Hiya! Quick update to let you know what's going on. Skins is on holiday at the moment, and we're just about to start filming series 3 part 2.
My episode, ep 2, was the first to be filmed, and so is the first to be edited. I'm hopefully going to see it today, looking forward to seeing what they've done with it.
We've got some great guest stars all the way through the first half of series 3, plus some familiar faces. Ep 5 in particular has a couple of great actors and personalities in it, and I look forward to seeing what they can do. Scott Mills was great, apparently!
I'm not too tuned into Skins at the moment, because I've been working on this BBC3 show, Phoo Action. Some of you might have seen the pilot broadcast earlier this year - it's been picked up and they're making a series of it, which I'm very happy to be involved in. I'm writing episode 4. It's the first non-Skins script I've ever written, and it's absolutely insane! I get to write complicated fight scenes, mad as trousers dream sequences and come up with loopy as fuck monsters. All in all, good fun. A challenge, though. If I want to write on other shows, I have to prove that I can do so, and this is my chance. Wish me luck!
The other thing that's going on is that me and Bryan are developing another show, this time for a younger audience. He announced it at a festival the other day (Alex at Skinsnation, diligent, meek Alex, picked it up like the hawk he is). I'm following Bryan's lead and not saying anything till it's set in stone and we know we're going to make it, but I will say this; I am very, very excited. If I get my way, it'll be something really different, that all ages can enjoy.
ANOTHER thing that's going on is that I'm involved with a film. I don't know how much I can say, but it's an adaptation of a story by Mancunian sci-fi writer, a massive hero of mine, and the director is brilliant, responsible in some manner for some of the best documentaries of the past few years.
Other than that, make sure those of you in London go and see Lucy Kirkwood's new play, Hedda, at the Gate. Looks really good to me - Lucy is possibly one of the most talented young writers in the country, and anything she does is worth seeing (including ep 9 of series 3 of Skins).
Stay cool, dudes.
Jx.
Sunday 31 August 2008
Tuesday 8 July 2008
Gig
Robin Ince just emailed me the following, for all you in London:
"THIS SUNDAY
Jo Brand, Jo Neary, Jo Enright, Tim Minchin, Ed Byrne, Milton Jones,
Steve Merchant, Mark Steel, Mat Holness, Dan Antopolski and Robin Ince
will be performing at the Bloomsbury in a special benefit night for
William's Fund."
I'll be going. Will you?
"THIS SUNDAY
Jo Brand, Jo Neary, Jo Enright, Tim Minchin, Ed Byrne, Milton Jones,
Steve Merchant, Mark Steel, Mat Holness, Dan Antopolski and Robin Ince
will be performing at the Bloomsbury in a special benefit night for
William's Fund."
I'll be going. Will you?
Sunday 22 June 2008
Series 3
Hello all. Sorry it has been so long since I last updated, I've been alternately busy and lazy and that's why. As I type, filming on Skins will begin in about four hours (although they did shoot a scene last week for some reason). Last week was spent in Bristol fine tuning my script for series 3, episode 2 following the readthrough. The readthrough was thought by some of those attending to have been one of the best anyone has ever seen, and while I'm not sure of that, there were certainly plenty of laughs. I couldn't be more pleased with the actor I have got for my episode, for a character I originated. He's nothing like I imagined he would be; he's much, much better.
My script is something I'm dead chuffed with - I think it's the best out of the three I've written. The script I wrote last year (Tony) I was very happy with, but it was quite strange and difficult. This one is much more fun, much more energetic, much more classic Skins. I've got a great guest actor in it too, though I can't say who it is yet, nor can I think of a good clue that wouldn't give him away. Er. He played a beloved character in a sitcom a few years ago. That'll do till I think of something better.
The other scripts are in good shape too - we've got some really good young writers working with us this year. Returning is Daniel Kaluuya, writing ep 3, Ben Schiffer, writing ep 5 and ep 10, Lucy Kirkwood, writing 7, I think. New people are Georgia Lester and Athia Sen Gupta, both only 19 (!) writing 4 and 6 respectively. The great Robin Ince is doing one, and fresh from Shameless, is the lovely Malcolm who completes the writing team along with me Daddy, B Elsley. Josie Long is still helping out, and also the terribly nice and terribly funny Isy Suttie, last seen playing Dobby on Peep Show, is along for the ride.
