Ballad Of Big Nothing

One of those days…

JB

New Stuff

So, what on earth have I been up to? I hear you ask.

Well, the journey with "Starving In Hollywood" continues. Negotiating the murky waters of the industry has been an interesting and extremely frustrating experience. In this day and age, methods of distribution are apparently changing by the second. Depending on who you talk to, TV - as we know it - is a thing of the past, and the future lies with the internet. Increasingly, us humans are watching content on laptops, on netflix, on phones, on iPads etc etc. so online streaming is bigger than ever. All of which should play precisely into our hands, right? Surely we can just put our show on youtube and reap the spoils after millions of people tune in and enjoy? Well, apparently not. As the things that do well on youtube are things like "cat jumps over gate" (which is, admittedly, fecking hilarious). There seems to be a solid marketing path for show concepts, pilots or pitches, however finished content - such as ours - seems to be all dressed up with nowhere to go. Which is annoying, to say the least. My logic would dictate that having something finished is better than having an idea not yet begun, but then again, what do I know?

Therefore the best option remains, at this moment in time, trying to negotiate the Iron Wall of the Managers/Agents/Production Companies and hoping that somehow, some way, someone may take a passing interest enough to go "I like it, here's some money". Stay tuned, friends.

To cheer myself up, I embarked on something I said I'd never do, which is make another short film. However, when the opportunity came around, the people involved on the production side and what they would bring to the table for little to no cost made me instantly change my mind. The result was the filming of a script that I'd had written for a few years now called "Head-Side Up". Here's a poster for it…

The shoot itself was the best one I have ever had, and certainly, by far, my best experience as a director. For the first time in a long time, I felt at ease, in total command of the form, and enjoying every second of it. I think a large part of this feeling comes purely from experience - which dictates how long you should schedule, which locations to use, what lighting schemes you like, how to handle set-backs (an absolutely inevitability) and the best way to work with actors, which I basically find is giving them a nice, relaxed, environment to let them do their work. A large part also comes from having the right crew around you which, for the first time ever, I did. That is why, folks, it pays to get out and work because, by doing so, you accumulate the good people and sift out the…not so good ones. At the risk of sounding like a capitalist pig, I can't tell you how much easier my job is when you know everyone around you is doing theirs. Marvelous stuff and certainly pretty integral to the film-making process, which is hard enough as it is. This project also marked the first time that I directed without also being an actor in the film, which again made life a great, great deal easier and was equally satisfying. Fun times all round, really.

Also, I've been hired to edit multiple projects over the past few months. All of which have gone absolutely swimmingly. In fact, editing continues to be endless source of fascination for me. It really is remarkable what you can do. You can turn a good performance bad and a bad one good in a matter of frames. So, any actors (female mainly) out there remember to give your editor (me) a nice, healthy blow job at the start of every project and things will turn out just fine. In fact, such is the importance of editing, you can actually turn a good film bad, or indeed make a bad one good - well, reasonable maybe - so the same rule applies to all you directors (female) out there also. I even edited an editing reel. And here it is…

Other than that, I've just been keeping my head down, my chin up, and my lyrics on point. If I think of anything else interesting I've done, I'll let you know. Don't hold your breath.

Much love to everyone for your continued support and interest in this here writing space.

Cheers,

John.

Top 10 Films of 2013

Hello and Happy New Year to you all. My sincere apologies for being away for so long. Lots of menial stuff to be written in this here 2014 but let's start with the most hotly anticipated 'best of' list on planet earth:

10) Fruitvale Station - Sundance darling and true story of the last day of Oscar Grant, who was killed by the Oakland transport police. From the opening shot, which is real footage of the incident itself, the lump in your throat starts to form and never lets up. At the end, I was positively in tatters. Beautifully directed and featuring an outstanding lead performance from Michael B. Jordan.

9) Mud - This story takes place in the deep backwoods of the Mississippi river, where two young boys befriend a love-sick hobo. Sounds ridiculous. It's not. It's actually a pretty wonderful coming-of-age tale by Jeff Nichols (who is fast becoming one of the better directors out there) and a great cast, including Matthew McConaughey doing almost his best work (see #5)

8) Only God Forgives - As I mentioned previously on this blog, I loved this film. Many didn't. Many find it to be offensively bad. It is a completely perplexing, ultraviolent, enigma wrapped in a mystery of a film, and certainly not an easy watch, that is for certain. However, I liked it. A lot. That's pretty much I can say.

