Hi all,
So In the Spirit of Things went down pretty well at the Gwent Festival of one act plays, it won best set design, best youth performer and best youth performance, which I’m very pleased with! Hoping to work with PNG again, perhaps in a more full length and less one act based capacity. There are rumours In the Spirit of Things may even be performed again. I’ll wait and see on that one.
The closing dates are rushing by for script submissions I’ve made, so I expect to hear about those in a couple of months.
Continuing in this theme of waiting, it’s only fitting that I mention two films I’ve been waiting for that did not disappoint.
The Avengers, first of all. I refuse to call it Avengers Assemble although I sort of just did. Joss Whedon took what could have been a massively unfocussed sprawling mess and told a tightly plotted story that gave every single major character a moment to shine. Some of them got several moments to shine and it filled me with nothing but glad tidings when I heard Mark Ruffalo has signed a six picture deal with Marvel. Such a wonderfully measured portrayal of Bruce Banner.
In short, this was the best superhero film I’ve ever seen. Superheroes are the mythology of our age, and it’s fairly fitting that I am such a huge fan when I grew up fanatically enjoying Greek Mythology, and the allegorical optimism that superheroes unashamedly brand in technicolour across our cinema screens is something to be celebrated and applauded rather than dismissed as merely popcorn fodder.
So it seems pretty fitting to me that The Avengers has, I believe, set the standard for superhero films for the next few decades. That’s the one to beat everyone, and it won’t be easy.
The second film was The Cabin in the Woods. Co written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. Those who are following me on Twitter will note my relentless rambling about the quality of this film and my purchasing-of-the-screenplay-at-the-earliest-opportunity-and-then-devouring-it-with-my-eyes-very-quickly-indeed.
Again, this has set the standard for Horror movies. I can’t rant too much without giving plot details away, but know as little as possible about this film before you see it, because when the concept kicks in at the third act, you’ll be very surprised and hopefully more than a little gobsmacked.
I’ve been to see both of these films twice at the cinema (a rarity for me) and I cannot recommend them highly enough.
The resurrection; Just before I left Coventry I started a writer’s collective, affectionately named “The Super Awesome Writer’s Collective”, with my good friends Stuart Boland and Nick Clarke, a couple of budding writers and fellow geeks I met during plays I was in at Coventry University.
With the best intentions ever the group started, we sent each other some work, we parted ways, the group fizzled out. Then these two fine gentlemen came to visit me for a weekend, and we resolved to get the collective going again. We decided to get to know each other’s writing through a story relay. I wrote the opening page of a screenplay, passed it on to Nick, who passed it on to Stu, and so on.
The result so far is so compelling I find myself thinking about it and the ideas we’re coming up with throughout the day, and considering this began as a writing exercise I expect this to become a piece of work the three of us will be very proud of, and very eager to get out there in whatever way we can.
And if I didn’t feel treated enough, this weekend I’ll be heading off with my fellow MA students (or should I say MAvengers…?) to a country park in Aberdare to spend two and a half days being writers.
Seriously, I sometimes can’t believe I get to live this life.
Steve
