And so it begins...

Today, half way through an interesting lecture about my dissertation, it seems that our final crew listings for this semester's film crews got e-mailed around. And so it begins...
I managed to bag pretty much everybody in my crew who I had hoped for and I'm rather looking forward to working with them.
And here they are...
Director - Matt Haes
1st AD - Steven Swain
Location Manager/PA - Adam Gray
DoP - Daniel Cooper
Production Designer - Sian Taylor-Deville
Camera Op - Daniel Duffy
Editor - Matthew Clarkson
Sound recordist/editor - Daniel Coyne
and with myself in the roles of Producer and Writer as well as being the one who originated the idea.
So yeah...it's looking good so far.
Facebook group is a go and apart from trying to track down a member I've never met before, everything's lining up just as planned.

Here's to you, my Recipe for Time Travel crew.

Yours,
    Timothy G. Elsy

Stop, Collaborate and LISTEN!! I'm back with some brand new AMBITION!!

Would you look at me? Type-type-typing away once more as though nothing ever happened. Not that I really stopped typing for more than a week over this summer break but I have had a rather undeserved absence from my blogging lifestyle. 'Tis a shame, really, as I do enjoy a good blog post. Typing away for minutes and minutes until I run out of topics to discuss and decide to give my cramping fingers a rest and disappear back under my duvet for a rest. Ah, c'est bon.
Anyway, getting off of that topic of nothingness and swiftly moving to an actual topic, let us begin!!
It has indeed been a while since my last blog and whilst I don't genuinely regret this too much, I would rather have an active blog than an embarassingly empty one. So here I am! Back once again! Hopefully this time for good as I re-enter my life at university. My third and final year! Scary, non? Scary, no. Let's be honest, it's not that worrysome. Is that a real word? Spell checker's off and I'm not sure...curse these university computers!! Anyway...
I'm bringing this blog back from the depths with some new energy and ambition. This academic year I'd like to keep a really good blog about my days and weeks, especially as this semester right here is when my career takes a lovely step forward and I actually make my own film! That's right, my film!!
Recipe for Time Travel, my haphazardly, last minute pitched idea for a third year project got chosen and so here it is, beginning its journey! Or at least it would be if I knew who was in my crew already. But nevermind, I shall hopefully know by the end of the week and its delightful journey to fruition shall begin!
I shall also soon be buying my own, little camera with which I shall take photographs of this amusing little time and then both upload them onto this blog and also stick them in a little book of memories I'm making. (Along with photos of my upcoming trip to Copenhagen and gosh knows what else I end up doing in the future.)
So yeah, hopefully this blog should become a regularly updates site of both amusing and biographical nature as I transgress my final year at university! And beyond!
So, here's hoping!
But for now...ta-ta!

Yours anonymously,
                     Timothy G. Elsy

Moving on up.

   Well, it's been a while since I last updated any form of blog so I figure I might as well have another crack at this here whip. Now, let's see...quite a lot has happened since my little foray into scriptwriting with a time limit. Quite a lot indeed. I suppose we'd best get started covering ground then, eh?

Cognito

   This is the first that springs to mind. Cognito is the brainchild of Ivan Scoble, a man who decided to cut out the middle man and have a go at creating a pilot to pitch for his own television series. Over the last couple of months, Ivan has been in contact with the staff and (more so) students of York St. John University where he has managed to wrangle quite a crew.
   As a result, I have found myself with the role of writer (one of three or more) and have "penned" a quick first draft. As the months go on and pre-production transitions into production in summer we will hopefully be well on our way to bringing Ivan's dream to life. 

   I've never been one for giving the game away so all I'll say about Cognito is it's a police comedy drama that's a little different to what we in Britain have seen in the past. 

The Third Year

   Moving on from these extracurricular grounds and back into university life, our third year film proposals have been made and feedback has been given. Of the three films I proposed, two have been accepted to go on to "stage two", otherwise known as treatments. I suppose, just for the sake of my own amusement, I'll give a little outline to what the three films I proposed actually were. 

Proposed Film #1

Bingo & The Splodge: Fortune of the Unfortunate

   This merry little film idea finds its roots in the first month of my time at university. The names Bingo and The Splodge were a pair of ridiculous nicknames I tried attaching to myself and my friend, Matthew Clarkson as we mocked the multiple ways one could try becoming more socially accepted. Of course, the nicknames themselves would have been terrible but I refused to let them go and over the years have developed them into the identities of a rather useless duo of private hire detectives. 

