A Summer of Stuff

Wowzers. It's October now. That's weird. Weird and annoying. That means we're already three quarters of the way into 2009. That's just bizarre.

The good news is that it's great to be back. This is the first time after any summer break when I've wanted to get back to work. At both primary school and high school, you never wanted the summer to end. And last year I was just so nervous about moving away from home, and starting on what was essentially a "new" course, that I again wanted more time to prepare. But this year, knowing that being away from home ain't too shabby, and knowing that the course is awesome, I was excited. Plus, there were all the lovely people I couldn't wait to see again.

Now, given that we've only had two classes so far, I think I'll leave discussion of Academy things for my next post. Why? Well, because I know you're all super-desperate to know what I did in my summer!

Just days after moving out of halls, I found myself on a train to London to attend an event known as Talent Matters. A community film company I've worked with before selected my friend Jen and I to represent Scotland's young film-makers at this event. Quite why they had that power is beyond me. Various different young "talented" groups across the whole of the UK were going: athletes, chefs, future-politicians, dancers, musicians, entrepreneurs. So Jen and I, along with some friendly chaps from Liverpool, and four nice folk from Wales, had to represent young film-makers of the UK. I also had the added responsibility to ensure I didn't impersonate either the Liverpudlian or Welsh accent. Well, at least not in their presence.

To skip a ridiculously long explanation of just how tedious the event was, I shall summarise briefly. The event was all about praising talent, not nurturing it as I had expected. Therefore, the event consisted of the people in charge talking at us about how talented we all are. It was one big day of massaging egos and patting each other on the back. Thing is, other events were about helping people discover their talents - but all the people there were selected because of their known talents in a particular field! The worst part was when listening to a questionable political journalist, and I looked around to see so many of the young people listening attentively, hanging on his every word. A particularly racist statement about the Chinese left many of us shocked, and went entirely unchallenged. Bastard.

The only good thing about the event was that I got a free trip to London! And with two nights paid for, Jen and I made use of the time to go and see Sister Act The Musical (pretty good), and Derren Brown's live stage-show, ENIGMA (awesome!). As you may recall, I have a lot of admiration and respect for Derren Brown, and I love what he does. Following this truly amazing show, I finally purchased his book, and I've been reading it over the summer. It's really interesting and impressive stuff. A lot of it builds on my prior knowledge of hypnosis and psychology, and I'm really passionate about using some of his techniques in film sometime. And just to make the summer even more Derren-Brown-centric, his new show started on Channel 4. I love him too much to be objective, but I do admit that this show seems to be an attempt at more commercial entertainment, which is shifting his audience from those interested in psychology to those who want to be entertained. He has also taken some major risks with this show, which I think would have paid-off more had there been no format change.

I also started work on a webseries this summer, called Me & My Fairy. It's a silly, formulaic sitcom in mini, 5-minute episodes. So far we've filmed two episodes, but we want to complete a series of six before we start uploading them. So don't expect to see any online until next year. But I did use one of the completed episodes as an example of my screenwriting in a BBC Blast/BAFTA competition that I've entered. The prize is a bursary to create a new piece of work with either the BBC or an external production company. If I'm successful, I may get even more free trips to London! I should find out if I'm selected in two weeks time, so just ignore me then if I seem distant.

The rest of my summer included a trip to Alton Towers, an awful lot of flat-hunting, a Lord-of-the-Rings-athon, designing a website for a restaurant, and seeing various shows in the Fringe. So, all-in-all, a pretty good summer. But it's exciting to be back, and I can't wait to see what we'll be getting up to!