Attack of the four-legged fiend

ONE WEEK ONE WEEK ONE WEEK... (til Ben comes, for those who hadn't figured it out).

Working from home today but not feeling all that productive or into it. Been feeling a bit flat ever since I woke up this morning. Think maybe it's because I had a dream I was being attacked by an evil horse. Don't laugh.

Did this workshop over the weekend although to be honest I was a little bit disappointed - it just wasn't what I was expecting. I thought there would be 10-12 people and we could discuss our own projects with the group, instead it was 40 people (!) and some of the discussion was quite academic - as in it reminded me a lot of Cinema Studies at uni. I already have a degree in Cinema Studies and don't feel the need to brush up on those skills! I think I did get something out of the course, but not what I was really expecting/hoping for. There were some interesting people there. We'll see. Sometimes you don't know what you're going to get out of something until later.

iceandfire's a bit weird at the moment - there are some very deep divides and differences between our 2 artistic directors about how to approach the development of new work at the future direction of the company. Not sure what's going to happen but I was stuck in the middle of both of them during a meeting yesterday and it was quite awkward! Especially because I can genuinely see both sides of the argument. They just each have different approaches to life. Lucky they have such a diplomat on staff to keep things calm and civil! He he.

That's it really. My housemate went on holiday today, his stuff is still here but he's only going to stay one night when he gets back and then he's moving on. He's been fine but I'm looking forward to having the place to myself for a week and then... Hoorah! You know the rest.

The dust settles

It seems that this prison film will never end. It was supposed to be finished by now. So many delays and postponements - I just want it over with! Grrr.

This week is less busy than last week as a result though. Was supposed to be editing today but now it's cancelled. iceandfire is also calmer, after our new script launch last Friday. Can't edit the children in detention film yet either, am waiting on some new software because my version of final cut (I've got the cheap Express version) won't read the files from the camera - so haven't even seen the rushes!

Some of you might be interested in the music video I made a little while back, I finally got around to sending it to the singer, Aisling Stephenson, and she's put it on youtube...

C'est tout mes amis.

A bientot.

PS: This is my 100th blog post! Yee ha! *Insert blowing party whistles, fireworks, etc...*

New showreel

As some of you know, I freaked out this week about my showreel and have updated it! Many of you, my friends and family, feature in the new "highlights" edit that I did:

More blog practice

Even though I'm a tad shite at writing this blog, I'm a blogger in demand! So you can read other articles I've written for iceandfire, and for Inside Job Productions.

The prison film got delayed, which of course threatens the other 2 projects I had lined up straight after it! For the first time in my life I have 3 jobs secured in a row and the first one gets pushed back. Grrr. So I've rushed the Children's Society campaign forward, shooting next week. Got auditions this week, for actors who can play a 14-year-old African girl. I didn't know any, so cast my net wide, and now I have 20 girls auditioning! So i feel confident we'll find someone great from that group.

And Ben is coming here on 6th April! He arrives at 5:40 am (!!) so I won't be able to meet him at the airport (not because I'm a rubbish girlfriend, but because the tubes won't even be working!) I will instead be waiting for him in our cosy East London flat. Perhaps I'll bake some bread and put on a pot of coffee. Real homely like...

Probably not. Hopefully the daffodils I just planted will be out by then though!

iceandfire launch a new script in a few weeks, about older people and human rights, Getting On. Perhaps we should do a double bill with Mum's Melbourne Comedy Festival show, Alzheimers The Musical: A night to remember! Two rather different takes on issues of ageing!!

Charity chick

It's official. I am now the charity video girl of London. I'm booked up until mid-April doing freelance jobs for charities. Sweet.

Have also had some good meetings recently, especially with this awesome woman at LaPlante Productions, Sara Johnson. We got along really well - we just clicked. She was funny, smart and personable and was really encouraging and helpful. I left the meeting feeling buoyant - she gave me a lot of confidence and I felt like her offers to help in the future were genuine. Through her I've also managed to secure a meeting at Clerkenwell Films, who last year made a terrific teen comedy/drama series on Channel 4 called Misfits, about a group of young offenders who get caught in an electrical storm and all get superpowers. If you can track it down, I highly recommend watching it, it's very funny and really well made - not only a fantastic cast but the series has a great look, really desaturated with occasional highlights, such as the "offender" orange jumpsuits.

So all good things.