   I have several film ideas revolving around this idiotic twosome and as a result, couldn't resist throwing one in as a bit of a joke for our third year projects. I suppose the joke's on me since it got approved but nevertheless, I'm laughing. 

   Fortune of the Unfortunate was intended as the first of the Bingo & The Splodge stories and found our "heroes" in a fairly Agatha Christie style murder in a mansion situation. It involved the Harshweather family and the events that unfolded following the robbery of their family fortune. Again, I won't reveal much as I will hopefully do something with this idea in the future. 

   However, despite this concept getting accepted, it has been suggested that I try to come up with something a little more fitting to what's turned out to be just a ten minute running time. And as a result, the story is going to be completely redone. Hopefully, this story will delve deeper into the identities of Bingo and The Splodge and focus more on the detectives themselves that on their case. Thankfully, my friend Matthew Clarkson (a.k.a. the real life Bingo) managed to pull an amusing title out of thin air to help inspire this new story. And so, I will soon be submitting a treatment for...

   Bingo & The Splodge: The Brief Case. Get it? Brief? Because it has to be shorter! Badum-tsh. 

Proposed Film #2

Musical: the musical

   Now here was an idea that was definitely too ambitious. I'm getting a little tired of staring at this computer screen now so I'm going to make this quick...

   Musical: the musical was the story of a successful writer who finds his career on the line after drunkenly signing a contract binding him to the production of a new musical for a theatre owned by an old classmate. As the story goes on, our writer must find a way to actually write a musical as well as overcome the many obstacles his old friend seems to be throwing into the mix. 

Proposed Film #3

A Recipe for Time Travel

   This idea is one I admire the most from myself. With (what I thought was) fifteen minutes before the deadline for proposals, I found myself suddenly struck with inspiration as I rifled through old files on my pen drive. It quickly evolved from the concept of using a cooking recipe to travel through time to what would happen if you could actually use it. And so, my quickly scribbled down story follows a man who, after accidentally cooking the recipe for time travel, finds himself back in his childhood home and in the presence of his father who had died when he was just a child. 

   The film goes on from there but like I said, I'm getting a little tired. 

So, that's pretty much what's been going on in my life in regards to film making over the past couple of months. Now that I've got that all wrapped up, I suppose it's time I wrapped this up and went on my way to pack for "sunny" Aberdeen!

Yours magnanimously,

             Timothy G. Elsy
                       (age six)

                       (and thirteen years)

The 48 Hour Scriptwriting Challenge: The Result

Well, that was certainly interesting.
I thoroughly enjoyed this self-imposed challenge. Well, up to a point.
It all started off well and innocently enough. I had my plot outlines, I had my characters, I even had a surprisingly cooperative laptop. I managed to get the first draft of an episode's script done and dusted in the first evening and gave myself the rest of the night off for sleep. And then, bam, the next morning struck me with no problems whatsoever. I made it throughout a fair amount of the morning before I accidentally opened a YouTube video and my laptop decided it was one step too far. Bam! Green and purple blocks invaded my screen and before long, my laptop was dead.
Now, this was mildly convenient as my brother's new girlfriend was in town and it would have been rude of me to not greet her. On top of that, there was a kind of arranged meal to be had. And so, since my laptop continued to die every time I turned it on that evening, I resolved to leave it until the next day. Well, I say I "resolved" but I had no say in the matter, really.
And so, on Sunday, my final day, I eventually managed to get my laptop back up and running and got through half of a draft of the second episode before my time ran out.
So yeah, my 48 hour scriptwriting challenge didn't go too well but I got a script and a half out of it.

But that's not all!
As Monday rolled on and having just finished a day of filming, I found myself in a conversation with a good friend about the upcoming 48 hour London sci-fi film challenge. (Ker-link!: http://www.sci-fi-london.com/festival/2011/48-hour-film-challenge) I quickly adopted the role of writer in the (currently) hypothetical scenario that we take on this challenge and so, a new challenge arose. Writing an entire film in a lot less than 48 hours, based on specifics. Now this was a challenge. So...of course, I fancied giving myself a new challenge.

