Merry Christmas everyone!
I am about to leave London to spend Christmas and New Year with my family in the Netherlands.
If you are travelling too, travel safely, keep warm and have a good time with friends, family and whoever else you like to spent your holidays with.
Love + Rock!
I admit that I am a little late this year but it is that time of the year again:
I will design a brand new Girl postcard which I am going to have printed in a card shop in a special very limited edition. It is not going to be your typical Christmas card, there is no Christmas tree on it nor any other Christmas references. It’s probably going to be more of a New Year card to be honest, but I am not sure yet. It can be anything.
It will be a double card in full colour and it is not going to be the image you see on the top of this post by the way.
Now, you want one of those extremely-limited-edition-due-to-be-a-collectors-item-cards won’t you?
Current card counter: 10
A Friday afternoon creative mind spring postcard.
I know I am a tragic romantic! Have a lovely weekend.
Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No, it won’t all go the way, it should
But I know the heart of life is good
I know it’s good
The card is inspired by this wonderful song from the Ghost Town soundtrack. Speaking of romcoms, you really should see Ghost Town, it’s the DIRL of this year.
Now press play and enjoy:
[audio:17122008.mp3](Illustrator is real fun, and for the purists, the flowers are made from heart shapes too – and yes I made it from scratch).
I really wanted to learn Illustrator (especially the pen tool) and the only way to do that was to actually make something with it. I found a nice tutorial for this winter landscape here, this is my interpretation of it.
This drawing has taken me an insane amount of time to make, but I have learned a lot. Mostly that there is a lot to learn. Everything is drawn from scratch (except the xmas font), the trees, the snow man and the birdies.
It looks simple but it has taken me ages to draw the bloody christmas trees, and to make a heart shape frazzled my mind completely. But determination got me to this illustration, which isn’t great but it’s a start. And it is enormously relaxing to draw.
If you are into Illustrator and you are not a pro yet, this is a nice site, and this tutorial really helped me on my way.
Download in full size here.
In other news, the animal family, Eddy and Bridget will soon get company from Roger. I think Roger looks pretty cute. Roger is going to help out some people in Africa, as he is pretty good at helping to carry large loads over long distances which really eases the burden of for example fetching and carrying supplies to and from a market.
If you want to give a useful xmas present this year have a look at Oxfam Unwrapped they have loads of original and fun gifts. The good thing about Roger: he comes with a DVD with footage of Bill Nighy in Tanzania on it. I mean – what are you still doing here? Go. Go. Go!!
And to make things even more festive, it’s Bill‘s birthday today. I hope he has a happy one. If you like him (which, of course, you do) make sure not to miss out on the brand new Charles Paris radio play. (It’s 4 episodes, the first has been sent but catch it on BBC iplayer or BBC Radio 4 listen again, it’s worth it.
We did it last year.
And the year before.
And we are going to do it again this year. Or at least I hope we will. Are you in?
For every card I receive from you this year I will donate £2 to Oxfam.
Sold out! (Unless 10 more people sign up then I will order more cards :)
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Well at least I made a postcard! And on this postcard I wrote a couple of words! Does that count?
I hope so.
To my defence I can say that at least I have opened the script in Final Draft and looked at it. I didn’t type anything, I looked at it.
And when I sat in the cinema this week, watching Caramel, I suddenly wasn’t sure that I wanted to write the story I was planning to write. Not right now anyway. I need some more time to think. I want a more happy story.
So apart from the occasional badly written boring blog post here – it’s not going very well, no …
One does not really get tired of the twinkle in the eyes of Ken Stott though.
It has been a while, but she is back.
The view from there is pretty amazing, she said.
And yes you can send her.
Room is declutterized and looks about twice the size now. I should do this more often.
This morning the postman delivered 2 more cards in my mailbox. I had some time to photograph them and to add them to the gallery.
May I present you:
Imagine Love, Actually
Love and Bill, Actually
Love Actually, in a stitch
Love lifts us up
Love Davy Actually
I simply can’t tell you how big the smile on my face is, when I look at how creative you all have been. It is simply amazing and I love them all equally much, actually.
I am sitting here and wonder how on earth I have been able to convince you out there to send me fantastic cards like these, it is billiant (which is spelled correctly).
I am about to dive into the next short film meeting, but before I go, I want to cite a poem that was on one of the cards I received (and thank you so much for sending it!). I had never read it before but I absolutely love it, and it is one of those poems you wish you had written yourself. It is also a very true poem. It is by Erich Fried.
What it is
It is nonsense
says Reason
It is what it is
says LoveIt is unhappiness
says Caution
it is nothing but pain
says Fear
It is hopeless
says Insight
It is what it is
says LoveIt is ridiculous
says Pride
It is careless
says Caution
It is impossible
says Experience
It is what it is
says LoveErich Fried
Metropolitan Chief Inspector Kenneth, such a serious man
(He sure does remind me of someone)
It is getting closer to the 25th and I still had a problem to solve: how to get to my afternoon shift when there is no public transport whatsoever in London that day.
My last and desperate option was calling one of my contacts. So that’s what I did.
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I posted another song from the Love Actually soundtrack in this post. I love this version and was shocked to read that Lynden David Hall, who also performed the song in the film, died in 2006 of cancer at the age of 31.
[audio:0006.mp3]Today’s card (I am not cheating, they do come one per day!) is called “Love and Jazz Actually“. It’s again a completely different card and I really like it.
I was happy to hear that the first girl has arrived safely at her destination. Royal Mail did a great job, despite the Christmas business – it arrived in one day (in the UK that is).
And there is good news on the “Make a short in December” project.
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It’s that time of the year again, and you know how I feel about it.
But the question is are you up for it again?
I will design a brand new Girl postcard, which I am going to have printed in a card shop in a special very limited edition. It is not going to be your typical Christmas card, there is no Christmas tree on it nor any other Christmas references. It’s probably going to be more of a New Year card to be honest, but I am not sure yet. It can be anything.
It will be a double card in full colour and there will probably be a quote of some sorts, you know the style. It is not going to be the image you see on the top of this post by the way.
Now, you want one of those extremely-limited-edition-due-to-be-a-collectors-item-cards won’t you?
Sold out!
Because it’s a beautiful song:
Audio no longer available (Snow Patrol – Warmer Climate)
Because it’s weekend.
Because this is the visual interpretation of voicilicious.
Because he’s back and that’s exactly what he is.
Enjoy your weekend.
you are the cry that turns to laughter,
you’re the hope that ends disaster.
I don’t remember where I found this quote but I saved it. I knew that it one day would end up on a postcard. Today is that day.
I reached page 28 today. Which means I am ahead of schedule, and also that I only need to write 2 pages more to reach 30. They are not 28 great pages, but there are some scenes I quite like. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though.
Enough words.
Audio no longer available
I don’t quite know
How to say
How I feel.
(Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars)
Lawless Heart
As a the first one in a series of 4 films with him in it. (Send it if you like). The same film has also been inspiration for a pathetic poem with the same title I wrote a while ago. I quite like the term.
I can’t tell you how much fun it has been to create something silly again. Again.
