DEATH - A comedy.

So, a long time has past since I last posted anything, but I think it's time to have another go.

The last year has been hard and interesting - I finished my Masters Degree in screenwriting, so am now qualified in it, which is nice I suppose. It was one of those things, that I'm glad I did it, but if I had known what it was going to be like, then I wouldn't have done it...

Any way. I did it and I've got a bit of paper with me name on.

I've also made a whole load of short films,

Popping Round

The Actress who fell in love with herself

My Grandad says he's building a spaceship in his shed

The Lonely Road

and three others for various Drama students, as well as going to Turkey to be Director of photography on a weird spiritual Martial arts film.

Had a film at the Cannes film festival, one at Bornholm, two at Rushes, THREE at Raindance, one at Branchage(jersey) The Orgasm Raygun at the Erotic film festival in San Francisco, which sadly I couldn't afford to go to... Bugger. And a couple in the London short film festival in Jan to come, so I've been busy.

Also finished another screenplay - The Universe of Geoffrey Brown, whilst Deathtrap Dungeon, written with Ian Livingstone, is gently wandering round Hollywood as we speak (or write).

But, In other news...

The time has come to make my first feature film DEATH - A comedy. I'm going to shoot it in jan 2011. I've worked on thirteen feature films for other people, so i think it's time I directed one.

I've finished the script almost, but it's 165 pages log, so I need to whittle it down to 90 or so.

Am rehearsing actors and shooting promo in November on Location, and have secured the services of Paul Freeman and Leslie Phillips so far, and I haven't really started.

Also got most of the locations, A yellow Bi-plane and a few other things...

Looks like it's coming together!

Now to make a major sacrifice to the film gods - who are old and angry gods, and demand blood...

I shall try to blog this film making adventure...

Harry Potter and the Half blood prince

so, I was invited to a screening of the new Harry Potter film : the half blood prince at Warner Bros yesterday - so I thought excellent - free beer!

Went along and had two free beers, but had to drink the last one quite quickly as they don't allow drinks in the screen - what do they think we are going to do - throw them at the screen?

Anyhow - watched the two and a half hours long film and...

I've seen many screenings where the cast and crew are there, or it's a press screening or a premier or something and usually you all walk out - excited - chatting about the bits you liked.

We all walked out in silence.

I went to the Loo.

I wanted to talk about it - but there was no one willing to talk.

Because the problem is - it really isn't very good. It completely leaves you with a blank feeling, like the story hasn't progressed since episode 5.

People will say that Harry Potter is getting darker - but it isn't - that is just the GRADE! It is visually darker - but the story isn't: the pacing, the action, the plot - not that dark.

There are many many scenes which make no sense, they are just there because they are in the book (I imagine - I haven't read this one) and make no sense to be in the film if you haven't read the aforementioned book.

There is also some really weird editing and cuts that just don't work. Fourth wall breaking stuff - where we were looking around at each other thinking 'is that right'?

People are already beginning to compare this to Empire Strikes Back, because at the end the good guys are loosing - but that is really about it.

Daniel Radciffe is so incredibly weak (is he the luckiest boy ever or what?) it is impossible to form any emotional attachment to him or his friends. You quite simply don't give a toss. You don't believe him at all - and he still looks uncomfortable in front of a camera after all these years and huge pay cheques.

Also in many scenes there is no glass in his glasses he is just wearing frames! Why Mr David Yates thought we wouldn't notice this, is beyond me - because in some scenes he has glass in them and you can clearly see reflections - so it just became a Potter spotting moment - has he got glass in or not? - which just goes to show how involved I was in the movie!

I know the excuses will be that it is a big book and that was a lot to adapt, but they have failed to identify what the on going story really is in this episode - so it degenerates in to nicely shot sequences which have no link. Much of the film could be flipped around or cut with no damage to the on going story at all.

The opening scene - which looks great, makes no sense. Why do they do it?

And the big bad bit at the end - why didn't they do that in episode one? I'm sure there is a reason in the book, but Mr Yates has forgotten to tell us what it is.

We don't even see Potters forehead scar till about hour two - almost as a reminder that it is there.

There is a scene with Potter and Dumbledore on an island - which is fantastic like something out of Dante's inferno illustrated by Gustav Doire (Sp?). This was beautiful, but again very quickly dealt with - like a chapter, when this was a major turning point in the whole film.

A shame - because I really wanted to like it and love this genre, which surprises me even more when I found it all rather silly and dull.

