Two Awards for Dwarf Vampire short

Press Release

Jazz Virk and Brendan O'Neill of Birmingham based indie film production team Film Division are delighted that the pro bono project they did to help growth disabled student Carsum Din has now received 2 awards.

The 8 minute film Wilhelm the Dwarf Vampire which was shot at historic Aston Hall in just 1 day received Best Overall Media Production Coventry University and Best Degree Show Media Production Coventry University 2011.

Producer Brendan O'Neill commented:

"We're delighted for Carsum and hoping that the film will now do well on the festival circuit. I'm told that Carsum has now received interview offers from various places and even the offer of an acting role from a Pinewood based production company so we're doubly pleased to have been able to help.

I'd like to thank all the cast and crew for giving up their time to help with special thanks to Gurminder Kenth and her staff at Aston Hall and Stewart Addison of Pannyhire (www.Pannyhire.co.uk) for providing the camera equipment."

The film starred starred George Appleby (Being Human, Fanatic) alongside Coventry based actress Joanne Ryan with Birmingham based Sezer Unver and Dean Bamford in supporting roles.

Pictures Courtesy of Adam Hale Photography (http://www.adamhale.co.uk)

Awarded place on Producer Mentoring Scheme :-)

I've recently been awarded one of only ten places on a regional Producer Mentoring Scheme run by Screen West Midlands and Producers' Forum West Midlands. This means I will be receiving mentoring from established producer Rachel Robey of Wellington Films in Nottingham.

Rachel and her partner Al Clarke are responsible for critically acclaimed films such as Paul Andrew Williams' London to Brighton and Duane Hopkins' Better Things - co produced by Sam Hailley.

The Terrible O'Neill Twins?

In other news my twin Gerard and I had some acting headshots done by my friend and collaborator stills photographer Adam Hale. Our acting/extra career has been in the doldrums since our debut back in 2006 so we're hoping these headshots can revive it.

Cant' find an NHS dentist?

Finally I'm delighted to announce that our long awaited screening of recent Film Division work will take place on 18th August from 9pm at the Spotted Dog public house in Digbeth, Birmingham.

Its a cast and crew screening but other filmmakers and writers are welcome to attend. Please RSVP via the Facebook event page to give me an idea of numbers.

TAFN

B

Film Division

I'm working in partnership with director Jazz Virk and cinematographer Stewart Addison over at Film Division these days.

Hoping to make our first feature very soon...

Good things happen..?

Well I had a great time at the London Screenwriters' Festival which I must say despite some minor teething difficulties was the best of the screenwriters festivals I have been to in recent years. London is a much more sensible place to have it - reflected mostly I think by the stellar speaker line-up it attracted. The speakers seemed much more friendly and approachable too - so well done to Chris Jones, David Chamberlain and Lucy Hay and others for putting it together.

I met lots of other screenwriters and made some good connections. I also met some established Facebook friends for the first time though not all unfortunately - I had been looking forward to meeting Elinor Perry-Smith - Mother Superior at the Convent of Eternal Armament in Peckham but somehow we missed each other!

I was also present late on in the bar when myself, Danny Stack, Piers Beckley and others hatched up the St Patrick's Day short film challenge - " It's got to be between 3-5 minutes (not including credits), have no more than 5 actors in it (counted as anyone with a line, on screen or off), and you need to either write or direct the film."  Deadline 17th March 2011. So please join us and have a go!

When I returned from the festival I was fortunate to be able to pitch separate ideas to two different producers - mostly as a result of my relentless networking. A Birmingham set feel-good recessionary fable to some producers here in the UK that have just had a big success with one of their films and also a game/graphic novel/film idea based on an ancient text to someone in the USA. I can't say any more for now but fingers crossed.

Back here in Birmingham I'm very busy writing and producing for one of my low budget feature ideas with my new friends and collaborators Jazz Virk and Stewart Addison. I had met Jazz earlier in the year as he was one of the judging panel on the music video competition my Stickleback Productions team won.

I met Stewart - a long time collaborator with Jazz rather circuitously when I was desperately trying to find a Director of Photography to help me shoot my 1/2 hour wake drama short Trouble At My Door back in late August. That's now hopefully going ahead during the schools 1/2 term in February.

We're now shooting the Finders.Keepers idea over 2 + 2 days from the 13th of December making both a trailer short and a longer B story festival oriented short to help find investors/finance.

Rising Star - Chloe Farnworth

We have some great actors involved such as Chloe Farnworth (Dead Cert), Adam Fray (Hustle),and Joe Egan (Sherlock Holmes I and II) plus some really fab locations so I'm really looking foward to both the shoot and to seeing the finished result. 

I helped out on a Bollywood music video shoot with Stewart and Jazz earlier this week and was really impressed by their technical and creative ability so I'm certain that will also do wonders for the Finders.Keepers trailer and short and hopefully the resulting feature which Jazz is down to direct with me writing and co-producing with Stewart.

DIY all the way I say! Onwards and upwards!