7) Before Midnight - The third of Richard Linklater's "Before..." trilogy which follows Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's romantic journey together. The first film we watched them meet, the second they rekindled, the third (this one) they are together, married, parents of two children and struggling to hold it all together. This film is about people talking, and talking, and talking some more. Yet when the dialogue and acting is this good, I found myself totally engrossed the entire time. It is literally like being a fly on the wall into someone else's relationship. You want to watch through your eyes at times, but overall you'll be glad you did. Beautiful film.

6) Prisoners - To this day I am completely baffled by the lack of award-season recognition for this film. It may be down to the subject matter at hand, which we can safely call "dark". There is not one facet of this film that's not excellent. The cinematography and performances of Gyllenhaal, Jackman and Dano being most noteworthy. First-class stuff.

5) Dallas Buyers Club - I went into this film thinking it was going to be an "oh, look Matthew McConaughey's got AIDS, watch him lose weight and affect all of our lives with his heaviness. However, I could not have been more wrong. An outstandingly directed, life-affirming bit of cinema done in the least cheesy way you could imagine and McConaughey's performance is nothing short of iconic. Jared Leto is also excellent...but then aren't we all when wearing a dress.

4) Nebraska - Black and White ultra-slow burner about a borderline senile man trying to claim a fake lottery win? Surely that can't be good, can it? Turns out it can, with Alexander Payne proving once again that he is the absolute master of making films about middle-aged men that somehow get right under your skin. Well played all.

3) Behind The Candleabra - This film does something which I personally think is a very hard thing to pull off (no pun intended) it paints a very dark tale in a bright and shiny package. Obviously it's hard to not be bright and shiny when telling the story of Liberace (played by Michael Douglas who has rarely been better), but make no mistake friends, this is a dark, dark, tale about the trappings of fame and fortune. Matt Damon brilliant as always and will be overlooked again. Oh, by the way, this film is extremely gay. Makes The Birdcage look like Fight Club.

2) Her - Joaquin Phoenix lives in the future and falls in love with a computer, which sounds ridiculous but this is one of the most original, moving and funny films I've seen in recent memory. Similar to "Lars and The Real Girl" in the sense that the sheer preposterousness of the plot goes immediately out of the window due to the quality of the film-making. I aspire to make something this good one day, which is about the highest praise I can give it. In fact, any other year I'm certain this film would be #1 on my list. This year however, all bucked under the weight of...

1) 12 Years A Slave - It's hard to say I enjoyed this film, such is the nature of the subject matter and the way it's portrayed, however it's harder not to bow down and respect a truly magnificent piece of work such as this. 12 Years... tells the true (incredibly) story of Solomon Burke, a free black man tricked and sold back into slavery, and it is every bit as harrowing, stomach-churning and awful as you'd expect. Obviously I didn't cry because I'm a bloody bloke and that's not what we do. However, my eyes happened to get very sweaty multiple times during this film, resulting in what looked like tears pretty much continuously running down my face. If Steve McQueen and Chiwetel Ejiofor don't win every award under the sun, then there really is something wrong with the world. An absolute masterpiece in every way. See it. At once.

There you have it. The world can breathe again.

Let's see if I can keep up this blogging lark for 2014.

Onwards.

John.

Lyrics To Live By

"Over and out. This is my final message.
I cannot shout above 8 billion screaming voices.
Severe the lines. Woe be tide the one who tries to hide.
I heard the starting gun.
I lost my taste for the race before I won"

From "Ripchord" by Olly Knights (2013)

Innuendo Bingo

Well...this made me laugh more than most things I've seen of late. Enjoy...

JB.

9-1-1

So today marks the anniversary of the September 11th Terror Attacks. The day the world as I, and everyone, knew it changed for good and certainly not for the better. In my humble opinion.
Out of respect for everyone who died on the day, or in the continuing aftermath that followed, I ask you to go out there and look for the truth. It's there, somewhere.

Of course, the act of writing this post - even as small, irrelevant and nondescript as it is - instantly puts me in a category with people who believe Elvis is alive and that Bigfoot walks the earth. So I should probably just leave it there.

JB.

