Tue, 27 January 2009 Screenwriting the Future
During my blogging duties for the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild I posted the following piece, which I figured would be worth replicating here for those who follow this blog:
De Montfort University in Leicester is hosting a one-day seminar on TV screenwriting on Saturday 7th March 2009 at the Leicester City campus, and the [...]
Fri, 05 December 2008 Winter Cheer
I started writing this blog post a week ago, but then I became happily distracted by the visit from a dear friend of mine.
October and November are busy months for me. It’s when the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild organises its annual screenwriting awards, the ZeBBies, and it generates a lot of extra work.
On November [...]
Wed, 01 October 2008 ’tis the season to be creepy
It’s the first of October, so 2008 is already on the way out. The shops are groaning (and wailing) with Halloween gear, which makes me smile. I love seeing oozing eyeballs, skeletons, and ghosts for sale, and happy little children waving a zombie head at their parents and demanding, “Buy me the Wizened Skull of [...]
Wed, 13 August 2008 “I feel trapped like a moth, in a bath.”
Irish screenwriter Graham Linehan (co-writer of Father Ted and Black Books, and the creator of The IT Crowd) has a blog – my cool discovery of today.
In his latest entry he discusses his progress on the third season of The IT Crowd, which has kept him rather busy. Too distracted to enjoy his usual [...]
Fri, 08 August 2008 behind the curtain
08/08/08 – pretty cool eh? Of course, it is just a made-up number, an arbitrary system to mark the days. There are plenty of other calendars where today is not special at all. It all depends on your point of view.
The Olympics opening ceremony was a beautiful spectacle, and there are many admirable ideas buried [...]
Sun, 20 July 2008 a horrible analysis
I’ve been thinking a lot about Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog since it debuted this week. The first thing I did yesterday morning after I sat down in front of my computer was watch the third episode. So, that’s a good sign of the show’s success.
Yet, I have reservations. The following is a rather in-depth [...]
Mon, 09 June 2008 the Depp Effect
At the weekend I watched the MTV Movie Awards, and marvelled at how low the awards show has fallen. At one point it was the satirical edgy ceremony that appreciated the value of popular entertainment cinema, which the higher brow awards often ignored.
Now, it’s just a way to promote summer movies. Mike Myers [...]
Wed, 13 February 2008 unreal lives
There are a lot of reality shows on television these days, and I watch a number of them. I have a criteria, for instance I don’t watch Big Brother or any of the Survivor/I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here type affairs.
I’m more interested in shows in which the ordinary people involved attempt [...]
Fri, 04 January 2008 walk the line
The WGA strike continues in the USA. I admire the courage of the writers who walk the picket every day.
So, the talks shows are back on air, and only two–Late Night with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson–have come back with their writers. The rest: The Tonight Show with Jay [...]
Fri, 14 December 2007 “His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”
A few days ago I saw three films in a row I hadn’t seen before on different television channels. It was a lucky dip.
First up was Miss Congeniality (2000), a comedy about Gracie Hart (Sandra Bollock) a FBI agent who goes undercover in a Miss USA contest to locate a killer. The story is one [...]
