Still Cooking...

Man things take their time in the real world don't they?

So be it. We're barrelling along. Still talking to producers, seeing what we might be able to do - but in the meantime steaming on full force with our own stuff, off our own backs too. Plans for some shit hot downloadable Audio books and audio drama are afoot. And I for one am very excited.

Also plans and conversations going on towards an animated short film - hopefully The Cat Who Said Wong, but maybe some other things too. And a possible illustrated book.

Meanwhile I continue to noodle on some prose and an idea or two for feature scripts while keeping central focus on the work in hand. Expect further updates in the very near future. An audio trailer is being polished (the one that got us meetings). Domain names have been bought and a Coming Soon image is on it's way to us... things are getting serious round here!

I'll keep you posted.

WHEN DEAD TALES START TO SHOUT...

It's a weird thing when something that was dead and buried in the back of your mind, comes suddenly kicking and screaming to life...

An old short story that died on the page, started talking a little while back. Shouting infact.

I've been working on ideas for Radio drama, since the trailer/snippet that I wrote and then recorded with Dan Smith has been finding favour with some folk on the inside.

They all seem to really like it. But don't quite know where to place it. But we should be meeting with a production company who makes drama for Radio 4 in March, so fingers crossed.

In the mean time my head has been playing with lots of ideas, trying to make sure we have a few other thigns in hand to talk about with the producer, but also to pitch towards the contacts we've been making, who all say 'Yes, please let us know any other ideas you have'. Strike while the iron's hot and all that.

So - in this frame of mind - I suddenly heard the voice of one of the characters in the shrot story that died start talking. Shouting at me infact - and ggrabbing a pen, I scribbled down the entire ending of the story as it might work on radio. Two intercutting, interlocking Voices, telling a single tale, sort of a contemporary reworking of 'Little Red Riding Hood', but also sort of an amalgam of other 'Wolf' based fairy tales too, reset on contemporary urban streets and pushed headlong into the darkness and with a healthy dose of the grotesque and dreamlike added to the mix.

It's coming along quite nicely. I like the oddity of it. And grimmness and the sexuality. And I particularly like that - for all the dark ickyness of it, I think the end manages to be uplifting. I think...

Lots of good squelchy noises in it. It if works it should be creepy, disturbing, maybe make you squirm, but ultimately lift you up, transcend. Or it might just freak you out. Depends on who you are I suppose.

Either way, I'm grinning. Because, if nothing else, I'm know that it will get a reaction.

TREATMENTS...

I used to HATE treatments.

Never used to write them unless I had to. And even then it was usually after the fact, having written a full script, or at least some kind of longer document, but discovering someone else really wanted one.

I still find them problematic. Conveying the exitement of an idea in such a way as to grab the readers imagination, but not giving them every last beat of the script.

Recently I've had a turnaround. I've got so many ideas on the go, that it just seemed practical (and quicker) to write treatments for them all, so that there was something concrete to give to people if they were interested/wanted to read.

My thinking being that - since I still work full time - I don't have the time to just sit down and blast the scripts out, so why not work them up to being ready to go, and let fate/interested parties decide which one goes to script first. And if no one makes that decision, well I'll slowly work my way through them anyway. No harm, no fowl. Everyone's a winner...

In the process, I've had a bit of a breakthrough.

When I first sit down to write a treatment, it isn't just a 'treatment'. It's the first draft of the script.

I write a very detailed, often undisciplined treatment, knowing that I'll cut it back. But that first moment of throwing paint at the canvas, is like an info dump. I write it fast. As fast as I can, pouring everything I think I know about the script/story out onto the page.

That's not to say I don't pay any attention to how it's going to read.

I'd be a very poor writer I think, if I did that. But I don't let it get in the way.

I write to be read. I write to excite - myself as much as anything. And as ever the process of writing, of pouring the stew of ideas out onto the page, seems to act like a sieve, cutting out the fat. Details leap out at me, flag themselves as key. Images and core points crystalise, and push you in more definate, honed directions. The story starts to find itself, define itself. Well, that's writing...

And I guess that's where I was going wrong before. I thought of the treatment as a condensation. Now it's part of the process. A first step to finding what the story/script really wants to be.

