I have been very quiet on the blog front over the past few weeks so this is a short update of a couple of smaller projects I was involved with in June.
I accepted a role offered by the grad students in IADT Dun Laoghaire leading to an enjoyable and eventful week working with them on “Escape”. The piece was very visual and we had some interesting set ups, including a night shoot in a forest. Broken mirrors were suspended from the trees and reflecting light everywhere for part of a dream sequence.. It looked great on the night and I’m sure it’ll transfer well onto screen.
I also embarked on my first attempt at a short film of my own. An actor friend of mine, Linda Teehan, and I have been talking about putting something together ourselves for a little while now, so we bit the bullet and got down to business. We improvised some ideas together first of all, and although our ideas ranged from drama to black comedy, somehow a script for our 4 minute comedy short film evolved. Thankfully we were fortunate to enlist the help of Noel Brady of Phoenix Artz for camera and editing, and with him Ashleigh Ekins for sound. Our final input came from Dylan McDonough who played the role of the doctor for us. The concept was simple enough, so a short filming period and lightning quick editing from Noel meant our little short was packaged up and ready for festival submission within a matter of days. “Waiting Room” is the first production from TeeCarr Productions, we hope to get accepted into festivals and hopefully we’ll move on and film a few more little projects in the future.
That’s all for this little update… stay tuned as always for more information.
Sarah 
For a while now I’ve been meaning to write about a newish venture and great new asset to the Independent Filmmakers of Ireland, Underground Cinema, developed and co-ordinated by Dave Byrne. Dave has successfully run Bluemoon Theatre Company for many years and I came to know him when I had the pleasure of working on one of their productions in 2008.
Last year however, Dave changed course from the theatre company with the introduction of his new project, a monthly screening night in the Kingston Hotel Dun Laoghaire for Irish Short films, Underground Cinema. The idea behind Underground is to air the many wonderful independent Irish Shorts shot throughout the year that very often don’t get the screening time they deserve. Dave has opened the doors to anything which is sent to him, stating that any genre or convention is welcome. Over the months the screenings have also stretched to cover music videos and the occasional feature film. Another great aspect of Underground Cinema is that these monthly screenings will culminate into a nominations night in the Kingston Hotel, the Underground Film Festival in the IMC Dun Laoghaire and the Underground Cinema Awards (Black Tie Event) in Fitzpatricks Castle Hotel Killiney in September.
The whole project is ambitious to say the least and has so far had a well deserved great reaction, but this project has legs and is expanding all the time with Daves further introductions:
Underground TV (a live online showing of films with the director available for live chat afterwards)
Underground Cinema Roadshow (screenings held to a wider audience in venues throughout Ireland and the UK)
Underground Cinema Movie Marquee (a film tent appearing at various summer festivals)
Underground Cinema Movie Workshops (delivering valuable workshops in many aspects of film making)
I’m sure I’ll be writing more over the coming months about the exciting development of Underground Cinema but of course there’s much more to read about on the official Underground Cinema website and you can keep updated with the events by following on Facebook and Twitter.
Enjoy,
Sarah
Unfortunately I’ve been up to my eyes since attending the Irish Times Theatre Awards so my apologies as this blog post is more then a little overdue. The Awards had a change of venue and a change in the running of the event, but the toned down and more “climate appropriate” version in Vicar Street was a credit to the Irish Times and the organisers none the less.
Of course the night was topped off with the fantastic news that Director/Co-ordinator of The Core Dublin and The Trojan Women, Rodrigo Rodrigues begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting, took home the very beautiful (and very heavy) award for “Best Designer: Costume”. A fantastic accomplishment!
It must be noted, that for many of us in the audience that night, the year ahead is one filled with enormous strain and uncertainty as the announcement of the Arts Council’s funding decisions for 2010 was ringing in our ears. However, it was addressed on the night that many of the smaller companies in particular had quick reaction to the crisis to thank for maintaining some level of success. Some recognition of this, I think, is the fact that on a budget of zero Rodrigo managed to work in a way that still achieved a level of production and design standard high enough to scoop an Irish Thearte Award. But overall the night was one to be enjoyed, and a huge achievement for Rodrigo and The Core Dublins first production.
Rodrigo took to the stage with Co-Director of The Trojan Women Alan King, and with a little beckoning from them, myself and Phyllis Carthy joined them on stage as Rodrigo accepted the award.
Congratulations and well done Rodrigo!!
Sarah
First up, please forgive me if there’s more then my usual amount of grammar and spelling mistakes today. I’m running on 2 and half hours sleep after celebrating the premier of Covies in Westport last night. It was a fantastic night all round, a genuine pleasure to be back in the town and meeting everyone from the project again. We were celebrating in style in the Castlecourt Hotel where we were well looked after. Of course it continued from there to the adjoining nightclub and then on to Daves house till the wee hours of the morning.
Episode 1, 2 and 3 were screened and were a roaring success. I hadn’t seen any of them and found it hilarious, entertaining and disturbing in all the right places. It’s a mad show, Father Ted meets Twin Peaks as described by Durcs (cameraman).
The first episode went live online officially at 9pm this evening, catch it in all it’s glory here.
Enjoy and please keep following.
Sarah
