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Octocon 2013 schedule
It’s that time of the year again, which means I’ll be in The Camden Court Hotel in Dublin this weekend (12-13 October) attending one of my favourite conventions: Octocon. There are two terrific guests of honour that I’m very excited about meeting: comic book writer Gail Simone, and author Richard K Morgan. Both of them have created work I both enjoy and admire, so it will be a privilege to hear them talk about their interests. Here’s my schedule: Saturday 13:00 – Masterclass in Contemporary Fantasy (Pavilion) with Peadar Ó Guilín and Liz Bourke 15:00 – I Don’t Believe It, But It’s True (Abbey) with Ruth Frances Long, Leann Hamilton,…
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Samhain Abu
I caught this cheeky chappie tangled up in a net in a café door in Galway today. I love this time of the year, with all the ghoulish decorations. There’s even a festival going on in the city this weekend called ‘Galway Aboo‘ – which is a play upon the common Irish phrase Gaillimh Abú, which means ‘Up Galway’, and is usually used as encouragement during the county’s sports competitions. I hope you’re all planning a fun, frightful weekend. There are plenty of horror films on television so I’m spoiled for choice. I’ve seen most of them several times already, so I will have to root out something I haven’t…
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it could be bunnies
Finally, I got around to watching Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I had high expectations and I wasn’t let down; the film is utterly charming. I’ve been a big Wallace and Gromit fan since I saw The Wrong Trousers. I’ve always been entranced by Nick Park’s ability to convey emotion via plasticine models. The Penguin in The Wrong Trousers is evil, yet all it does is blink! Gromit can go from looking sad to scared with a subtle tweak of his unibrow. Park’s films are enchanting, entertaining and good natured even when there’s tension in the scenes. It’s a very British kind of humour: cups of tea,…
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dialogue is not uncinematic
Last night our screenwriting group watched the black and white classic 12 Angry Men (1957)–which was directed by Sidney Lumet, and written by Reginald Rose. Afterwards we had a great discussion about a variety of subjects, including what makes one project work for television but not for cinema, and vice versa. What’s lovely about our group is that when we don’t have material to assess we like to mix things up. So we can watch a film, or examine a topic of interest, or, as in the case of our next meeting, go to the theatre to see a play. As I’ve said before, being able to spend time in…
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creepy films
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about horror. For the next meeting of my screenwriting group I’ve agreed to discuss the horror genre, and show a classic horror film. Since this is for the purposes of writing, I picked a film that would be well-known by everyone, had a script online that everyone could read in advance, and I decided that I’d go with a movie that was not based on previous material (book, comic, short story, etc.). If we’re trying to flex our writing muscles to generate new concepts I figured we might as well look at how an original idea was developed for the screen. So, I chose…