I'm sure that this will be an episode quickly forgotten, like episode four, quantum of solace, The phantom menace and many others I have already forgotten.

So much money - so little effort.

4 out of 10. Detention. See me after school.

a rare update

So, it's been a slooooow start to the year, but it has given me lots (and lots) of time to work on my Feature Film script for my Screenwriting Masters which I finish in December! 2/3rd's down and 1/3rd to go!

But the stop press news is that Raindance TV now have almost all my back catalogue of short films on the web:

Please check out - http://raindance.tv/search/node/martin+gooch

Which will keep you entertained from between 5 seconds and and hour depending on your attention span - and wheteher you like this sort of stuff - but if you are reading this I'll wager you do like this sort of stuff...

In other news, I shot a new short film with barry Cryer or Comedy fame, in Feb with a superb crew - Rod 'The Vicar' marley on Dop'ing and Roger Tooley on Camera with Jonny Hansler on bass...

It's a good old larf and should be finished in a month or so.

In a dramatic departure to what I usually make - I made a short film which is dead miserable and depressing and all very grown up and serious, which is almost finished, and will hopefully prove to people I can direct this sort of stuff as well as 'silly school boy' stuff.

It's called Irreparable and won't be in a cinema near you soon...

and now back to your usual program.

Goodbye to all that...

So, It's new years eve... again!

This blogging larks a tricky business. Everytime I write something someone tells me off - it's too negative - it's too boring (!) - It's ebarrassing - It's poorly spellled (!) - ad infinatum...

So, I've been trying to write something which doesnt offend anyone, isnt boring, prrperwly spelt, positive and amusing.

Which is why I havent written anything since October...

But its the end of the year so like every other f*cker out there I'm going to write my review of the year.

Ahem.

A truly odd year. I imagine very few people this time last year could of imagined the sheer and utter cock up of managing the world that the banks have, well, managed.

I've got a few chums in business (well I say chums - I just talk to them in the hope they might drop somemoney or something), and talking to them you really realise what a deep deep mess we is in.

It's taken a long time - hundered of years but basically all the rich people have stolen all the worlds money. It's all in their bank accounts and no one can get it.

But none of that realy kicked off till the summer. What summer????

No sun!

I sat out on my roof terrace everyday for June/july/aug and september and I didnt (to the relief of my neighbours) take my shirt off once for fear of hyperethermia.

Still it did mean I got lots of writing done. Another year another script - this time an adaption of the fighting fantasy gamebook- DeathtrapDungeon with the blessing of the writer Ian Livingstone. Maybe something will come of this but it was six months time well spent. I enjoyed writing it more than anything i've pretty much ever wroted.

Another block of Hollyoaks and the death of Max. That was great fun to do and an interesting time in the hollyoaks story. Hope to do more next year (?)

Directed six short films for East 15 including two half hour films, which was interesting. Was fun to work with so many new actors - some immensly talented and some... er... not as immensly talented.

Made three 1 minute films one achieved nothing, another people keep telling me is the best thing wot I've done, and the third won me the Movie Mogul competition 2008 - the bounty of which I have yet to see but it could and I hope, lead on to some interesting events in 2009.

But you know me - lets not get excited. The pessamist is never disappointed.

I Invented the Raindance short film project - which has so far made six short films, used 12 young actors, and taugh 30+ people the delights of film making. (There are delights?)

I completed a year of my Screenwriting Masters.

Entered and got rejected from the National Portrait competition and the Photographic Portrait thingie. (I think that's a comment on my artistic career...)

Had a film screening at the Curzon Soho with over 100 people in attendance and an hour of Gooch created movies. This is hopefully (is that the right word?) the last short film screening I'm going to do. They are expensive - a pig to organise and achieve nothing, except a nice booze up for everyone else.

Raindance TV want to take my entire back catalouge of shorts to put on the telly (internet telly, not telly telly) which is good - but I fear this isnt going to break montecarlo.

Got a new passport with a very sensible photo in it - but didn't leave the country - I didn't even go to Wales! First time I haven't left the nation for 21 Earth years - This will have to be rectified.

Got a new (my first!) Agent! Very exciting moment indeed - hoping this will bear fruit soon, as many seeds have now been planted.

Had five holes drilled in my knees - a general anesthetic and months of phsio, which wasn't my favourite event of the year. But hopefully a thing I won't have to do again. Though UCLH is an excellent hospital and I will be fighting the corner for the NHS for a long time to come.

