...first draft of E N D L E S S treatment. I am never satisfied. Unfortunately there is still a few pieces of the puzzle missing. Something is not quite there. Close but not quite.
Those details absorb my mind throughout the day, evening, night, even in my sleep.

At least I'm on the right track... but I'm really slow. Polish Film Institute has a next session closing in less than two weeks. There is no way I will have even something to show to the possible producer in such close deadline and also I don't like to rush things. I will be prepared for the next session application deadline in June.

For those who became fans of the movie on Facebook - I really appreciate your trust in this, as I haven't given up any information about its content yet. I promise to change things soon and publish a brief synopsis of the story.

Stay tuned.

Why did I call my new film 'E n d l e s s' ?

Because I knew it will be endless amount of work. I've already spent few months thinking about it, then about a month writing just a draft of a draft of an outline. Then looking for producer, money, etc. you get the picture. This is never going to end.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. On the contrary. I know exactly what to do with my life and my time.

However researching the subject, and getting deeper into the story I started thinking that everything is a dream. An endless one. As soon as I get to grips with this thought I will write something more interesting about the film I promise.

It's been a while, but not updating blog usually means I am busy with something else and this something else is usually filming, and filming makes people happy and happy people make the world happy and happy world is good. Usually.

So Filming in Poland has kicked off pretty quickly compared to Filming in Spain which hasn't kicked off at all. I have been here for 3 months now in Warsaw town and my recent project were the following:

- University Lipdub for Warsaw School of Economics, great fun filming and I could finally push myself to the bone with my steadycam. The results were to say the least awesome, 95 thousand views on youtube 5 days after publishing. My graduation movie in which I put all my blood and sweat compared to that looks miserable with only 3 thousand views during over 3 years time !!! And even the mainstream TV News Station mentioned our story a few times. You can see the clip here:
LIPDUB VIDEO
If you are a University and you want a gifted steadycam man - then I am as always for hire.

- Another project required me to go to London, which was a good fun adventure also. I haven't been there for a while and it was great to be in a city that looks like a vibrant city with lights and colours, not post nuclear waste-land with zombies like Warsaw. The documentary was for TVP Kultura channel and featured many talented polish artists in many galleries across London and Oxford. It required me a lot of running with steadycam through the fields chasing people dressed in the golden suits... I know it sounds weird but it will make sense eventually when I post some footage.

- I have also nearly finished a music video for a band called Masskotki with my filmmaker friend Krzysztof. We ended up with a lot of juicy footage, all shot on Canons 7d and 5d. I hope it will be ready soon, because I am excited to share it with you.

More good news. I have won the 1st prize at yet another film festival, this time in Warsaw, which was ace because I wanted a big screening here and I got one finally. One of the judges liked the film so much that he managed to get me a screening in the television - TVP Kultura mentioned before again. So this is it guys... years after the final shot, after a months of editing, sending dvds, months of bad luck and no-replying-to my emails people it got finally there - to the TV screen. I am so excited about it that I guess I can retire now, work on workshops for filmmakers about how to do a movie with a mop and a bucket and get it out there, only 3000 £ for a weekend session for the rest of my life. But no...

Not everything was so great after all. Over the TV Channel TVP Kultura the dark clouds began to gather and the new CEO of TVP (the public TV in Poland, sort of what is BBC in UK) has basically ceased all production in 2010 for the Kultura channel, that means the companies I've been working with this month will stop producing programmes, and will stop employing me, and there will be less filming, and usually when that happens I am not happy and when I'm not happy the world is bad also. Bad very bad, bad.

So there you go nothing is ever easy and there are more challenges for new year as always (last year there were more for the following as well... I ran out of storage space for challenges long time ago anyway).

I will write some more, soon because I have some theories about why all the companies I work for end up in big shit over time, but for today it is a long post already.

