Stayed up really late last night. The Finns, my partner Mia and her friend Mikko, went to see one of Mia's Finnish friends in the UK, Tonya. They were out till 2am, and I was up when they called so I went to get them in the car. After we got home we watched "Lost" season 2 episode 9 and something called "Prison Break" which I'm not really into yet but I haven't seen as many as M&M. I got the season 1 disc so we'll see.

I'm really buzzing with ideas at the moment. All thoughts of "Cheese Food" are on hold, although I may keep it as a backup plan. Basically I'm going to film something in the three weeks of Spring Break. That's my resolve. I will write something, probably my vampire movie idea "The Sacrament", and crew it and film it over the break. That will leave me the Summer to edit and post process it.

(A mock up of what I have in mind)

It occurred to me that in this day and age there's no excuse for not getting a film idea you have in the can. You can write it, film it or even make an animated film of it, all on the computer without any cost or outside interferance. So there really is no excuse. So what IS my excuse? Why have I gotten to the age of 45 and not gotten at least one finished piece of film of my own into any kind of can, physical or virtual? I've made a lot of other people's material, helped a lot of people get their visions into life, and advised on many hundreds of small projects. Why is it so hard to spare the time to make a piece of art for myself?

Well manifold reasons. Things have been tough lately, and looking after kids and trying to make ends meet are full time jobs. That being said I'm a firm believer that if you want to do something badly enough you will MAKE the time. And that's the deal. I will make my film, my vision, my movie, next year without fail.

So what's the big idea? Anyone who knows me will be aware that I'm a huge fan of Hammer horror movies, and I've always wondered why we don't make quality genre movies in this country anymore. It's something we used to lead the world in, and for years we've been sidelined, typecast almost, as just being good for costume dramas or (ugh) "Britcoms", of the ilk of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" or "Love Actually" or some other Hugh Grant or Colin Firth twaddle. Now don't get me wrong I love both those guys and they are always watchable and appealing. And the movies I mentioned are worth watching, quality movies. But it's all so much the damn same. Where are the good action movies? Or the horror? or the Sci-Fi?

But I think I've figured it out. Hammer movies were made on quite small budgets, but used creative movie magic to make up the difference. A lot like Robert Rodriguez does these days with pictures like "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" or "Sin City". Another thing they had in common was using quality actors who could carry a show on their own. Many modern FX driven extravaganzas have effects which have more charisma and acting talent than their stars. Hitchcock too, used many matte paintings, process shots and backprojection effects and minimal sets along with talented and in his case well directed actors.

So is it possible to take the charm and charisma of the Hammer era movies, combine it with the 21st century equivalents of matte painting and process shots, and use talented and charismatic actors to make a new breed of British horror, action and suspense movie? I guess over the next twelve months I'm going to find out. On the plus side, if I succeed I'll be a hero and if I fail nobody will know or care, so it's a win/win.

Plus those are the kinds of movie I want to see, and it's always a good idea, I think, to make movies or write comics or books that you yourself would like to consume, then at the very least you are catering to a market of your peers, and if you're good then you will cover a lot more boundaries and reach a lot more people through the quality of your storytelling.

Either way, I'm committed to making a quality flick for the least money and gaining a certain amount of notoriety or at least a nice DVD I can use as a calling card for the quality of my work. We'll see. As I go along I'll document the different stages either in this blog or in another separate one, and include links to behind the scenes videos and other making of materials.

More of this later, but for now I'm looking forward to a quiet night in with the kids, and a pad and paper on my lap to record any ideas I might have for the script now I'm fired up about it. We're having an impromptu Batman movie festival, watching every Batman movie, including "Batman The Movie" from the 60s and "Batman Begins". And yeah we did watch "Batman and Robin", so what of it?

Later dudes.

Thank god it's Friday.

Tough week. Feel like I'm rolling a huge sock of porridge up a hill.

Glad to slump into a chair and forget the whole damn thing for a weekend.

Still not really getting enough sleep, but getting better. Still feeling that muzzy, muddle headed feeling. Thinking I might actually be coming down with something...

Starting to have an idea that "Cheese Food" might not be the best movie to start with. I'm starting to get the idea I might get back into my vampire feature idea. "Cheese Food would make a really nice little short film, but there's really not enough in there for a feature. I've had a bit of a prod in that someone asked me if it would be possible to make a feature length movie for under £20,000. I said hell yes, because they used to do that all the time in the golden age. Okay so salaries have gone up, but in real terms what you lose in salaries you gain in technology. And besides a creative cinema brain costs nothing and cuts so many corners you wouldn't believe it...

I feel a rant coming on but I'll maybe save that for Saturday when I got more time.

Ciao!

Another day teaching. Really tired at the moment. Mikko is over from Finland so it means I get up at 6am, go to work, come back around 6pm then stay up watching stuff till 12 midnight or so, and repeat the process till you crash your car... haven't crashed yet but not for want of trying. Must get more sleep.

