Next to making a playlist, it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of writing. It’s also, strangely, useful. A fantasy cast list helps connect the vision in my head to the words on the page. It makes the imaginary film feel a little more solid.

Not because I think Florence Pugh, Tim Roth, Tom Hanks, or whoever else I’ve scribbled in a notebook is sitting by the phone waiting for my call.

Although, frankly, they should keep Tuesdays free.

When you’re writing alone, characters feel like nothing more than a name on a page. But the moment you imagine a real actor in the role, something sharpens. You can understand the energy of the character. Their voice. Their humour. Their sadness. The way they enter a room. The way they might say nothing and still make the scene buzz.

And it’s not always about finding someone who “looks right”. It isn’t a case of writing an action hero and thinking, “Who’s a good action star? Tom Cruise? Glen Powell? The Stath?”

Sometimes it’s about contradiction. Casting against expectation. Putting warmth into a villain. Vulnerability into someone unreachable.

I’ve done this with most of my scripts. Sometimes the imagined actor unlocks the character. The list becomes a private map of the film I’m trying to make.

Recently, I’ve been trawling through some old scripts, and it made me smile at the cast lists I used to make. They’re time capsules. Most of the actors have grown too old for the roles. Some are no longer with us. Some choices make me wince. Some make me think, “Actually, that would have been bloody brilliant.”

Writing has always felt like an extension of playing and pretending - much like six-year-old me arranging Star Wars figures on the carpet and inventing my own version of how to rescue Han Solo from whoever Jabba was supposed to be.

I thought it might be interesting to look back through them, not because they’re important, but because they say something about what I was trying to write at the time. So, I present to you a warts-and-all list, ranging from the cringey early days of starting out to the writer I am now, thirty-odd years later.

30-1

The “hey, we’ve all got to start somewhere” script.

When I first started scriptwriting in the early 1990s (after a single attempt with a friend to rewrite Aliens, but with killer carrots?), one of my first proper attempts at a screenplay was a Die Hard rip-off played mostly for laughs. I was still in my teens, and the script, like many written around that time, was incredibly cringey and naive.

It was also powered entirely by film fanboy excitement.

The plot involved terrorists taking over a shopping mall. Naturally, all the terrorists had to be played by well-recognised bad guy character actors from the 80s and 90s: Vernon Wells, Kurtwood Smith, Clancy Brown, Gary Busey, William Sadler, Brion James, Rutger Hauer, Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen, Luis Guzmán, Robert Patrick, Robert Englund…

So much for casting against type.

It was essentially fan fiction before I knew such a thing existed. But that list tells me exactly where my head was: VHS shelves, action movies, character actors, and the sheer joy of imagining a film before I had the faintest idea how to write (or even format) one properly.

UNTITLED HEIST… THING

My next, more serious attempt at a screenplay was a heist story.

Well, it was 1992, and Reservoir Dogs was my then-favourite film, so “heist story” is putting it generously. It was basically Reservoir Dogs meets Assault on Precinct 13.

A gang of robbers double-cross a crime boss by pulling off a daring raid he had planned himself. They hide out in an abandoned location to evade the heat, only for masked gunmen to arrive and collect what their boss believes is rightfully his.

Essentially, I wrote the remake of Assault on Precinct 13 thirteen years before it actually happened.

The cast included an array of UK and Irish talent: Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Danny Webb, Ralph Brown, Phil Daniels, and a post-Millers Crossing/Pre-Usual Suspects Gabriel Byrne. It was a good attempt at a script in a “there, there” pat-on-the-head kind of way.

But who wouldn’t have wanted to see that cast go head-to-head?

This one says a lot about me at the time. I wasn’t yet writing from life. I was writing from other films. I was trying on voices and influences like hand-me-down clothes. Some fitted better than others.

UNTITLED NONSENSE

At one point, I tried to create a script that would have Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel in a car.

And probably Joe Pesci in the boot.

It was probably called something like Five Guys in a Car, because that’s how basic the idea was. It never got going because it lacked essential things like A BLOODY STORY, but regardless of how much of a non-starter it was, who wouldn’t have paid to see those guys sodding about in a car for a day?

Did I even need to write a script? Just film them and let them improvise the damn thing. Five Easy Pieces Part 2. Done.

Al shouting. De Niro doing that downturned mouth thing and nodding. Walken being weird. Jack being Jack. Keitel probably nude, as was his wont around that time.

Gold dust, I tells ya.

There has always been a part of me that gets nostalgic for the What Ifs. I suspect that’s why so many belated sequels and long-delayed team-ups get made, even when they don’t quite connect, or feel like too little, too late.

They’re chasing the version that should have happened years earlier. The actor pairings we wanted before time, age and expectation got in the way. Pacino and De Niro in Heat? Amazing. About time. Practically a celebration of their talent. Pacino and De Niro in Righteous Kill?

Hmm.

