RIP Peter Falk

Legendary star of the hit television show Columbo Peter Falk has died at the age of 83 at his home in Beverly Hills on Thursday 23rd or June. he leaves behind a legacy on both the small and big screen with notable roles in such films as Husbands, The In-Laws and A Woman Under The Influence and in such television shows as Naked City, The Trials Of O'Brien and of course the title role that defined his career in Columbo.



PETER FALK 16.09.1927 - 23.06.2001

Wasteland

Wasteland is a television pilot script I have recently been researching and trying to write. It is about a psychic named Connor Song who is implicated in a young woman's murder so he not only has to solve the case to prove his innocence he must also prove his abilities to the sceptical Detective Inspector Bonnie Morran who is leading the case. I hope it will lead to a full series where Song helps the begrudging police force to solve their more complex crimes and also allow me to delve deeper into his murky past as well as his troubled relationship with his 12 year old daughter who feels detached from her father due to his unending search to discover what truly happened to his wife 6 years before when she mysteriously vanished.

It is some ways the hardest script I have ever written and in other the easiest I'll try to explain this the best I can. What is easy about writing this script is at its core it is a drama about a single parent who is trying to raise his daughter the best he can while trying to balance his work which takes him away from her all the time. He is a somewhat famous tv/ theatre psychic and bestselling author of books on the occult so his work takes him all over the UK leaving his young daughter behind in the care of her aunt and when he is home he spends most of his time trying to investigate his wife's disappearance this schedule does little to diminish his daughter's belief that he cares more about what happened to her mother than he does about her.

The hard part of writing this script is the more I research the more questions I end up with instead of answers. I have finally put in stone what psychic abilities he possesses which took many many hours of consideration and a lot of great help from a good friend of mine who has helped me immeasurably in this area. The problem is I don't as of yet fully understand the complex nature of one of these abilities completely or honestly at all. He has the ability to read tarot cards which many of you may think is relatively easy to write about but in practise it is very complex. Each set of cards has a significance and each card in that set has a significance that I just can't quite get to grips with as yet which is probably to do with the fact that I can't really seem to learn many new things these days probably to do with the brain damage I have suffered over the years which makes this aspect of the character alien to me which is devastating for a writer.

The investigation and crime within the pilot episode is not that difficult to write as I can hear the police officers voices clearly in my head and we all have the basic knowledge of how a murder is investigated. I have recently been in email correspondence with an ex CID detective from London and he has filled in many of the blanks for me without going into to much detail for obvious reasons after all I could have been a nut trying to get tips on how to get away with murder, haha. For the show to be successful in my opinion the character of Detective Inspector Bonnie Morran has to be as strong a character as Connor Song otherwise it becomes less dramatic when they have confrontations and there is less of a chance for there to be any chemistry between the characters in later episodes. I think all too often with television shows they concentrate on creating one memorable character at the expense of all the others which to me is frankly stupid and boring to watch as a viewer.

I'll keep you guys up to date on my progress with the script and with trying to get it into production. It will be a long process as I plan on writing and rewriting this till I get it as close to perfect as possible. Anyhoo that is enough for now I got to get back to writing this script and thinking of a way to make tomorrow not happen ha ha I hit the 29 mark tomorrow which many may be shocked by as they seem to think I'm 35 years old for some reason ha ha.

Thanking you

The Housebound Writer

Holiday Countdown

I'm heading for sunnier climes on Monday as I'm heading to Majorca for 10 days with my Brother and my Dad for some relaxation and drinking and sightseeing and drinking and well you get the picture. So If you don't hear from me for a while don't worry I aint dead more likely slightly drunk and/or sightseeing. My family have had a holiday apartment on the island for 26 years maybe more so we’ve been a lot but we like the culture the people are friendly and the food is great and the weather is definitely an improvement on the weather back home here in rain soaked Scotland but saying that I wouldn’t live anywhere else I love my Country to much to leave it I wouldn’t leave even for a Hollywood career and that is the God’s honest truth.


In other news my sitcom pilot script has entered the usual re-write phase which means I’m both excited and incredibly irritated by it at the same time. Annoyingly this should be the fun part of writing as the shape is there and it’s just about trimming the fat off but by the re-write stage my brain has always already moved on to getting excited about some other project it wants me to undertake and it always tricks me by making it seem so much more appealing haha well this time I am not going to let myself get distracted I owe it to myself to stay focused as I think this may be my best script in years at least the most commercially friendly script i.e. the one most likely to sell as I don’t think my dream A and D trilogy will ever make it to the silver screen and for the people in the know who have read any of those scripts they will know why haha very, very curse heavy and very, very Scottish in humour.

