Keynote speech

Been asked to deliver a keynote speech at this conference in May.

defining contributions website screengrab

 

Really looking forward to it. Got a number of my jokes, gags and routines worked out. Just need to get the serious stuff in there now!

2011 review in stats

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

My 2011 creative year in Review

As 2012 looms a quick look back at my creative year. Many projects started with none come to production fruition. Some good collaborations this year though that will hopefully remain ongoing: Poonam Brah, Kate Chapman and Bianca Winter, Oval House, EMTAC, Vinta Morgan to name but a few individuals who I hope to be working with, in some capacity, over the next 12 months and beyond.

2012 will bring the closing of Theatre Writing Partnership which will be a loss but I’m confident that out of the political, cultural, financial shenanigans occurring, will come good, interesting, challenging, useful opportunity for those of who who strive to make that happen. I believe that change is the natural state and some of us embrace this natural order to grow and learn.

Here’s to a productive 2012 for all those who wish one. Cheers

Spike Lee’s New Joint

Spike Lee’s new joint Red Hook Summer just been announced as a premiere at Sundance. Not all of his films are released now as standard in the UK so be interested to see if this one makes it over.

 

I suspect his oldboy remake should ii happen will as that film has a certain following and there, like Fincher’s Tattoo film has an inbuilt , thouhg not to the same extent, pre-recognition factor.

rewriting

About to embark on a rewrite of 57 Images of My Father. Done the sketching on paper and next step is to fire up Final Draft and get cracking on it. I’ve posted many a time on my love of rewriting and I’ve found this post that discusses The Rewrite in detail. You may or may not agree with how he structures the rewrite process, doesn’t matter, have a think about what you’ve read anyway.

Here’s a John August post on the issue.

The promise of the rewrite is very sweet. (Hoffman, 2006)

57 Images of My Father: Script Analysis

Come up with a radical restructure of my play 57 Images of My Father after the script analysis work I did on it last night.
I love rewriting so the prospect of embarking on this rewrite is good and my super busy period comes to an end in a few weeks so mentally carving the time out then. A lot of the material in the current draft will remain with the aim of the rewrite, as a result of the analysis, to remove the thematic or logically inconsistencies identified.
Bianca Winter of twp is on the case as per ideas as to how the ‘finding some cash/partners/venues’ stage progresses.

Audition Piece Update

Had a really good teleconference today with actor and now Producer Vinta Morgan and Director Colin Charles. We spoke about the Piece I’ve written Zinc Of A Thing. The piece was written at the request of Vinta as an audition piece and for his website. We agreed the state of play for the piece and the terms for future use. We then had an intense, detailed discussion of the script. All three of us were in different places with one of us being on a train but the technology worked very well.
Vinta had asked us to read the prologue in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man but although I’ve read it twice before once embarked on the prologue I had to read the whole thing. Absolute timeless classic that I urge you to read or re-read as I bet you’ve not read it in years.
The aim is for the guys to film in the next few weeks. Eventually an edit will go up on various websites, including this one.
Tonight’s task is to do a script analysis of 57 Images of My Father a piece I’ve been working on for a while as the next push is to get money bids in and partners onboard over the next couple of months.

The Intemperate Engineer

Finished this book on IK Brunel today.

Brunel Book Cover

He doesn’t come across very well. I was quite surprised because all previous knowledge on him was that the Genius was to the fore. This book does both so the man and the engineer. His stubbornness, mistakes and the unsavoury elements of his character are as perhaps even more prominent than the genius. The book is much more concerned with the trains than the brides and other schemes Brunel was involved in and as such isn’t a particularly well-balanced book as a biography, but the important element, that of the man does come across.

Books- Make that Five

Now onto five as the book I reserved from local libary a year ago arrived.

Brunel Book Cover

the book is mostly in Brunel’s own words so journals, diaries and the like. Reading it for research into the language for a project I am cooking up.

Juggling Books

I’ve found myself reading four books at the moment.

Four Books

Not quite sure how it’s happened but although I know it’s something that alot of people do, it’s not something that I ordinarily do. One at a time normally, two at the most.

The Pele one is the worse so far. Not a great writing job. Struggling to continue with it. It it wasn’t Pele I would have stopped already.  Haven’t read Ellison’s version of the Invisible Man for ages and reading for a new idea of a series of short vignette’s with actor Vinta Morgan. The other two were good cheap buys that struck my interest.

Going to buy and read the new Malcom X biography when the paperback verson is released in March.