The Last Short Film, Room 34 and the 'Writer Mode'
I've just finished the first cut of my latest and final short film, The Untalented O'Brien .
After much thought I've decided to throw in the towel regarding short films, in the past four years I've created seven of 'the bad boys' and decided to move on to different projects, focusing mainly on features.
I'm not saying the shorts were a waste of time, by all means they're weren't, just watching my own personal progress from the handheld miniCam days of Bus Stop to the smooth tracking XL1 shots of To The Dogs show their worth in gold.
It's also nice to note that The Untalented O'Brien , although primarily a University project, is my most personal yet, it stars Gazz Wood as the lead, who four years ago was daft enough to star in my debut short.
Also we have But Then, She Spoke 's Ben Kent and legendary bit-parter Steve Fisher in a 'blink and you'll miss it' cameo has the lead's father.
It's been lots of fun making these mini-projects but as of late I'm thirsting for more, I'm eager to get out there and produce a long-line of feature films.
As any regular reader of this series would know, I've tried feature film production in the past, got very close and was denied at the 11 th hour.
However as mentioned last month, I'm working on a feature project that almost defies budget, making it easy to shoot for a shoe-string without compromising quality.
The project is called 'Room 34', a tale of a young landlord who decides to rent his spare room to three different people without them realising it.
Sorry for the vagueness, however it's still very much in the development phase, to date I've done the initial treatment and I'm currently 20 pages deep.
Although this will be a low budget feature it doesn't make it any easier for myself, in fact it makes it a hell of a lot difficult.
First of all, the entire duration of the film is within a small two bedroom flat, with minimal actors, every writer's worse nightmare.
However I like to see it as a challenge, to create a compelling interesting story within the four walls of a small apartment, a story where the actions of characters and their behaviours make the story, not so much the external world's effect on them.
It truly will be a character study, with the emphasis on room-mates, what it's like to share a house with someone, especially a stranger, which I know from first hand, isn't a easy experience.
With the University semester now almost over, I'm writing this between assignments, it's time I got down to the old 'writing mode'.
The 'writing mode' is where I spend every waking hour working on ideas and applying them to paper, as productive as that sounds, its far from it, as any writer will know putting together a well structure coherent story is never an easy task.
So after a busy start of the year production wise, I return to my roots and indulge myself on a writing binge that will last for many months to come.
Afraid? I know I sure am!
Next month I talk about the future of Gangsta Fish, life as a full time writer and future progress on Room 34
Nick O'Mahoney
www.gangstafish.com
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