My new life in the United Kingdom

My creation, 'The Scarlet Avenger', standing before the union jack. It was one of the flags used by Canada, during WW II, but now this picture has a different meaning for me.

Okay, so as one reader has pointed out, I haven't made an update in 8 months! Basically, I've been too busy getting the ball rolling on my new life in the United Kingdom to devote any attention to the 'Scarlet Avenger' feature project (for those of you not in the know, I made a permanent move to England in April of this year). It was too expensive and time consuming to continue with storyboarding and creating production paintings and animatics, so development, for all intents and purposes, has ceased for the time being. The Avenger script winning the WILDsound screenplay contest this past fall was a nice going away present, but it didn't generate any producer or financing interest. I knew it wouldn't, because Canada isn't a filmmaking country (hence why I decided to leave). Truth is I may never get the opportunity to make a film the scale of 'The Scarlet Avenger' feature, but at least there's a fighting chance in the UK, where people do invest in movies of this type. I just have to get my life up and running here, and then, hopefully, with a little luck, I'll meet people who'll be able to help me get it made.

While development has ceased on the feature film, you might get a taste of the Avenger's exploits via internet radio. Steve McKay (one of my co-writers on the feature screenplay) has written an old-style radio play adaptation of the feature script that he'd like to produce and post on the net as a 12-part podcast. While I can't be involved with that project too much at present, I've given him my full blessing to go ahead with it. He's sent me the first couple drafts of the adaptation, which are pretty darned good, so I look forward to seeing how it all turns out.

The past 4 months have been quite a whirlwind for me. In April I touched down in Bristol, England. I stayed there until just a few days ago, when I up and moved to London. Bristol was a relatively large city in the South West, known for having influential film and music industries. One of my favourite bands, Portishead, hails from there. The most successful film studio in the city is Aardman Animations, responsible for the Wallace & Grommit stop motion animation movies. I chose to move to Bristol for a couple reasons. A. It didn't seem like the best idea in the world to move to London in a recession (with no job!). Bristol's far cheaper than London. B. The city's film industry (apparently the largest in the UK, outside of London).

Now it may be true Bristol's film industry is 2nd in size to London's, but that doesn't mean it isn't pathetically small. I was lucky enough to get some interesting freelance editing work there, which I'm very grateful for, but the work dried up far too quickly. There just wasn't enough of an infrastructure there to support my career, plus I knew I'd never meet anyone there who'd be able to help me make films one day. While it was only a 2 hour train ride west of London, it felt like it was a million miles away. There's very little between London and Bristol, aside from farmland, so one can feel really isolated out there. In the end, Bristol was just too sleepy for me. All the movers and shakers really are in London, which is the Hollywood of the UK. If you wanna be taken seriously in Hollywood, you gotta move to Hollywood! Just a quick aside here - if I could move to the real Hollywood I would, but I don't have the right to work in America, so I can't. So anyways, I decided to ship off to London. Luckily, my sister moved there a couple years ago, so I was able to crash at her apartment for a weekend so I could find a place of my own more easily.

So, I moved into a tiny flat share, with two other fellows, in a rather grungy-looking part of East London (Shoreditch, to be precise), and I'm paying almost as much as I was to live on my own in the swankiest part of Toronto! London is soooooo expensive. However, I can see why. It's simply one of the most vibrant and exciting cities on earth. Everyone wants to live here - it's supply and demand. I am much more creatively stimulated walking down the streets of London than I ever was in Bristol, or Toronto for that matter. My first night here, I went to catch a showing of Quentin Tartantino's 'Inglourious Basterds' at the Odeon theatre in Leicester Square (where I payed the OUTRAGEOUS price of $27.00 CDN for one ticket!) After the movie, I walked down to the River Thames and sat on a bench, looking up at Big Ben, glowing in the darkness. It was such an exciting feeling, looking up at that icon that I'd seen in countless movies. I was living in a city that people made movies about!

Here I am with a cup of Canadian Tim Hortons coffee, standing in Trafalgar Square, celebrating Canada Day in London, July 1, 2009.

Now, it's reality time. Tomorrow, I begin the always massive task of getting a job, with no contacts and on the strength of my résumé alone! I'm not looking forward to countless mind-numbing hours in front of the computer, writing hundreds of cover letters, of which 99% will go unread, but that is the nature of the game. Once my life gets rolling in London, I can focus on my true passion - developing my own feature films.