AND... the BIG news... BEN GOT HIS VISA! Hooray! I had to send my original British passport to Canberra a few weeks ago, which was nerve-wracking, because I hadn't had my copy certified correctly. But it obviously got there, and they've returned it to Ben, along with his visa in his passport. So he'll be booking his ticket in the next few days and then coming to live with me hurrah!

So that's it. I realise I'm being a bit crap on my blog - perhaps I should give up and join facebook? Please post any pros/cons you think of here and I'll decide based on that...!

Con #1: I said at the start of this blog that I refuse to join facebook...

January japes

What were you doing last Saturday night? I was shivering in a church in Leeds, filming a concert by the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra! It was pretty random. A girl I used to work with at the Barbican asked me back when I worked there - I think in September! - whether I would come and film her conducting. She paid for me to catch a train up, bought me dinner and gave me a bed for the night, all for me to use her tiny handicam for 50 minutes. There were no focus, lighting or sound controls on the camera, so I'm sure it looks a bit rubbish, but I did my bit and spent 7 hours on a train! It felt even more bizarre because I was still somewhat jetlagged.

The rest of my week hasn't been quite so strange. Work at iceandfire. Now I'm sitting at home waiting for my new flatmate to arrive - he's a friend of Jake Corbett, who shot the first prison film I directed. He works in post production and seems like a nice guy. He'll help out with the rent for a couple of months, until Ben gets here! Hopefully in mid-March...

I seem to be becoming the charity video girl! Been asked to quote on two charity videos this week, plus I had a meeting with three organisations that want to do a campaign about decriminalising debt problems - you can go to prison in the UK for not paying council tax or TV licence fees. Not surprisingly, many of these people are in debt - usually single mothers. So that's an interesting project.

I'll let you know how the charity industry goes. It's keeping me in the manner to which I hope to become accustomed...!

Danke Schoen

Berlin is such an awesome city. Shopping, art galleries, museums, markets, and lots and lots of bars with cheap beer. Hard to fault it really. Especially because there is also such incredible history - both very recent and very distant. Some photos on the right.

We did all of the above. A walking tour on the Friday (all day, much of it in the rain!) then we went for dinner in a small Italian restaurant and did some bar hopping in the uber trendy Mitte district. Saturday we went shopping after breakfast, first around Mitte and then we went to an area a few people had recommended. Sadly, they had not been specific about the street we should go to so we walked around and around for ages! Thankfully the weather wasn't too bad. That night we had a drink with a friend of Felicity's, Adina, who was very nice, and her boyfriend Paris. They took us to Billy Wilder's - and they were somewhat taken aback by how excited I was by the theme of the bar! Sunday, Fliss and I went to a market near our hostel (we stayed in the excellent East Seven Hostel - which I would recommend to anyone. Clean, good location, nice staff) then went to the Pergamon museum (which Fliss found a bit boring, but I liked the Ishtar Gate!) and the Helmut Newton gallery. Lots and lots of naked ladies. We'd never seen so many breasts and vaginas.

This week has been busy and next week will be even more so. iceandfire had a performance on Monday of a new show (Listen to Me, in collaboration with Save the Children and EveryChild), then I had more iceandfire work plus recces for filming next week. Driving to the prison in Surrey was soooo stressful on Thurs - no GPS or proper road map, just GoogleMaps directions and a couple of map print outs. So if I took a wrong turn (which I did a few times!) I had no way of knowing how to get back. GoogleMaps said it would take me 50 mins to get there, I allowed 1 1/2 hours... it took 2 1/4 hours! I was so tense. Turned out OK in the end. And the prisons that I saw were really interesting.

I'm on the shortlist to pitch a new web series idea I have at Channel 4, through the Stallar Network. It's very scary! I'm not that good at pitching so will have to do a lot of work. Exciting though.

Social butterfly

Fliss and I are off to Berlin tomorrow - hoorah! Any suggestions or tips welcome - be sure to email them through. I went to Berlin about 4 years ago and loved it but would love to see more this time.

Had a very social week this week - 2 dinner parties chez nous. Sara from iceandfire came around last night with her lovely boyfriend Tom. They're both very tall so Fliss was suitably impressed. And on Sun eve Pete & Thea came over with their friends Hugh & Tash. Pete had asked me if I knew Hugh and I wasn't sure, but of course I did. I think we met first year politics at Melb Uni! He's someone who I've run into every now and then over the course of the last 8 years!