I got to meet some cool people at the Skins party in London, which was great fun. I can't remember their names, but the very nice dudes who run Skinsnation and Skinsis interviewed me whilst I was pretty drunk. I'm eager to see what I said - and if I gave anything away that I shouldn't!
I finally got to meet most, but not all, of the new cast, who are all really nice people, in keeping with Skins hiring policy of only lovelies being allowed. A couple of them had exams so couldn't be there, but I'm sure I'll get to meet them soon.
I'm having a break now. I'll still attend the writers meetings, but my big job for this year is over. I'll try and update the blog a bit more than I have done recently. I'm about to start work writing for a show at the beeb, then after that another thing with Company that is very exciting - more later.
Oh, and I'll be on the skinslife website this week taking questions. If you've got anything to ask me, head over to skinslife.com and post away.
MGS4 rules.
Jx.
If you see me at Glastonbury, say hello.
My script is something I'm dead chuffed with - I think it's the best out of the three I've written. The script I wrote last year (Tony) I was very happy with, but it was quite strange and difficult. This one is much more fun, much more energetic, much more classic Skins. I've got a great guest actor in it too, though I can't say who it is yet, nor can I think of a good clue that wouldn't give him away. Er. He played a beloved character in a sitcom a few years ago. That'll do till I think of something better.
The other scripts are in good shape too - we've got some really good young writers working with us this year. Returning is Daniel Kaluuya, writing ep 3, Ben Schiffer, writing ep 5 and ep 10, Lucy Kirkwood, writing 7, I think. New people are Georgia Lester and Athia Sen Gupta, both only 19 (!) writing 4 and 6 respectively. The great Robin Ince is doing one, and fresh from Shameless, is the lovely Malcolm who completes the writing team along with me Daddy, B Elsley. Josie Long is still helping out, and also the terribly nice and terribly funny Isy Suttie, last seen playing Dobby on Peep Show, is along for the ride.
I got to meet some cool people at the Skins party in London, which was great fun. I can't remember their names, but the very nice dudes who run Skinsnation and Skinsis interviewed me whilst I was pretty drunk. I'm eager to see what I said - and if I gave anything away that I shouldn't!
I finally got to meet most, but not all, of the new cast, who are all really nice people, in keeping with Skins hiring policy of only lovelies being allowed. A couple of them had exams so couldn't be there, but I'm sure I'll get to meet them soon.
I'm having a break now. I'll still attend the writers meetings, but my big job for this year is over. I'll try and update the blog a bit more than I have done recently. I'm about to start work writing for a show at the beeb, then after that another thing with Company that is very exciting - more later.
Oh, and I'll be on the skinslife website this week taking questions. If you've got anything to ask me, head over to skinslife.com and post away.
MGS4 rules.
Jx.
If you see me at Glastonbury, say hello.
Thursday 3 January 2008
Commentary
There's going to be a new Skins site launching in about a month - it's an independent thing, separate to the e4 one. Lots of exciting stuff. The commentaries are going to be among the first things posted on that, so there you go.
Jx.
Jx.
Thursday 20 December 2007
Done
So, series 2 is wrapped! I was on set last Friday to watch them shoot the last scene. Everyone; all the crew, the writers, the producers, those faceless BASTARDS at e4 (Joke!) are really pleased with and proud of what we've all accomplished this year. Though it's a few month's before we're truly finished editing, dubbing and grading, the hard graft is done for most (though not for our most excellent and diligent editors, dubbers, and graders) and the general consensus is that series 2 of Skins is harder, faster, stronger and fuck it, better than series 1. I hope that's not too much of an insult to all the work that everyone put in on series 1! (which is something we're all proud of too).
Before I forget, there's a new Skins website up now. It's quite funky. The Skins writers have contributed blogs and video diary's, which are all good fun, and are full of fun stuff.
