Ride Ahead to Edinburgh and Assemble the Council

If you’re living in Wales and you want to work in TV, this should be of interest to you.

The Network is a free four day TV Training event taking place at the Edinburgh Television Festival from the 25th August.  Previous speakers include Charlie Brooker, Russell Howard, Sharon Osbourne and Sir Trevor McDonald, as well as staff from Sky TV, MTV, Channel Four and ITV.

To apply, you must be aged 18 or over on August 24th 2011.  If you’re from Wales and you want some hints and tips on how to write the best application you can, then drop me an email.  This is a great chance to learn a lot about the industry and meet a lot of people.  All you would have to pay for is your travel to and from Edinburgh itself – everything else is covered as part of the event.

Apply directly to The Network here, the deadline is the 15th April, so get in soon!

There’s a Certain Shabby Nobility in Failing All By Myself

This blog almost died for a number of reasons.  In case there’s anybody still out there, I produced a short film last year for the Digital Shorts Wales scheme, which was funded by the (now defunct) UK Film Council.

This short is called Bright Lights, and it’s now listed here on IMDb.  Directed by Hefin Rees, it’s a sweet little film about a teenage girl in the South Wales valleys, and her relationship with her Ice Cream Man Father.  We’ve started submitting it to festivals, so hopefully it will be on screens soon.  I’ll post any news here.

I’ll leave you with a photo of Catrin Faulknall as Ali, and Ian Staples as Dad, taken by our DOP Steven Davies.

Without Me, There Wouldn’t Be Any Paramount Studio

I was in London last week, spending the week at the UK offices of Paramount Pictures, something that had been arranged for me after I went on the Marketing & Distribution course at Media Business School in Spain. I had a ton of meetings and learned a lot about theatrical distribution from the studio perspective – which really put what I learned on the course into context.

I haven’t got a lot of gossip to share (and I had to sign an NDA anyway), so this isn’t going to be the place to find inside information on what’s coming up in 2010, and if you were expecting the scoop on the potential Star Trek sequel, look elsewhere. I’m very grateful to everyone at Paramount for being very generous with their time and for explaining everything in such detail, and to the Media Business School for arranging it for me.

What I do with this new knowledge, I haven’t quite worked out yet. Looking over my notes from the week, I’ve realised just how much I’ve learned, and while it will obviously help me to develop as a producer, I need to see how I can put this into some sort of practice from 2010 onwards.

My Camera, It Doesn’t Know How To Lie

Here’s the new trailer from SSAW – Skillset Screen Academy Wales, edited by Ewan Jones-Morris.  It’s compiled of films made with the support of the Screen Academy between 2007 and 2009.  There’s lots of footage from 17 included, check it out.

An Early Christmas Present

Aron Cynan & Iwan John in Rhestr Nadolig Wil

Rhestr Nadolig Wil has won Best Drama at the EA Bafta Children’s Awards.  It was the first production I worked on when I was on a CYFLE traineeship, which feels like a long time ago now.  It was first broadcast over Christmas last year, no doubt S4C will dust off the tape and give it an airing again this season.  Congratulations to Boomerang and everyone involved in the production.