App Media's PERSONA gets a 1st Teaser Trailer

The first official Teaser Trailer for the series I co-wrote with Phillip Barron, John Soanes and Ronnie Mackintosh has premiered via youtube.

Here are some Behind The Scenes photos from the set of PERSONA and the link to the trailer is below.


Linked here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnY4jbKRZms&feature=youtu.be&a

App Media's PERSONA gets Official Logo

COMING IN JANUARY 2011

Written by: Adam J Spinks, Phillip Barron, Ronnie Mackintosh and John Soanes.



Bringing PERSONA to life... that's a WRAP!

PERSONA, the worlds first iPhone television series has today completed principle photography on SEASON 1. Starting January 1st 2011, PERSONA will air 2 minutes per day of downloadable content.

Below are some of the photo's from behind the scenes.

Get downloading on JANUARY 1ST 2011...

Monsters Review

Gareth Edward's film is certainly remarkable.

Made on a shoe-string budget and lacking in a concrete screenplay, he lured two good actors in to roles in a movie he could barely fund and the results are quite honestly breathtaking.


What stands out here is the attention to narrative detail and character. This director knows both how to use silence and also the power of silence in the story and the careful balance between revelation and mystery. Surprisingly early on Edwards shows us the monster, looming in the night vision blackness as iconic as the tripods that swallow humankind in War Of The Worlds. There, for all to see, is a CGI Alien created entirely on a laptop. And it looks great...

Our two main characters are pretty compelling; Whitney Able is beautiful, subtle and gentle; taking in her surroundings in an absorbing fashion and poking fun at Scoot McNairy for relying on tragedy to make himself a living as a Photographic Journalist. He brilliantly points out " you mean like Doctors?". The relationship builds briskly and believeably as the journey moves from the standard to the intriguing, as the relationship between the " monsters" and the military is brought to the foreground. The fantastic thing here is that these aliens are not marauders from Mars but are creatures, stranded in a new world as they follow a loose migratory pattern across the infected zone in South America. The American Army seems to operate a shoot first-ask questions later modus operandi, which seems to cause far more conflict than they may like to admit.

Camera work is jaw-dropping and the film appears quite expensive; easily holding it's own with it's contemporaries and sometimes threatening to eclipse them as it moves on its whimsical, never-distracted gaze with our two main characters. What is clear from Monsters is that Gareth Edwards will be enormous... the next big thing and I, for one, am proud that he is British.

Outside contender for Best Picture at the 83rd Academy Awards- if there's any justice then it should be nominated.

App Media's PERSONA

Hi All,

I am delighted to inform my followers and readers of the following:

A few months ago now, I was selected from a pool of candidates to be part of a small team of screenwriters who would be tasked with bringing the first iphone/android application television show to reality. The title of this series is PERSONA and it is produced by App Media.

They are now rehearsing Season 1 and the shoot begins this coming week in and around London. Preliminary work has started on Season 2.

Persona is due to air on 1st January 2011 and will air 1.5 minutes a day, direct to your application. So, please friends... get downloading!

Adam

Oscar Predictions for 2011

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards presentation will be held at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood on Sunday, February 27, 2011. The Oscars, as the ceremony is better known, will be televised in the

United States by ABC and to more than 200 countries around the world.

Although the ceremony comprises a total of 24 awards, this article will focus on eight, trying to gather the expert's early assessments while keeping in mind that intangibles are an intrinsic part of predicting, and that the earlier predictions are launched, the more volatile they are.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Potential nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay include:

• Winter's Bone (Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini).
• Never Let Me Go (Alex Garland).
• True Grit (Joel and Ethan Cohen).
• The Social Network (Aaron Sorkin).
• 127 Hours (Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy).

My predicted winner: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network, who has been praised by Roger Ebert for his excellent portrayal of potentially complex computer programming.

Best Original Screenplay

Potential nominees for Best Original Screenplay include:

• The King's Speech (David Speider).
• Another Year (Mike Leigh).
• The Fighter (Paul Attanasio, Lewis Colich, Eric Johnson, Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy).
• Inception (Christopher Nolan).
• The Kids Are All Right (Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko).

Predicted Winner: Christopher Nolan. This may be the easiest pick of all. With Inception, Nolan continues playing mind games and showing an uncanny ability to write complex structures and translate them into smart thrillers that capture everyone's attention.

Best Supporting Actor
Potential nominees for Best Supporting Actor include:

Christian Bale (The Fighter).

• Matt Damon (True Grit).
• Andrew Garfield (Never Let Me Go).
• Sam Rockwell (Conviction).
• Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right).

Predicted Winner: Matt Damon.

Best Supporting Actress
Potential nominees for Best Supporting Actress include:

• Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech).
• Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right).
• Keira Knightley (Never Let Me Go).
• Melissa Leo (The Fighter).
• Thekla Reuten (The American).

Predicted Winner: Keira Knightley.

Best Actor
Potential nominees for Best Actor include:

• Jeff Bridges (True Grit).
• James Franco (127 Hours).
• Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network).
• Mark Walhberg (The Fighter).
• Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine).