Some people would argue my best script ever may have been my take on the video game Resident Evil a lot of people I showed that script to really seemed to flip out over it and stated it would have made for a better film than what was made but maybe my best script is my other TV venture called Bureau that is truly all kidding aside my dream project and the one thing I have written I would do almost anything to get put on screen. I had logos, mouse mats, cups, posters and all sorts of merchandise made up for this project as I was writing it I even considered having some models made for it as I truly believe this is a project with “hit” written all over it that is of course my opinion but I have so much passion for this project it is evident on each and every page there are so many subtle nuances and character traits sprinkled throughout even characters that appear for a brief scene have extensive backstories written for them even the characters that would be played by extras I really went that anal about the whole thing haha.

Anyhoo as I was saying before I began to ramble on about whatever I was rambling about I will be away for a week and a bit so there won’t be any posts unless I manage to put together some trailer posts to be posted up on certain days when I’m away which is something I would like to do but I don’t know if I will have the time to do so.

Thanking You

The Housebound Writer

New Year Same Rambling

Well a belated welcome to 2011 from me and I hope you all had a great festive season I myself just about survived it without incident  just a few days without the use of my left arm and frequent headaches that were annoyingly not caused by to much alcohol but I digress. For the last month and change I haven't really been posting as often as usual the reason being I was writing a short film script I was hoping to produce at some point this year well the you know what hit the fan when that short script ended up running at a rather lengthy 145 pages. It also flat out sucked, it's weird how in the moment when your writing something you think it's great but if you take a break from it for a couple of days you realise it just isn't at all, not even close. I think the main mistake with the script other than the length of it and it being well.... crap was that I took a strange dislike to my main character and just didn't want him to succeed or to be perfectly frank about it I didn't even want to write about him by the end of it which you'll agree isn't the best situation when writing any kind of fiction.    

So as this project finds itself being shelved or saved to my project folder for laughing at at a later date I have started outlining it's replacement along with some other projects I'm considering undertaking. I realised while writing the script that I'm still not in any position physically and probably mentally to take on a filming project as of yet so my best bet at this point is to work on something that I can sell to a production house of network here in the UK that being said with very limited credits to my (no)name this will be easier said than done but it will give me something to keep my mind occupied with for the next few months at least.

My new project is a return to a familiar and personal favourite genre for me (thriller) and a welcomed break from the 'inserting my own health issues or traits onto the characters' style I have been utilizing recently. As usual this story will be set in Scotland, Glasgow to be exact and will be a larger canvas (multiply episodes) than usual for me. I won't be thinking how will I film that or how will I afford this? I will give myself the freedom to just write and see what happens. I already have a fairly solid idea of my lead character's mindset as well as a lot of the back story and twists I want to incorporate over the first series but outside of that I will just write and see where the story takes me. Anyhoo that's enough of this ramble.

Thanking you
The Housebound Writer

BAFTA Television Awards 2010

Well it's that time of year again when all the British TV personalities pretend to all be friends and gather to discover who has won what. This year "The Thick Of It" was run away winner after scoring three gongs. Here is the full list of winners;

Best Actor

Kenneth Branagh- Wallander (BBC One)

Best Actress

Julie Walters- Mo (Channel 4)

Best Supporting Actor

Matthew MacFadyen- Criminal Justice (BBC One)

Best supporting Actress

Rebecca Hall- Red Riding (Channel 4)

Best Entertainment performance

Ant & Dec- I'm A Celebrity..... Get Me Out Of Here! (ITV 1)

Best Male Comedy Performance

Peter Capaldi- The Thick Of It (BBC One)

Best Female Comedy Performance

Rebecca Front- The Thick Of It (BBC One)

Best Single Drama

The Unloved (Channel 4)

Best Drama Serial

Occupation (BBC One)

Best Drama Series

Misfits (Channel 4)

Best Continuing Drama

EastEnders (BBC One)

Best Factual Series

One Born Every Minute (Channel 4)

Best Entertainment Programme

Britain's Got Talent (ITV 1)

Best Situational Comedy

The Thick Of It (BBC One)

Best Comedy Programme

The Armstrong & Miller Show (BBC One)

Audience Award

The Inbetweeners (Channel 4)

Best Single Documentary

Wounded (BBC One)

Best Feature

Masterchef: The Professionals (BBC Two)

Best International Show

Mad Men (BBC Four)

Best Specialist Factual

Inside Nature's Giants (Channel 4)

Best Current Affairs

Terror in Mumbai- Dispatches (Channel 4)

Best News Coverage

The Haiti Earthquake (ITV News At Ten)

Best Sport

World Athletics Championship (BBC Two)

New Media

Virtual Revolution (BBC Two)

Special Award

Simon Cowell

BAFTA Fellowship

Melvyn Bragg

The award to Melvyn Bragg was well over due in my opinion anyhoo

Thanking You

The Housebound Writer