WORK 

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The Green Door performed in Chicago

27/8/2013

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Delighted to announce that one of my feature specs "The Green Door" is being performed in Chicago next month as part of the Women's Work festival.

Really keen to see it interpreted by another director and brought to life by actors in the states.


The Green Door is a love story between two women that spans 50 years.

On the brink of marriage, Lina, a naïve and sheltered 20 year old, meets and starts an intense affair with enigmatic tomboy Christine at the famous Gateways Club in 1960s London. When she is forbidden from seeing Chris by her conservative family, Lina must decide to live the life she wants with Chris and doom her family to financial ruin or the life they choose for her without Chris. Told in both the past and present, we follow 20 year old Lina in the prime of her life and Lina in her late 60s, living with the consequences of her decision and at both times struggling to find her place in the world.



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Spare Change in Virgin Media Shorts 

18/7/2013

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A great little short I wrote and produced last year, Spare Change, has just been uploaded to Virgin Media Shorts. Have a look and give it a vote!

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/film/5323/spare-change#.Ueg7i23Ek_g

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Me For My Father Shortlisted for BBC Opening Lines 

15/3/2013

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I love it when a plan comes together. Fresh off the back for being in the top 100 scripts for the 12/13 Collabor8te scheme, my little short story/script "Me for my Father" is now shortlisted for the BBC Opening Lines strand. This is where up to 3 short stories are turned into Radio Plays for newbie writers such as myself by the BBC.

I'm really pleased about this. "Me for My Father" is going to be made this year with Producer Sean Langdon, hopefully where it was set, in and around Lanarkshire, Scotland.


It's about a young lad, on the verge of becoming a teenager, who has to take his fathers place as a pallbearer at a family funeral. The funeral, and the subsequent wake, brings a mysterious stranger into the family circle and dark, deep secrets are revealed. Told through the young lad's eyes, its about being an outsider in your own family and feeling like you never quite belong. 
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Plan A? 

15/3/2013

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The State of Greenock

15/3/2013

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Just goes to show what a good ear for dialogue and a creative brain can do. This former LSFer is now nominated for a Bafta because of this. Well done Gavin Grant - visit Gavin's website here
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    Gail Hackston is a filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. Her blog is about getting things made in the UK Film Industry.

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