There’s no deep lesson here, except maybe this: sometimes fantasy casting exposes the fact that you don’t actually have a story. You have a poster. A daydream. And Joe Pesci in the boot.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

This wasn’t any old War of the Worlds adaptation.

This was Andrew Wright’s H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

I spent the summer of 1995 reading Wells’ book and listening to the 70s Jeff Wayne rock opera, such was my obsession with the story. I was determined to adapt it as faithfully as I could.

Anthony Hopkins was the astronomer - and heat-ray victim numero uno - who first discovers that the Martians are intending on paying Earth a visit. His slimy posh-boy assistant Stent was played by Hugh Grant, before he’d even dreamt of playing bad.

Gary Oldman was the lead, playing the Journalist we follow throughout the story. Tim Roth was the Artilleryman he chances upon twice: once cowardly, later insane. Stent would eventually reappear as a cult-like leader of underground survivors, whom he sells out to the Martians.

There still hasn’t been a true, decent adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Unless you include Ice Cube’s attempt, which, as we all know, is how Wells would have wanted it.

This fantasy cast was different from the earlier ones. It wasn’t just “wouldn’t it be cool if…” There was reverence in it. I was trying to imagine a proper film. A faithful film. A big, serious adaptation. I was still wildly impractical, obviously, but there was more purpose behind the choices.

US OR THEM

I was - and still am - big on Walter Hill movies, and I wrote a script that was essentially Trespass meets Southern Comfort.

After a raid on a criminal hideout goes wrong, a group of cops are suspended from duty. One of them discovers the real location of the criminals’ hidden loot and tells his friend, who unfortunately can’t keep a secret. Before long, the disgraced cops are hunting down what they consider to be their retirement plan in a rundown factory wasteland.

Only they’re not alone.

The loot is being guarded, and the cops are walking straight into a trap.

This had a very mid-90s cast: Oldman, Roth, Byrne - you may be spotting a trend by now - Ewan McGregor, Tim Spall, Peter Stormare. Pierce Brosnan even shows up and is promptly dispatched, just to keep the audience on their toes.

There are probably signs of life somewhere in this script, but it needs a page-one do-over. In other words: burn the existing screenplay.

The thing is, this was me thirty years ago. I was still obsessed with no-nonsense men with guns in abandoned places. These days, I’m less interested in the explosions and more interested in why everything blew up in the first place.

I always said that if I ever wrote a Die Hard movie, it would be set the day after the terrorist event, with McClane changing his vest and having a lie down.

I should never write a Die Hard script. Ever.

EPIC / CROUCH VALLEY/ HANDSHAKE FROM HELL/ BORDER WORLD Episode One: The Northampton Menace (It was never called this)

In 1998, I wrote a script that had many, many names, but was mainly called Epic. Because it was just that.

Y’know when writers give advice and say, “Don’t write for anyone but yourself”? This was that screenplay. The one where I went: screw it, I’m writing whatever I want.

It was a sci-fi western. A big story in every sense, with a huge cast. I later wrote a prequel called Border World, which I’ll write about properly another day.

Epic was bonkers. Originally 180 pages long, it got me an agent, who first wanted to meet me “to see if you were actually barking mad.” I took that as a compliment.

The script couldn’t find a home. “Only Ridley Scott or Terry Gilliam could make this,” said Peters, Fraser and Dunlop. Fine by me. Get them on the phone. What they actually meant was: “This is too expensive, even for 1998.”

Epic was set in a future where cities exist safely inside domes, keeping the horrors of the outside world at bay. Society is maintained through brutal control and absolute justice. So, yes, it was sort of a play on Judge Dredd, except the story centred on two lowly police officers slowly questioning “the truth” of their world.

These were to be played by Steve Buscemi and Jamie Kennedy, then freshly dispatched from Scream 2. Did I mention it was an action comedy?

Steve and Jamie become unwittingly involved in a secret rebellion led by Famke Janssen, which goes very wrong. They end up on the wrong side of the wall, along with John Turturro’s bullying superior officer.

Out in the real world, with bulletproof armour and militarised hoverbikes, they quickly become targets for anyone who wants their weaponry. Realising Turturro is going to get them killed quicker than anyone else, they leave him for dead and disguise themselves as gunmen-for-hire.

Caught between two warring towns, Steve and Jamie try to play both sides against each other. Their plan goes awry when their ex-employers dispatch a hit squad to eliminate them. Meanwhile, a left-for-dead Turturro is saved by a hillbilly survivalist cult, who become his personal army. Like I said: bonkers.

The script was verrrrry loosely based on The Man Who Would Be King. I still love the idea of two chancers trying to win big, but not having the necessary chutzpah until they’re pushed to the very ends of themselves.

The cast list, however, was ridiculous.

