Another 12 months already?

Cast of 'Hard Rubbish': Tiffany Davis, Simon Mallory, me, Luke Stephens, Kanhai Desai, Menik Gooneratne

Here’s a quick update:

• I worked with Mira Robertson to develop a new draft of The Non-Believers for Film Vic.
• I directed a live read of The Non-Believers with professional actors at Cinema Nova (Script Alive).
• I directed my short film Hard Rubbish for Raw Nerve 2010 (shortlisted by Tropfest, rejected by Cannes)
• Went to L.A. for the Screenwriting Expo (and to have lunch with Steve Kaplan).
• Tried stand-up comedy again (and got laughs this time)
• Created the Weird Stuff blog: weirdstufftv.blogspot.com 
• Wrote a new feature-length screenplay How I Became a Vegetarian
• and… I became a dad!

  Make sure you bookmark this page for next year’s exciting instalment!
  (isn’t this better than Twitter?)

Script Alive cast for 'The Non-Believers': David Tredinnick, Chris Brown, Yesse Spence, Jacob Allen, me, Kevin Harrington

A busy 12 months

Steve Kaplan compliments my page numbering

Here’s a quick update:

• I was hired to co-write a new kids’ TV series Hotdog & Mustard (bible and pilot script)
• My feature screenplay The Non-Believers was selected for funding by Film Vic (Catapult)
• I got a haircut, and an agent…
• My short script Hard Rubbish was selected for Raw Nerve 2010
• Filmed a comedy documentary series pilot Weird Stuff: UFOs
• Had a script consultation with US comedy guru Steve Kaplan at Screen Australia (see above)

It’s been a good 12 months. The next 12 will be even gooder…

Another visit to Film Vic

Tim Dean, Stuart Parkyn and I were invited to the Funding Fortress (Film Victoria) on Wednesday  after our sit-com idea made it into the top 10 (out of over 200 submissions) for the ABC ‘Stitch’ initiative. 

We find out next week if we’re one of the 6 teams to be selected for the workshops. Here is a photo taken during the interview, which shows just how cohesive we are under pressure:

Steve, Tim and Stuart being interviewed at Film Victoria

Vale ‘The Pinch’

Last night was the final broadcast of long-running 3RRR radio show ‘The Pinch’ hosted by Chris Kennett and Declan Fay. After 7 years on air (Monday nights), they pulled the plug in front of a packed audience at Trades Hall (ironically, this was the first time I’d actually listened to their show).

As a token of the following their show has developed over the years, they had guest comedians of the calibre of Mike Wilmot, Greg Fleet and Pauline Hanson. There was huge applause at the end of the broadcast as, like me, most of the people had come to make sure that this really was going to be their last show. 

Chris and Declan are now considering careers in the entertainment industry.

(Well done, boys.)

At last, some good news

On the day when my investment in Babcock and Brown shares officially became a really bad idea, I finally received some good news.

I’m being funded by Film Victoria to attend a 3-day Genre seminar.  That’s money from Film Victoria to learn how to improve my screenplay (it was that bad they decided I needed some serious assistance…).

http://film.vic.gov.au/www/html/991-aristaeurista-initiatives.asp

Highlights of my day

Just wanted to share with you some of the highlights of my day today:

1. 

Procrastination

A word about procrastination…

Blog-o-rama

Nothing much happened today. Bowel movements normal, etc…

(This is what blogging’s all about, right?)

Hello world!

OK. Here we go. A blog…

Until now, I’ve been avoiding this whole blog phenomenon for three reasons:

1) I’m lazy.

b) I didn’t see any value in blogging until recently. Basically, the writers I met at Clarion have convinced me that this activity may be worthwhile and anything that actually gets me writing is probably a good thing.

3) I’ve (usually) got nothing to say.

So, given the above, this experiment in futility should last about a week. Here goes…