Sat night was bonfire night - Guy Fawkes day was officially on Thurs but they have the fireworks etc on Sat. Victoria Park had a full carnival set up and the fireworks were great. I went with my former housemates, Aurelie and Cinzia. Foolishly I wore my new ankle boots and got them covered in mud - the crowds of people had churned the wet ground up pretty good!

Prison film is in full swing now. Had a 2 1/2 hour meeting about it yesterday. Will probably start shooting the week after next, but having trouble getting the mental health organisation to commit to shoot dates.

C'est tout, en ce moment. I'll take photos in Berlin and put them up soon. Also have some photos of the fireworks, if I remember (don't have the cable with me right now!)

Bisous.

Finally!

The prison film has finally been given the absolutely, iron-clad, definite go-ahead. Hoorah! (and phew - I was starting to get just a TAD nervous about it). I quit the Barbican because I knew the project was funded, so I assumed it was green lit, but then we had to get permission from the Ministry of Justice and it took about 3 weeks. But I got the call today and it's all go.

For the last 3 weeks I've just been waiting, not just for the prison film but am waiting for actors to respond on 2 feature film projects and also waiting to hear about a job application. At least now I can get into a project properly rather than just waiting!

Got my British drivers license in the post yesterday. Somehow that feels even more official and important than the passport!

Anyway. I'm off to drink some cider to celebrate the fact that I do actually have the job that I thought I had but then wasn't so sure!

Thurs/Fri Update

Back on track now. Up to the present.

Thursday night I went to an event organised by BECTU, the media & entertainment union. It was a discussion on the future of TV drama in the UK, featuring two big names in British television, Charles Sturridge and Tony Garnett. They were both great - so eloquent and interesting. I also loved the fact that, although they were both very critical of how the TV networks are being managed over here (especially the BBC) they were also positive and hopeful about the future. Whenever I've been to similar events in Australia they would always end up being really depressing, all doom and gloom, but this was still inspirational despite the criticism and disappointment at the current climate. I wanted to talk to Charles Sturridge afterwards - it was a small, intimate atmosphere so I felt confident going to speak to him - but he seemed to disappear fairly quickly after the talk, unfortunately. I did meet some other good people though, including a director from Melbourne who has been working in TV here for about 7 years. She has offered to have coffee with me so that I can pick her brains. She works in factual but might still know some good people and be able to offer advice.

Was invited to 2 events last night - a party and a concert - and ended up piking on both of them! The concert was a composer I didn't know and it started to piss with rain just before I had to leave, so I cancelled (my friend had been given free tix, so I didn't screw her over too much!) and I'm blaming Chelsea for missing the party, because we skyped for over an hour! Although we all know that it's not actually Chelsea's fault, that I was glad for the excuse!

It's starting to cool down here although the weather is still generally pretty good. Some rain this week but it's supposed to be sunny the next few days. Global warming is doing wonders for London!

x

Chapter 4: New job!

I had started to despair over the summer about ever being able to quit my job at the Barbican. I resented them somewhat less when I found out they were going to pay us the London living wage (there's been a big union push for councils/boroughs to pay the London living wage, as opposed to the British award minimum, because it costs so much more to live in London than anywhere else in the country).

There was one good thing about the Barbican job, which ironically came out of the worst ever shift (which I talked about in an earlier post) During the dreadful Carpark 5 shift, I met Graham Sheffield, Artistic Director of the Barbican. I chatted to him briefly, and the next day I cheekily sent him an email about iceandfire's season at the Edinburgh Fringe. A couple of weeks later he wrote back and said he'd like to come, and he did! Christine saw him in the audience, shaking his head and tutting in the appropriate places (it's a show to make you angry!) So I then sent Graham another email after the festival was over and asked if he would meet with iceandfire to discuss a potential collaboration. Not only does iceandfire fit many of the Barbican's artistic aims/vision (as discussed at some Barbican staff meetings) but Graham is also on the board of advisors for freedom of speech organistion Index on Censorship, whose editor is on OUR board! And they have commissioned one show from us and we are working with them on another.

Anyway, on a fateful day about 3 weeks ago, Graham's PA got back to me and said he was keen to meet and talk about a collaboration. Very exciting for us - the meeting is in a few weeks (late Oct) and the Barbican is definitely the most high profile venue/arts collaborator we have spoken to. About one hour after receiving this excellent email, I had a phone call. From Inside Job Productions, with whom I made the prison film in May, offering me another job! A more long-term project, to take me (working part-time) til late February!