Ving Rhames. Angelina Jolie. Liev Schreiber. Christian Bale. James Earl Jones. Donald Moffat. Brad Dourif. Thomas Waites. David Patrick Kelly. Meat Loaf. Yaphet Kotto. Jim Belushi. Clancy Brown. Harry Dean Stanton. Gene Wilder. Michael Palin. Ray Meagher - yes, Alf from Aussie soap Home and Away - as a no-nonsense shanty town barman.

And that’s not even half the list. It was like I was doing it as some sick bet. Good grief.

But this is the one where I can also see ambition. Mad, mostly uncontrolled ambition, yes, but ambition all the same. I was thinking in worlds. In scale. In a cast of thousands. I had a sense of budget, and I knew it was ridiculous. But, that’s the film I saw in my head, along with several sequels, obviously.

GUNDOWN

What’s this? A game played out in the real world where thirty players have to eliminate each other by gun?

That calls for a big cast.

As the story featured characters from all walks of life, the fantasy cast had to represent hard: Tim Roth - oh, hello again - Mads Mikkelsen, Bob Hoskins, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Christopher Lee, Riz Ahmed, Franka Potente, Dominic West, Ray Stevenson, Mark Heap, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Meredith MacNeill, Stellan Skarsgård, Lucy Cohu, Jamie Bell…

This was a story where you didn’t know who would be the last person standing.

The original image that sparked it was Nicholas Lyndhurst having a shoot-out on a London bus. Which, frankly, still has something.

Gundown was another one built from a very visual idea. A game - and a game cast - pushing themselves beyond expectation. It was still me thinking like a film fan, but there was also something more structured in it: the fun of taking familiar faces and making the audience question who mattered, who would survive, and who might suddenly vanish.

Then I had children, and writing turned another corner…

BACKSTABBERS

Having children - and looking after them full-time - meant I had to adjust my expectations when it came to getting work done. Instead of long, uninterrupted stretches at a desk, I made notes on my phone and fitted in writing when the children were sleeping.

The first screenplay I wrote during this time was the Border World prequel, again as a no-pressure, do-as-you-please effort.

But whenever I took the children for walks in their buggy, there was one story that kept circling in my mind.

Backstabbers was originally written around 1997. I’d just seen Scream and wanted to do my version, but with less gore and more laughs. The script had its moments, but it was what it was - Scream wearing a false moustache and a bobble hat.

Many attempts later, I tried to craft it into something more substantial by working on it as a novel. And by jove, I cracked it.

I then adapted the novel into a television series. Set in 1979, Backstabbers charts the rite of passage of a naive would-be writer who becomes embroiled in a series of deaths that, on the surface, appear to be tragic accidents. It plays on those Public Information adverts designed to terrify children into not playing on farms, messing about near electricity substations, or jamming their fingers into plug sockets.

The community of am-dram actors and wannabe superstars wasn’t drawn from a fantasy casting wish list. Instead, I based each main character on a celebrity from the era. Who did these people model themselves on? Kate Bush? Lewis Collins from The Professionals? Phil Daniels in Quadrophenia?

I plan to do the same for the sequels, which are set in the 1980s and 1990s.

For a visual aide-mémoire, visit here.

NOSTALGIA

This is the fantasy cast I really want. And I’m acutely aware that time is against me on this one.

Nostalgia is a story about revisiting memories. I wrote the main role of emotionally repressed Paul for Colin Farrell, who, blow me down, went and made A Big Bold Beautiful Journey - a film about revisiting memories. Bugger.

Thankfully, it’s nothing like Nostalgia.

In my story, Paul becomes the guinea pig for inventors Roger and Kirk, played in my head by Marc Maron and Brie Larson. Paul learns that his recently deceased father, Ivor - Sam Neill - was the original test subject for the memory machine, and had become addicted to revisiting his own memories, and those of his grown children.

There’s mother-hen Brydie, played by Melanie Lynskey. Recovering alcoholic pub barman Wayne, played by Ben Mendelsohn. Eternal man-baby Elliott, played by Andrew Garfield. And Paul’s ex-fiancée Meredith, played by Cristin Milioti.

Paul believes he can master the machine and control his addiction, but when he trespasses into Meredith’s memories to learn where he went wrong, the battle for truth becomes a fight for survival.

This is where fantasy casting stops feeling like a game and starts feeling painfully specific. These choices aren’t just about who would be cool in the roles. I knew the characters - their emotional wounds, their buried resentments, the parts they play every day just to keep life moving along - and I knew who could land those roles. From my lips to God’s ears.

THE OUTRUNNERS

A dystopian western with a twist: sunlight kills.

Roving clans fight each other for whatever supplies they can get their hands on, until a truce is called by a King-of-the-North type, who seeks to unite everyone in order to stay alive.

The Outrunners - black sheep and reluctant seer Heisel, philosophical Folan, scarred gunslinger Zannah, knifewoman Shinda, and analytical Laurik - are soon running for their lives from a power-hungry warlord bent on unleashing an apocalyptic weapon.

