rachel tunnard is...? (please choose)
I’ve been reconsidering my ideas about what will rescue me from a future of dark rooms and bad stories (this time it is not Benicio Del Toro). Some people make decisions in their life based on the dice, others follow religious doctrines, some say yes to everything to see where it leads… I’m going follow Jose Mourinho (quoted above).
It was one of those moments when everything feels hard and bad and you imagine you’re like Sisyphus with his rock and just when you’re about to have a public cry something small happens that reminds you that there are good things in this messy world. And that was it: ‘Love’. Just written in felt-tip pen on the flagstone near our house. And I had to stop and look at it and then bend down and take a photo. And later after tea and gossip and ‘do you think it is ok to defrost these prawns by just running them under the warm tap for a bit?’ We ventured out into the night to look for the ‘Love’ again so that we could look at it together. Except, it wasn’t there. And it’s not been seen since. And now I’m left wondering, ‘Am I looking in the wrong place? Was it real? Did it ever exist at all?”
Now, I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking “why?” and in some ways you’d be right… but then maybe you shouldn’t be so closed-minded? I mean it starts off logically enough, “why a freestanding tinfoil rhino model?” but soon enough your on a slippery slope to “why am I alive at all?” and soon you’ll be living under a bridge with a dog on a piece of string, shouting incoherently at strangers. So perhaps lets avoid all that and just say, “What an amazing tinfoil Rhino! Lets make a whole zoo!”
I first went to Brownies when I was about 6 and I was given a hand me down dress that was a bit big but I was very pleased with. Unfortunately, I was so excited getting ready that I forgot to put my knickers on and then when I got there and realised, I was mortified and refused to play ladders and battleships in case anyone noticed. All the girls spent the next few months thinking I was an unsociable idiot. Fortunately, hindsight is a glorious thing and I learned from this experience. So in LA I wore all the underwear I needed which gave me the confidence to mingle amongst the A-List.
Don’t get drunk.
Don’t tell Tom Hanks that Philadelphia is an intrinsic part of your emotional cleansing routine.
Don’t thank him on behalf of all the worlds Gays.
Don’t scream at Nicole Kidman in the catering toilets then thank her on behalf of all the worlds Gays for showing us Billy Zane’s arse in Dead Calm.
Don’t accidentally roll sideways off a chaise-lounge in a zillionaire’s house in Bel Air while trying to give off casual awesomeness vibes.
Don’t know how. Or why. I’m operating a strict policy of keeping my mouth shut and not asking lest some terrible mistake is revealed followed by a swift retraction of my invitation.
I’m thinking of running a sweepstake competition – guess how many minutes before I score an own-goal and make some mortifying and personally humiliating faux pas. I’m hoping for never, obviously, but realistically I’d be happy with an hour.
Back of the net! Fixing Luka scores a hatrick at the Limelight Awards! Best Animation, Best Visual and Best Film. We made idiots of ourselves on stage, had to sneak out to the pub half way through and felt a bit like we were at the Christmas party in Die Hard but that just made it all the more special.
Pop Quiz: What’s better?
Making a film or cheese toasties or er… Aston Villa?
It’s cheese toasties right? I mean it’s obvious. I can’t believe you even asked to be honest…
Trusting their instincts, demonstrating strong understanding of life’s important questions, making good cups of tea – these are just some skills the three new First Light filmmakers possess. That’s three more than us then. The film ‘I Could Live Yours’ is another My Pockets project and we think it might be the best one yet. It’ll be out later in the year.
We weren’t sure what was more worrying – the fact that the world may or may not end before we finished the funding application or the fact that the computer had underlined our sentence with a wonky line and when we checked to see why it just said, ‘Passive voice’.
(F*&kinghellwhat?) A short phone call to a parent later and we concluded that it is damaging to self-esteem to work on machines that are cleverer than you are.
It was just another evening, you know, at BAFTA. There I was, on the stage, microphone in hand, presenting myself to the world, trying to simultaneously promote myself while appearing self-effacing and hilarious, selling my soul script. It would all have been wonderful apart from the fact that I had to do it sitting down because my dress, it turns out, was see-through…
‘Until My Heart’s like Finished’ won the ‘Youth Voices’ prize at the First Light awards. The YMCA kids came to a swanky ceremony in Leicester square. Peter and Jim and I cried a bit in the dark then pretended we didn’t. Peter enthusiastically thanked an uninvolved bystander for his “great speech opening the ceremony”. We lost a camera and accidentally paid for drinks at the free bar. In short, chaos reigned – in perfect keeping with the project itself.
Fixing Luka has just been nominated for two Scottish BAFTAs which good because a.) it is brilliant b.) it was made by very nice people c.) making animations can lead to behaviour which is frowned upon by the general public (like lying on the floor under your desk, crying in the supermarket, drive-by soil theft from the car-park flower-bed of the Marriott Hotel at 11pm… You know, the usual).
What I am saying is. It is nice when things you care about enough to sacrifice your own self-esteem, dignity and pride over are retrospectively recognized as worth it.
Skeletons didn’t win a Bafta but that is ok. My mum says it is ok because it is nice to be nominated, but she would say that just like she’d try to cheer us up on the way home from losing in the cup by saying, “It’s only a game! Now what have we got to look forward to?”
I say it is ok because I got the posh red lipstick out of the goodie bag and Nick met Christopher Nolan which means I am at a one-step remove. If I ever get to go I’m going to take my own box of Quality Streets to eat during the ceremony, screw up the wrappers and flick them at the winners as they walk past. I don’t mean it in a bitter way, where I come from it’s like a celebration – like throwing confetti at a bride. In my Nan’s house as a kid there was no skill held in higher regard than incognito targeted sweet wrapper flicking during episodes of ‘Catchphrase’ and ‘Blind Date’.
I made the final four film people for the Hospital Club philanthropy scheme. The award will be announced at a party next week. I don’t think they normally let monkeys like me into buildings like that – when I went for my interview there was a marker pen left next to widescreen tv in an empty room. Where I come from that’s just asking for trouble. I’ll have to leave a trail of crumbs on the posh corridors to find my way back out.
‘Until My Heart’s like Finished‘ has been nominated for ‘Best Film’ in the First Light Awards. It was made with teenagers who live at the YMCA in Bridgwater. It is part of a trilogy of films called ‘Home’ (‘We Are Not What They Say We Are’ and ‘You Can’t Teach a Worm to Tango’) by the nice and brilliant My Pockets.
The trilogy has also been nominated for a Royal Television Society award which is very nice. We are going to brush our hair, dress up nicely and go to the posh awards ceremony with the kids in Leicester Square.
We came, we saw, we conquered. Skeletons won the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film at Edinburgh Festival. The whole Skeletons family turned out in all its idiosyncrasy. There was dancing, there was hugging, there was Jason Isaacs in the boot of a taxi. Halcyon days!
Native Son was in competition at Semaine de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival. We didn’t win but it was very nice to be nominated and to hang out on the Côte d’Azur. Other things happened involving champagne, non-verbal communication through the medium of dance and an extended stay at Nice airport hotel due to a volcano.