The New Challenge
This new challenge is to develop a movie idea into a script from preset criteria that must be included. I have decided to not give myself a time limit this time as my life seems to be getting progressively busier for the following weeks and filming for my group's documentary begins next week. So yeah, busy, busy, busy.
The criteria was chosen by the aforementioned friend with whom I had been conversing.
Keyword: Deadline
Prop: A shoe
Line of dialogue: "Stay out of the fridge..."
Genre: Science Fiction
So there we have it. Perhaps a little strange but lo and behold, I did manage to come up with a decent story out of it. I'm not going to reveal it all until it's actually finished but the working title at the moment is "Take A Chance".
Another adopted criteria for the film was to use as few locations as possible and aim for very low budget.
Perhaps I'll chuck up a small synopsis and whatnot later on as it develops. But until then...
Farewell!

It really is a wonderful world

So, I've finished my first evening of my 48 hour scriptwriting challenge. I've finished one episode of Genesis Key and I'm all happy to start the second in the morning. So what am I doing with my spare time? Well, I was amusing myself with YouTube videos and after clicking on a few links, came across this.

It's such a beautiful film. It's made my evening so happy and restored any missing faith in life. I think it can be summer up perfectly in one of its top comments.
"every time i watch this i cry. it make you think about every moment in you life that you take for granted, that you just pass over, that you forget about, but sometimes those are the most beautiful moments in you life. i'm trying a lot harder to take in everything in my life, and to take no moment great or small for granted." ~ muffinrave


And so I pass this video onto anyone who watches this blog in the hopes that it can help you feel happy and help you learn to appreciate the seemingly mundane moments in life. 

The 48 Hour Scriptwriting Challenge [11/03/2011 - 13/03/2011]

So, the scriptwriting challenge I wrote of in my previous entry. It's happening and it's happening soon. In fact, it will begin at some point tonight. Shall we say, 20:00? Yes, that seems adequate.
Now, I won't be writing non-stop, I will of course be needing sleep or it'll all end up in vain as my sentences not only lose their structure but possible even their spelling. What an unfortunate farce that would become. Now then, let's discuss a little, shall we?

The Idea
I have decided to choose an idea before entering the 48 hours and after some consideration I have landed back at an old idea of mine that I have ever so much loved since I first thought it up. It has its origins in my first year of college and over the years has had several drafts and redrafts. There have been at least three drafts of a first episode, first drafts of the following three episodes and even a couple of drafts for a feature length adaptation.
Unfortunately, as the holidays came and went, none of these productions were ever filmed and so it became an assumption that the idea would never be made, but alas, it has resurfaced once more. Now, what is this idea?

Genesis Key: a two sided prophecy
This idea was born from a list of short film ideas I jotted down to discuss with my good friend, Matthew Clarkson, back in year one of college (a.k.a. 2008). It was originally formed as two short films that would follow the same story but from different sides and the rough description was thus;
"A hero is told that he must save the world by seeking out an ancient artefact."
"Another hero is told to save the world by stopping the first."
From these two short ideas came the whole of Genesis Key. Throwing in a bizarre antagonist who was manipulating the both of them and adding the classic idea of a roaming adventure with a dash of comedy, Genesis Key became what it is known as today.
The two main characters became known as Adam A. Accuine and Luke L. Layrs (now Evan E. Eborn). Over the years of development and redevelopment, characters have come and gone and the story has expanded into something quite ridiculous. But ridiculous in a good way.
And so, in the year 2011, after starting completely from scratch, Genesis Key is about to be reborn.

So, my challenge starts at 8pm tonight and concludes at 8pm on Sunday. As Genesis Key is a serial with unspecified episode length I will write as many episodes as I can within that time. There are four episodes planned so far so hopefully, we'll get a decent way into the story.
And who knows, perhaps this summer will finally be the one where Genesis Key is actually filmed.

P.S. I will probably be doing constant updates on my twitter page, so be sure to catch the action as I ponder, bitch and celebrate in real time! @TimothyGElsy for those of you who aren't willing to look to the right of this page.

The Challenge

For the past few weeks now, I've been intrigued by the prospect of a group of film makers going out and setting themselves the challenge of filming a short film in no more than forty-eight hours. And so, inspired by this, I've decided to set myself a little challenge.
It is essentially the same thing but with scriptwriting.
This has mainly spread from a cry for help from my own mind for starting scripts but rarely actually finishing them before moving on. So this time I'll be a fair bit more committed.

So, the challenge is to conceptualise and write an initial draft for a film script in less than 48 hours. I'll set aside two days (probably a weekend) so that I can work non-stop on this project. I'll lock myself up in my little bedroom and get on with it. Perhaps a pre-made playlist of inspirational music would be a good idea.

Well, this should prove fun. I'll no doubt blog about the results. Other than that, happy first post! (emoticon)
I hope this is the start of a loving user-blog relationship.