In my head, the young cast includes Dafne Keen, Dominic Sessa, Carla Tous, Amber Midthunder and Josh O’Connor. Also not appearing are Glen Powell as a friendly stranger who comes to the gang’s aid, Tom Hardy as their fallen leader, Dave Bautista as the king-like figure, and Paul Giamatti as an old-timer bounty hunter.

This is me returning to genre, but with a different eye. The younger me would have been most excited by the weapons, the clans, the violence, the world-building. The older me is more interested in the group dynamics. The weariness. The pressure. The way people cling to each other when the world has become impossible.

LUMEN / VERSES

Lumen is a story about the many-worlds theory. It sees Veronika Remick, played in my head by Cynthia Erivo, team up with sceptical-but-needing-the-money science journalist Isabelle Briest, played by Florence Pugh, to find out whether Veronika’s deceased inventor father was a genius or a madman.

Veronika is an emotionally scarred survivor. Briest wavers between pity and extreme caution.

When I wrote the sort-of-sequel, Verses, rather than repeat the original, I explored an alternate reality instead. Veronika became Remik, played by FKA Twigs - a global megastar - while Briest became Issy, played by Mia Threapleton, a socially awkward, failing writer.

This is where casting becomes a way of showing the same souls on completely different journeys. Who they might have been in another life. How different choices, different worlds, and different wounds might reshape them.

And maybe, in some lives, certain souls are destined to find each other.

PERFECT HARMONY

Ah, my A24 movie.

Perfect Harmony is about social climber Robin, played in my head by Jenna Ortega, who enlists the help of her jet-set friends - party girl Melina, sensible Polly, dull fiancé Edgar and outsider influencer Amon - to transform a brutalist shell of a mansion into her dream home.

Which turns out to be a cinch. All the house needs is… blood.

Sophie Thatcher, Ella Purnell and Dominic Sessa all appear in my imaginary version. Austin Butler plays Robin’s ex-boyfriend, car mechanic Jonas, while Hugh Grant cameos as a Cary Grant-esque private investigator.

Yes please, film God.

This one is about tone. The cast has to sell the glitz ‘n glamour, the absurdity, the horror, and the comedy of people who think they can buy their way into perfection, only to discover the house has other ideas.

THE MUTUAL

My most recent effort was written with a much clearer eye for casting.

Kristen Wiig as Kitty, a woman realising she is completely friendless and trying to discover why. Her ex-work colleague Zelda, played by Zrinka Cvitešić, contacts her because Kitty is an online “mutual” - and, more importantly, friends with Christine, played by Hannah Waddingham - the woman Zelda suspects of murder.

Tim Roth does not appear as Scandi-noir novelist Compton.

Rachel Weisz and Rose Byrne do not appear as Kitty’s ex-friends, life-and-soul-of-the-party Fiz and Edwina, who once promised Kitty they would all grow old together as friends. (Hint: She lied.)

These days, fantasy casting feels different to me. Less “wouldn’t they be great in this?” and more “yes, that’s her.” The Mutual needs people who can play loneliness, suspicion, old friendship, disappointment and comic panic. It’s about women over fifty dealing not only with a possible murder, but with the quieter mystery of how their own lives ended up this way. In my head, these actors get them.

Call Me, Obviously

So, all of this isn’t really about famous-actor wish fulfilment. Well, not entirely.

It’s about trying to explain the movie in my head before it exists anywhere else. A fantasy cast list can be a writing tool, a mood board, a map, a prayer, or a record of who you were when you still thought Gary Oldman and Tim Roth needed to appear in absolutely everything.

Fingers crossed for that live-action reimagining of the UK children’s classic Morph, featuring Oldman and Roth as the plasticine legends in latex onesies.

Looking back at these old lists, I can see the writer I used to be. The fanboy. The genre obsessive. The shameless borrower. Talent borrows, genius steals, right? RIGHT? The one who overreached, but knew exactly how the film should feel.

And I can see the writer I am now. Still making lists, but with a bit more focus. A bit more attention to who the characters really are.

Also, obviously, if any of these actors are reading: call me. Especially Tim and Gary. Morph: The Movie could be the bold late-career definer/left turn you didn’t know you needed.

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I knew Tracey from secondary school. We annoyed each other (though I suspect it was mostly me), as teenagers trapped in the same rooms tend to do. But she would also lend me her work so I could catch up on my homework, on the occasions I would fall behind.

Years later, we found each other again on Facebook. Older, but with the same playground banter. She was no-nonsense in a funny, blunt way. Our conversations would often begin with me asking if she was still high-kicking life in the throat. It was that ball-busting quality that made us joke she should be my agent, although she would probably have demanded sixty per cent. And somehow, I suspect, she would have got it.

She was friends with the screenwriter Peter Moffat and also knew the actor David Morrissey. Knowing full well that my tiny mind would be blown, she once asked David Morrissey to follow my old writing page on Facebook.