Shot the Pricillars new Pop Video - All the way to Holloway.

Saw the Damned 4 times... The stranglers, James, Siouxsie, Heavens Basement (?),The Zennors... and lots of others I can't even name... (or remember).

Met Tharg - Alien editor of 2000AD.

Top that.

~

Things to look forward to in 2009!

A feature film?

Yet another short... (maybe only 5 this year). (Im not putting a question mark as this is pretty much a dead cert).

The rest of my masters? Another feature film script?

A new computer without a sticky space bar?

Some serious trips overseas?

About a half dozen weddings to attend?

Who knows what the future will bring?

But then, thats half the fun isn'tit?

Yesterday - Chaos.

Today - Chaos.

Tomorrow - Chaos?

OMD at the Roundhouse

So, I went to see OMD at the Roundhouse this evening, observant readers might have been able to deduce this from the title line.

I actually went with a friend, who was really late as she went to the wrong theatre (the forum in kentish town...) and whilst i was waiting for her I actually bumped in to the gilr Im secretly in love with (so secret - no one knows this at all).

But then just as I was chatting to secret love girl, my date turn up so I had to rush off and be polite.

Ahyhoo, the gig was brilliant. Seldom do I see gigs where there is so much emotion in the air.

Rock gigs rock, but I don't always feel stirrings in my heart. But when the OMD boys did Joan of arc the audience applauded more than they did at the end of the gig, it was truely a magic gig moment, if we hadnt have been standing already - we would have been standing.

There was a lot of audience participation, gone the feeling of awkwardness and stupidity, that sometime you can feel when trying to clap along to a pop tune.

But then looking around I was one of the young ones (36), the band themselves must all be mid to late 40's, which is no bad thing, but at several points I really was a teenager again and there was a bit of sentiment in my eye at several points.

A truly great gig.

Its in my top ten of all time...

No more Pink Floyd

So, my brother gave me a music magazine to read the other day, as Queen (or what they have now become, like Frankensteins monster they have risen from the dead with a new head on top) have a new albumn out.

I was a big fan when I was a kid, so this is still an event, I remember running off to Our Price records to buy the I want it all 12" single and fighting with my friend hayes as they only had one copy left... (I won).

Anyhow, what was more interesting in this magazine was an interview with David Gilmore, Axeman with the Floyd.

At the end of the article he said - no I ain't gunna play with the Floyd no more. (words to that effect)

So that was a bit sad, and then I went to sleep and in the morning I woke to find that poor old Richard Wright, Keyboard player has only gone and died.

Terribly sad.

I think that puts the end to the Floyd re-union I was hoping for then.

I feel very lucky to have seen Floyd at live 8 in 2005, which was incredibly good. I also saw them at Earls Court in about 1994, which was amazing, and in knebworth in about 1989, then went off to see Roger Waters do The Wall at THE WALL in East germany.

That was amazing 200,000 people, the biggest gig in the world at the time.

I still have dust in my turn-ups from Potsdammenplatz, where we were standing in all the fox holes, where they had blown up the land mines, leaving huge craters, so everyone had to stand on the rim, so they could see anything!

Waters managed to get in a helicopter at one point and flew off over the Wall, but we didnt know it was him, as we were all looking at the WALL - the biggest stage ever constructed apparently.

The amount of hours I spent as a kid, and still sometimes now, listening to the music and actually being somewhere else at the same time, must run in to hundreds or thousands.

I think Pink Floyd were the band that made me think, music is something that I shouldn't do, as I'm crap at it and I should concentrate on the visuals - film making and the like.

Better use of time for me I think, and as we have been once again reminded, we only have a limited amount of the stuff.

So Richard. Thank you for the music.

Its my Birthday and I'll blog if I want to.

So, It's my Birthday. Well it is here, it might not be toi the west or even the far est, but right here right now, as Fat boy slim might, or might not say, it is. My Birthday.

I've been told that my blog is too negative, so I'm making my new years resolution to be more positive about things. Mostly the work things but other things too.

We will see how that goes.

Shit. That didnt sound too positive.

How about I'm looking forward to the future.

No, that sounds like a job application.

What about things look rosey.

No that just sounds rubbish.

Maybe I can't do it?

Maybe the lack of positivity is so ingrrained from 15 year teetering on the brink of the film industry it's just sapped my will to live.

Deflated me.

Maybe not.

Positive. Positive. positive.

Thats my new motto.