Films and scripts
(in various stages of production)
I’m a prize-winning low-to-no budget film-maker, script writer and script assessor, producer and trained actor. Below you’ll find details of my film and documentary projects, in various stages of production. (NB Some script images are purely illustrative at the moment).
Seeking collaboration across the film-making community – contact me for more details.
Short film scripts (completed)
Featured short script:
Strider Gets Iced (filmed in Jan 2007, 25 minutes)
Locked room mystery. Detective Constable Dominic Strider of Chester CID
uncovers an elaborate con-trick carried out on a blind lady by her singer
brother during a trip to the opera in Chester. After working out how the singer – whose show they are attending – conned his sister out of £1,000s, Strider must work out how to get her money back.
Eye 4 An Eye
(in pre-production, 20 minutes)
This is a short, serious, British version of Death Wish, in which a gay man’s partner is murdered by hoodies outside his own home.
After battling through prejudice and an ineffectual police investigation, he feels so frustrated, raw and angry, and so abandoned by the legal system, that when the hoodies eventually attack him, he has to fight back.
The Height of Cheating
(in pre-production, 5 minutes)
Comedy thriller set on a rockface. Fred is a company executive into outdoor pursuits – and romancing his secretaries, including the latest one, Babs.
Both are abseiling when – shock, horror! – Fred’s furious wife suddenly appears at the top of the mountain – and starts cutting their ropes!
The Climb
(in pre-production, 10 minutes)
Set in and around the San Gabriel Mountains, a mountain range in northern Los Angeles County, California, this is a character study of a young woman called Casey, using non-linear storytelling (a la Pulp Fiction) to leap back and forth from Casey’s break-up and decision to climb the mountains, to discovering herself on her epic journey to becoming a bolder, happier person.
Feature-length scripts (completed)
A Matter of Sex
(suggested production budget £250-500,000)
Political love story set in mid-1990s, with a twist. Robbie Salter, the British Home Secretary, falls in love with down-to-earth model Rachel, unaware she is a male-to-female transsexual. With the Government under pressure to appear whiter than white, and the Opposition seeking to exploit any ‘scandal’, will Robbie dump Rachel to save the Prime Minister (his best friend), or will he do the right thing and let true love win the day?
Day of the Devil
(suggested production budget £1-2m)
Supernatural action thriller. Detective Inspector Gabriel Armstrong is a man with a secret – he’s really a guardian angel! After five teens are slaughtered on his watch, he’s made human and sent to Chester to investigate – and avenge – their deaths. Aided by Detective Sergeant Vicky Washington, he must battle devil worshippers, drug dealers and a serial killer. Will he defeat the forces of darkness before being returned to Heaven?
TBA
Feature-length scripts and documentary ideas (in progress)
Spy Dot Com
Spy action comedy. They say you should never meet your heroes. When a geeky analyst in M15 meets a Bond-like superspy, he’s in for a few surprises! Reluctantly working together, they discover a plot to destroy Parliament using rogue Wi-Fi signals. But when the superspy is nearly killed, it’s up to our geek to man up and save the day!
Stupid Cupid
Wacky rom com, in the vein of early Woody Allen films. Cinema manager Deurdhal Calhooney is unlucky in love, until a blundering Cupid is told by God to help him – with disastrous results. The pair of nitwits find themselves enlisted in the Army, just as a crazed General plots to use the Iraqi Supergun mark 2 to take over the country.
No More Lonely Nights/The Long and Winding Road/Strider Begins: Road to Nowhere
Adaptations of my Detective Constable Dominic Strider crime novels, changing from the books’ first person perspective to a more traditional third-person narrative, with various tweaks and updates to bring them more up to date, and place even more emphasis on DC Strider’s personal relationships, especially with the new love of his life Kate Laughton.
Jack the Ripper Revealed
Based on the conspiracy that Jack the Ripper was a member of the Victorian establishment and was killing the five prostitutes to cover up for the British Royal Family’s indiscretions, this sees Sherlock Holmes taking on his most challenging and deadliest investigation yet!
Documentary ideas
I am utilising my previous day job as a newspaper journalist, and current day job in government communications, to bring numerous documentary ideas to life.
These focus on a variety of topics, encompassing friendship, psychology, conspiracy theories, showbiz figures and human interest stories. Contact me directly for details and collaboration.
Other assorted film work
Directing/producing/etc
Strider Gets Iced
Director, scriptwriter, actor and producer.
Filmed 2007 in Chester Town Hall and Chester Gateway Theatre, available online, featured on IMDB.
Timing
Co-producer. Filmed 2017, director Anna Soder.
Romantic drama shot on Hampstead Heath about an ill-fated couple who are meant to be together but are never single at the same time.
Various other work:
- FX work – When Nature Calls (Celtic Storm Productions)
- Various filming and editing of footage for Chester Chronicle and Ellesmere Port Pioneer newspapers while chief reporter/deputy editor, covering industrial disputes, appearances by pop stars, rolling news events, etc…
Script assessment work for others
200+ mainly feature-length scripts assessed via advertising put on Shooting People website since 2007.
Assessments done through my own company Lonely Nights Productions.
Scripts vary from murder mysteries, thrillers, and ones featuring time travel, World War Two, space and the Russian Revolution. Very good feedback received on all my work.
In 2014, I was a script judge with the British Independent Film Festival (genres horror, drama and animation).
Selected other scripts assessed include:
The Squirrel Pill (Celtic Storm Productions) – cartoon short
Before I Die (formerly Oblivion, Celtic Storm Productions) – male bonding drama, based on my original idea
Dead Trust (Celtic Storm Productions) – feature-length gangster thriller, starring Leslie Grantham
Killing Johnnie (Sundae Jahant Osborn) – feature-length comedy assassin thriller.
Holiday Home, aka Staycation (Sundae Jahant Osborn) – feature length family comedy
NB Other smaller script work undertaken with same author
Film courses/events attended (sample)
- Raindance 99-minute film school, Jan 2024
- ‘Acting Funny’, comedy acting improv workshop with Nick Reed and Ewen Macintosh, aka Big Keith from The Office, Kentish Town, London, Feb 2016
- Raindance masterclass refresher course, Sept 2014
- Acting Workshop with Nick Reed and Simone Lahbib (actress, Bad Girls), at Clean Break Studio, Kentish Town, London, Sept 2012
- Acting Masterclass & Showreels, with Andrew Higgs, London, Jan 2012
- Marketing Yourself as an Actor, with Andrew Higgs, 2011
- Guerilla Film-maker’s Masterclass, with Chris Jones, Regent’s College, 2011
- Acting for Camera 1 & 2, City Lit, Covent Garden, 2010 & 2011
- Film Directing Foundation Certificate, Raindance, 2010
- Serious Script-writing, Bafta, 2010
- Low Budget Film-making, with Chris Jones, Ealing Studios, 2010
- EuroScript, Getting Into the Industry, 2010
- Method Acting, City Lit, Convent Garden, 2010
- Filming with Richard Jobson, Liverpool, 2009
- Directing the Camera, with cameraman Dave Read, Pinewood Studios, 2008
- Private acting classes with tutor Zoe Nathanson, London, 2007/8
- Low to No Budget Film-making, with Elliot Grove, Raindance, 2006
Picture of participants of ‘Acting Funny’, comedy acting improv workshop with Nick Reed and Ewen Macintosh, aka Big Keith from The Office, Kentish Town, London, Feb 2016.
Lonely Nights Productions 