Archive | January, 2009
Guerilla Film Makers Masterclass in Australia

Guerilla Film Makers Masterclass in Australia

As part of the Heart Of Gold Festival in Gympie, Eastern Australia in March, I will be running my two day masterclass for film makers (Gone Fishing is also screening too). This will be the first time I have run the seminar in Australia, and it will be a completely new and revised seminar, including [...]

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Postcard from Hollywood

The Santa Barbara Film Festival has kicked off, and what a great town too – a great place to chill out with other film makers. The first screening of Gone Fishing was late last night, and most people left the Q and A session as it was coming up for midnight, so there was no [...]

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Hello Hollywood!

Hello Hollywood!

I have spent the last four or five days literally sleeping 14 hours a day. And right now I FEEL GREAT! I have been to a few parties and taken some meetings – I just love the fact that everyone here is, in some way, part of the film business, or at the very least [...]

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Gone Fishing Seminar Live Online!

Gone Fishing Seminar Live Online!

I am delighted to announce that the Gone Fishing seminar that we shot at BAFTA, at the premiere, is now live on the internet. It’s taken us some time to get it all constructed because it’s so detailed and dense with information. We also went back and reshot some inserts too. But the big reason, [...]

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The Big Aftershock…

The Big Aftershock…

Last night I had my first one… Earthquake that is. The earth shook, the house rattled. Everyone stood very still for a moment. Apparently it was a 3 on the Richter scale, and the epicentre was right beneath us in Santa Monica. So another LA experience is chalked up! Right now I am utterly exhausted. [...]

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First contact after the announcements…

First contact after the announcements…

Over the last 8 hours, I have received an enormous amount of texts, calls and emails. They were from across the whole planet, some from cast and crew, some from friends, other from people who have been following our adventure, and a surprising amount from professional film makers, writers and directors. So many emails in [...]

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So the nominations are in…. 6.20am local time…

After watching live around the globe, many of us dashed to our computers to get to Oscars.com… If you don’t know by now, Gone Fishing was not nominated. We were in the official shortlist of ten films from which the five nominations were drawn. But the judges placed us somewhere between film number six and [...]

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T minus 146 minutes and counting…

It’s 3.00 am in LA and the Oscars are announced in 2 ½ hours from now. I am feeling rather calm all things considered. What will be, will be I guess. I have had a cacophony of text messages ringing in my ear all night, from well wishers and nervously excited collaborators too. The same [...]

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Counting down in the hours now…

Counting down in the hours now…

I am sat here at Terminal Five, Heathrow airport and about to board a plane for LAX. Officially, I am flying over to attend the Santa Barbara Film Festival where Gone Fishing is playing. Unofficially, I am also going to LA to be as close to the Oscars as I can get, for the nomination [...]

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The Deal Is Done…

The Deal Is Done…

Great news. Today we agreed a deal in principle with BOTH Network Ireland (Derry O’Brien) and Shorts International, (seen here, me with Simon Young from SI). We managed to split the rights to get the best of both worlds. Shorts International’s special relationship with the Academy (Oscars folk), their enormous reach and corporate scale (with [...]

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Blog Lite…

My apologies if the blog has been a little ‘light’ recently, it’s for reasons I can’t disclose just now – I can’t really say much about the film, about the Oscars, about what might or might not happen… Having had this public window into the production, it’s frustrating not to be able to share what [...]

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T minus four days…

T minus four days…

It’s the final few days before entering the eye of the needle… And of course all hell is breaking loose. I have spent the last few hours on the phone to India as inexplicably all my domains are down, and my service provider, right now, can’t explain why. Hopefully, by the time you read this, [...]

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Actix bring Axicom PR to help with the push

Actix bring Axicom PR to help with the push

I had a fantastic meeting this morning with the publicists who have been offered to us by the very nice people at Actix, who have partnered with us on the next, and potentially most exciting step on the Gone Fishing journey. We are lucky enough to have head honcho Julian Tanner, at Axicom Cohn&Wolfe handling [...]

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Film makers sharing…

Film makers sharing…

I wanted to share two particularly poignant emails I have received, both from professional film makers who have suffered personal loss. The first email is from an Irish Director, Paul Brady, who saw Gone Fishing last week and felt compelled to contact me. Second is from our old friend and Gone Fishing Associate Producer, Simon [...]

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Have you ever loved someone, and lost someone?

Have you ever loved someone, and lost someone?

 More incredible words have been flooding from people who have seen Gone Fishing. I designed the story to be evocative of my childhood, growing up in the Northwest of England, with an old brick works at the top of my road, surrounded by woodlands, quarries and lakes. In fact that history is actually in the [...]

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