Last couple of days, I've been shooting one of our online webisodes. Chris Clough, our producer, thought it would be fun to let some members of the team direct. I've done one, the 1st Assistant Director Adam Locke has done one (possibly the only person to really know what he was doing), the very able Mr Ben Schiffer has done two (he gets to do two because he's sleeping with the King of Telly), Ms Josie Long did one and Mr Nicholas Hoult (Yes! Him off the telly!) did one.
Now, I can't speak for the others, but I was fucking petrified when I did mine. It turned out well, but my dream of being the next Paul Thomas Anderson is further away than I thought, methinks. Mine will be shown before episode 6, Ben's excellent Christmas episode will be on the net on Christmas Day (same time as the Queen's speech).
Now, I'm not going to give too much away here, but series 3 is already being thought up. I'm going to piss off publicity by talking about this, but a couple of weeks ago, me and the writing team went off to a hotel near Newmarket to cook up ideas. Here's a photo of us there:
From left to right; that's me standing up, Lucy Kirkwood, Ben Schiffer, Daniel Kaluuya and Toby Welch (he came along to take notes).
As I say, I'm not giving anything away but we're very excited.
Oh, sorry about the commentaries - I couldn't get the technology sorted out in time and now the flatmate with the gear has moved out. Sorry. I'll try and get them done soon.
Keep the comments coming, and have a good Xmas.
jx
Before I forget, there's a new Skins website up now. It's quite funky. The Skins writers have contributed blogs and video diary's, which are all good fun, and are full of fun stuff.
Last couple of days, I've been shooting one of our online webisodes. Chris Clough, our producer, thought it would be fun to let some members of the team direct. I've done one, the 1st Assistant Director Adam Locke has done one (possibly the only person to really know what he was doing), the very able Mr Ben Schiffer has done two (he gets to do two because he's sleeping with the King of Telly), Ms Josie Long did one and Mr Nicholas Hoult (Yes! Him off the telly!) did one.
Now, I can't speak for the others, but I was fucking petrified when I did mine. It turned out well, but my dream of being the next Paul Thomas Anderson is further away than I thought, methinks. Mine will be shown before episode 6, Ben's excellent Christmas episode will be on the net on Christmas Day (same time as the Queen's speech).
Now, I'm not going to give too much away here, but series 3 is already being thought up. I'm going to piss off publicity by talking about this, but a couple of weeks ago, me and the writing team went off to a hotel near Newmarket to cook up ideas. Here's a photo of us there:
From left to right; that's me standing up, Lucy Kirkwood, Ben Schiffer, Daniel Kaluuya and Toby Welch (he came along to take notes).
As I say, I'm not giving anything away but we're very excited.
Oh, sorry about the commentaries - I couldn't get the technology sorted out in time and now the flatmate with the gear has moved out. Sorry. I'll try and get them done soon.
Keep the comments coming, and have a good Xmas.
jx
Friday 2 November 2007
Friday 28 September 2007
The DVD
Hope you're enjoying the Skins DVD that came out this week. Skinsonline mentioned that the music is different to that of the televised version, and speculated that it is due to rights. This is correct. Unfortunately, there was simply no way that we could afford to use the music we used on TV on the DVD, and so this was the only way that the show could be released. Sorry about that. Though I think that the music we had specially commissioned for the DVD is pretty good.
From the forums I can tell that people are also a bit disappointed that there are no commentaries on the discs. I'm going to solve that by recording some myself and posting them here in the coming weeks. If they prove popular, I'll try and get one done for every episode, and I'll do my best to involve all the writers/directors/actors and the what not.
The commentary for ep one should be here at the beginning of next week.
J.x
From the forums I can tell that people are also a bit disappointed that there are no commentaries on the discs. I'm going to solve that by recording some myself and posting them here in the coming weeks. If they prove popular, I'll try and get one done for every episode, and I'll do my best to involve all the writers/directors/actors and the what not.
The commentary for ep one should be here at the beginning of next week.
J.x
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