So I feel like I must have been working at the Barbican for a reason. Putting up with the less-than-generous pay and unexciting work in order to get this meeting for iceandfire with Graham Sheffield... then the universe rewarded me by allowing me to quit!

My final shift at the Barbican was another doozy though. I'll go into more details in the Crappy Week chapter...!!

Barbed

Had the worst shift at the Barbican last night. 5 hours in the carpark supervising a photo/sound installation. About 30 people came in the whole time and there was this music on a loop, which, I kid you not, sounded exactly like the theme to psycho played at half speed. Did the artist think of the poor sod who had to work on his stoopid installation?? That music went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

In better news, Ben and I have booked a holiday to Portugal! After the Edinburgh trip, just before Ben will go back to Aus. 4 nights in a nice hotel on the beach... Yeah!

I gotta get out of the Barbican though. Driving me crazy. I applied for some funding last week for a video participation project with some refugees in Wimbledon, through iceandfire (partnering with FilmAid). So fingers crossed for that coz then I can ditch the Barb and do basically full-time hours for 3 months working on bleeding heart do-gooder projects!

The week that was

I've still been a bit crap with the blog. Oh well, a week's delay is better than 3 months!

The Barbican screwed me around a lot last week. First of all the woman who looks after the rosters refused to tell me when my shifts were, beyond my first one ("check your rota in your pigeonhole" is all she would say!) Turned out I had 3 shifts. Then I got a letter saying I was about to be fired for not turning up to shifts... which was untrue! It was quite a harsh letter as well. I found it a bit upsetting, even though my manager had no trouble believing that it was their error and not mine. I'm a good employee and feel a bit hard done by!

Saturday night it was my housemate's birthday (technically it was her birthday all day, but she had a party in the evening!) Our flat was filled with hip young French people smoking, it stank for a few says afterwards! It was fun though. I stayed up until 2am! Shock!

Lots of iceandfire work as usual. We sent out a press release on Monday, Al Jazeera are coming to film our performance on Sunday night! I had a meeting today with the producer of the prison film, who said I am now their drama director of choice! However they don't have any drama commissions at the moment. Poo. Also got a meeting on Friday with an organisation called Filmaid who I'm trying to organise a project with, in collaboration with iceandfire. If I can get more work through Inside Job Productions or Filmaid then I can quit the Barbican - hoorah!

I know I know I know

I'm a bad person. Or at least a bad blogger. I've neglected my duties for more than 2 months. Unacceptable.

My excuse is that I thought it was odd to write this while I was back in Melbourne (seeing as it is called Charlotte in London! I'm very literal minded) and since I've got back I've hit the ground running.

First things first. The prison film.

It was a low security prison, level C (the top level is A, the lowest is D, which is an "open prison" so prisoners are allowed into the community during the day but return at night.) Having said that, my cast and crew consisted of 4 murderers and a paedophile! I was pretty nervous the first day, when I had a rehearsal and met the inmates for the first time. I wasn't worried about my security, but the prison officer in charge of the filming had managed to give me the impression that the playwright and actors would be utterly unimpressed by my attempts to make their script more "filmic". I'd been given a play script so naturally I'd written it into a film, seeing as that's what we were making - turning some talking to the audience moments into voice over and cutting it down a bit (not much). When I tried to explain this to the prison officer she shook her head and looked unimpressed and said "Ooh no, they like doing the talk to the audience bit. I don't know about that..."

Consequently, when I met the inmates for the first time my leg was shaking, I had to concentrate to stop it from jiggling up and down! The author of the play had had a heart attack the week before and so we had to move to his wing, where he read my version of his script stoney-faced. No emotion at all. At the end of it though, he clearly approved, and instructed his fellow inmates to go along with the changes and follow my instructions. The playwright appeared to be something of a leader in the prison.

The shoot went remarkably well, despite some rather hefty obstacles. One was that we only had a day to shoot, and a small crew. And the day before I was told by the prison that the inmates would have to be locked up in the middle of the day for lunch, giving us 2 1/2 hours to shoot in the morning and only 2 in the afternoon! So only half a day in actual fact! Thankfully the producer called the head of security and got our cast a special dispensation to stay on the wing during lunchtime. We still had a lot to shoot, but we got it done exactly on time, even managing to get a bit of coverage. The camera operator was grabbing cutaway shots whenever he could.

