July 2007

Ingmar Bergman RIP

by Phil Gladwin on July 31, 2007

Apparently peacefully, at home, at the age of 89. From the last interview I saw with him he was happy and calm, and ready for his life and his work to end, so that’s not so bad.  Obviously I’m sad – I don’t have any heroes any more, but he was up there in the [...]

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Seen Seventh Seal. Suddenly Sideways Sucks.

by Phil Gladwin on July 27, 2007

Announcing my Campaign for Real Movies. By which I mean movies for adults. No, not dodgy films with nude people, but movies made for a grown up sensibility. The amount of press Sideways got for being in any way concerned with real emotional issues was staggering. If you didn’t know any better you might think [...]

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Screenwriting Truth

by Phil Gladwin on July 24, 2007

There’s a major fuss going on in the UK with the BBC at the moment – they’ve had a couple of situations that have ended in a very damaging attack on their integrity. The latest is a documentary made by a company called RDF Media. As far as I understand this from my distant perspective, [...]

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The Wire – Series 3 Done

by Phil Gladwin on July 19, 2007

Oh curses. I finished series 3. I’m left with the sense of an epic sweep. And real loss. “We are bored with good and evil. We renounce the theme.” David Simon (apparently) said this. And if he really did, he’s even more the man. Here’s some more paraphrases from the commentary on the last ep, [...]

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The Wire. Pure Pleasure…

by Phil Gladwin on July 17, 2007

In the way we do now I now usually watch tv in whole series size bites, courtesy of Amazon and the boxed DVD set. This last few weeks it has been The Wire. I’ve been a fan of David Simon since I first saw Pembleton’s stroke in that episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. [...]

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I’m going to get on my soapbox, and talk about a error of judgement I made when I started out that held me back for years. I think it’s a common mistake, and, especially early on, it seems like such common sense that it is unbelievably hard to shake off. I believe the single biggest [...]

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Screenwriting Purgatory..?

by Phil Gladwin on July 6, 2007

I’m out of it, finally. Far later than was humanly decent, the producer finally ring me up to tell me things are good, and he’s sorry he hasn’t called, but there’s been another firefight on another episode, and he’s been busy, and he thought my ep was great and wasn’t worried, and just hadn’t got [...]

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Where’s My Competition Winner?

by Phil Gladwin on July 5, 2007

Wanted to announce the winner of the competition yesterday, but the person that won hasn’t got back to me – assuming they are on holiday then who knows when you will hear. But if you entered the competition and haven’t checked your email recently then make sure you do, as I’m waiting to hear back [...]

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The One Essential Screenwriter’s Tool

by Phil Gladwin on July 5, 2007

Two days ago I was in the very best place a writer can be. Today, I’m a long way from that, and heading for one of the worst places a writer can be. Two days ago I’d just submitted my second draft of the script I’m working on. It was a tight turnaround – I [...]

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