I did it. Shortly before this website’s creation, ‘Brian & the Grim Reaper’ was completed. Shot with a professional cast and crew, it was filmed on a RED Epic Dragon – at time of shooting arguably the world’s most sophisticated digital camera.

I did this with no industry contacts.

No track record.

No prior experience.

They said it couldn’t be done; I proved them wrong.

I so wanted it to be a professional enterprise. Not for me a short film about two blokes sitting in a lounge talking. “When I go to the cinema,” I believe filmmaker Lynne Ramsay once said, “I want to have a cinematic experience”. And so I set out to give the audience just that.

I was very nervous, and I was mentally drained by the end. But the support of friends pulled me through.

Making a film is like giving birth; pain for a short while followed by the most intense feelings of joy, satisfaction and achievement.

I want to do it again.

More than anything I want to improve as a filmmaker. Audiences deserve better; they always deserve better. Filmmakers require their time and very often their money – it is our responsibility to give them the best experience possible.

I aim to write in much more detail about how I made Brian & the Grim Reaper. Tips, advice, strategy. This I’ll do on my blog.

I also plan to write about the making of my more ambitious next short, provisionally entitled ‘Thunder’ Under Control. How I’ll do it, when I’ll do it, what I’ll have to do to do it! This I’ll communicate via my newsletter.

This film will not be easy to make. They never are. And as I’ll share my trials and tribulations with you, so I hope we can go on this journey together as I attempt to make the impossible.

E.