Predicted Winner: Jesse Eisenberg.

Best Actress
Potential nominees for Best Actress include:

• Natalie Portman (Black Swan).
• Annette Benning (The Kids Are All Right).
• Anne Hathaway (Love and Other Drugs).
• Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone).
• Lesley Manville (Another Year).

Predicted Winner: Natalie Portman. The best support for this prediction comes from film critic David Nusair, who on an update about the Toronto International Film Festival says that "the actress' tour-de-force performance anchors the proceedings on a thoroughly consistent basis, and it's worth noting that much of the suspense that ensues in the film's final half hour is heightened by Portman's flawless work."

Best Director

Potential nominees for Best Director are:

• Danny Boyle (127 Hours).
• David Fincher (The Social Network).
• Gareth Edwards (Monsters)
• Christopher Nolan (Inception).
• Tom Hooper (The King's Speech).

Predicted Winner: Cristopher Nolan is one of the most original directors in years. It took him ten years to carve Inception into an intelligent thriller. But David Fincher's work with The Social Network was too good. The cinematography and the way he got his young cast to light up the dialogues were simply masterful. Outsiders chance for Gareth Edwards, who has re-defined the way film can be made and seen with a frankly masterful debut MONSTERS.

Best Picture

Potential nominees for Best Picture include:

• The Kids Are All Right.
• The King's Speech.
• The Social Network.
• True Grit.
• Monsters
• The Fighter.
• Never Let Me Go.
• Toy Story 3.
• Inception.
• 127 Hours.

Predicted Winner: Inception. The innovative thriller grossed over $287 million at the box office in the United States. Although The Social Network may be a more appealing and simpler movie, it will be hard for the academy to ignore those figures. Also, an expectation of intelligence will be in the air, and nobody will want to admit they didn't quite understand Inception. For many, It will be a dream come true

The future of the UKFC

Nice, informative article I found online about what's next for the UK Film Council and the industry its left behind...

The British Film Institute (BFI) is to become the new champion for British film, inheriting the funding responsibilities of the UK Film Council and ending a period of uncertainty for the industry.

Ed Vaizey, the minister for culture, said yesterday that a fundamentally changed BFI would have a new board and management structure while it established its new role over the coming months.

"We need a new strategic body to oversee the future of development of film in this country," he said. "On this basis, the BFI will be in charge of delivering the Government's policy for film." Mr Vaizey said it was an opportunity to "unite the British film industry" and added that, from April 2011, the BFI would distribute lottery money to British filmmakers, decide which films would receive tax credits and oversee any strategy to support film in the regions.

The Government axed the Film Council in July, prompting a stream of protests. Tim Bevan, the Council's chairman, condemned the move, saying that "abolishing the most successful film support organisation the UK has ever had is a bad decision, imposed without any consultation or evaluation. British film, one of the UK's more successful growth industries, deserves better."

Greg Dyke, the chairman of the BFI, denied he would have a hands-on role in the expanded organisation. "The moment the chairman tries to get involved in deciding what films should be made he should be shot," he said. "Our aim is to try and increase the annual production budget we use to invest in film from £15m to £18m next year. That's achievable if we reduce our overheads."

Mr Dyke did not confirm where cost-cutting would take place, but added: "We will certainly see a cheaper operation. You don't need two legal departments, for example."

Mr Vaizey said that lottery funding for the film industry was set to increase to £43m annually over the next four years from current subsidies of around £27m a year.

Founded in 1933, the BFI started an Experimental Film Fund in 1952, financing early work by Ridley Scott and Ken Russell. It funded Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract in 1982 as well as the work of auteurs such as Derek Jarman and Terence Davies over the next 20 years. The Labour Government closed down its production operations in 1999 when it established the Film Council. "The Film Council was spending 20 per cent of its money on overheads," Mr Dyke said. "We need to be aware of the great competition that there will be for the money we have."

Sounds dandy....

Adam Spinks takes 3rd Place in Annual Student Film Screenwriting Competition

http://www.studentfilm.org.uk/competitions/screenwriting.html

Thank you very much to all of the young screenwriters who submitted their work to our competition! We have received 97 submissions and are proud to announce that the overall quality was excellent.

The following 10 scripts have been shortlisted and will each win one of our prizes, which you can find below.

1. Fancy That by Gavin Gunter

2. Dog House by Marilena Stracke

3. A different Life by Adam J Spinks

4. The Scarred by Gerry Linford

5. The Legacy by Fred Fernandez

6. Stocking Filler by Jonah Mayfield

7. A Substitute by Robert Page

8. Brotherly Love by Matthew Fothergill

9. A waverly path by Natalie Stephenson

10. Conflict of Faith by Mark McKay

The screenplays have been listed in the order of the winners.

The competition was run in partnership with the BFI and boasts a host of professional judges including BAFTA winner Asitha Ameresekere, the organisers of the London Screenwriters' Festival and selected board members of  Women in Film and Television and Industrial Scripts.