Devious Theatre’s ‘Trainspotting’ – “Meet Begbie”

Devious Theatre have just released the third video from our production of Irvine Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting‘, performed in the Watergate Theatre, last June.

Check out the scene featuring myself (Renton) and Niall Sheehy as my pyschotic “friend” Franco Begbie, containing Begbie’s explicit use of the word “c**t” and a flashback to the two characters teenage years.

You can read all about my experiences during Trainspotting here on a previous blog post. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Devious Theatre Youtube for plenty more video clips to come.

Stuff & Things…

Design by Paddy Dunne

I’m on a quick break from shooting, giving me just enough time to post some news and updates;

Firstly, check out the winter edition of START Magazine, aside from a feature on Kilkenny’s own Jeremy Hickey aka Rarely Seen Above Ground, recently nominated for Best Album at the Choice Music Awards, you’ll also find a review of Devious Theatre’s ‘The War Of The Worlds‘ and a small article on Vultures. You can download the magazine here.

The nominations for the Irish Blog Awards 2009 have been released, with a whole host of links and blogs to check out. It’s going to take me quite a while to check them all out but I’m happy to say that I’m on the list for ‘Best Photo Blog’, and there’s also nominations for Devious Theatre and KilkennyMusic. You can check out the huge nominations list here and there’s still more to come.

And finally, as shooting continues for Vultures episodes 5 & 6, I’m delighted to announce that Vultures episode 4: ‘The Case Of The Poisoned Dates‘ will premiere on www.VulturesPI.com on Sunday the 1st of February.

My first venture into the world of directing was such an awesome experience, I really can’t wait for it to go online. This will also mean I can begin to blog about the process and release all my behind-the-scenes photographs and more, once the episode goes online. If you haven’t seen the previous episodes then now is the perfect time to catch up , all episodes are FREE TO WATCH HERE.

But for now, break time is over and it’s back to work we go…

Normal service will resume shortly…

Yesterday was so crazy that I didn’t get time for a blog post. I have been trying to post on a daily basis, at least during the week, as most of the filming for Vultures episodes 5 & 6 is scheduled for the weekends.

Unfortunately, the way things are shaping up for the next week or so, I won’t get much time to blog. We began filming again yesterday afternoon into the night, we were filming all day today, we’re filming tomorrow and next week is pretty much packed full of… yes… you guessed it… more filming. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Whilst I’d love to be posting blogs on a daily basis, right now I’m doing what I love doing more than anything.

We’ve been preparing for this shoot for the past few months; scheduling, shot-lists, breakdowns, location scouting, rehearsals, the list goes on. You name it and it’s on one of our lists. But, no matter how much preparation you do, there’ll always be something that wasn’t accounted for, be it bad weather or chav’s gathering across the street to fire abuse.

When you don’t have a big budget and you can’t just throw money at a problem, when you’re shooting guerilla style like us, you can’t let something like rain, wind or an idiot wearing a burberry hat be a problem. You have to find a way around it, or if needs be, straight through it. Everyday, from early morning to late at night. Then get some sleep, then do it all again. To some of you it may sound horrible, but to me it’s awesome. We’re constantly thinking, constantly learning, constantly hitting problems and constantly finding creative ways around them.

Filming Vultures over the past year has been a continous learning curve for all of us, but I can safely say we’ve learned a lot. We’re learning to avoid as many of these problems as we can before we shoot. But the ones we can’t avoid, we just work around.

Everything we’ve shot for episode 4 (release date coming soon!), and everything we’re shooting for the final episodes will continue to take things up a notch. We’re shooting our most ambitious content so far, we’ve got more actors, more crew and more ideas. I’m fully confident that we can do it, to the best of our low budget abilities and whilst the worst part of the process for me is having to hold back on behind-the-scenes photos and footage, I sit comfortably knowing that when it’s all over I’ll have so much awesome content to put online and blog about.

Normal service will resume shortly…

Scott Walker’s ‘Jackie’ by Mick Harrison

I just can’t get enough of this video! It’s the latest piece of work to come out from under the Mycrofilm’s umbrella, a truly awesome music video to Scott Walker’s ‘Jackie‘, which was conceived and animated by Mick Harrison (Legend!).

I first met Mick a couple of months back, at the screening of Devious Theatre’s ‘Trainspotting’, my first impression was that he was “a crazy English dude”. But having had a few conversations with him since then, I realised that he wasn’t crazy, he’s just a comic genius, and sometimes it’s easy to confuse the two. He has since left Kilkenny, but he flew back last week to work with Alan Slattery (Mycrofilms) as they cut the video together, and then he was gone again.

I sent Mick an email to get some details about the project; he was in Berlin, using some computer with  “all the letters in the wrong spots”. He suggested I make something up, “just make it cool sounding as the real story is not cool at all” and finished with “BERLIN IS FECKIN DEADLY by the way”.

But I decided, why bother make something up!? The video speaks for itself better than any made-up how-it-came-about story! Watch it! Rate it! Favourite it! Comment on it! Scott Walker’s ‘Jackie‘ by Mick Harrison.

Say NO on YouTube!

I was quite shocked the other day when I stumbled across Darragh Doyle’s blog post promoting a “good detective agency in Kilkenny” and his idea that the Pinkertons were the answer to all your detective needs!?

Firstly, I was delighted to see the first ever non-Mycrofilms’ ‘Vultures‘ related video on the internet. But I think it was Darragh’s unashamed promotion and questionable involvement with the scourge that is coming to town that really turned my stomach.