All in all, it was an eye-opening experience. Three of the four men who had committed murder were very polite and rather charming, it was hard to imagine how they managed to do what they did. What it really made me think about was the girlfriends, wives and partners of these men. I find that I can't help experiencing a flicker of judgement when I see on TV partners supporting their loved ones in court, defending them, despite their obviously violent natures. But I find it easier to understand now how someone could fall in love with a man and have no inclination of what he was capable of, until it was too late. This goes for the paedophile too I guess.

Sadly can't put the film up on Youtube or anything to show you guys, due to victims rights laws (fair enough too - I wouldn't want to see the man who murdered my sister on Youtube making a film about diversity in prison!!).

Anyway, I'll write about my special weekend in NYC with Ben tomorrow... I promise!

PLEASE NOTE: My sister is not actually dead. The reference above is in relation to a hypothetical murderer! Please don't be alarmed. She is safe and well...!

Keeping moving

Busy-ness all around. I'm now editing the footage we filmed in Cornwall last week and it's a tough job - 4.5 hours to reduce to 5-10 mins! I've only really edited drama, where there's a script to help you make decisions, but we have interviews, observational footage, sketches, vox pops and more! Trying to turn it into something coherent that flows smoothly and is engaging is quite challenging. Although it will be rewarding if I can get it right.

I've also been asked to make another film before my trip to Aus... filming in a prison! Not sure which one, and I haven't seen the script yet, but a production company I met with last year has asked me if I'd be interested in shooting a film based on a script a prisoner has written, set in the cells. Will definitely be an interesting project. Although I haven't heard from the producer since she first called me (almost a week ago) so hopefully it's still happening.

Keeping busy is ensuring I don't have time to mope or dwell on missing Ben (and other friends/family). Thankfully Ben is busy too - he won the Australian Writers Guild unproduced screenplay award (which involves a trip to Adelaide - ha ha!) Although he has been DUMPED from the Tom Budge Good Time Band! I suggest a boycott of their gigs by all Melbourne music lovers. Bring back "hot strings"! There's no loyalty these days (his fellow band mates haven't said anything! Not even a "sorry you got kicked out of the band for not being trendy enough!" Ben would quit if any of them had got unceremoniously dumped. Makes me mad)

Bushfires

I haven't written for a while, my apologies.

Partly it's because I've been in Truro, Cornwall, making a film with kids who have/had substance use problems. Although it went fantastically well, the young people were so enthusiastic and candid and creative, it was exhausting! I had internet access but no brain at the end of each day to write anything.

The main reason I haven't written though is because I found out a week ago that I know someone who died in the bushfires, Eva. And I don't know what to say. I didn't know Eva that well but she was a friend of one of my best friends, Petrea (one of the greatest people in the world), so I have spent some time with her over the last 7 years or so. I know Eva will be sorely missed by many people. Petrea and her friends have suffered enough tragedy for several lifetimes, and now they have to deal with yet another terrible loss. It's so hard to comprehend. I just hope you're all OK. And also those people who were close to Eva and her family who I don't know. Just. Fucking. Awful.

The bushfires have made all the headlines over here. In fact they were front page most days until the plane crash in NY. Just goes to show how the news media works - they obsess over one tragedy until another takes its place.

I hope you're all well and able to keep smiling through this hardship.

xxxxxx

East London

I've been here long enough now that I feel qualified to write about my reflections on my local area.

Bethnal Green Rd is a wonderfully down-market high street. There are street stalls selling everything from fruit and veges, to CDs, to bed linen, and the street sellers are out every day, rain or shine. Bought myself a hat from there when I lost my other one. It has a pom pom.

Apart from the standard shops - Tescos, banks, post office, traditional English cafs etc - Bethnal Green Rd has some odd stores, such as the pie and mash shop (which ONLY sells pies and mash. They do tea and coffee, but you're not allowed to buy a cup unless you also buy a pie!), the hot sarsparilla shop (they must sell something else as well, but that's all it says out the front!) and the many sari shops.

Bethnal Green Rd meets up with Brick Lane, so the Indian/Pakistani influence on this area is strong.

