Thursday, 25 March 2010

Give up, Given up and Giving up.

14th September ... wow.  That is a very long time ago.  I come back to this near the end of March and i've not even finished pre-production yet.


I'm working on the 2nd draft and the idea has changed completely.  No more documentary - it still involves a news team but a university lecturer instead of random people finding it, i can't quite remember if that was what i put last time but f**k me if it wasn't this is even further ago. 


Giving up is not a good thing, i've found myself doing that throughout my life - i'd never had a role model, anybody to look up to and when i was down i was kicked or left alone.  My teachers at school cared more about the end of the day than their students, which is were it all started to fall!  I began to give up on everything i cared about.  My parents didn't have much money to help me out when i was young in any extra curricular activity but i picked up the Euphonium in Year 2 and after a couple of months gave up with that when i got bored.  Same goes for anything in my later years at school - nothing interested me and i was surrounded not so much by arseholes (well maybe a few) but people who didn't care.  Of course peers is what i learnt most from, and peers is what i didn't have being quite the loner throughout the whole of secondary school.  It didn't help that the education was so messed up in years 10 and 11 we didn't even have a bloody science teacher - just a constant flow of fill ins, a different one each week - couldn't control the class - couldn't teach.  So of course i gave up with secondary school.  A GNVQ, 4 GCSE's.  Fucking beautiful waste of my most important teenage years.


In college i began to make more acquaintances, people actually cared when i talked to them which was a nice change.  But still it wasn't until the 2nd year, or the end of the 1st year when i started to make proper friends.  Actual people i went out with and did stuff with - which seemed like a long time since i did that on a regular basis - i think of primary school.  The damn good times i had there.
The first year of college didn't go as planned, i pretty much followed word by word the advice of my connextions meeting lady at the end of school which was the following:


Her "So Gary, what are you good at?"
Me "Well i'm alright at maths"
Her "Great, you should be an accountant"


Thank you woman for taking a year of my life away from me.  I took Accounting, Maths, Film Studies and Business.


I soon gave up 2/3s throughout that year.  And i decided i'd go for and work for a business, i can't recall the word but it's along the lines of being trained up.  I'll remember later and feel like a prat for not putting that here. Anywho, i tried for a few of them and guess what?  I gave up on them and decided to take the easy route back into College where i picked up Business again, IT and Photography.  For some strange reason i had to do my GCSE in English again because it was below a C, strange because i didn't have to do it in my first year.  I ended up getting a B in that.  And of course throughout the year i slowly yet surely started to give up on my projects after a promising start - especially to photography.  And i swear my lecturer for that gave up on me, i could have been turned around and saved but it was blatant.  I'd ask for help and he'd ignore me and help somebody else - saving me last 'if he had time.'  No use getting pissy now though.  I ended college with 2 E's.  I'm shocked i got in anywhere.


