Winter's zenith

It was a little while after being rejected by the BBC I met Chris the Director. He'd read and liked some of my work from which we did something crazy: we made a mini-pilot of my spec TV series Monsters, which you can see the main part here and a trailer with extra bits here, including a blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit of CGI near the end, which will become important later.

Having done this we discussed what we could do next. We were looking for a short so we could film something that was complete and we decided Winter was a possible. But there was no script, only the interactive web pitch document.

One thing with creating a short is budget. So minimal sets, minimal actors, short running time (obviously), plus contemporary setting so there are no costume costs.

I went away and by March 2008 I had a script. Similar in premise to the web version but now the protagonist is the boyfriend Paul. I seem to be missing the actual script for this. But essentially it involved the main character rescuing his girlfriend Talia who had been turned into a murderous weapon (for no adequately explained reason). It was about love, family and sacrifice.

It didn't get particularly good feedback from readers. The best feedback suggested that it read like the 3rd Act in a feature film - so the first two acts were simply missing. I couldn't really disagree.

Time passed. I pretended to be a producer and we produced the extra footage for the Monsters trailer and then Chris came back to me with a completely new idea for looking at Winter.

And I'll cover that in the next exciting installment.



Part 1: Early Winter
Part 2: Winter's zenith (this one)
Part 3: Next Winter
Part 4: Bad Winter