The Workshop Presents... now on YouTube.

So here we are, our YouTube channel is now up. Follow the link and check out some of our trailers and shorts and music vids. More to come soon.

http://www.youtube.com/user/welshgit1

Special

THROUGH THE LOOOKING GLASS Digital Release:

The digital roll out of Through the Looking Glass continues and the film is now playing here:  http://www.broadcastnetwork.tv/video/1739 . Head on over and have a watch and don't forget to tell all your friends to do the same. The more people we can get over there the more the film will spread and the more you will have played a part in making this film a success (which is no easy thing for an indie film). And then we can make more. You are brilliant for this and you know you are. It is very much appriciated here at the Workshop so a big thanks for all your support.

The DVD is almost finished and will be heading your way pretty soon.

Bye for now.
Craig

Workshop QOTD: Death, death, death...

I've just been writing the ADR script for a rather gruesome death scene in Nightvision. To me the art of a great death scene is to leave the real horror to the imagination of the audience. It's a fine line between being terrifying, horrific and just gratuitous.

Now don't get me wrong I love a bit of splatter and gore but I tend to laugh in a little terrified way in much the same way I do when I'm at the top of the roller coaster, you know that fraction of a pause just before it sends you hurtling headlong into the bowls of hell.

That stuff is great but it doesn't disturb me in the same way that The Ring or The Shining or The Haunting (original not that crappy re-make, Jan deBont you should be ashamed for littering Wise's masterpiece with all that CGI crap) does.

So I'd love to know what is your fave death scene from a film and why? What made it affect you so much? Did it horrify you? Or did it move you? For me I'd have to say The Elephant Man still floors every time.

Next time.

Craig

Workshop QOTD: To remake or not to remake?

I'm finally going to get to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tonight. Now I love Fincher, always have since 7. Even when he misses it is still with so much style and verve that it's really captivating (yes The Game I'm talking about you). He really is one of the most interesting directors around. Generally I hate Hollywood remakes so it is with some trepidation that I am going but if any one can pull it off the Fincher can. I'll let you know tomorrow if I think he does.

The problem with Hollywood remakes is that they're taking something alien and trying to turn them into something palatable for American audiences. To me this means that they don't trust the audience to have a little intelligence, a little taste and so they always dumb things down. In doing so they always feel like something is lost in translation. Of course I am generalising here but you get the point (Wickerman anyone?)

A good example of this is Verbinski's take on The Ring. Now for a Hollywood film it's a really good film in it's own right but even so it can help falling for the old Hollywood tricks and as such it loses all sense of dread and terror that makes the original so scary. That sense of normality that made it get in your head and twist around your brain and squeeze the life out of you.

Also foreign films have their own unique tone and pacing depending on where they come from, some fast, some slow but all different. I love that sense of experiencing the world through a different set of eyes. I just think it would be very dull if all films were tonally the same as the boardroom suits would like. Mind you even films within Hollywood vary massively and long may that last.

My biggest bug-bear though is that they have to re-make them in English because they believe the audience won't go to see the original 'cos they gotta read, as if the audience are either too stupid or too lazy to read. Personally I like having to read subtitles it makes me feel like I'm experiencing a new world, a different culture something that is new to me or not quite understood by me and I have to keep up but maybe most people don't.

So what's your fave Hollywood remake? Why does it work? Does it maintain any sense of the original? Is it better?

Thank God they've decided to shelve the US remake of Akira is all I can say.

Bye-Bye for now
Craig

Workshop QOTD: Rock 'n' Role

Been having a Back to the Future trilogy session over the last few nights. One a night. Its been great to see how the story ties into everything that came before it in the previous films and then pays off at the end.

What is really interesting is the role reversal of Marty and Doc in the 3rd film. In the first film Marty doesn't really pay any attention to the whole space/time continuum while Doc is constantly telling him he mustn't do anything that could alter the future but after the events of the 2nd film Marty learns his lesson and spends much of the 3rd film telling Doc he mustn't do things that will change the future. And of course like Marty in the first film he doesn't listen and falls in love with the always brilliant Mary Steenbergen. It works brilliantly and something I missed when I first saw the film as a teenager.

What is you fave film about role reversal and why? Is it Hanks in Big? Is it Indy and his son in Crystal Skull as a flip on Indy and his dad in Last Crusade? Is it Hoffman in Tootsie?

I really wish I had a hover-board...oh and a time travelling DeLorean.

Now why don't you make like a tree...

Craig

Workshop QOTD: The horror, the horror...

My great friend Kev Moss and I have been working on the script for the end of Nightvision making it much more scary and terrifying. I love writing end scenes the most as this is the scene in which everything comes together, reaches a point and BANG explodes leaving the characters reeling.

This is the place where you really get to mess with your characters the most. This is the point where the worst that can happen does and they are left with the consequences for the rest of their lives (no matter how short).

This is where you feel like Laurence Oliver in Clash of the Titans (the original, not the crappy re-make) as he moves the little clay figures across his board...or like that kid rushing his Star Wars miniture people at each other for that last big face off with a firework taped to one of the Stormtroopers (or was that just me?).

The good thing about a horror script is that you can really put your characters through the mill at this point and that is lots of fun. The nastier the better. So with this horrid little thought in your heads....

What's the scariest ending to a film you've seen? What about it gave you the cold sweats or sent a shiver down your spine or left you unable to sleep for days? Answer on a postcard to....

Toodle-Pip

Craig

Workshop QOTD: Starting over

So my monster movie script Evolution Cell is done and dusted and in the hands of the producer to work his magic...now what? Best get on with the next script. Back to my road movie The Long Road. Although I've already shot about 1/4 of it it's never too late to change it, refine it, throw it all out and start again.

With that in mind what is your fave film about starting over, learning your lessons and moving on? You could argue that all films are about that really. If your character doesn't learn anything then what is the change? No change, no story, no film. If a character ends in the same place he began then whats the point of what you're telling? So every story has to have some kind of lesson learnt and change as a result.

So what is your fave starting over film?

Bye for now
Craig