He did. And yes, my tiny mind was blown.

That was the thing about Tracey. She didn’t just say supportive things. She did supportive things. She read my writing. She commented. She shared posts. She encouraged me. Not vaguely, not performatively, but properly. If she liked something, she said so. No fuss, usually with a bit of an elbow in the ribs so’s not to come across as too sentimental. Just practical kindness.

She read the first four chapters of what became The Mutual, and her encouragement was one of the reasons I kept going with it. She used to say she couldn’t understand why my writing wasn’t on television. “It’s better than most of the other crap.”

That meant a lot.

Back in April, Tracey announced that she had cancer for the second time. Everybody hoped she would get through it again. She didn’t.

Tracey was a champion of mine. It feels selfish to say that, because of course she was far more than that. Her encouragement mattered. It was active. The world needs more people like that.

I’ll miss her.

And if The Mutual ever does make it onto television, I know exactly what she would have said.

“About bloody time. Now, where’s my percentage?”

This post first appeared a couple of years ago on my 100-word flash-fiction Substack, Short People, but I’ve revisited it because there were a few ideas in these talks that stuck with me.

A couple of weeks ago I sat in on a week’s worth of webinars organised by Channel 4 and the National Film and Television School.

The sessions covered all sorts: casting actors, editing, working with script editors, and the different routes towards getting your writing produced.

Some talks were aimed at people earlier in their careers, some at those further along, but the one that stayed with me most was How to Manage Your First Commission with screenwriter Frances Poletti.

There was plenty of practical advice - understanding what subjects you naturally return to, figuring out your voice, and using genre as a Trojan horse. Frances spoke about weaving social realism into ITV’s Without Sin: using a familiar framework to smuggle in the things you actually want to say.

One thing I found particularly interesting was hearing about completion rates on streaming platforms. We talk endlessly about viewing figures, but completion tells a different story. A first episode might achieve a strong opening audience, but retaining viewers across an entire series is another challenge entirely. Without Sin, Frances explained, achieved around a 70% completion rate across the series — which, in television terms, is healthy.

But, the big question underneath all of the advice: What kind of writer are you?

Some notes that stuck with me:

• Write what’s already in your DNA.
Not what feels strategic. Not what feels marketable. Start with the things you naturally obsess over. People, characters, relationships, comedy…

• Think of genre as delivery, not destination.
People come for crime, horror, mystery - but stay for people.

• Humanise the characters, and then take them “into the office”.
If it’s a police drama, don’t make it about policing.

• Every scene should either deepen, surprise, or simplify. Pose questions in scenes to guide the audience through the story.

• Every act is a three-act structure: Think where the ad breaks are (every 12 mins or so) and make sure each act/chunk of the story has structure.

• Write with a dream cast in mind.

What was the last drama you loved? Get in touch with the production company. Sell what you’re about; you need to be able to communicate well, and be a brand for people. Write down 5 things you want the person you’re pitching to to know about you: Where you’re from, what you love, things you care about, series that you’ve watched and loved. What are your strengths e.g. I love writing dialogue.

One exercise Frances shared came from playwright Simon Stephens:

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The second talk that hit me was Finding Stories and Adapting for the Screen with writer/producer Matt Delargy. (Matt was a producer on Nowhere Boy and Black Death.)

And unexpectedly, it wasn’t the craft advice that stayed with me. It was the self-care.

Most industry talks focus on output: Write more. Pitch more. Generate more. Matt talked about sustainability. Writing is strange because the thing producing the work is… you. Your experiences. Your energy. Your imagination. You can’t endlessly draw from the same well and expect there to always be water.

A few of Matt’s notes:

• Go to the locations of what you’re writing about (if you’re writing about a place you know well or are writing from memory).

• If it’s a chatty scene, make sure it has got integral plot in it.

• Create one page treatments of your projects to show agents your ideas have legs. The treatment should include story and character breakdowns, and close with a short paragraph on “Why do I want to write this show”.

• As a writer you must fight your corner - but pick your battles with script changes.

• Don’t tolerate poor behaviour. Have boundaries.

• Reputation is important. Are you a good person to work with? Are you kind? Do you apologise for mistakes? Can you disagree agreeably?

• Take yourself seriously. Take professional development seriously.

• Conflict is the heart of all drama.

• Find and write stories that resonate. Look at cultural IP: historical stories, crimes - universal stories which are floating about in the world. It’s free. You can own it. Find free stories that are in the ether.

• Use other shows as reference points to explain your project: “It’s not like those but it’s in that space (i.e. Chernobyl, Handmaid’s Tale)”.

• SIMPLIFY. DEEPEN. SURPRISE. - all development ideas come down to that.

One line in particular stayed with me:

Anyway - I hope some of these notes are useful. I certainly came away reminded that writing isn’t only about finding stories.

It’s also about protecting the person who has to keep telling them.