The treatment isn't just the 'treatment'. It's the first draft of the script...

Thinking of it that way makes it more integral. More useful. Less like something that's getting in the way. Less like something that seemed like it was just for lazy financers who couldn't be bothered to read a script (come on you know you've often thought it when you're trying to boil a big idea down without killing it dead).

It's an important step in the creative process now. A really helpful step.

It helps to order all my thoughts BEFORE I'm knee deep in the finer details of how one scene cuts to the next, or the implications of a single word of dialogue.

And it's fun. It feels a lot like telling myself the story for the first time again, seeing what works. Why the idea was exiting when I had it. And if I can tell the whole thing (even allowing for some narrative gaps filled in with notes) and make it work, find the shape in the treatment. It's pretty certain I can make it work as a script. Writing the treatment first gives you confidence. By the end of it, you're already partway there.

THREE HAIRS OF THE DEVIL (Screenplay)

Work in progress. An original screenplay by Neil Snowdon


Pete Gleadall and his dad are new in town.

The local kids tell Pete that the Devil lives in the house at the end of his street. That the old woman living there is a witch, who once had sex with a demon and nine months later gave birth to the Devil.

Pete doesn't believe a word of it. But that night sees the hulking man who lives there going out...

He comes back first thing in the morning. Just as Pete is getting up for school.

Pete sneaks over there to get a better look. Hiding in the bushes in the back garden, Pete see's the man - The Devil - take a couple of raw, wet hearts from out his bag and push them down into the earth, covering them carefully.

But why? Pete becomes obsessed. Night after night, he sees the man go out into the dark, into the town, and every morning he returns and buries hearts in his back garden.

Pete's dad tells him a fairytale about the Devil - how if you can pluck three hairs from his back while he is sleeping, he will grant you a wish.

Pete's mum is dead. That's why they moved house.

Now he has a reason to find out more. So he breaks into the Devil's house one night.

He finds the Devil sleeping -

He reaches out to pluck a hair -

And wakes him up... and then all hell breaks loose. In a manner of speaking.


Who is the 'Devil'? Why does he live with his mother? And what does she want with Pete?

You'll have to wait and see...

(TO BE UPDATED!)

MOONDANCE (Screenplay)

Work in progress. Screenplay for a short film - probably animation - based on my short story.

A tale about how wolves learned to walk on two legs instead of four, and disguise themselves as men.

They walk among us still. They're out there on the streets today...


You can read the original short story HERE...

SWEET DREAMS...

The character in this story has been in my head for years.

For a while I thought I had a story for her, and another muse like character that's been floating round for even longer. But it's long since evaporated. I suspect because it wasn't very good.

So the little girl from this script, just kept on walking. Until I thought I'd at least tell this.

Because I knew what the begining for her character was. I've always known. That's how she appeared inside my head: a little girl with a backpack, sleeping in graveyards because she couldn't hurt anybody there. So I just had someone find her. And try to help/interfere...

It's a short script. I wrote it thinking it might be practical enough that maybe I could make it myself for no money. I'm still hopeful. But as ever, if you're interested, talk to me. Click HERE.

THE STAIN...

A man takes a room above a pub to write his novel in. A last ditch attempt to 'make it' before his wife gives birth to their first child and he has to buckle down to a REAL job, like he promised to.

It's a bare room. And damp. The paper is peeling and there are stains on the walls.

One stain in particular looks almost foetus like.

The man leaves the room untouched. Settles down to work. after a slow start, he finds he can't type fast enough. The novel starts to flow. He starts ignoring home. The book is taking off in new directions. Sometimes he forgets to eat, he's pouring all his energy into the story...

And as he does so, the stain starts getting bigger. Seems to grow. Become more formed. More defined. More human.

Until, one night, it reaches out to him. Crawls, mewling, out of the wall. A blind wet thing with skin the colour of mould, skin that is soft, and moist, almost fluid, like wallpaper paste, or the underbelly of a slug. And it needs feeding. It needs care. It needs our man.

It needs his story...



A short script. 30-45 mins. Work in progress.