European Première of Lenny Abrahamson's Room in London

I had the unexpected pleasure of attending the European Première of Irish director Lenny Abrahamson's Room at the Vue cinema in Leicester Square, London on Sunday evening.

I won a Twitter competition run by the nice folks at the Irish Film Festival London. It was nice to meet Lenny briefly after the packed out double screening - I'd met him once before when he was a speaker at an Irish Film Board scheme I was selected for in Dublin 2013.

I thought the film was fabulous. Lenny has done really well to bring Emma Donoghue's difficult story to screen. He was helped greatly by terrific performances by Brie Larsen and child actor Jacob Tremblay who was outstanding.

Brendan O'Neill and Lenny Abrahamson

Room has picked up several awards so far - winning the People's Choice award at Toronto and Audience Award at Aspen. It has also been nominated as Best Film in official competition at the BFI London Film Festival.

There is talk of Oscar nominations which in my opinion would be well deserved. I think it may be a watershed film for Lenny allowing him to tell some great stories by working with bigger budgets and other big names in future.

Here's some photos from the Just Jared Celeb site of the Red Carpet action before the show.

Room star Brie Larsen with director Lenny Abrahamson

 Here's a great 5 star review by Scott Davis on the Flickering Myth site

"Even the most hardened cinemagoer will fall under the spell of Room at least once, and so far it seems every audience have fallen suit. Almost out of nowhere, Room has enchanted, enthralled and uplifted itself into the Oscar race with an emotionally complex but supremely rewarding, heartbreaking and transformative tale of the love between mother and child, supported by two astounding central performances that will stay with you for days afterwards."

Thats all for folks now. You can follow Room news on Twitter here. You can follow my Stickleback Productions tweets here.

Colchester Film Festival 60 Hour Film Challenge

I did the Colchester Film Festival 60 Hour Film Challenge at the weekend. Only decided to do it about 2 weeks before so it was somewhat thrown together but managed to get a good crew and the Mockingbird Theatre Bar as a main location.

I also had a second unit filming in Minneapolis, USA directed my filmmaker friend Phil Harder. They were filming a segment featuring Barkhad Abdirahman who starred in Captain Philips with Tom Hanks.

I'm hoping a festival cut of the film will be available in a couple of weeks.

We'll here on 10th October whether we've been shortlisted.

Here's some pics and an early draft of the credit roll.

Thats all for now!

Around Again Wins UK Parliaments' Film The House Competition!

I'm delighted to be able to tell you that Around Again has won the UK Parliaments' Film The House Competition 2015. Here's some more info about the competition

"Founded by Hon. Mike Weatherley MP, Rock The House and Film the House are the largest ever Parliamentary competitions and raise awareness of the importance of protecting intellectual property rights among legislators and the general public.

Musicians and film makers enter their original material to their MP, who ultimately nominates one entrant per competition category. A panel of industry executives presides over choosing the finalists and winners, who go on to have their pieces played in Parliament and win an array of prizes, from equipment, festival slots, exposure, recording sessions, radio and TV airplay and more.

The competitions give Parliamentarians an opportunity to engage with a grass-roots creative demographic and provides the creative community with a vehicle through which to communicate their issues to legislators. In short, the House Initiatives provide a means for the UK creative."

I produced Around Again with my former collaborators in Film Division. It was directed by Stewart Addison and edited by Annie Langrick.

We'll be going to London to a very swish Awards event soon to pick up certificates and prizes. More to follow..!

February News Round Up

I was delighted that my Scampenstein crowdfunding campaign was successful but it was very hard going especially with Christmas falling during the middle of the campaign. I didn't meet my stretch goals but that was always going to be a tall order. In the end the campaign had 67 backers with most of the contributions coming from people I knew but also some very welcome donations from the USA, Australia, Canada and Italy.

Hopefully with a cracking script in place I can push on by circulating it amongst animation production companies and seeing if anyone likes it. Lionsgate said they'd give it a read so that’s a big incentive for me as I get stuck into writing and revising the script over the next couple of months.

I also had some meetings before Christmas with some nice folks who are setting up a new Birmingham based animation company. I pitched various ideas to them and they really liked one of them. Its a exotic twist on the Dick Whittington story that I'm hoping will go on their development slate.

In other news I've been developing a short script based on a true World War II short story by a writer I've known through the independent filmmakers network Shooting People for a number of years. Its about a sleepy French village that somehow manages to avoid having a visit from the Germans until 1944. I'm hoping we can use the same costume wardrobe and decommissioned arms we used on Around Again to make it. We achieved fantastic production values on that so it'd be silly not to use that resource again.

I've entered the script into two competitions but also now have interest from a producer who told me he liked it "a lot". I know its not the finished article but that is very encouraging.