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This post originally appeared two years ago on Short People - the home of 100-word flash fiction - but it contains some useful thoughts on project feedback and producer notes.

This isn’t really a post about getting picked. It’s about the strange relief of having someone with experience read your work and confirm two things at once: that there’s something worth pursuing, and that there’s still a way to go.

Back in February, I applied for the Tall Story Pictures script call-out on a bit of a last-minute whim, to be honest. I only found out about it a day or two before the deadline, and decided to go for it, not expecting to be chosen - and then I was.

Tall Story Pictures makes a lot of drama for ITV (usually the 9pm slot), and the script I submitted was NOT the sort of thing they produce. So I didn’t really know what to expect. The least I was hoping for was some sort of indication of “Am I wasting my time with this script?”

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I sent the first two episodes of my 1970s comedy murder mystery, Backstabbers. Each episode is 30 minutes long, so I rather cheekily stitched two together, because TSP wanted 60-page scripts.

A couple of days before my first meeting, I received a script report from Phil Hunter, executive producer at TSP. Phil previously produced Midsomer Murders, Vera, and Apple TV’s Criminal Record - so he knows his stuff!

The positive highlights of Phil’s report were very encouraging:

In conversation, Phil expressed how he enjoyed the Scooby-Doo-ness of the story’s mystery and how setting it in the 70s was refreshing: No mobile phones! (This was one of my first considerations when writing it: I didn’t want mobiles because they feature so heavily in the Scream movies.)

Speaking of Scream: I explained to Phil that the script has been through many changes. I wrote the first draft of Backstabbers as a film script in 1997, and that the script had been through MANY iterations over the years.

The fact that I’ve spent so much time chipping away at Backstabbers seemed to impress Phil - that I’m still enthusiastic about the idea twenty-seven years later. Truth is, I think about it - AND the following five books/seasons pretty much every day, in some capacity. (And that’s not including all the other books/scripts I want to do!)

Yet there is still much to do. Right now, I need to lose three episodes entirely. I need to get the openers, mid-points and cliffhangers sharpened. I’ve spent the time since the meetings working through these things, writing a one-line summary for each scene to test whether it earns its place.

When I first read Phil’s script notes I could barely sleep for three nights in a row: My brain went into overdrive addressing issues in the first two episodes, most of which I suspected were problems but didn’t want to admit. Having a fresh pair of eyes (especially eyes that know what to look for) was such a huge help.

The meeting with the entire TSP producing team and the other “chosen ones” allowed us the opportunity to ask questions about career progression, how to find an agent - the usual questions writers have (which I will talk about in a later post).

Fear is the mind-killer, as they say, so being encouraged - giving hope, support, COURAGE - is essential for writers (especially those without a network of established contacts).

This experience was such an invigorating shot in the arm that I wish more companies would offer something similar, perhaps even partnering with agencies to develop not only the writers’ skills but also their career opportunities. Not many have the time to mentor people individually, but for many writers, especially those without industry connections, this kind of encouragement isn’t a luxury - it’s often the difference between stopping and carrying on.

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Yep, it’s ANOTHER people-imagine-finished-work-arrives-fully-formed-but-actually-it’s-drafts-persistence-experiments-and-accidents post!

This is Spinal Tap is legendary not only for being endlessly quotable and hilarious, but also for how it was made. It’s well known that the film was improvised by the cast (other than the songs, obviously), and it is held in high esteem as the Daddy of all “mockumentaries”.

I recently watched the proof-of-concept film - Spinal Tap: The Final Tour - which features the same ensemble and director, and was created to entice potential backers by selling the joke of an English heavy metal band on a disastrous tour of America.

This version - a demo reel of sorts - features many of the same scenes later re-shot for This Is Spinal Tap. It’s essentially the film boiled down to twenty minutes or so.

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All the jokes are here: tiny Stonehenge, dead drummers, the band arguing in the studio, smell the glove, Derek vs. the metal detector, the “Yes I Can” limo driver… some of the footage even made its way into the feature film (The Thamesmen singing ‘Gimme Some Money’, as well as the ethereal Tap fan), along with some of the supporting cast (including Paul Benedict as the hotel clerk dealing with the booking mix-up, and Bruno Kirby as the Sinatra-obsessed limo driver). Even some of the beats/cuts that scenes end on are identical.

While the feature feels completely improvised, the proof-of-concept shows that the major comic beats were carefully planned. It’s fascinating to see Spinal Tap: The Final Tour dispel some of the myth surrounding the finished film and reveal how the characters evolved. Derek Smalls, for example, shifts from being quite shouty and argumentative into the more subdued, almost “lukewarm water” presence we recognise in the final version.

Ian Faith is first presented as a rougher, Michael Caine-bullish cockney manager before evolving into someone more aloof, unbothered, and with an air of authority. There are rougher edges to the performances, finely-tuned for the end product.

