Which was a surprisingly good film considering it was a vehicle for the Fab Four. It has some brilliant talent in the supporting cast, but it's the writer, Alun Owen, who deserves the credit for building a real story into something so blatantly commercial. Owen has an impressively huge list of TV drama credits in a 30 year writing career, as well as being an actor. It just proves you can do a good job even when faced with major constraints - he was nominated for an Oscar for the film. And it was a taste of things to come: a mockumentary.
But that has nothing to do with this blog.
Last week I said my main concerns were: Job interview; finishing and sending the 1p pitch for Winter; promoting myself as a writer; and writing 13 x 300 words on French Wine for a website.
The job interview did not materialise (the company decided they could do it themselves), so I've been applying for jobs again, hum-de-ho. I did finish the Winter 1p pitch and sent that - I was told it was fine and passed up the line, so I need to forget that for now. I did the promotion thing (two producers and Red Productions), received suprising and good news from my old producer friend and I also got a rejection from an agent (I have no problem with the rejection, but I was amused by the irony that he felt he couldn't represent me because "Monsters" was too "youthful" in style, not his thing, when I happen to know he's 20 years younger than me). Finally I have written eight of the French Wine pages, which my business partner has popped up on the website. Oh yes and, not in my list, I have been working on my pet programming project, preparing it for launch.
Why is this blog titled the way it is?
Yesterday I drove 450 miles, waking at 5:30am and on the road within the hour. It was the annual Christmas present run, so with wife, kids and dog packed into car we headed south. But the first stop was way beyond my parents house, as I went to Reading to pick up clothes and other stuff from the flat - including my notes on the Air script. We reached Reading at 10:00am (one short stop on the way).
Must say that our dog, still a puppy but now a "medium sized" dog was very good and slept most of the time.
We spent half an hour trying to escape from Reading. I've only driven in Reading twice before and I don't know the one-way systems. Every time I tried to go in one direction I ended up going a different way. Eventually we left by a completely different route.
Spent quality time with my parents, saw my younger sister, husband and kids: The puppy was by now hyper, luckily my parents have a good garden which is puppy-proof so we were able to give him a run in the garden.
I have had three sisters: The younger one is an optician, she's 10 years my junior and we have always got on. It was her husband who was part of the crew who made my 10 minute, really bad, short. (Actually, he was the crew.) My next sister, Caroline, is 10 years older than me (yes, really) and she is an artist in Australia.
I had another sister, Susan, a year older again, who also lived in Australia, but she died of Pancreatic cancer. The particular trouble with this form of cancer is that by the time it's noticed it's usually untreatable and kills relatively quickly.
Anyway. We had a nice chat, a delicious dinner and came home by a slightly more direct route. We drove past a very nasty multi-vehicle crash on the other carriageway somewhere near Nottingham. It was a long, tough day especially as my driving muscles are out of shape. I was shattered and had an early night.
So, this week: Apply for more jobs (though I'm not hopeful this close to Christmas and I'm in Birmingham Thursday to Sunday visiting friends); Finish the wine pages; Get the first draft of Air wrapped up to the full number of pages; finish the amendments to the Pet Project; watch the DVDs I ordered for research purposes.
What's on the turntable? "Guitar & Piano" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey", a brilliant album originally but this is a rehearsal extra which contains all the themes from the entire album played in one go on piano and guitar (surprisingly). Complete with the occasional bum note and Gordon saying the entries and key changes.
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