It’s Sunday, I have stuff to do

Hello gang, how you all doing?

Happy Birthday to angelfsh, have a great day in them there shoes!

I have been happy with stage two of reworking and reassessing the flist and the journal as a whole. I feel that my little space in LJ land is getting, warmer, cosier and a whole lot nicer and this was shown with my last post, where not only were people commenting on everybody else’s comments but people even started adding each other too!

There will be a stage three in this development too but you’ll hear more about that later…

We had a full day meeting yesterday to round off the film project. A few have asked what I mean by the film and I advise you lot to check out the tag ‘3×3’ as that gives the info required (there’s only about five posts).

The meeting went well, apart from the fact I attacked all three films (ours being one of them) in my usual ‘Mark’ style. Everyone seemed to take it well though, except for the other two in my group, as I gave all my reasons for why I have real problems with the end of our film. I’m hoping that you’ll all get to see this little short of mine, either from me or at film festivals in your area in the near future.

I’m working on the subtitles at the moment and that is going better than I thought, so my part of the project should be over earlier than I thought, leaving me more time on the anthology… yay!

There’s some resolutions coming up later (with shiny bars) so speak to you soon!

Break from the monkey

Filming starts tomorrow and so there’ll be a little break from monkey posts methinks. I might sneak in with the odd bits and pieces but no major undertaking on the cards.

For the purple zoners I can let you know that I posted my August challenge today so you can have a little look at that if it takes your fancy!

Managed to watch all my films for the festival now and have made my executive selections. It’ll be interesting to see what my fellows on the selection committee think of my choices, seeing as I ripped apart one person’s selections on a near-daily basis!

Will be desperately trying to get out on the bike tomorrow as I haven’t managed a single cycle this week yet. I’m feeling a little stir-crazy although I have been a little under the weather too (and that weather has been sub-standard to say the least)!

I thought there was some other dramatic news but it seems to have trickled out of my tiny mind, so I’m off to watch a couple of episodes of The Simpsons with the wife (that’s Etina in case you were wondering the_faery_queen *winks*)

Have fun and try and keep wild_heart and eneit away from the drinks cabinet, you know what they’re like!

Things are moving on now…

It’s been a manic kinda time recently although now there is a light at the end of the tunnel (with no freight train in sight… honourable mention if you identify where this snippet is from!) and things are a moving (like my monkey ass to this album!)

We start filming on Friday! Yay! Over the weekend I managed to bag my lead man Tobias Almborg, who was f**king brilliant in a play here in Norrköping last year. He is added to the two female lead roles from Tjenare Kungen, Cecilia Wallin and Josefin Neldén. we also have Fyr Thorvald Strömberg (from many films) and a new boy Matthias Redbo, for our five main parts.

It’s a 15 minute film (for those new to this journal) and goes by the name of Silverudde and I have decided on Silver Bay as the English title as I didn’t like the direct translation, which is Silver Cape (too much like a dodgy comic book character there!).

We will begin Friday at four in the afternoon until two in the morning and then continue in this way Saturday, Sunday and Monday with Tuesday as a back up day.

I’m looking forward to it and there is going to be a lot going on over the next few days! Watch this space… well not this one… you know what I mean!

We are also trying to sort out the Christening for our little cherub in September/October in England and that is proving difficult with the fact that I am here… lol!

The film festival deadline was extended and so I’ve got another couple of weeks to select films for my Competition section in October (is that good or bad… I’m not sure yet!).

Ooh this is getting like one of those real posts, I can’t be having that! I’m off!

Back in the saddle

I’m going for clever wordplay today… why? Because I’m clever, that’s why!

My wordage has been a bit slim of late and there’s been a lot going on, so normally I would have been here going on about it. I haven’t however, due to major problems with the computer^[1] (especially the internet) which has given me no end of pain. The frustration I’ve felt makes the sitting in front of the screen and updating lose all its appeal.

As a consequence I watched loads of films for the film festival (as mentioned in a voice post), cycled a lot (I think also mentioned) and yesterday had a meeting regarding the film^[2].

I’ve got some pictures from one of the bike tours I did last week (I only took the camera a couple of times so not as many as you may have hoped for).

This is Micke, who I cycle with from time to time, and if you look very closely you’ll see my new baby behind Micke’s (the red one).

A couple of rune stones, seven kilometres outside Norrköping.

The weather decided to turn as we were about half an hour from home.

My friend Per came around last night and we had a look at my errant computer, finding two problems, the first was that Windows Firewall was on and resisted all attempts to turn it off (we got it though the little so and so) and the other (my fave) was that when in the shop for repairs, those working on the DVD problem set the network card to turn itself off whenever it felt like saving electricity… pah!

Enough of that already I’ve got headache!

Anyway Per and I went out for a cycle and did a course in a really good time… the muscles are building!

(Let’s go and find some cool links so I can celebrate my day of 100 mutual friends!)

[1] I dare anyone on this computer to challenge me on my problems with computers, I swear you’ll lose, hands down!

[2] The film in question (for the noobies) is a short film I am making as part of a film project, the shooting is set for next weekend!

That bike again…

This has been a tough, yet fruitful couple of weeks, the manuscript has been sent off now and my film team are happy with it (breathes a sigh of relief) which is good as there is no way I could write another version, not without a gun to the head anyway!

In Bad Dreams has just sapped every bit of strength I have ever had and to claim working days of around fifteen hours a day over the last couple of weeks would not be telling a lie!

And so it was today that I decided enough was enough, I needed a bit of a break and set about first working with the wife on a new batch of apple chutney (oh yes) and then took the bike out (for the first time since mid June!) and so I present you with some more shots of Sweden:

Another of our lakes (this is only 11km outside Norrköping!)

