Just look at Bob and Judy…

Fuck that! Look how shiny our new award is!!!

ooooooooh! Shiny.

Hooray! Another short film what I wrote is fit and well and about to be unleashed upon the world.

In The Bleak Midsummer

Pitched on Shooting People back in March 2010 and produced by those lovely people at Curve Films, In The Bleak Midsummer is a mockumentary about David Royal, the man who loves Christmas so much he’s celebrated it every day for the past two and a half years.

It is so funny I personally guarantee you will pee your pants*.

*This statement in no way forms a legally binding contract. You probably won’t pee your pants.

Office Romance 2.0 will be showing at the following film festivals…

Newport Beach Film Festival 2012, Newport Beach, USA. April 26th-May 3rd 2012

Bootleg Film Festival 2012, Toronto, Canada. May 10th-12th 2012

Manlleu Film Festival 2012, Spain. May 29th-June 3rd 2012

Short Shorts & Asia Film Festival 2012, Tokyo, Japan. June 2012

Writer, white male, non-smoker, GSOH, with own comedy script, The Sleeper,* WLTM producer and/or director (not averse to 3some) for walks on the beach, sunset dinners, and entry to Playwrights’ Studio Scotland’s feature development programme, Accelerator.

*Wullie MacPherson is a crack KGB sleeper agent living undercover in Glasgow since 1972. When he is finally activated he discovers he has lost the will to kill and decides to protect his target and her young daughter from assassination instead.

Please email me for a full synopsis.

*nearly.

Office Romance 2.0 had its official premiere at the Dam Short Film Festival last weekend where it came runner-up in the comedy category. The awards are voted for by the audience so it’s nice to know we brought a little bit of sunshine into some people’s otherwise dismal lives.

Office Romance 2.0 will have it’s official world premier (God, that sounds impressive) at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.

Did I say Cannes? Sorry, I meant the Dam Short Film Festival, Boulder City, Nevada (not to be confused with Boulder, Colorado of Mork & Mindy fame) at 4:15pm (PST) on Saturday 11th February.

In 2009 Boulder City was ranked 6th in the top 25 places to retire in the USA by Money magazine, so hopefully some of the old dears will be able to pop along and support our wee film before their early bird suppers.

And before you ask, No, I’m not going so, No, you can’t come. But if you’re going to be in Vegas around that time feel free to pop and along and laugh uproariously at all the right places.

Free screening this Sunday (Oct 2nd) at the Cameo cinema, Edinburgh.

What do you see?

Stormtrooper or Y-fronts?

So, I’ve just returned from attending the London Comedy Writers Festival at the weekend (did I mention I won my ticket in their Laugh A Minute comedy scriptwriting competition? I did? Oh, sorry).

Anyway, apart from all the insightful stuff that everyone else is blogging about, I thought I’d share some of the other stuff I learnt this weekend…

• I need to work on my networking technique. Standing alone in a room full of people staring at my mobile phone isn’t much of an icebreaker. I’m convinced the mobile phone was invented, not as a groundbreaking communications device, but as means of making shy people feel slightly less awkward at social events. If Charles M Schultz was to write Peanuts today I’m pretty sure he would have given Linus a mobile instead of a blanket.*
• I really need to work on my networking technique.  When I do finally take a deep breath and strike up a conversation with someone, I need to choose my opening gambit carefully. “So what do you do?” doesn’t really demonstrate awareness when you’re at a writers festival.
• Nor does “So what kind of stuff do you write?”. You’re at a comedy writers festival, for God’s sake.
• When eating from a self-service salad bar, make sure none of the constituent salad components are individually priced before piling them on willy nilly.
• When eating from a self-service salad bar where the hard boiled eggs are individually priced, put them in your little plastic tray first and then pile the coleslaw camouflage on top.
• When eating from a self-service salad bar where the hard boiled eggs are individually priced but you didn’t realise that until after you’d plonked one on top and sealed up your little plastic tray, no amount of tray shaking or strategic thumb placement will hide that egg.
• I spend too much time at salad bars.
• Business cards have a certain currency, so if you’re handing them out like you were handing out flyers for a student nightclub without even speaking to me first, there’s a good chance I’m going to treat it in the same regard as I have for flyers for student nightclubs.
• The rules of normal social etiquette apply. Just because I’m at a comedy festival doesn’t mean that everything anyone says is necessarily a joke, e.g.

Me:    So what draws you to comedy?

Other: I find it helps ease my depression caused by the fact that my three children have got that hairy face disease that makes them look like the Wolfman.

Me:    HAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Nice one. Classic.

Awkard silence.

Me:    Oh.

• Seriously, I need to work on my networking technique. How about “Hi. Have you checked out the salad bar?”. Maybe not.

* Note to self: Look out Blankie.

Sorry, bloggers, but they are. By and large, no-one leads a life, or has a viewpoint, which is so interesting that a) it warrants being recorded, or b) other people want to read about it.

Keeping a blog/diary is like joining a gym. In January there is a burst of enthusiasm which sees you religiously and eloquently pouring your innermost thoughts and dreams onto paper every evening. But come March your brain is only going once a week and even then it’s for a game of snooker or a shot in the jacuzzi or something.

Back in the 80′s, the German media (and later The Sunday Times) got hold of a stack of documents smuggled out of East Germany. It was claimed they were the war diaries of Adolf Hitler. But, after expert examination, the documents were exposed as fakes. But how could they be so sure? Possibly because these diaries made for interesting reading. Had they been the real deal they would probably have read something like…

1^st September 1938

In meetings all day today. They are soooooooooooo boring. That Himmler character is such a nob. He never shuts up. Eva was there. She looked right at me. I so fancy her.

However witty and interesting you think you are, you’re probably not. The fact is, no-one can be that interesting 24/7, 365 days a year. Think of a really interesting person. Stephen Fry? Try harder. Past or present. Ghandi? Napoleon? What about Jesus? Now, that would be a diary worth reading, wouldn’t it? Maybe not…

4^th March 32 A.D.

Me and Pete did another gig at the mount. Talk went quite well. Might re-work the “cheesemakers” gag though. That was Pete’s idea (i.e. rubbish). Mary M was there. She looked right at me. I so fancy her.

However well intentioned you are, blogs/diaries often fizzle out in summer when you’ve got better things to do with your time than stay indoors writing. The death knell being sounded when entries chronicle such fascinating topics as what you watched on TV that night, or what you had for dinner…

5^th July 32 A.D.

Yum! Mum made fish in breadcrumbs for tea tonight. My total fave.

However, if you want to be a writer (like wot I do) then you need to keep your hand in. There’s a saying…

Writing is a muscle. The more you write, the stronger it becomes.

So, for me it’s metaphorically 1^st January and my brain is currently bench pressing 120kg whilst being spotted by a muscley dude in garishly coloured baggy pants and a bandana.

You see? Utter shite.