UK Premiere

My short film, The Man Who Married Himself, has its UK premiere as part of the BFI London Film Festival on Thursday this week!

I handed in my MA Creative Writing dissertation a couple of weeks ago, and I was intending to focus back on screenwriting - with a mission to write the next low-budget indy breakthrough hit.

But then I saw the Terry Pratchett Prize, for a debut novelist writing a time travel story set on Earth. I happen to be a quarter of the way through writing a comic science fiction novel about a time travelling janitor. Destiny?

So I've set myself a challenge to finish it by the deadline - that's 1000 words a day until 31 December. I've only been doing it a week and I'm already behind... to work!

Self-love is all the rage right now

The Man Who Married Himself, the short film I wrote last year, has done it again. It won the Grand Prize for Best Comedy Short at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

The news I'm waiting for now is whether it will be accepted into the BFI London Film Festival so I can invite all my friends to come and see it!

I'm an award winning screenwriter!

...Or, at least, co-writer of an award winning short film!

The Man Who Married Himself won Best Comedy at the LA Shorts Film Festival. That is very exciting news, particularly because that qualifies it for an Oscar nomination...

See here for the full list of winners.

Buy tickets now for The Man Who Married Himself screening in LA

If you are near Los Angeles on Wednesday July 28th, be sure to check out the short film I co-wrote last year, The Man Who Married Himself, starring Richard E Grant.

It's showing as part of the LA Shorts Fest. Tickets are available as of today.

Festivals

If you're in the USA, there's a couple of chances coming up to watch The Man Who Married Himself. The Los Angeles International Short Film Festival (July 22-30), and the Rhode Island International Film Festival (August 10-15). Watch this space for more news.

The Wedding of the Year

Today I received an invitation to the wedding of Oliver and... Oliver. The premiere of the short film I co-wrote last year, The Man Who Married Himself, will be at the end of this month at BAFTA in Piccadilly.

Extremely exciting. Another chance to hobnob with the stars and feel terribly important. Also, hopefully a chance to introduce my wife to all the great people who helped make this project happen.

But I'm not going to deny feeling a shade nervous as well.

OK, deep breath...

Bring it on.

Nomads

I'm part of a writing group called the Nomads Literary Movement. Well, I like to add the Literary Movement bit.

We've been meeting every week for over a year now, usually in the Bell & Compass pub at Charing Cross. We take turns submitting a piece of writing so the group can critique it. Most of us are currently working on a novel.

I met most of the Nomads in the first year of my MA Creative Writing course (I'm now halfway through the second/final year). For me, the writing group is the best thing to come out of my MA so far. They're such a dedicated, insightful, and lovely bunch of people. They will keep me writing, and keep me writing well, for years to come I'm sure.

Recently, a couple of new members joined us (now we are eleven), including a guy called Felix who is also interested in screenwriting. Check out his awesome short film. He's keen to try collaborating on a screenplay so we're going to stay on next week after the Nomads session to bat some ideas about. I'll tell you how it goes!

Backstory

I am in the process of writing a feature-length screenplay. How did I come to be writing a film script?

The short answer is Garrick Hamm.

The long answer? Where do I start...

All my life, I've been writing short stories.

In about 2005 I discovered Terry Rossio's Wordplay, a series of columns on how to write successful screenplays. I was so inspired that I wrote a feature-length script - about an entrepreneurial student trying to get into a morally ambiguous secret fraternity. The script was, shall we say, deeply flawed.

Over the next few years, I started getting more and more emails from people asking permission to adapt my short stories into short films. Occasionally, these people wanted me to collaborate, but I always felt too busy to say yes.

Then in late 2008 I started a Masters degree in Creative Writing, and chose Screenwriting as my optional module. I wrote a 30-page script - and this time it was damn good.

I replied to one of the keen amateurs who had emailed me looking for a collaboration, and we got to work making the script into a short film. But, as is the way with so many such projects, it stalled and fell into the eternal limbo.

None of the above has anything to do with Garrick Hamm.

He emailed me in Feb 2009. He'd just finished producing a short called Lucky Numbers, which was touring the festivals, and he was looking for a story for his next short. He picked one of my stories to adapt: The Man Who Married Himself. I volunteered to collaborate.

By May, we had a first draft. It must have been good, because by June, Garrick had persuaded Richard E Grant to star. By October we were up to version 14 of the script. By November filming was wrapped.

The short is still having the final touches applied. Soon it will be launched and start touring the festivals. At best, it'll win lots of awards, at worst it'll raise a lot of smiles on filmgoers' faces.

The Man Who Married Himself

Remember a few posts ago I said that a film was being made from one of my short screenplays?

I've been a bit quiet about it because it seemed to good to be true, but a couple of weeks ago I visited the set during filming - so now I know it's really happening!



The short is called "The Man Who Married Himself", and it stars Richard E Grant, Emilia Fox, Celia Imrie and Warren Clarke. Directed by Garrick Hamm (who co-wrote the screenplay with me), a big-time designer who's hoping to break into filmmaking. It's currently in post-production.

It was awesome visiting the set and seeing dozens of people haring around with lighting equipment and odd props and things, all working to make my story come to life. I tried to keep a low profile, but it was nice that whenever I introduced myself as the writer I was treated like a VIP (which is not the Hollywood way, I reckon, so I appreciated it even more).

I chatted to Richard and Emilia - they were both very friendly and complimentary about the script. Richard even asked me to send him the novel I'm working on! He's been asked to be a Booker judge (although he said he's not sure if he'll accept as it involved reading about four books a week for six months), so it's a great honour if he wants to read my stuff.

Pardon me for effusing, but I'm excited!

Now I am working on a feature length film script to try and take advantage of the momentum from this short. Watch this space...

Keep it on the QT, but...

You may recall that I was writing a couple of short-film screenplays.

The first drafts are done, and so far both are on track to be produced (one in England, one in Germany).

I received some very exciting news about the English one this weekend. A well-known British actor wants to star. I almost feel like I shouldn't be telling anyone in case I jinx it. But yes, I am excited. :)

I'm meeting my MA Creative Writing screenwriting tutor tomorrow, and I'm pitching a feature-length idea to him to try and interest him in co-writing it. Hollywood, here we come.

Five Short Films

Prologue: The Evolution of Life
Act I: Signs
Act II: What's in the Box
Act III: Forever's Not So Long
Epilogue: World Builder