Seeing how Rob Reiner and the cast took the idea for a test run gives you a sense of how those improvisations and the big jokes were refined and expanded for the feature.

The feature film scenes of the band interviews, and the storyline of the band falling apart, were improvised, but all the main beats - the big laughs of the movie - were all in place before filming began for This is Spinal Tap. It hasn’t altered my appreciation of This is Spinal Tap at all, but it does serve as a reminder that what is often presented as “genius” has most likely been thoroughly put through its paces.

I found the short version to be really encouraging and a perfect example of how to sell an idea, and if you’re considering shooting a proof-of-concept, then you should definitely take a look at Spinal Tap: The Final Tour because there’s a lot to learn from how this rough ‘n ready insight became a stone-cold classic.

It’s a fascinating reminder that even something which feels effortless often starts life as a rough pass with the edges still showing.

Enough of my yackin’: Check it out for yourself!

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This was 33 years ago, and it is still true.

Keitel worked with a lot of first-time directors back in the 90s, recognising the value he brought to a project and how it could make all the difference between a project getting made or not.

We need more people like this. More champions. Those with some clout who haven’t pulled the ladder up behind them; that actually want to help those without industry connections or money.

I can name two moments in my life where I was championed by someone higher up.

Two.

One was Terry Gilliam. When I was twenty years old, armed only with my greatest asset - my naïveté (so I’d been told) - I wrote a script, gathered some am-dram actors and created a shooting schedule, with no idea HOW I was going to fund any of it.

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this, because, being “older and wiser”, it does sound naïve. It was. Back then, I was working night shifts and saving money to hire a camera and a mic. The weeks were ticking by, and I was writing to anyone remotely famous, hoping someone might help with post-production costs.

Only one person answered: Gilliam. And he came up with the money.

Even when I was struggling with post-production, trying to find an edit suite (it was the 90s, and an Avid, let alone basic video editing, was hard to blag), I wrote to Terry again asking for help. He phoned his assistant from the set of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas and passed on a message, telling me to contact Terry Jones’s son, who could get me an edit suite at Panico (where Gilliam was a patron), a London film organisation.

I phoned Bill, explained the situation, how Terry Gilliam had told me to call him… and Bill flatly denied me. No discussion. No alternatives suggested. Just “No.” It was an awkward silence-filled conversation, to say the least.

Thanks, Bill.

Notice the difference in responses: An under-pressure film director taking time to help me from another country versus a guy who couldn’t be bothered.

The second champion came in the form of Quentin Tarantino (who had previously been championed/mentored by… Terry Gilliam!). Quentin became the patron of The Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, and was presenting a season of Harvey Keitel films. My Dad drove me hundreds of miles on the off chance of meeting Quentin at the cinema. We sat around for ages… lots of looking at the time… and my Dad said we had to leave because he had work that night.

Then I saw Quentin leaving the cinema. Armed with a short script and a letter in an envelope, I ran after him, catching up with him outside the cinema as he was getting into a car. His assistant bluntly told me to go away, but Quentin was saying something inside the car.

“He’ll be back in an hour”.

But I didn’t have an hour. I had to go.

And off they drove.

I headed back into the cinema, determined to do… something. I spoke to a guy at the ticket counter, proffering my brown envelope.

“Can you make sure Quentin gets this?”

“Is he expecting it?”

“YES.”

Fast forward six months — October. I had the week off work.

The phone rings. “Hi, it’s Quentin Tarantino.”

He had just moved house, and was emptying boxes of belongings, when he found my envelope with the letter and script. We chatted for thirty minutes, everything from what I’d recently seen at the cinema to the upcoming Pulp Fiction.

That one conversation helped me get a job on my first film set, because people sit up when you put this sort of thing on your CV.

Two champions, both American.

A couple of years later, I was trying to get an agent. Someone nameless from a prominent UK literary agency phoned me to ask about “The Tarantino Story”, because (in her best telling-off voice) “We don’t have liars on our books.” I explained the story in full detail - seemingly enough for them to believe me - and they said “Great, send me some stuff!” Naturally, I didn’t. Because this same agent also advised me to “Get out of Romford” (where I was living with my parents at that time.) “because it’s not exactly Hollywood.” A memorable phone call, that one…

In an industry built on collaboration, every one of us has a choice: to be the hand that lifts, or the voice that shuts down. Which are you going to be?

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Warning: This is a risk-it-for-a-biscuit post.

You’ve been writing for years. Or you’ve been working on other people’s films. Or you’ve been acting in other people’s projects for free, always sincere and dedicated, and yet…

Nothing has happened. Doors may have half-opened, interest came and went… or maybe diddly-squat happened. No signing to an agent. No funding secured.

Back in the 90s, I filmed three projects: A 16mm short, a 16mm feature film and a Betacam television pilot. All made for *next to nothing, all D.O.A. for numerous reasons I’ll write about another day (and I promise, those posts WILL BE eye-opening, explaining in gritty detail what it’s like to get kicked in the teeth in three thousand and fifty-seven flavours).

