Filmmaking
I’m a member of the New Zealand Writers Guild, and I still have a script “in development” – in other words, on my shelf, waiting for me to get passionate about it again.
It’s a romantic comedy called The Last Gribblehickey. I wrote it after attending a fantastic workshop with Paul Margolis, who helped all us workshop attendees set goals and targets for the hardest part – getting our first draft written.
Well, I got it written, after writing an hour per weekday for four months. I sent the script out to some trusted advisors and got some really constructive feedback. Then… other parts of my life got incredibly busy. And it’s been that way ever since. However, I still fully intend to get back to The Last Gribblehickey when the time is right. If I didn’t mean to, I wouldn’t write about it here!
I was also a co-producer for a film which never got made, Crossover. While it’s always heartbreaking to be part of a project that ultimately fails, I’m grateful to everyone I worked with for the amount of stuff I learnt. Nothing can take away experience. (Except Alzheimer’s, I guess.)
One of the biggest lessons learnt through Crossover was how little I knew about screenwriting and filmmaking (or perhaps how much there was to know). It caused me to jump into my own self-directed learning. You can go to the same film school I went to, for free, at Simon’s DIY Film School. Start at the earliest post and make your way through.
As an aspiring filmmaker, it’s really interesting to take the formulae that used to work for film success, and compare it with the emerging trends in the entertainment business. That’s why it’s particularly exciting to be part of Looksy.org, where we are giving filmmakers – amateur and professional – all around the world, the opportunity to be part of a huge open source, consumer-generated documentary.
