National Radio

13 June 2013

SKYBLUE: Replay Radio

SKYBLUE, winner of the Best Dramatic Production in the 2013 New Zealand Radio Awards, returns to the airwaves this Sunday 16 June at 3:04pm.

Set in a forensic psychiatric unit, the one-hour drama spends a day at the sharp edge of New Zealand’s mental health system.

The cast includes Tess Jamieson, Jamie McCaskill, Nigel Collins and Mick Rose. SKYBLUE is produced by Jason Te Kare, engineered by Phil Benge, and brought to you by Radio New Zealand National.

2 April 2009

Plug

Goodness gracious: Radio New Zealand will be broadcasting a little something I adapted for radio last year, and which was recorded earlier this year.

So if you’ve an hour to spare this Sunday 5 April, between 3pm and 4pm, try out some Kiwi-made drama.

Thanks again to producer Jason Te Kare who was very patient with all my ummm‘s and ahhh‘s to his questions, engineer Phil Benge who put up with my exclamations of I keep expecting someone to run in there between takes and polish the mike!, voice actors Jerome Leota, Sopa Enari, Shadon Meredith, Natano Keni, Rob Lloyd and Eteuati Ete who made the recording day a hoot to ~~watch~~ hear, and big ups to the House of Ash and Fi who very kindly put me up for a couple of nights whilst I was in Wellington.

30 December 2008

Pots on the Boil

INT. LOUNGE, HOME – EVENING

I lie in the arms of THE GODDESS.

I haven’t done ANYTHING this year.

THE GODDESS

Oh rubbish.

I’m serious.

THE GODDESS

What were you busy doing at the beginning of the year then?

... The short film.

THE GODDESS

And what have you been doing with those playwrights, hm? And that stuff for the guild?

I open my mouth, then close it.

THE GODDESS

And then there’s your radio play. Well?

You can’t just let me feel sorry for myself, can you?

She kisses my forehead --

THE GODDESS

No, I cannot.

What have I achieved this year then?

I wrote a ten-minute play in twelve hours, and watched it premiere (and close) twelve hours after that;

I’m facilitating a disparate group of Pasifika playwrights (four months straight and counting);

I’m an (increasingly) active Board member of the New Zealand Writers Guild;

I’ve had a short radio play accepted for broadcast on National Radio;

and I did some script consulting on a couple of projects.

I’m tempted to skew my stats a la the police leadership in The Wire but, for me, a project isn’t finished unless it’s finished, knowwha’Imean?

So:

To’ona’i crawls towards completion;

I’m co-writing a play, to premiere in 2012;

I have my own play to push – and thanks to the joys of ~~misery likes company~~ peer pressure, the first act is due by mid-January 2009;

the diversionary feature spec has copious thematic and strucutural notes… but an actual story has yet to emerge;

enamoured with the short radio play’s ‘success’, I’m writing an hour-long radio play: I’ve got the opening and closing acts while the middle is currently all rough notes – forty pages to go!

and the long awaited spec feature of 2007 has been roughed out and is approaching a proper first draft.

[Takes a few steps back and squints]

Okay. I suppose it’s just about perspective.

INT. LOUNGE, HOME – LATER

Maybe this is my dash. Maybe this is IT. Maybe –

THE GODDESS

Maybe you needed a year to consolidate.

I thought last year was a consolidating year.

THE GODDESS

It’s a bit hard to consolidate when you’re juggling paying work, don’t you think?

I mumble something.

THE GODDESS

Pardon?

... I suppose.

She nods, knowing, as always, that She’s right.

21 July 20071 August 2012

Point & Click

I managed to get the number of Unread posts down to less than 200 when I add a few new feeds – and phwappp as the Unread posts leap gaily to 315. Fine. I can keep up with my essential daily reading out of the way. If I don’t sleep.

There is life after How To Write Screenplays – Badly – scribe Jeremy Slater has himself a new blog: Hi My Name is Jeremy Slater. The blogging scriptwriter field may be pretty crowded but few – very few – blogs are as deliciously laugh out loud as Mr Slater’s.

For a hands-on approach to TV-writing, Jill Golick‘s Running With My Eyes Closed is a fantastic resource complete with case studies. (Look! A breakdown of The Wire pilot!)

TV writer and producer (Millenium, Medical Investigation, and Killer Instinct) Kay Reindl has a badass blog called seriocity. Her honesty about her travails are searing and refreshing – and a reminder that you mess with writers at your peril. (Fedora-tip to the once quiet Lee Thomson for Mesdames Golick and Reindl.)

Check out ammani over at filthy, funny, flawed, gorgeous for bite-sized prose that resonates. Personal favourites so far are this and this. (Fedora-tip to The Goddess who I’ve recently gotten addicted to blog-reading.)

And finally, thanks to National Radio, I discovered that the mercilessly acerbic and clinically hysterical comedian Mike Loder has a website. Sweeet. No blog but it has some brilliant pieces on jury service and the annual Erotica expo.

Enjoy.