Skip to main content

Bags are packed

Had my shots, got my digestion drugs and I'm about to cut my latest podcast with Michael Bond and upload it before I go on a filmmaker's trip to Mumbai. Thanks to ScreenWest, the Mumbai Film Festival organisers and the Lotteries Commission of WA, I'm on my way.

I'm not a big traveller, so have no idea what to expect.

What a fiasco to get Visas, medical shots and organise hotels, transfers, insurance and flights etc. Stressful stuff. I guess people who travel a lot get it all the time. I suppose you develop a knack. Anyone travel to a festival? Post a comment. Please!?

I've charged up my MP3 player with The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" - supposedly influenced by their own trip to India back in the 70s. I've also got Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives", Godley and Creme's "An Englishman in New York" and Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" to keep me company. Those guys will be my teddy bears. Now I know why some kids suck their thumbs and talk to security blankets.

I got the latest issue of New Scientist, Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle" (fascinating stuff) and a whole bunch of podcasting stuff. I plan to "record sounds" and "take pictures" while I'm travelling in Mumbai and post them on geoffrey.com.au when I get back. Plus there'll be a special something for the ScreenWest website.

Stay tuned. Enjoy my podcast with Micky. I'm a bit scared (travelling alone) ... but this should be VERY interesting...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I've got a really good idea for a film . . .

Phil commented on that last piece. I forget that people actually read these things. I assumed you were all lazy and illiterate ;) Yes . . . as Phil says . . . we have taken time to write this screenplay. And it's depressing to think about it. Sometimes I feel like Marshall in Absolutely Fabulous . Marshall went to Hollywood 20 years ago to develop a screenplay with a studio. People in various episodes ask him how it's going. He usually has an actor attached, or a big producer, or an out-of-work director . . . No doubt Jennifer Saunders has met a few of these people . The industry is teaming with writers working on a screenplay. Until a screenplay becomes a film - it's only a blueprint - not considered an art form in itself. And yet it takes such a long time to write one. When people ask me what I do - I answer web designer . It's my knee-jerk, "pat" response. It's also less problematic and gets me more $work than if I say, "filmmaker".

The Three by Five Card Index System

Here's another approach to writing your screenplay. The screenwriter's friend. Introducing the infamous Three by Five Card Index System . Wow! How can I get one? In my case - I made it. What it amounts to is this: Three 90cm x 40cm sheets of chipboard hinged together so that the whole thing stands like a concertina on a table or floor. Every 5cm or so down, I have drawing-pinned small cardboard hinges (triangles if you will) made from old file dividers. These become placeholders for your cards. A couple of bunches of 3 inch by 5 inch index cards (available in packs of 100 at any newsagency) and there you have it. A sure fire way to make your screenplay bubble to the top of the pile . . . Not. But it's a tool and writers need their tools. Cool. How does it work? As you can see - each act has three mini-acts in it (fitting in with Australian script theorist Linda Heys' Second Act Story ). Or rather - going one step further and suggesting that all three acts have a begi

The Drug That Killed River Phoenix

This article was going to be about a new drug I'm on called Duomine , but as I knew very little about River Phoenix (aka the vegan Jimmy Dean ) I thought I'd swat up on what's really going on behind that brain-worm ditty. I'll talk about Duomine another time. The song line I'm on the drug that killed River Phoenix is from Aussie alternative band TISM's tasteless 1995 single (He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River - and it's a bit cheap, frankly. The single's cover shows a mock-up of River's tombstone and was released shortly after his death. TISM were well-known for criticisin Imperial Hollywood and US pop culture, but they were masters when it came to borrowed interest marketing. More about these guys later. River Bottom's Awkward Life In 1944, River's mother Arlyn was born to a Jewish family living in the Bronx. When she finished school, she married a computer programmer but quickly grew bored of her secretarial life. In 196