In you own time

This morning I tried out something new. In my relentless attempts to cover all bases creatively, I managed to get myself in the door at Big Finish's studios to record some background dialogue for one of their Stargate audio releases.
Basically this just involved me standing in a small wooden booth and shouting "Kill Her!!" loudly into a mic for about 10 minutes. But, despite it's rung position at the bottom of the acting ladder, it was still an interesting excercise and something I'd definately like to develop. As my two boys would attest, I like to do the voices, although I'm not sure there's much need of PC Plod in the world of Stargate.
In other news... more notes on the romantic comedy... draft seven, here we come!

Out of the Blue

Only the other day someone asked me about the romantic comedy and I sighed heavily and explained that, while the sixth draft is done, it now sits waiting for someone to throw some money at it. "Something could happen with it tomorrow, or not for years" I said.
Then last night I got a brief email from my producer asking me to put together a new synopsis as he had someone that might be interested in making it.
It seems that this is how this particular industry works (at least on my low rung of the ladder). Up one minute, down the next.
Frankly, right now, I could do with the 'up' side of that, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, although not without the hefty chunk of skepticism that I've had to incorporate into the 'dream' of this project becoming a reality.
In other news, Sword of Bad is on track for coming in woefully short of its expected 120 pages (we're talking almost half of that)! At this point it's only a bare-bones pass at the first draft, but even so it's the first script I've written which hasn't naturaly hit its page count.

... and breath

I discovered this morning that, despite being a relatively inactive passtime, writing is my stress relief. For my wife it's running, for me it's pulling something out of my head and clattering it into the keyboard.
With regular writing time becoming a questionable thing in upcoming months, I decided to get on with a project I've been stalling on for too long. I hinted at it in one of my previous posts (or was it the last one? Who knows). I managed to splurge out a 17-page outline which I'm now working from to pen the script. I'm still being secretive about it though, since this is viewable to anyone who happens to type the right words into Google. Thus, it will be knows as Sword of Bad, for reasons best known to me.
And it's coming on nicely (although I'm worried that I'm progressing too quickly through the plot). I'm really only interested in laying it down at this point, and have given myself four weeks (or so) to finish it. Thereafter I can spend what spare hours I can find sprucing up the relevant areas and making it more complete.
No news on the romantic comedy, it seems to have gone into limbo. Maybe something will pop up around this year's Cannes... who knows.

www.grantkempster.com

Yes, I am now a website.
After years of meaning to get around to putting together a website with my portfolio and other bits on, I finally made the push (with a little poke from some friends) and bought www.grantkempster.com for the next five years. Early days yet, so just a 'coming soon' page, but it's fun to have a little corner (well, it's not even a corner is it? More a footprint, and a small one at that) on the web.
In other news, the word on draft five of Socialite has been quite positive, and with a few tweaks done last week, we now have a draft six. It's turned in and I'm just waiting for some feedback from my producer. There's also been talk of a large chunk of the funding being in place... could this be the year? Previous experience tells me not to count on anything, not that I'm not secretly hoping it will all come together...

Research, it's all about the research

I'm sitting at my desk at the moment researching my next script. It's taken me a year to finally get around to writing something new (I'd wanted to write at least two scripts this year, but only managed one). Having polished off the fifth draft of Socialite - still waiting to hear back from my producer on that - I thought it was finally time to start on something new.
Thanks to a series of BBC documentaries that my good friend Jerry sent me, I've been inspired to do something which could either pay off or work out to be a massive waste of time. I'm writing a spec script, but not only that, it's a remake of an existing and successful franchise. Those who know me well will already know what it is, but since this is viewable by the public, I'm keeping schtum for now.
It's the first time I've had to properly research something, and I'm really enjoying pouring through Wiki and other such sites, attempting to unearth nuggets that I can use. I'm actually really excited about this project... I just hope someone doesn't get there before me.

It's a Small World After All

In the last 12 months I've now had a total of four jobs. Weird considering I stayed in my last company for almost nine years. During this time, I've encountered a few strange coincidences...
Ten weeks ago I left London to join a small company based in Northampton. It wasn't until I was showing one of the other designers some of my magazines that he mentioned "I used to go out with a girl that worked on that!" Turns out I used to work with his ex! "Wow!" I procliamed, "She was in Shaun of the Dead you know!" To which he replied, "Yeah, so was I, I was standing next to her."
That kind of freaked me out. Then...
I started working back in London again this week (long story), and half way through the second day, one of the girls came over and said: "Do you know Paul Spragg?" I nodded, agog, then discovered she was married to a guy I used to work with years ago, and she's friends with half of my London pals.
Later that same day I was on the bus, trying desperately to get to a tube station that was open, when I sailed past High Street Ken, where I worked for nine months recently. Unsurprisingly (I was bound to see someone trying to get home) I spotted a guy from the IT department. Nothing too strange there. Then, about 15 minutes later, while thumbing through one of the city's free papers, I see a picture of the very same IT guy standing with Justin Lee Collins.
Either I'm reading too much into this or the Matrix has a few glitches that need ironing out.

A few bits happening with scripts, but not enough to start swinging things around my head... yet...

No News is...

I'm not sure if anyone still reads this, but if you do, I apologise for not updating sooner (it's been about two months!) A lot's been happening in that time, both personal and professional, all of which has kept me away.
I finally turned in the third draft of the romantic comedy last week and am waiting to hear what my producer thinks. If we want to get it into the schedule of a particular production company then we need to submit it by September. Just hope any changes that need to be made before then are achievable.
It was a tough re-write this time, altering the structure for the second time took its toll on me. You start to wonder if you're losing your way, having thought that you'd already nailed it twice already. Of course, it goes without saying, that with each pass the script is improving. But it's hard to see that when you're going through it all again. Over all I think it's a better script, but these things are subjective.
Some other projects that are getting me excited include Bad Dog, an indie sitcom that I'll be working on with my pal Marcus. If we can get the schedule sorted, we should be filming that in September with a view to maybe lauching it online.
Also my buddy Pete is going to be looking at my horror movie Chiller (to be retitled) in a month or so (if all goes well!) so that will be interesting.
And, of course, September 7th sees the release of Rise of the Footsoldier, produced by my producer Terry and featuring yours truly for about an eighth of a second in the background of the big hooligan scrap. The trailers look great, so I've got high hopes for this one (although my critic pal at Film Review wasn't particularly kind).
More news if there's any to tell!