Shooting shooters

Well it's been a month since my last post and accordingly there's a lot of news. I would guess that roughly 2/3 of the script has been filmed! Hurray and congrats and thanks to all involved!
Our first day back to shooting didn't go all too well. Don't get me wrong, the performances were all fine and everything went to schedule. I just feel like I didn't put in as much effort as I should have and as a result, it's not the prettiest stuff I've ever filmed. Hopefully it'll turn out ok though.
After that I was determined not to do it again. So we filmed two days in a row, first at some offices in Glasgow (thanks Claire!) then at the Kirky Scout Hall (thanks Titch!). The second day we had a 6 hour shoot at The Flying Duck in Glasgow. It all went very well, especially the Flying Duck shoot. In contrast with the previous Sunday being one of the worse things I've ever shot, the stuff in the Flying Duck is some of the best stuff I've ever shot. The fight scene which I'd been worrying about has turned out great and the performances of everyone were fantastic! Special mentions to new-comers Alan Marshall and Jason Chau, their first time acting with us.
So at the moment, we have about 2 days left to shoot, hopefully by the end of September and as usually I'm busy editing away.
Expect a teaser trailer very soon!!!

Places to see, People to be

What luck! The Flying Duck are to be our club location! They seem very keen and flexible to our needs, we really couldn't ask for better (not to mention the place looks great). As well as this, Stevie Mann has managed to arrange for us to shoot in his workplace (a Jet garage) for our final, dramatic, climactic shoot-out. Locations are pretty much sorted!
Casting is also underway, with many familiar faces from Enlightened Monster's past productions and some new faces all joining in. Beside Keith, McGeagh and Robbie we have Alan Robertson Snr and Jnr both making their customary contributions. Jennifer Wanless is back for another role, as are Scott Cunningham and Graeme Wright. Duncan Wilshaw, long-time extra will also be taking on a speaking role. There will also be newcomers, notably Iain Campbell and (hopefully) Theo Hardie.
At any rate, things are shaping up. We're having a pre-production meeting tomorrow in none other than The Flying Duck. This will probably end in a drunken haze, but I reckon we can scribble down a rough plan regardless...

Slow and Steady

Well things are still moving slowly here. Partly due to our own faults and partly due to lack of communication. We are still waiting on hearing back from the Cathouse for filming. This seems like the best option but we have a few others which either for location or monetary reasons are not quite as suitable. Hopefully we hear back soon.
Claire Grantham (Keith's sister) has kindly offered free use of her office for filming of the Polis Department scenes! This is a huge hurdle that has been cleared and if we could only get a night-club we could really start filming.
The regular deadline for the Glasgow Short Film Festival is 16th of September, so we're gonna use this as a motivational deadline; something to get us moving.
In other news, we have submitted the script to the latest BAFTA Rocliffe forum. Last time we entered, we got long-listed but were up against feature-film scripts, short film scripts, TV scripts etc. and still made it that far. This time, it's only for sitcoms. So maybe we should have thought, "Hey, they ultimately rejected the script last time, it's clearly not good enough". Instead we're going with, "Hey, we made it to the long-list last time, now we don't have the 'serious' writing to contend with." Either way, it's done and time will tell.
In other, other news; here is Keith getting sprayed in the face-

Malaise

It's been a while! The last few months have been hectic with everything except Polis. We shot a sample scene from the pilot episode with decent results. Everyone was on good form and it was a lot of fun and it can be seen on the videos page. McGeagh has been busy sending the script out to anyone that will read it (we've had one reply saying they'll let us know in the next 9 months, so roll on March!).
We are hopefully about to start shooting again, with Keith inquiring the Cathouse. If we can secure a night-club location for shooting then we will have no excuse not to do the whole episode.
Watch this space.

Winning

Last Thursday, Keith, McGeagh and I attended the Scottish BAFTA New Talent Awards as nominees in the writing category and left as winners.
It was a fantastic night as friends Ian Robertson and Naysun Alae-Carew also won awards in the Experimental/ Art and Producing categories respectively and thus allowed us to skip any awkward congratulations and commiserations.
Self-congratulating over, we finally began shooting Polis on Sunday. We filmed a 3 minute scene which will soon be posted on our youtube page, so watch this space.
The results are as good as anything we've made before, so that was nice. Hopefully everyone agrees with me...

Preparation

In 13 days, Keith, McGeagh and myself will be attending the BAFTA New Talent Awards as nominees in the writing category. My mental image of this occasion is that of commissioning executives, talent scouts and prospecting producers to be wandering around, drinks in hand, offering out contracts and opportunities left, right and center.
Perhaps I'm delusional.
In any case, we don't want to go into the room under-prepared. So we have an ill-conceived plan. If there are people attending that might be a) slightly interested in our so-called 'talent' and b) have the means to help us out in terms of going professional, then we want to have something to show them.
So we're going to finish off the pilot episode of 'Polis'. Our first draft is just a few pages shy of finished and we should have enough time to polish it up in the next 13 days. I'll stick this on a handful of pen-drives alongside a six episode plot arc, character bios and contact details etc. and hand them out on the night.
But wait, there's more! Before the 24th, we are also going to shoot a scene from the pilot episode and whack that on the drives too. A big concern is that producers might be scared away from the concept of 'Polis', thinking that the action will cost too much money to be financially viable. So we'll just have to show that it can be done for a budget of £0.
If (the perhaps non-existent) they watch it and think it's garbage, then at least they'll still have the script... which I'm hoping isn't garbage.

Polis- The Series

So, for those of you that don't know; Polis is an ultra-cool, side-splittingly funny Scottish buddy cop sitcom combining classic spoof comedy with all-out 80's Hong-Kong style action! The catch is that the show itself doesn't exist.
I'm Graham Hughes and with the help of my two friends and co-creators, Keith Grantham and Graeme McGeagh, we are currently writing the pilot episode for a Polis TV series. We intend to submit the script to the BBC writer's room as well as any other production companies that accept unsolicited scripts. On top of this, we also intend to make the pilot episode ourselves in our usual no-budget style and use it as a pitching tool.
As the likely-hood of getting a TV-show commissioned is next-to-slim-to-none, we need all the help we can get. Which is where you come in. As we write and shoot the first episode and try to whore ourselves out, it's your job to show how much the world needs Polis to be made into a 'real' show!
Check us out on Facebook and the blog to find out our goings on. Over the next few months there'll be clips, photos and news galore to keep you entertained and frothing at the mouth in anticipation of this groundbreaking piece of television history! Or something like that.