Here's the 48 hour competition version of Around Again. There is an extended, graded and re-imagined out of competition version but thats not in the public domain just yet.

Scampenstein's Celebrity Supporters

I was delighted just before Christmas to get some celebrity support for the Scampenstein crowdfunding campaign.

The inestimably wonderful Stephen Fry of Q.I. and Black Adder fame tweeted his support on December 16th with this Tweet.

He "would love to see this happen"!!!

I was even more delighted when renowned film composer Clint Mansell added his support just today. Exactly the post Christmas boost the campaign needed.

West Midlands native Clint who has worked extensively with hit director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler, Noah) has a fabulous filmography as composer. He has also worked with such luminaries as Old Boy director Park Chan-wook on Stoker, with Duncan Jones (Source Code) on the brilliant low budget Sci-Fi hit Moon and many others.

I'm particularly delighted with this as I hosted a Q & A with some of the filmmakers behind Moon at the Giant Screen in Birmingham last year. Thats me on the extreme right alongside veteran Miniatures specialist Bill Pearson, conceptual designer Gavin Rothery and Art Director Hideki Arichi.

So its just after Christmas and nearly 1/2 way through the campaign. There are 38 backers and the campaign is already 20% funded. Steady progress is being made with the immediate key goal being the 30% mark when all sorts of potential and invaluable indiegogo support could kick in.

You too can help make a big difference and support the campaign by choosing an affordable perk here.

TAFN

Brendan

You can join the Facebook group here.

 

You can follow @Scampenstein on Twitter here

The Script, The Script And The Script - Why I'm Crowdfunding Scampenstein

 "To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script."

              Alfred Hitchcock

       I've pitched this idea to companies like Aardman and Lionsgate in the past. Aardman passed on it as not being quite right for them. Given that they are more of a stop motion animation outfit I can understand why. Lionsgate have offered another read once the script is fully developed. 

I want to take time out to draft and redraft the script to make it the best story it can be. I will also employ a seasoned script professional to help me. The idea is to both amuse and scare children a little bit. Kids like being scared. Dr. Who proves this.

Once the script is ready I'll resubmit to the major animation companies. If that doesn't get me anywhere then I'd like to make it into a graphic novel to popularize the story and grow the audience. The tax credit here in the UK has changed recently so good animation scripts are being actively sought. This Guardian newspaper article explains why.

I've always believed in my Scampenstein idea and am determined to make it happen. I'm inspired by indie animations like Signe Baumane's Rocks In My Pockets and Nina Paley's Sita SingsThe Blues that prove that determined individuals can animated features happen.

Thanks to those people who have already contributed and helped spread the word.

You can view the campaign and choose a perk here.

You can join the Facebook group here.

You can follow @Scampenstein on Twitter here

July 14 Update

In May I was selected for a UK team that pitched various film ideas at Dragon Forum at the Krakow International Film Festival. I pitched my animated series idea Animal Operations Executive which was very well received by both the Dragon Tutors and other delegates. I'm now looking for producer and co-producer partners.

Its a World War II themed idea based around Winston Churchill's wartime cat Smokey - leader of the clandestine Animal Operations Executive - a fictional counterpart to SOE. The idea is to educate and entertain children with stories of animals fighting the tyranny of the Nazis in Europe and North Africa.

Some of the adventures could be based on real animals such as Wojtec the Polish fighting bear.  Others could be based on fictional stories based on real events. The Dragons thought it had real potential and shelf life. I was delighted to find out that a new statue of Wojtec was unveiled in Krakow on the day of my arrival - an auspicious omen I hope.

Wojtec and I at Park Jordana in Krakow

Krakow was a brilliant experience and I met loads of new people and made some new friends. I was delighted to meet Bill Siegel from Chicago who was screening his new documentary The Trials of Muhammad Ali.

Back in the UK I attended an event for animation writers at the BFI. The event was put on by Melwood Pictures in partnership with Euroscript. Melwood Pictures are a new UK-based company aimed at developing animated features. There is renewed interest in animation following the governments decision to extend the tax credit.

Melwood is run by Max Howard and Ramsay McBean. Max has "created and run studios for Disney in London, Paris, Orlando and Los Angeles, working on some of Disney’s most memorable films including Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.  As President of Warner Bros Feature Animation he oversaw such hit movies as The Iron Giant and Space Jam.  At DreamWorks, he was co-executive producer for Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron". Impressive.

I managed to pitch Scampenstein and some other ideas to Max and am waiting to hear back.

A few days after that event I was back at the London Screenings event at the BFI with 104 Films as part of their Generation 104 training scheme. The London Screenings is a sales and distribution market for British films. We learnt a lot about how the market evolved and also how the sales and distribution world worked.