(This was in the post below, but I could not get the sodding formatting to behave!)

With the obvious exception of my "Ode to Rotting Tyres By a Railway Station" picture, I have generally kept to the very picturesque with my pictures thus far. Here I choose to deviate slightly. That being said, I find my own aesthetic delights in a lot of these pictures that may come from either a less biased appreciation of the way the world looks or perhaps the kind of naive fascination with slightly grimier things which can come from growing up a clever country lad.

Maybe both.

Ah but I'm being a bit grandiose, this is hardly ghetto - it can just seem that way compared to the two million pound flats around Trafalgar square or when you read about weaponized dog breeders in the same borough as you. For that I'd need to investigate the East End and select parts south of the river. I'm just in a fiddly mode, knowing I need a good nights rest if I'm to be out for eight odd hours drinking and reporting on the Shortwave festival tomorrow night (with work early the next day). Too tired and antsy to write or draw, I turned myself out with the camera for a bit of fresh air is all.

Go to bed old man, before you really get rambling.

A grand does not, in fact, come without some kind of effort

And the accountants entrails said....

Okay screw it, I'm applying today for the Script To Screen course. The course alone might have been a hard thing to decide on, but that it will give me the ability to register with the Panico Film Society for sixty-five pounds is too sweet an opportunity not to take. The society has events every single Thursday night of the year as well as an in-house job board. That latter benefit really reverbrated through my mind as I read it yesterday during my lunch break from entering the several thousandth track work form that I've entered for Network Rail.
The course is on the 24th, but there is an open to the public event on the 22nd which I'm going to use as a scouting mission to see the place in person. Expect plenty o' news on the matter when it comes to bear.
Meanwhile, here are some pictures I've been meaning to upload. The night time ones are from a month ago when I went out on the towne with my cousin Daniel and the day time ones are general shots around Islington that I took the same day I grabbed pictures of the Banksy piece.

Yeterday we had snow...

...and I swear there are more interesting things going on! But it was awesome, at least five centimeters. In the early morning all the train stops had turned into these classic Canadian ads for multicultural harmony with people of all sizes and shapes having snowball fights (and at my usual station a couple of Chinese fellas had built numerous snow-commuters, placing two on a bench and another was haughtily smoking a pipe that I guess they found).

I've laid down and prayed to The Money and The Money spake unto me: "Oliver, that six week Foundation course would be pretty great but then you'd have a third of the savings you were hoping to have at the end of this contract. You would have a pretty thin financial cushion to catch your ass should you happen to fall on it.".

Which I don't understand because I must have built like twenty craven idols to The Money, but oh well! The Money works in mysterious ways.

For example, I've been stumped on what I could cover (other then the usual ubiquitous movie reviews) for one of the London Film Rags I've contacted. But then I got an email from a film collective south of the river whose mailing list I'd forgotten I'd signed onto. It let me know of an event near Shoreditch which is a free cavalcade of short films from 4pm-7pm then live and upcoming bands (some of whom are sponsored by Giles Peterson). Sounds like one of those "events" which an amateur journalist like myself could cover this Sunday.

Meanwhile I am negotiating with The Money to see if I can't at least take one of the single weekend courses. I'll sacrifice an accountant tonight and see if I can't find guidance from his steaming entrails.

At least a good step towards...

...dispelling one of the most tragic attacks of fantasy upon reality one of the more succesful cults.

UFO's and a Giant Phallus, also decisions!

So it seems that during my fairly peaceful weekend I missed an alien armada in my neighborhod?

Also it turns out that London's most phallic building has a public observation deck at one of it's highest levels. I reckon I'll make an expedition to that sometime soon, expect some classy pictures!

I'm really torn, at the moment, as to where to go with the Panico courses. The most expensive (in time and money) option that I am looking at is The Foundation course. Looking at the timetable I can see that though I have some experience with a lot of what is mentioned, I could certainly benefit from further instruction. Not to mention that there is a lot of non-digital filming to be done, which is something I have NO experience with. It's £800, with £200 as an upfront deposit. But at the end of it I'd have a short flick under my belt, the option for membership and those beloved fellow young flm maker contacts (presuming my social skills haven't atrophied too much these past weeks!).

However, this would definitely make a big dent in my potential savings and would probably delay my coming to visit Ottawa in June. But someone I was speaking with last night made the very rational point that I didn't go to all the trouble and expense of coming to England just so I could hurry back to visit Canada!

But if I do take the more conservative route, I'd go with a combination of The Advanced Directing Workshop and the From Script To Screen course, in no particular order. As far as I'm concerned, my writing is at a pretty good level right now. It's not that I couldn't learn more, of course, but that I think your standard scriptwriting courses have nothing new to offer me. I think if I did do a writing course, it would have to be something a bit more special than the standard "So you have characters, right? And they gotta have, like, motivation". Meanwhile both directing and knowledge of the business are areas where I suffer a dearth of knowledge and I'd like to remedy that.

What is a lad to do?

Film making, how about it?

Graffiti aside, I've been hunting for film courses and collectives which could help me get out into the London film scene. So far Panico Films looks to be the top contender, if only because they are offering courses as well as a continuing source of rentable equipment and local filmscene events. Though they do offer two writing courses I'd have to say that I think I'm already capable of all the things they promise to teach in the first one. The other writing course looks interesting since it takes more of a Director/Producer angle. I'm familiar with some of what it promises to teach, but most of it would be fresh and for all I know there could be some important differences between how, say, agents work in England as opposed to Canada.

There are a couple of other courses that look interesting too...I gotta say, it's getting me pretty excited since the costs are all within my budget. I've just got to decide where to start! A big, added bonus is that this will not only lead to a trifecta of improved skills, contacts and equipment access but it will also help me keep momentum! The past month, though calmer and more comfortable than the previous three, has threatened to turn into a tedious routine which might have left me mired in a whole lot of nothing much.

As fun as my TheMovies shorts are, a dude hungers for more!

Citizen Zero
Uploaded by Geigerdog