Sunset by the lake (I really needed this!)

It’s them red barns again!

That weekend just kept growing and growing!

Warmest welcome to the purple zoner collection: aaronmbrown, abygael, little_foxy, tabra, tropic_dm and trumblehoofer. Nice to see you all found your way here, hope the trip is worth it!

I’m going to get a little self indulgent on this post and it could go on a bit so I thought I’d put it under a cut:

Well what a few days this was, I was expecting to have the most boring party from hell, an intensive film weekend and a visit to my brother-in-law’s place to pick up my sister-in-law, who has been visiting the last few days.

Friday was the first birthday party for my wife’s auntie’s child (her cousin then – how weird) and I was expecting to be surrounded by small children, throwing cake around and generally being irritating in diverse quantities… yes I have a son, who I love to bits, but it doesn’t mean I want to hang around with other people’s (ooh touchy here)!

Anyway there were many more adults than children (around 40 adults and 5 children… ha ha) and some of the adults actually had something to say, or at least were worth talking to. This is something I’ve discussed in a previous post but will be explaining more in a future post, so bear with it for now.

So the party was okay, a few needed hours away from the computer screen and in the fresh air!

Then came the film weekend, where we went through our manuscript in more detail and I found out that one of my roles in our small team is of director! Yes you read right, I am going to be directing this film… how excited am I? The weekend went well and I really got an idea of what I need to do, what is expected of me and what I can achieve if this goes in the direction we are all pushing it… watch out Cannes, we’re on our way!

I got back earlier than expected on Sunday and dragged the wife and Maddoc off to Klarsjön (Clear Lake) where we had a swim in the lake and I read short stories for review, whilst Etina entertained our little monkey (pictures to follow). It was great to keep out of the house for another couple of days and I realised how tied I’ve been to this damn machine recently!

We then left for Örebro yesterday morning to spend the day with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece, before bringing my sister-in-law back to Norrköping, where she will stay until she returns to Stockholm in a month or so.

It was a relaxing trip too, culminating in a new board game När och Fjärran (Home and Away I suppose), where you answer questions on the world around you and collect points based on your knowledge of continents. Not only did I win (the game being played in Swedish) but I answered all my questions on Oceania right!

Then it was back to the grind again… I’m off to bath Maddoc now but I will back soon with pictures and lots more work (eek!)

Film and stuff

Wow guys, 82 comments (as of writing this) in relation to my question regarding why you are all here is pretty damn impressive and I am overwhelmed, thanks for the great/funny/insulting/pepping/heart-warming/sarcastic stuff you all said, it means a lot!

We had our film meeting today with Lisa Munthe, who seemed to like the idea for our short film. She had a few problems with the ending but I have had them since day one and so there was no real suprise there. She felt that the whole pace of the film and atmosphere created by the manuscript/short story gave a really good picture of the film (that was me that was!).

I found Lisa to be a very interesting person, a director who I would very much like to work with in the future. Lisa is the director of the popular Swedish documentary Armbryterskan från Ensamheten and is currently working on a short film project. I did have a review for this film but I don’t seem to be able to find it in my website files *looks confused*

On Saturday we travel to a nearby castle that has been converted into a conference hotel to work through the ideas in further detail and work out our estimated budget for the film. The weekend has come at the wrong time for me with so many other things going on but if you want to work on twenty projects at one time, then this is how it goes!

I’m going to be listed as a filmmaker (or at least screenwriter) this time next year!

Cool!

Did I mention…

… that I have finished my short story version of the film manuscript?

*dances around*

Now it’s just a whole weekend meeting and working through the script coming up… oh and meeting up with a Cannes nominated director on Thursday for a pitch session!

Kick arse!

Haven’t lost any of the flist yet!

I’m still there, still hanging in on the flists even though football is dominating my LJ at the moment. You know it’s a temporary thing, you know it only lasts as long as the tournament… don’t you?

I realised just how much I have put on my creative plate for this year and it is very scary indeed; it is do-able but with tight deadlines hovering over it all becomes a bit more stressful and nailbiting.

Writing is going well though, I said I would take a break when baby boy was born but wasn’t able to. I was given confirmation that a short story I pitched would be commissioned for this year and had to write that the first month Maddoc was around. I did it and received an edited version yesterday which I am very happy with!

The film has been mentioned and that story will be started this week in amongst the tumult of the World Cup.

I have even managed to get my fitness regime not only started but in full swing. Monday I cycled with my friend Micke for nearly two hours, yesterday I swam for just over an hour and today had a thirty minute run… I have realised new levels of tiredness but am feeling pretty kick-arse too!

The reading has slowed down but I kind of expected that. I get home from my friend Micke’s (no not him, another one) at eleven and crash (not tonight of course!) thus eliminating reading time (I get a chapter if I’m lucky).

I’ve recently got Skype too and so if anyone fancies hearing how I sound then let me know and I’ll set you up on my account and we can have a chat. It’s free if you have broadband (and of course you have to do this wild_heart). Let me know if you’ve got it.

Not a lot more just now but I’ll be back…

That film again

All went really well at the film meeting and the three of us (the director, composer and me) sat down and pounded through our script in a lovely little town on the coast of one our tidal lakes (Vadstena).

The project is definitely moving on now and I am about to start turning our twelve chapter mini-script into a short story. The reason we have gone for short story is that my director feels that that is a really good way for the actors to get a feel for the characters before reading the script and rehearsing the dialogue.

Next meeting (in July) is where we are going to go through our budget and see what we need for what… I’m a filmmaker, me… it’s too good to be true this one!