Well that was a bit shit, wasn’t it?
First off, a little pat on the back to everyone that has got through 2020. And to anyone who has managed to make something of this year, a massive round of applause to you.
For me, I managed to find a few moments of light amongst the darkness of, quite frankly, the worst year in recent memory.
I managed to finish three screenplays. Not finish finish, but they’re on their way. And considering at the start of the year, I had never managed to finish a first draft, that’s progress.
I started a YouTube channel. I may only have a handful of views but I have created it and continued to work on it. And to any of you who haven’t got round to watching them, consider it your Christmas present to me, it really does help a lot:
And I made arguably the most mature decision of my life when I decided to leave the security of a full time job to follow my passions.
For all of that and for the fact that this deadly virus hasn’t directly effected myself or any of my love ones, I consider myself very lucky.
So, with all that out in the open, what are my goals for 2021?
- To have 5 finished finished screenplays. This was a goal for 2020 but quite frankly, that was a bit optimistic and also, I now realise what it means to have a finished screenplay. It means a lot of work. It means writing it, rewriting it, then sending it to someone who knows what they’re talking about and then rewriting it again.
- To send 2-5 of the scripts into screenwriting competitions and hopefully, doing better than the script I sent this year which was barely even a finished screenplay, never mind finished finished.
- To send queries to production companies for all of those scripts.
- To build my YouTube channel by posting a video at least once every 3 weeks. And if I can manage that, I hope I can also achieve another goal – to be eligible for the YouTube Partner Programme. For that I need 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours and guess what? I’m a long loooong way off.
- To pass my driving test. At the time of writing, Manchester has just been casually plopped into Tier 4 so my February practical test is in jeopardy to say the least, but in a year? I can do that.
- To work on at least one film set, which isn’t going to be possible without a driving license.
- And then the biggie – to write, produce and direct a short film.
Now, if I could achieve all that, or even six out of the seven. It would be a magnificent 2021. But I thought that about 2020, so here’s to mindless optimism. *Clink*.
Now, time for the usual blog post shenanigans.
MOVIE REVIEW OF THE WEEK
Now as you may or may not have noticed, I haven’t written a blog post since October as a result of this year’s accumulative fatigue. So I’m not going to force you through a stream of movie reviews from the last 8-10 weeks, and also, I just can’t be arsed, really.
So instead, I help numb your inevitable boredom during the New Year and potentially new lockdown by giving you some recent film recommendations:
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)
- Mank (Netflix)
- A Sun (Netflix)
- Small Axe (BBC)
- Sometimes Never Rarely Always (Amazon)
MOVIE IDEA OF THE WEEK
Honestly, I haven’t been madly inspired recently. I have a single-minded track with which scripts I’m doing when. So currently, I am working on a thriller/horror called Welcome To The Neighbourhood and then I am going to research for my spec based on the pirate lord, Ching Shih, who I have talked about in a previous post.
I have, however, had one exciting new idea. A female led espionage story in a dystopian world. So imagine a female Bond in the story world of Blade Runner 2049 or Ghost in the Shell. And I could also fuse it with another idea I have had in which humanity begins to de-evolve. Perhaps, that degenerative disease (which I’d called KARMA disease) could be the reason for my apocalyptic, dystopian world.
Potentially, if the target for my screenplays goes well, this might be the sixth one I complete this year. Maybe, maybe not. But it sounds pretty cool, right?
SCENE OF THE WEEK
One of the last things I completed this year was yet another draft of Dying For An Inheritance, after I got some script coverage back from a producer. So have the full script on me:
Fingers crossed, I get off to a flyer in January and by the time I write my next blog post (Monthly, now, because… er realism) I can give you the first draft of Welcome To The Neighbourhood.
So, I think that’s a wrap. By that I mean I’m all out of mildly optimistic juice. Time to say sayonara to this colossal turd of a year and have a drink.
Signing off –
G
INFLICT 