Eric Kissack’s and Kevin Tenglin’s The Gunfighter is tagged on YouTube as the “Best Short Film Ever” and that may well be right. There are some sexual references in this so for mature audiences only. WINNER Audience Award for Best Short Film – LA Film FestWINNER Audience Award for Best Short Film – Napa Valley Film FestivalWINNER Audience Award for Best Narrative Short – Sidewalk Film FestivalWINNER Jury Award for Best Short Film – Macon Film FestivalWINNER Jury Award for Best Short Film – Hill Country Film FestivalWINNER Jury Award for Best Comedy – LA ShortsWINNER Jury Award and Audience Award for Best Short Film – Hell’s Half MileWINNER Jury Award for Excellence in Short Filmmaking – South Dakota Film FestivalBest of the Fest Selection – Palm Springs Short FestAudience Favorite – DC ShortsHonorable Mention for Best Short Films – Woods Hole Film FestivalOfficial Selection – Cleveland International Film FestOfficial Selection – Seattle International Film FestOfficial Selection – Traverse City Film FestivalFeatured on Short of the Week – shortoftheweek.com/2014/06/23/the-gunfighter/ Go to facebook.com/thegunfighter for news about screenings in your area! Directed by Eric Kissack (erickissack.com)Written by Kevin Tenglin (kevintenglin.com/)Produced by Sarah PlattShot by Jon Aguirresarobe (jonaguirresarobe.com/)Edited by Libby CueninCostumes by Kate MallorArt Direction by … Read More
Film Friday – Leading Lady Parts – BBC
This comedy short, written and directed by Jessica Swale, takes a sneak peek backstage as the cream of British acting talent step forward to audition for that dream role. They are primed to take on the role of a lifetime, that complex woman, the strong woman, a woman for today. A lady part who is more than just… lady parts. The eclectic, award-winning cast includes Gemma Arterton, Gemma Chan, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, Tom Hiddleston, Felicity Jones, Katie Leung, Stacy Martin, Wunmi Mosaku, Florence Pugh, Catherine Tate and Anthony Welsh. The hear her campaign aims to give free reign and the opportunity for normally unheard women from across the UK to tell their stories and give their opinions on all matters ‘women’. It aims to elevate these honest and uncensored opinions to make them un-ignorable. To discover more visit bbc.co.uk/hearher: https://bbc.in/2s8nXJJ [Film Friday -Leading Lady Parts – BBC by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 25th June 2021]
Film Friday – Rubato by ESMA
Directed by Félix Ferrand, Florian Magnin, Jordan Mercredi, Corentin Provost, Marjolaine Robin. Created during the third and last year at ESMA Montpellier, in France. You check out the film’s Facebook page here – https://www.facebook.com/rubato.esma [Film Friday – Rubato by ESMA by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 29 January 2021]
Film Friday – Dracula (1931)
Only available until 23rd January… [Film Friday – Dracula 1931 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 15 January 2021]
Film Friday – Rebooted
A little stop motion magic for your Friday. And the behind the scenes to go with it. [Film Friday – Rebooted by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 8 January 2021]
Rutger Hauer (1944–2019)
My abiding memory of Rutger Hauer isn’t Wedlock or The Hitcher or even Blade Runner. It’s Split Second. Sort of. Back in the good old days my local two screen cinema would run one-off showings of less popular movies at a discount price. My mum and I saw a few of these films, including Conan the Destroyer. I saw Natural Born Killers on my own. One of these “Tuesday specials” was Split Second. It had “the bad guy from Blade Runner” in it and looked pretty cool so I decided to go. Like all sane people I arrived early to get a good seat. The cinema was empty so I picked the perfect spot and settled down to contemplate the futility of existence (or whatever it was we did before smartphones) while I waited for all the other Rutger Hauer fans to arrive. Nobody came. The lights went down. Nobody came. The trailers started up and I was still alone in the theatre. It slowly dawned on me that I now had a decision to make. Back in those days there was still an “intermission” between the trailers and the movie. During that time an usher, usually a woman, would … Read More
Octoberish
We’re well into the second week of November, it’s a dreary day here in Vancouver, and I’m supposed to be getting ready for a trip to Sweden so now seems like a perfect time to post a quick October update. The big writing news was the release of Serial Killer Z (finally). I was about to write a long piece about the launch strategy for the series, but then I realised this is supposed to be short so I’ll save that for another day. I’ll just say that I went with a soft-ish launch (a limp launch?) for the first book. I told my newsletter subscribers over the course of a few days, and posted here on the blog and social media, experimented with some ads, but that was it. No big promos, no concerted marketing. That will come later, when book three is released in a couple of weeks. But even without any real marketing the book has been doing pretty well. People seem to like it and it’s already at the number four slot in my personal sales chart. That bodes well for the future. The launch took up a good chunk of my free time in October, … Read More
September in October
Wow, it’s almost the middle of October and I haven’t posted an update. I’m going to blame the fact I was at a writing retreat in Colorado at the end of September. And my book release, yes, that too. The Colorado trip was excellent. Great company, some drinking, good food, good conversation and a big chunk of writing. And this guy: Apart from the writing retreat, it was a pretty light month – 12,412 words in total. Most of my time was spent revising the third zombie book. It’s now going through a second pass with my editor and should be wrapped up pretty quickly. Now I’m working on what was supposed to be a prequel novella for my next series. However, I’m already 17,000 words in which should be around the halfway point. It’s more like a quarter of the way through the story. I may have to rethink this plan. I’m really enjoying writing it though, it’s got the same sort of geeky humour I sprinkled throughout Unseen Planet which makes it a lot of fun to write (and hopefully read). My September reading was mostly dominated by one book – Clive Barker’s Coldheart Canyon and I still … Read More
“The odd uneven time”
August was vacation month for my wife and me. We spent three weeks back in the UK, visiting family, Cardiff, and London. We normally go back at Christmas so this was the first time we’d been back in the summer for something like seven years. Of course, the weather didn’t cooperate. It didn’t rain all the time, there were some very sunny days, but as the photos show, it was fairly grey for our trip to London. We had a good time though. I’ll probably post more photos from the trip (including a visit to The Doctor Who Experience) in future. There was writing, of course. Total word count for August was 17,038 which is the lowest word count since March. Most of that time was spent on random scenes for a possible urban fantasy series. They were a lot of fun and I may well try writing a novella to see how it goes. I did finish a new short story that I wrote specifically for a very cool anthology. I submitted it a couple of days ago so now I have my fingers and toes crossed that the editor likes it. Time will tell. Talking of short stories… my … Read More
Zombie Novel Three, Draft One, Complete
July was a good writing month – 34,092 words in total, mostly on the third novel in the zombie series. That’s slightly less productive than June but it’s entirely down to the fact that I spent most of the month revising rather than writing new words. More important than the raw word count, I completed the first draft. I read through the entirety of the first, “zero”, draft and fixed the structural and continuity errors (and tweaked a lot of the sentence and word level stuff as well). Before After This is the part of the writing process that I a) like the least and b) find the most difficult. It’s a relief to get that draft zero cleaned up. Even better, it seems like a good book. There’s still at least two more drafts to go before I send it off to my editor, but those are more about refining the book rather than ripping out chunks and replacing them. I did write the first draft of a new story, tentatively called The Last Soul Diver. My process for this one was a bit different – I dictated it using Dragon Dictate. It’s the first time I’ve used dictation … Read More