TAFN

B x

LSWF10 and Email Bounce Issue

I had a great London Screenwriters Festival, made some new friends and contacts and will blog about it here soon with all my thoughts.

If you're trying to contact me via email then please use brendan.j.oneill \AT/ gmail.com as my Stickleback Productions one is bouncing for some reason ;-(.

Bollywood appearance & London Screenwriters Festival 2010 :-)

Well I entered all the competitions I was going to enter. Didn't win any of the ones announced so far though I did score quite highly in my readers assessment for the London Screenwriters Festival Short Script competition which is reassuring. I'm also getting regular likes and nice comments from the material I have put on Circalit which hosted its own LSWF competition.

I think maybe my "teacher goes berserk and everyone ends up deceased" short script Under Siege may have been a bit too strong for some tastes! Will try and do it myself now free from the constraints of only having 5 characters. Just need to find a secondary school that's willing to let me shoot a blood bath!

The very good news is that I am now going to the London Screenwriters Festival courtesy of Screen West Midlands who are sponsoring 10 West Midlands based writers to attend. The line up looks very comprehensive and fab and its a credit to the team behind it. Apparently all the speakers are giving their time for free to make it happen which is most excellent indeed.

In other competition news I have sent 3 out of the 4 genre entries allowed for The Big Idea competition which deadlines this Friday with just my teens Sci-Fi idea kidZ:The Trident Inheritance still to go. This has to to be whittled down from 5k+ words to just 700 before tomorrow when I head down to London.

November is going to be busy with prepping a trailer short for my feature idea Finders.Keepers. with my fantastic new producer/DoP team and also doing another full treatment for another "hot" project i.e. one with a producer already attached.

The bad news is that due to actor availability becoming something of a kitten herding exercise my 30 minute short Trouble At My Door has been pushed back to the New Year - hopefully February half-term. Congratulations though to precociously talented cast member Kia Pegg who has landed the part of Vicious Vicky in the 3D feature Horrid Henry.

I also need to decide if its worth having a bash at the Terry Pratchett prize for an 80 -150k novel that is set in any time but now and is physics-ly possible i.e. no ray guns etc. That deadlines 31/12 and has a publishing deal attached.

So busy, busy, busy and thats even before I've gone and networked like a mad thing at LSWF 2010. It'll be great to meet some of my Facebook writer friends for the first time.

Finally I had the chance to appear as an extra last weekend in Bollywood film Tezz which is shooting around Birmingham and stars Slumdog Millionaire's Anil Kapoor. Its an Indian version of Speed apparently.

It was really interesting to see a big production shooting on 35mm in operation. There was loads of preparation for lighting and rehearsals but few takes. Think I prefer shooting on HD/DV as you can get as many takes as you want without worrying about the cost of processing etc. It definitely gives you more scope to do a number of takes thus giving more for the editor to play with.

Big ups to Sindy Campbell the Filming Liaison Coordinator from Film Birmingham who was really busy and doing a great job making everything run smoothly for this really big (70 crew!) shoot.

Would like to see more big productions like this coming to Birmingham as its A GREAT PLACE to shoot films.

I'm in a few crowd scenes and am quite close to Anil Kapoor at times so it will be interesting to see if I make it to the big screen.

Anyway onwards and upwards!

TAFN B x

Busy October!

I'm really busy this month with various competition entries that will also be dual purposed for other things.

Firstly I'm entering the various competitions that are being run to help launch the inaugural London Screenwriters Festival. One already packed and sent was for their short script competition which had to be set in a school/college with 2 adults and 3 students as characters. My entry Under Seige is a rather bleak but powerful drama about a teacher who finally snaps as a result of pupil bullying with tragic consequences.

The other official competition for this is the Inspired by Science award which is worth 5k to the winner. I'm dusting off my Fairyland project for this as its a perfect fit. They're asking for a 750 word treatment with a biomedical science theme so this Bhopal disaster related corporate wrongdoing story gives me perfect scope.

Over on free to join Circalit.com I've also posted an excerpt from Unix O'Mooney my novel about a young alien stranded in Ireland in 1969 which is gettting some good feedback from people. That's for another competition which gets ones novel "fast tracked into the hands of agents and publishers" and wins a professional novel manuscript assessment.

Circalit are also running an LSF related competition where you win a free consultation with a leading London literary agent and a free ticket to the festival so I'm tidying up Scampenstein for entering into that.

I'm also going to send the treatment for Scampenstein in as one of 4 genre entries for The Big Idea competition run by Shine Pictures which  deadlines at the end of the month and is worth a whopping 25k development deal to the winner so well worth a shot. You can enter one each of Romantic Comedies, Action Adventures, Sci-Fi or Fantasy or Family Comedies.

The Panther's Lair?

I'm also writing up a treatment for a producer I have done some work with in the past and also sending him the treatment for my geek serial killer/kidnapper nano budget feature idea Panther that I'm looking to self shoot over the winter/spring period. I already have a new team for this and a great location already sorted as the Panther's Lair.

So busy, busy, busy and that's just this month!