The Phantom Menace

I'm sorry but Harry Plinkett's reviews of the infamous Star Wars prequel series are just too good not to share. The man's dark, absurd, brilliantly accurate dissection of these films is nothing short of perfection. Not many things have made me laugh harder in the past few months. I suggest everyone watch and enjoy the madness:



Cheers,

JB.

Great Reads: 'High Fidelity' by Nick Hornby

I first read this book back in the late 90's. I'd left school and found myself an impressionable working lad with no education in my future and hours to kill sweating on trains commuting to and from my place of work - which was undoubtedly some shithole on the other side of London. I think it would not be overstating the matter to say that, at that time, this book completely changed my life. For reasons I shall explain hereto. 

Hornby's second novel, released in 1995 after the monumental success of gooner-supporting "Fever Pitch", tells the tale of one Rob Fleming; a man who enjoys music, film, and lamenting his status in the world when it comes to money, power and, most of all, women. Rob owns a fledgling record shop in North London where he and his two friends sit around and make lists of stuff that they like. In fact, such is Rob's affinity for lists that the book begins with the opening heading: "Top Five Break-Ups Of All Time", wherein he begins to tell us the reader about the pitiful state of his previous failures with members of the opposite sex. All of this serves to provide the back drop to what is currently going on in his life - another break-up with a girl he loves - and there the story begins.

“What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?” 

What follows is an absolutely hilarious, honest, unflinching portrayal of the modern man and let me tell you friends, it is a masterful depiction. Hornby writes with a sort of light-hearted scathing cynicism which, despite sounding like a massive contradiction, sets the perfect tone for the book. I defy any man on planet earth (well, at least, a middle-class white bloke from the western world) to read this book and not find yourself going "yep, I've done that". Indeed there are few subjects in life which fascinate me more than male patheticism and this book has it in spades. 

A little exercise for you -- pick a man. Someone you deem to be the coolest man on the planet. James Dean, Paul Newman, George Clooney maybe? All of those people, every last one, will absolutely turn into an insecure, whimpering, paranoid wreck if and when placed in the hands of the right (or wrong) woman. Of course, this is just my belief but it's a belief and that's all that f*cking matters, got it? Good. 

“Over the last couple of years, the photos of me when I was a kid... well, they've started to give me a little pang or something - not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret... I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: "I'm sorry, I've let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.” 

Now, how did a book about a bunch of music geeks eeking out an existence for themselves change your life? I hear you ask. Well folks, after reading this book, for the first time in my 19 or so years of existence (I think) I had the inspiration to write. I could hear my voice on the page. It was a work of art that spoke directly to me. Me?! I had never experienced that before. The characters were interested in things I am, talked the way I talk, thought how I do about stuff (if you read this blog ever, you'll know how much I f**king love writing a list for a start). Suddenly I felt the need to put pen to paper for the first time to express how I feel. For fun. Suddenly I had a thirst for knowledge and a yearning for experience that my shite office job which took me two hours to get to every day and night could not provide me. I felt a tidal wave of culture engulf my being. I mean, it was only the third book I'd ever read up to that point but we've all got to start somewhere, eh?

The following month, I handed in my notice at work, packed up and went to university and the rest, as they say, is history. Not necessarily history in the sense that anything profound or important happened on a global, national or even local scale. But a personal history was made, right there and then and here I am today as a result...writing, for nothing more than the interest of personal expression. Something that just wasn't an option until my eyes crossed this little gem. 

If you ever want to know anything about me, or indeed men in general, read this book. At once. That is all. 

“It seems to me if you have music (and books, probably, and films, and plays, and anything that makes you feel) at the center of your being, then you can't afford to sort out your love life, start to think of it as the finished product. You've got to pick at it, keep it alive and in turmoil, you've got to pick at it and unravel it until it all comes apart and you're compelled to start all over again. Maybe we live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.” 

Nick Hornby -- High Fidelity (1995)

Cheers, 

JB.

Tunes Currently Licking My Lollipop

1) No Money - Kings of Leon
2) No Other Plans - Sunny Levine
3) Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
4) M.a.a.d City - Kendrick Lamar
5) I'll Slip Away - Rodriguez
6) Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys
7) Castles In The Air - Don McLean
8) Lovin' I Lost - Common
9) Everything Means Nothing To Me - Elliott Smith
10) (You) Got What I Need - Freddie Scott

JB

Billy No Mates

"Oh, you've got a TV show? That's great"

So friends, here we are again. Stuck in the endless merry-go-round that is the entertainment industry complex. This is now my third time at the rodeo, as they say, and it gets no easier. In fact quite the opposite.