I'd visited many universities but i finally decided on Derby, partly because of the 2 E's i admit but i like the place - i was convinced i would do something worthwhile.  I really enjoyed the 1st year - i worked my arse off, got my first ever A in a module which i was quite proud of.  And of course being in halls my social side grew dramatically, becoming less of a shut out and more of a person to be a good friend with.  Then my 2nd year - it started off so very well.  Motivated as i usually am at the beginning.  I can't quite remember why at the minute but i started to give up a bit in the last few months.  It's always been the case.  I passed thankfully but a few referrals were needed.  I got a merit in my degree (kind of wonder if i didn't need the referrals i'd have got better) which i was happy with.  Then the beginning of this year.  It didn't start off that well with a break up just before the summer which left me a wreck not really caring about ... well anything, at least for a while.  I thought when i came back to ignore everything and go on with it, get everything done and out the way early.  And i gave up, i said fuck the course i don't think i'll be able to make anything of myself in this business.  I stopped attending classes barely touching my work, i felt quite down.  I drank quite a bit, then after a while i met my current lovely girlfriend.  So of course with nothing in my life i devoted quite a bit of my time to her.  Then late Decemeber, i looked back at myself.  I thought very carefully about what i'd been doing for the first time in months and i thought to myself - PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER YOU CRAZY BASTARD!  Who on earth would i turn out to be if i carried on living my life the way i had done for the past 12 years?  I'd end up on the dole, alone, unsuccessful, pathetic, pitiful, unemployed.  And do you know what?  I despite people like that, I don't want myself or anybody around me to be like that.  Living like that is a hell.  So i pulled my boots up, rammed up the volume and started to take my course seriously again.  Of course leaving it so late i had 2 modules i had to finish in a hurry but i got them done in time.  I slowly went off the pace a bit the following months - doing work but not working very hard at them.  Then i got my results back on the same day for my hurried up modules.  Firstly in the morning i got some feedback from my teacher - a B. I was pleased, a smile spread across my face - i couldn't believe it.  I thought to myself - "you lucky so and so." Of course i felt confident i'd passed my other module - the dissertation as i put a bit more work into that than i did my B module.  Later on i checked online - FAIL.  The only fail in the whole damn year.  Great great great.  Put me on a downer for a few days, i couldn't work, i could barely mope around!  Then it sprang to me again - don't give up!  It might be 25% but you can still pass this course with the remaining modules.  And a few weeks later here i am, working my tits off - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to get my lazy past out my system.  Barring my lecturers i've had very little help trying to get the giving up away but its what i expect, at this stage in my life - at 22 i shouldn't have to rely on other people to help me out.


Education failed me and i failed throughout it, but as it comes to an end - i want to succeed.  I want to give myself a good push into the real world.  This is were it gets tricky.








I didn't mean to rant like i did, i don't even think theirs any point to this i just wanted to get it out of my system to the not even probably couple of people who read this.



And i also got my website almost ready to show again.  Here's the prototype (big for for "i'm not sure if it's good enough"):




Oh, yeah the script ... it's getting there!  I may even update this again sometime when i'm good and strong on the project.  For now farewell!  And don't give up!



Monday, 14 September 2009

Documentary, Sci-Fi or Drama?

Documentary, Sci-Fi or Drama? Why not go with both.


The Documentary idea came to me within the past few days, i've spent all my time on this project thinking about a Sci-Fi/Drama involving a couple of young adults who find a capsule and uncover it's origins slowly and surely, eventually finding material inside the capsule. How would a couple of people know how to do this? Would they be on University courses which helps them, heavily involved in Alien conspiracies or both? Well, the easy way around it would to have the experts uncovering everything. And of course the public interest in such a discovery would be immense, so due to these idea's i've decided (for now) to make it in a documentary style.


I'm not sure of the plot. I've not yet started to write the script but it does help to make some rough attempts to help you figure out what could go on in the final piece. Here is short sample i currently have in mind for the beginning of the film:


Start off with a voiceover, News program in full swing with volume turned down.
"At the beginning of 2010, their was one story that encapsulated the world"
News volume rises. Newscaster: "Last night a strange capsule was found outside yadda yadda. It was been taken away to be examined by experts. It is said to be made of material not known to man" Yadda Yadda
"This is the documentary of how it all started"
Documentary starts, follow the whole story.



It has just dawned on me that this could be similar to District 9 (although i've yet to see it), with my initial reaction being ... Ah well, i'll get on with it anyway!

Saturday, 5 September 2009

Starting with the end

Starting to write for a film is always exciting when it gets going. Getting it going is the tricky part, right now i'm starting to write a screenplay for a film about Aliens. Not the film, but the actual conspiray of it. Now i have some great idea's for shots and storylines in my head - but then, unlike my last film i'm taking into consideration of how realistic it will be to shoot. So no spaceships, no actual aliens and especially - no bloody shootouts. This was my failing for Revelation 20:12 (my previous film), it was too ambitious - everybody told me so and i stubbornly went ahead with it anyway. It was supposed to be a half hour film and it ended up just being the following trailer:



I have more or less just begun the writing process and i've decided to keep a small blog about any major events in the film-making process.
So here is the first blog, the start.