Been to a few restaurants on Brick Lane, and so far my pick is Sheba. Good food, cheap (we had 2 beers, 2 sofdrinks, 4 small vege dishes, rice & naan for about £20) and pretty good service. They were even nice about the fact that I left my purse, a pair of gloves and my Barbican shirt there (don't ask...!) The worst I've been to was Clipper. Fliss and I went there for lunch, it was a set menu and there were only 2 other tables there and it took more than AN HOUR to get served! Even the first course (samosas!) took 45 mins. Shithouse. AND they had a bottle of water on the table when we entered, which we assumed was complimentary, but NO! The most expensive water ever bottled. Must have been done by some holy men atop India's highest mountain. Or squeezed out of diamonds.

Brick Lane is also very trendy, lots of great bars, especially up the Bethnal Green Rd end. And a market on Sundays. My perfect area!

So come and visit me! Not that I have any room in my tiny apartment. But I'm going to be rich any day now and will have at least 2 guest rooms...!

And in terms of news, the short film I made last year is on the shortlist for the Guardian Youtube competition! So that's pretty funny. The Guardian article is here and you can watch the video here. There's even a nice comment from someone I don't know! At least I don't think I know them. The other comment (robg56) is somewhat less mysterious...

Cold snaps

Those shark attacks made it into the news here. I'm telling you, sharks and crocs, they're the only kinds of stories that the British media are interested in about Aus!

It is seriously cold here now. We went to the football yesterday (finally broke the curse - Arsenal actually won! They still didn't play that well but at least their fans got some relief) and despite wearing socks and thick stockings under jeans my feet were going numb. I think the max yesterday was 2 or 3C, dropping to -3C overnight. I still haven't seen snow though. So ripped off.

We saw a really weird film on Sat - Far North. With Sean Bean and Michelle Yeoh. One of the strangest films I've ever seen. It was all shot in Finland or somewhere - the landscape is all ice and snow - it looks incredible. But the story? So Michelle has an adopted daughter and they live in a tent/igloo thing in the middle of nowhere and she rescues Sean Bean who is alone in the snow. A love triangle forms. So far, so good (although a bit slow). But then... 

TURN AWAY IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE FILM. Spoiler ahead. I personally do not recommend it.

Michelle Yeoh's daughter tells her she and Sean are running off together. So Michelle turns into a scary witch and strangles her daughter with her own hair before cutting her face off and sewing it onto her own! Then she has sex with Sean Bean who realises something weird is happening and runs out into the tundra naked.

So bizarre. On the plus side, I never saw it coming!!

We saw the film at the Barbican after I'd been working at a concern which is my idea of hell - a selection of the cheesiest numbers from various musicals. Oh God it was awful. I Don't Know How to Love Him, a Sound of Music medley, There's No Business Like Show Business, I Feel Pretty, a medley from Mamma Mia... on and on it went. My ears were bleeding. And the singers were trying way too hard. Ugh.

Gotta take the good with the (oh so) bad I guess.

Christmas craziness

This week has (thankfully) been a bit more relaxed than last week, probably because last week I tried to shoot a film in amongst working 2 jobs! It was a bit stressful, but the film was for a competition and is now up on Youtube. Check it out (it's very silly, but I think it's funny!)

The film had to somehow be inspired by this short story, which is quite absurdist and our interpretation is loose to say the least! Basically we started thinking about what furniture gets up to when people aren't in the room.

My theory over here is I'm just going to enter everything and anything. Put myself out there. However I can. Hopefully next week though I'll have some time to relax over Xmas and coming into the new year!

xxxx

Love the stereotypes!

Another funny moment with my French housemate.

She was complaining to me about some shit at work and she said that, because she was unhappy, she had a go at her manager about it. "But all the Engleesh are like 'how could you do that?' But I am French you know? We don't put up with that sheet!" And I said that her people had fought a revolution not to have to deal with hierarchy and she said "Exactly!" Hilarious.

Still no luck with getting an agent yet, but possibilities are still open. My new plan is to enter any and every competition/opportunity that comes along. Yesterday I wrote a script for a pitch to direct a music video, and SD and I will make our short film for the Guardian soon as well. There are lots of good websites, on the BBC and Channel 4 for example, which list new opportunities for writers and directors (and DOPs, designers, etc). I still think it was a good idea to move over here.

Off to brunch with my housemate soon, possibly on Brick Lane, and then we have to sign another contract with the real estate agent (don't ask. Yes they are the same everywhere!)

Bisous xxx