Last year, when doing the film festival circuit with my short film "Love Is...", I found myself at one of those panel Q&A sessions. The people on stage consisted of various actors, filmmakers and - most pertinently to this post - agents. Of course, a variety of shameless hacks in the crowd bombarded the agents with all manner of questions in the vein of "will you please watch my film?" or "will you please sign me?" or "will you please be godfather to my only child?" etc. So embarrassing was this relentless medieval-style baying that one agent eventually intervened and said "Listen, let me just say this. All of the time and energy and effort you guys are seemingly putting into getting an agent, instead put it into creating good shit. If you make something good, trust me we will find you"

Those words hit me like a pick-axe to the testes. At a time when I was feeling completely bewildered by the whole film festival thing, this saint came along and told me exactly what I always hoped in my heart would be true. You don't have to be a marketing genius, or indeed a silver-tongued door to door salesman, to succeed in this industry. It is, after all, about the art. I mean just look at all my heroes, they didn't sell their souls to the devil and they turned out just fine. In the everlasting words of "Field of Dreams" -- if you build it, they will come. Right?

Someone order a group of bell-ends?

Turns out that was a load of bollocks, and here's why...(Note: there's no way of writing the following without sounding bitter so please just rest assured that I'm not). The reviews thus far for "Starving In Hollywood" have been nothing short of spectacular. Literally everyone who has seen it has nothing but glowing things to say. From friends and family to industry veterans, the response has been the same - "I can't wait to see this on TV". However, the journey one must take from obscurity to...um...scurity(?) is a strange and twisted one, my friends. If I were a musician, it seems relatively simple. I write good songs. I play those good songs to people. I will be actively sought out by record companies who rely on new talent to keep the cash cow churning. I will be advanced money to record an album. I will tour extensively. I will thus have a career. Or at least the beginning of one. Do Film & TV reps have a similar philosophy as to unearthing new talent? Apparently not.

Instead, there seems to be an ever-growing wall of Mordor-type thing happening. By which I mean that if you are a nobody - which, at last count, I definitely am - then no-one gives a shit about you or anything you've done. We've tried calling producers, agents, tv networks and it's always the same: "(Fill in blank) does not accept unsolicited material. Now fuck off and have a nice life". Because the problem is, when swimming in the murky waters of the unsolicited, by default you are instantly lumped in with everything else floating around with you. I'm not putting our stuff on top of anybody else's, my point is merely that for anyone coming out of the pool, it's already a 'no' by virtue of where your material came from. However, if I'm soandsowhatshisname and I present my latest 'sidesplitting' venture, merely because of who I am, I am indeed now 'solicited'. This only confirms what I had previously written about here and here. If you get an in, you're laughing. Your stock instantly goes up about twelve-fold and whatever your peddling (in our case, abortion jokes and paper mache shark heads) is instantly met with not disdain and trepidation but with glee and giddy-eyed anticipation. The question, the dilemma me and my partners are currently facing, is...how do we go from no-one to someone?

Climb me...I dare you

Especially when all avenues seem to be a figure-eight scalectrix track of rejection. TV networks don't accept material unless it comes from an agent. Agents don't accept materials unless coming from a production company. Production companies don't accept material unless from an agent and, oh wait, I'm back where I started again. It is a very weird, surreal position to be in, and one which I am finding it most difficult to negotiate. I feel like a sperm frantically head butting away at the egg, watching all the millions of other sperms doing exactly the same thing and hoping to christ that I can burrow inside first.

However, this is the point. In every artist's, or creative-type's, career there comes a time when you have to strap on a pair and do the dirty work. It would be so easy for me to move on to the next creative endeavor. It'll be fun, keep me busy, and be another beautiful adventure to embark on. The problem with that philosophy is, however, that when done with that project, you're back to exactly the point you were before. You're still in the unsolicited pile and now a couple of years older and greyer. All you've succeeded in doing is turning a potential career into an actual hobby. Therefore, now is as good a time as any to get out there and do the awkward, uncomfortable, downright rubbish, part of trying to coerce people into parting with their hard-earned cash to take a chance on you and your project. No easy task but an abundantly necessary one.

Onwards and...onwards, my good people.

JB.