That’s why I was delighted this morning, when Vultures Private Investigations continued their “Say NO to Pinkertons” campaign, by spreading their important Public Service Announcement on YouTube.

Please help V.P.I by spreading their public service announcement throughout the “cyberweb”, posting it on your blogs and your Bebo/MySpace pages. ‘Say NO to Pinkertons‘ and say ‘NO’ to Darragh Doyle too!

Vegetarian Kilkenny – ‘No Meat & Greet’

The first monthly Vegetarian Kilkenny ‘No Meat & Greet’ will take place on Saturday 24th January at 6.30pm in the Cartoon Saloon, the Maltings, James Street.

I can’t seem to find any kind of online activity for Vegetarian Kilkenny, a flyer for the event was passed along to me yesterday, but I have to admit I’m very excited about meeting more veggies from Kilkenny.

I’ve been a vegetarian for about 12 years now but I’ve never really had much contact with other vegetarians. I know lots of other veggies but I can’t say I’ve ever really been in a situation where the focus of the meeting was being a veggie or a vegan.

The flyer says; “Get to know other vegetarians/vegans in your area. Bring a favourite veggie dish to share if you can. Omnivores welcome but no meat please!”

Can anybody else point me towards some online presence for Vegetarian Kilkenny? Has anybody attended a meeting like this before? Is anybody interested in heading along to this one?

Vegetarian Kilkenny, 1st Monthly ‘No Meat & Greet’, Saturday 24th January, 6.30pm at the Cartoon Saloon, the Maltings, James Street, Kilkenny.

Devious Theatre – A Highlight of 2008

Following up from my last post; Devious Theatre were back in the newspapers this weekend, this time thanks to John Cleere of the Kilkenny Advertiser. In his list of highlights of 2008, John wrote;

On the theatre scene there was only one word to describe the year: The Devious Theatre Company (ok, four words). Their first production, “Heart Shaped Vinyl”, had me hoping they weren’t going to be a one-hit wonder, but I needn’t have worried, they repeated the success not once, but twice, in 2008.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the film “Trainspotting“, but the stage version by Devious Theatre in The Watergate was the highlight of the year. They quickly followed it up with an original play, “Smitten”, by John Morton. I’ve no idea what their plans are for 2009, but already at this early stage of their development, a Devious Theatre production is a guaranteed good night out.

John Cleere was probably the first person to write about Devious Theatre, way back in the early days of our first production, Heart Shaped Vinyl, and he’s been a keen follower ever since. His reviews have undoubtedly helped attract attention to Devious and our work, last year we were on his list of Highlights of 2007. It’s great for us to be listed once again, so thanks to John Cleere in the Kilkenny Advertiser.

Devious Theatre aside, the weekend flew by in a blur of filming Vultures episodes 5 & 6. Early morning call-times into late night shoots, there were trains, there were castles and there was plenty of rain, wind and chavs, but above all else there was plenty of comedy. I’ll have more news throughout the week.

Devious Theatre – Scruffy Daddy Interview

The weekend has almost landed, for most people this will mean things slowing down for a day or two. If this is the case then in your downtime check out Scruff Daddy.

Scruff Daddy is a new online magazine dedicated to showcasing new and upcoming Irish artists. The reason I’m pointing it out is that there’s an awesome interview with Devious Theatre’s own John Morton.

The interview gives a bit of insight into all our productions to date, the inner workings and philosophy of Devious Theatre and more. For any fans of Devious Theatre, then it’s well worth a read.

Myself and John will be out and about on the streets of Kilkenny, filming ‘Vultures‘ episodes 5 & 6 throughout the weekend, so it means I won’t get a chance to post a blog. But I should have some behind-the-scenes photos and a new video blog ready to go online next week. Here comes the weekend…

***NOTE***

This is possibly the shortest blog post I have ever written. It makes me kind of sad but time is not on my side today.

Vultures – Location Scouting (Video Blog)

There was quite a good response to my first attempt at video blogging, so I thought why not try another one!? Thanks to everyone who watched the first one, and especially to everyone who left comments or sent me messages and feedback. As I’ve said I can’t release any material from behind-the-scenes during shooting until episode 4 goes online, but hang in there, it won’t be long.

A couple of people have been asking questions, so I thought I’d continue with the pre-production side of things. Video blog number 2 offers a little insight into our location scouting, from finding the locations to getting permission to shoot there. Oh and drinking a hell of a lot of tea! Please bear in mind that I’m only learning to edit for the past few weeks, but it’s certainly a step up from the first attempt. Enjoy.

Oss237.com reaches 100,000 hits!

According to my statcounter, Oss237.com reached 100,000 hits this morning. It seems a milestone worthy of a blogpost.

Over the past two and a half years, there’s been over 63,000 unique visitors to my site and I have to say I’m still amazed by hits coming in from all over the world and countries I’ve never even heard of. I’ve happily received hundreds of comments (good & bad) on my work and more importantly attracted more people looking to work with me.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on ideas for a long needed face-lift to the site which will hopefully get underway in the next few weeks, with a whole new look and some new features including a new video section, which will host what I can only describe as a shitload of content including music videos, documentaries and more that I’ll be releasing throughout 2009.

All that’s left for me to say is thanks to everyone who has visited my website, thanks especially to those who come back and to those who have provided comments, feedback and encouragement.

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