-
Process and Procedure
Which ought to be the title of Jane Austen’s unpublished crime novel… It’s the network pitching season in LA, and I just got back after an intense week with results that I should be able to tell you about sometime soon. After nine hours plus of breathing buggy plane air on the way home, I…
-
This Island Rod
A recommendation – while googling for something else (I’ve forgotten what) I came across this film blog written by Roderick Heath, who describes himself somewhere as a film school dropout (I’ve forgotten where I saw that, too) and is based in Lithgow, New South Wales. It’s only been up for a couple of years but…
-
Scribal Rites
The Wall Street Journal features this piece on how TV series writers have their own ways to achieve fulfilment and exact retribution. Most of the examples are more subtle than confrontational… David Kohan (tells of how) comedian Elayne Boosler treated him so badly early in his career that he tried for years to get revenge.…
-
Panning and Scanning
I was channel-hopping last night and came upon a comparative rarity; one of the digital channels, could have been ITV2, was showing a modern movie in 4X3 format, the almost-square ‘Academy’ ratio that was phased out in the cinema about 40 years ago and in TV at the beginning of this century. Like a Chav…
-
Bitch-slapped Bimbos and Silent Engineers (2)
Monday’s Chimera screening had a satisfying turnout and the evening ran smoothly, with great atmosphere. There was an audience flyer which included the entirety of a long Time Out review from 1991 that I hadn’t seen before (Fliss Coombes and Naomi Phillipson, handling publicity for Zenith and Anglia respectively, had sent me all the cuttings…
-
Bitch-slapped Bimbos and Silent Engineers
Read on and all will be explained. After a fashion. I promise. But first a reminder that this coming Monday (July 5th, 2010) they’re screening all four episodes of Chimera at the BFI Southbank, formerly the National Film Theatre, followed by a Q&A with director Lawrence Gordon Clark and me. The same day also sees…
-
The Forgotten
ABC have scheduled the two unshown episodes of The Forgotten for back-to-back broadcast on the evening of Saturday, July 3rd. They’re called Designer Jane and Living Doe. I was off the show and in development on another project when the news of cancellation came through, but I saw how the episode order was rejigged so…
-
Brian Clemens, OBE
Delighted to hear confirmation of the OBE for Brian Clemens in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. I’m no big royalist but these are national honours and, much as I’d like to imagine Her Maj slipping in an Avengers DVD to keep the grandkids entertained, there’s more at work here than just patronage and whim. Although…
-
Lost and the Long-Distance Plan
I dropped out of Lost a couple of seasons ago, after the introduction of the flash-forwards (which drew a gasp of admiration out of me when they reversed all my assumptions with the first one) but before they started with the sideways-flashes. I was curious about how they’d wind it up, but I’d been too…
-
Chimera at the BFI
Here’s some news… on Monday July 5th as part of the Future Human season, my 1990 miniseries Chimera is getting a screening at the BFI South Bank. A while back I was asked if I’d say a few words before it, but that’s now expanded to become a Q&A with me and director Lawrence Gordon…