To conclude I wanted to show you a Christmas music single which I think is just great. The song is called "White wine in the sun" and it's written and performed by Tim Minchin
Youtube single

Enjoy and have a happy Christmas

One of my favorite artists - actor, comedian, director 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, author of amazing films like "Hana-bi", "Dolls", "Zatoichi" and recently "Takeshis" has started his career a as stand up comedian when another artist suddenly fell ill, and he went on stage in the man's place.
Kitano soon embarked on an acting career, and when the director of "Violent Cop" fell ill, he took over that function as well. So the lesson from this short biography is simple. I just need to wait until some cameraman, dop, director, whoever gets ill and then I will take my chance and prove to the world that I as good man for the job.

So wish you all lovely people from the industry - get sick! The swine flu it's spreading in our neighbor Ukraine, so take a deep breath, kiss your girlfriends or boyfriends or just random people on the street more often and with some passion.
No hard feelings, but I'm kind of desperate here to work.

As for other news - my Steadicam skills have improved dramatically.

... which sometimes happens to be a case with things I do in my daily life. If something fails, all the other activities which led to it had no sense whatsoever. At the moment I'm at one of these turning points, when the main scene is at hand and if I screw this one up, I might as well not bother... but no pressure!

I spent yesterday trying to figure out how to fly a steadicam... after about 3 hours I managed to balance it properly so well done! After another 3 hours I even got a few decent shots which wouldn't cause the audience to throw up. So all going well - another 2 weeks of training and I will be ready for the world... I hope the world will be ready for me as well.

I've watched some polish films during the last few weeks, starting with independent cinema at Zawiercie Film Festival, then Wojna Polsko- Ruska and Cafe Rozdroze and just a thought I had after watching it all:
We need seriously smile more, be happy, no matter what. Maybe it is a simple message, but I believe it can change a lot. Most of our modern cinema in Poland is so miserable that you wanna drown yourself in a toilet bowl after watching any of those movies. Even All Secrets is way to depressing for me to watch now. My own child.
So get over it then and keep smiling.
Keep smiling when your money is running out and you haven't been able to get a decent employment for more than a year now.
Keep smiling when your film equipment has been gathering dust on the shelves, because nobody wanted to use it.
Keep smiling when the weather is so shit in October, that you haven't seen the sun for 2 weeks.
Keep smiling because you are working on a comedy, and that is all what matters.

... and I won for the third time. I'm happy to tell you that I won the Grand Prix of 2nd Independent Polish Film Festival in Zawiercie.

This time I was actually here to receive the prize and it was a pretty surreal experience. But good times! I met some very nice people and had a great time. It all gave me kind of power and encouraged me to keep sending the movie.

I hope this energy will last.

I will need tons of it soon enough.

Hello world,

Welcome to my ongoing deja vu, another cycle which will repeat itself somehow within the next year... or maybe even sooner. This is my life, this is what I do:

1) Move to a country
2) Learn a language. If you already speak this country's language carry on to point:
3) Get a mobile number, update CV, print business cards
4) Do a list of all film production companies, which are interesting to you
5) Try to contact all the people, you think might help you achieving point:
6) Get a job...

in the meantime work on a script that will one day become a movie.
and eventually, when you've achieved point 6, and made the movie go back to point 1 but this time pick another place.
If you haven't achieved point 6 go back to point 1 anyway, because what else there is to do there ?

So next stop is... Warsaw. The city of my childhood. Once a cultural and fashionable Paris of the eastern Europe, then a war killzone hell, then a liberated wasteland, then dull and grey communist giant building project and eventually... I have no idea what. Probably chaos, which is not bad, cause out of chaos lots of things can be born, good and bad. I am really hoping for the good ones.

It is to early to say how long I am going to be here. At the moment I feel like I've fallen out of a time space stargate machine. Less than a month ago I was walking with my backpack through tropical jungles of Catalunya, sweating and fighting off wild boars. Now it is full scale winter behind my window, so I'm not trying to look out there too often. On my computer's desktop I have a live webcam feed showing Cuatro Torres in Madrid . I prefer to look there, after all who said sudden changes are easy. They aren't, neither are failed hopes and dreams.