I made one more zero budget film in the early 2000s, then snuck out the back door with no interest in doing it again, because what was the point? All that effort, energy and stress… for what?

So why am I prepping to go again, all these years later?

Because I’m doing it how I want to do it.

Because I’m doing what I can afford to do (time AND money).

Because I’m doing what I can physically and mentally cope with.

Because I have finally found a way which makes sense to me.

The plan isn’t to land an agent or funding for a feature. This isn’t calling card territory. I’m doing this because I’m excited at the possibilities. As readers of my personal Substack Short People will know by now, I write, amongst many things, one hundred word flash fiction. And that’s what I want to do: transfer that immediacy and sense of story to filmmaking.

So what exactly am I doing?

What is SHORT PEOPLE?

SHORT PEOPLE is a series of one-minute cinematic stories about people. All sorts of people, from overlooked lives to emotionally charged moments. Or both!

Blending dark comedy, psychological realism, and quiet surrealism, the films explore loneliness, class, shame, desire, and human connection through fragments that feel part of larger unseen worlds.

Think of those clips from movies you see on Instagram Reels or TikTok. The ones where they steal a clip from a film and never tell you what film it’s from so you’re forced to ask, thus generating more clicks for them. Viewers will happily watch these all day long. Perhaps they DO hunt down the full movie, I don’t know. The point is: It’s a scene from a bigger movie. An off-cut from a much larger canvas.

SHORT PEOPLE films will be fragments of time. Moments that imply larger unseen lives beyond the frame and time restriction. Each film is designed to feel like a scene from a feature film that doesn’t exist - intimate glimpses into lives already in motion.

SHORT PEOPLE will:

• impose a formal constraint, which audiences understand intuitively

• favour concept and character over production logistics

• offer curated, authored work

• suit an online audience trained to appreciate brevity and receptive to experimentation

• storytelling and character over cinematography: Confidence not spectacle.

What SHORT PEOPLE is not:

• branding

• sketch comedy

• “vertical” storytelling

• competing with YouTube or TikTok creators

• content farming

• AI slop

• an attempt to chase algorithms through “going viral”

• chasing visual cleverness at the expense of clarity

• built around punchlines or twists

• it isn’t a tiny feature film wearing baby shoes. It doesn’t need exposition, a neat ending, or someone saying, “Well, that’s what I call closure.”

• a demo reel

SHORT PEOPLE is not interested in perfection, polish for its own sake, or “internet relatability” engineered for engagement.

Instead, the project treats small moments seriously. Awkwardness, silence, social discomfort, loneliness, class tension, and emotional contradiction are approached cinematically, with atmosphere, restraint, humour, and emotional precision.

At its heart, SHORT PEOPLE is not about attention. It’s about emotional residue: creating moments that linger after the screen goes dark.

What is the belief system of SHORT PEOPLE?

• ordinary life is cinematic

• awkwardness reveals truth

• small moments carry enormous emotional weight

• fragments can be as affecting and effective as full narratives

This philosophy is what makes SHORT PEOPLE bigger than “someone posting short videos online.”

SHORT PEOPLE rejects the idea that cinematic storytelling requires scale, permission, or institutional backing. Because, as anyone who has ever tried to make a film without connections or financial backing knows, that ain’t happening.

We live in an age where opportunity still has a funny habit of travelling down familiar corridors: family names, existing contacts, private networks, people already standing near the door when it opens.

Those kinds of opportunities rarely come our way.

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So, do we give up? Leave it to those who can afford it?

We are living in an age where audiences discover cinema through fragments: reposted scenes, isolated moments, emotional clips, and brief encounters online that create curiosity and connection instantly.

At the same time, contemporary life has become deeply contradictory. We are more visible than ever online, yet many people feel emotionally unseen in their actual lives. Modern existence often feels performative, fragmented, lonely, and quietly surreal, especially within systems shaped by class pressure, economic instability, social anxiety, and digital intimacy.

SHORT PEOPLE is interested in those fractures.

The project uses the language of modern platforms - brevity, immediacy - but pushes against the disposable nature of online content by treating these fragments as cinema rather than promotion. A cinematic world can be built with minimal resources but a strong point of view. SHORT PEOPLE embraces that freedom.

Rather than waiting for permission, SHORT PEOPLE asks:

What if emotionally rich cinema could exist anywhere, even inside a one-minute clip someone discovers at 1am and can’t stop thinking about afterwards?

Or perhaps viewers do just want AI slop?

Like I said, risk-it-for-a-biscuit.

*Some last-minute life-saving money was injected by the patron Saint of no-budget filmmakers, Terry Gilliam - the ONLY person who replied to my begging letters - who paid for cans of film/developing.

• If you'd like to help get SHORT PEOPLE off the ground, drop me a line or support the project via Ko-fi.

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