Tag: Funding application

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I Am Riz

Okay, I’m back. Had a few deadlines to meet this week. Which I did, of course. Exciting, exhausting times. Here’s a quick round up with a decent post to come this weekend.

  • A second review for Five, this time from the Screen Directors Guild of New Zealand, which is now available for rental (the film, not the review) – and if your local doesn’t have it in stock, demand to see some Made in New Zealand.
  • The Writers Guild‘s newfangled online forum is awful quiet. Are we Kiwi screenwriters so reserved?* Or are there enough distractions with TV, DVDs, Playstation/Wii, online gaming, Bebo/Facebook/Myspace and, uh, blogs/blogging?
  • People who spell definately and your rather than definitely and you‘re in correspondence to me will join my growing list of newfound friends asking me to help free up some money.
  • I now have a Data Book listing. I almost feel like I’ve arrived. Except for the nonsensical www.dfmamea.com/http://if.dfmamea.com link.
  • And finally, having prepared a well-I-didn’t-need-your-money-anyway post as a follow-up to my grant application, they approved it. Yes, of course I’m chuffed – especially once the panic attacks subsided – and am beginning to savour the impending adventure.

Toodles.

 

* I keep wanting to start a thread about the winding up of the Signature telemovie initiative: Isn’t it a bit short-sighted to finish up now? Won’t the wheel have to be rebuilt if when the broadcaster change its mind and returns to cheaper reality observational-documentary television-making? … But I’m too chicken.

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Pots on the Boil

Okay, it’s been all fine and dandy to be as opinionated as Ianthe of Timaru about various media, but what about what I do?

Good question.

  • Five is in the excellent hands of Amit – sliced, diced and packaged for a premiere. I should stop counting that as a pot on the boil now.
  • Earlier in the year I finally finished a first draft of a semi-biographical feature script. The producer/director I did it for is currently having a whack at the next draft. It’s been interesting to work through the inevitable tension in the creative process where the producer/director wants authenticity while I’m trying to argue for dramatic impact.
  • My long awaited 2007 spec script has really only had its outline tweaked – it even had a one-page pitch done – but I haven’t started writing it yet. I’d like to blame the non-start on some of the following projects – but I’d be lying.
  • I was asked to write a low budget thriller a while back. After duly speccing an outline, I mentioned the word “contract” and scared the producer away. Ah well. Still, there’s something about the outline that’s really hooked me: I approached the project from an oblique angle to try and be ‘fresh’ as well as make it interesting to write. I’ve made it my 2007 spec* – and, yes, I’ll give the producer first dibs on it when it’s finished.
  • I met with another producer recently about some development work on an half-hour series. I did some work for him last year that was great fun – not only did I get paid, I was writing cool shit. I’ll give with some details.
  • The T.V. concept got cleaned up and sent out… and has so far flatlined. Oh well. At least it’s a good reminder to not pin so much hope on just one project. I can’t help it, but.
  • The T.V. speccing got me going a bit – well, it was avoiding work on one of the above scripts – so I’ve got a couple of ideas to inflict on interested parties. I’m well aware of the odds against but at the very least I’ll be making some noise.

So that’s… wow. Seven. It sounds so… productive.

I think I might make this – like my sometimes-monthly Point & Click fillers posts – a sometimes-quarterly update on what’s cookin’. Because I know you’re just busting to read it here first – and I know your need because I’m psychotic canny.

 

*    And what will this mean for my other ‘long-awaited’ 2007 spec? Good question.

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It’s That Time of Year

Ah – the last of week of July: when cash-strapped independent filmmakers squeeze into their best clothes and, resumes and letters of introduction clutched tightly in their fists, launch themselves at the Screen Innovation Production Fund selection panel in the hope of getting something – anything (preferably money) – to help make their dreams come true.

I’m one of them. Paying gigs aside, I’ve got ideas of my own, you know. I used to want to just concentrate on feature-length writing but I was just limiting myself. ‘S not the end all and be all. Also:

Breaking into the film business is not a problem that resolves itself through a single answer or path. It’s a problem that succumbs only to a process, a series of efforts taken over time. And the bitch of it is, you never know which is the right strategy until it pays off. So you do everything. Whether the odds are with you or not. You do everything.

– Terry Rossio (Deja Vu, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Zorro series).

So to all supplicants, the best of luck. And whatever the answer in three months’ time, keep dreaming.

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