Zzzzzzzz

Having crept over to get the pro camera yesterday afternoon, I was fully prepared for this morning's lesson. I gave them a tour of this big old Sony UVW video camcorder, explaining the focus, aperture, zoom, and how to handle it balanced on your shoulder. I also told them a little bit about the student video project next term.

This afternoon I had too many jobs and not enough time to do them. Then I had loads of time and nothing to do. I have a pick Mikko up at 9pm tonight at Bristol Airport, so I'm kinda kicking my heels till then. I might grab my colleage Nigel and head out for one of Clifton's nicer pubs for a couple of hours.

Spent a good deal of time on the phone with my bank trying to arrange to add a bit on my loan to tide us over till the house gets sold. I'm going to be glad when all this is sorted out. Selling the house is going to solve a lot of long standing money problems. Plus I'd really like Mia and I to move to a place which is our own rather than my old family home. Too much of the past in that place, too many happy memories, and unhappy memories which make the happy ones seem sad and self deluding by comparison. I want some new memories, ones which belong to me and over which I have some control. The past sure is tense, as Don van Vliet once said.

Feeling a bit under the weather today, slightly dizzy and congested, like I'm coming down with a headcold. Well, after the lucky and happy days I've had recently, I was due a downer. Maybe this cold is natures way of making me hunker down and weather the coming weeks. I've got to get my proposal for my book in by the end of the week. It's got to be good because I want to do the book, not only for the money but also for the kudos. Plus as previously stated it's payback for the book that got away. Having touble making my proposal sound sincere and not a little desperate. Plus this headcold coming on is making it a bit hard to concentrate. It never rains.

Okay, feeling a bit down, time for pepping up. What do I really like about my life right now? Well Mia and I are getting on great right now. I fell in love with her eyes, and they still have power to move me. I love having my kids around all the time. Okay so M and I don't have as much time together as we used to, but I really missed them when they lived with their mum. I was with them all their life, working at home as I did, and got used to being able to see them whenever I liked. So I'm in love with my children again, which is great. Even though they sometimes get on my tits. What else? I'm loving my new Gerber Suspension multitool which I use at work. It's a toolkit in a pouch. I like my new phone, Samsung E350, which I got as a free upgrade. I like the new show "My Name Is Earl" which we watched the pilot for last night, and loved a lot. Jason Lee is so cool. Oh and "Lost" which is still mysterious and powerful even a ways into season 2. Oh, not to forget "Medium" which is like warm televisual cocoa with serial killers sprinkled on top like marshmallows. I love my life. I have been known to say I hate my life, especially recently with all the money troubles. But basically my life is great. If I were rich I'd be the happiest guy on Earth.

But pointless wishing for riches. You got to be happy anyway to be happy with money cos it certainly doesn't make you happy for very long. In that way it's like drugs, the law of diminishing returns. You get a high, but then you need more money/drugs, and so the cycle repeats. Yeah, so if you're listening, gods and good luck spirits, just £100,000 instead of £1,000,000...

Oh and found a really cool picture on the Internet. Elvira, mistress of dark, a recent picture in her civilian clothes.



She looks so cute and mumsy I want to hug her. Very far from the spider loving, vampire princess of yore. I adore gothic looking women, more so than normal looking women mostly, but I actually prefer her like this. I wonder how old she is now... I'd say looking closely at the picture mid to late forties? Hmm. What say you, IMDB?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005308/bio

1949???? Mother of monkey! Either that's an old photo or the dates are wrong. She can't be 56! Can she? Wow.

Mondays. Can't live with 'em. End of sentence.

Spent the morning trying to get into our recording studios in Clifton village to get an old professional video camera out as a visual aid for my session with the first years. Failed miserably, nobody around to unlock the studio. Decided to wing it and instead of letting them look and feel a real camera I decided to draw one on the whiteboard and describe it to them. Decided to cut the lesson short and make the time up in another session this week.

Went back over to Christchurch studios again to get the camera. Secured the cam and hopped back into the car, and ran over to the Reverend Neville Boundy's house to straighten out his computer. Got some damn stupid shutdown bug/virus. Going to have to nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure.

It snowed!!! Real snow flurries and a full blown blizzard on the way home. Phoned the kids to find out how they were liking it and it wasn't snowing at home... weird. Drove home in full snow, which abated a bit as I got closer to home. When I arrived at my house the snow had stopped. I parked, and in the time it took me to walk across the road the storm blew in. I'd raced it home and won!

We have a friend, Mikko, coming in from Finland tomorrow so we spent a bit of time this evening arranging the bedrooms to accomodate him. Mikko comes over every few weeks usually, but this is the first time he's been over for a month or so. Looking forward to seeing him as I kind of get used to having him around.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!

Quite a quiet Sunday, did a little food shopping, gassed up the car, set up Hattie's computer which was spywared and virused to buggery and back, made a roast dinner and HEY won £16 on Euromillions. Woo-hoo. Okay not the 16 million I was expecting but it'll fill a hole.

Teaching this week. Got the first years again this time teaching them basic video camera technique with an old UVW pro Sony camera. Should be fun. Looking forward to the video project next term now, and planning for it. I'll post details of that closer to the time in case any of them read this and get a head start.

Laters.