Secret Cinema: Back to 1955

The first rule of Secret Cinema is 'tell no one', but in the case of this community, the cat has been out of the bag for a good while. When the tickets to the community's Back to the Future event came on sale, several newspapers stated how the booking system had failed and how they would reopen the following day. Prior to these articles, I had not heard of that this would be the community's next event, and so, being a true 80s kid and a die-hard BTTF fan, I just knew I had to get tickets.

On the day when the ticket sale opened, I queued for an hour to get through to the bookings website, without luck. A few hours later, I tried again and managed to get tickets for both me and my boyfriend for a Thursday evening show, one week after the initial opening. But things didn't go as planned.

A week before the premiere, just an hour before the show was about the start, the show was cancelled. The same happened for every single performance until our show date, 31st of July. With the angry comments and the lack of communication experienced by fellow ticketholders, my enthusiasm plummeted. And finally, when my boyfriend announced me on Wednesday that he could not make the show due to work commitments, I felt defeated. What made matters worse was that resale of the tickets was prohibited – the organisers stated that they would carry out ID checks at the gate – and that cancelling or changing the dates was not allowed, either. I felt stuck and cheated, and decided not to go.

Last Thursday, a friend of mine contacted me and asked me if I was interested in going to the event on Friday. One of her friends had cancelled and they had a spare ticket. I decided to join them on the last minute.

I quickly put together a 1955-style costume of sorts and acquired a 1955 identity – an extra feature that the organisers promoted – and so I became Michelle Bush, Proof Reader at the Hill Valley Telegraph. At 5.30pm on Friday night, I was on my way to Hill Valley (or in this case, East London).

When the gates opened, I got to step into an amazing, inspiring replica of the world of the BTTF films. I got to visit both George McFly's and Biff Tannen's home, walk around in Doc's timeless house, skip rope with high school kids and play pinball at the punky Cafe 80s. I jumped in Biff Tannen's red convertible, sat on the backseat while he gave my friends a ride from the Town Hall to Lou's Diner, and was abandoned by him when he went up to fight George McFly. I ate a cheeseburger with fries and drank white wine at the green, surrounded by hundreds of fellow 50s kids.

The evening was crowned by a screening of the film – we sat on the village green, witnessing when the film was reflected against the silhouette of the Town Hall. As the film progressed, we got to see real-life actors complementing the storyline, acting out scenes around the replica set as they happened on screen. From Marty trailing the cars on his skateboard to Doc sliding down from the clock tower, the events were breathtakingly cool and inspiring.

As an aspiring screenwriter, I could not help but note how fantastic the film's screenplay was as well. My friend, a fellow screenwriter, was equally impressed. There is nothing unnecessary in the film; every little detail has a meaning in the bigger picture. I definitely need to read the script at some point.

So overall, the experience was an amazing one. I have never been to an event like this – and I doubt I ever will again. Such an inspiring, cool and fun evening, albeit a pricey one. With tickets costing over £50 each, all the food and drink were added on top... Not great with a student budget!

So despite the bad press, I would definitely recommend the BTTF Secret Cinema experience, or any Secret Cinema experience. I would love to go to another one – let's see what the future holds!

Michelle Bush, Proof Reader,

"The Foghorn" – Broadcast Date for my first Radio Monologue!

Exciting news! As part of my course, I wrote a short radio monologue under the topic of "Voices From Another World". My little piece, called The Foghorn, centres around a lonely lighthouse worker who attempts to fix a broken foghorn while a ship approaches on the foggy seas. Meanwhile, his mind is occupied by a tumultuous relationship he can't get over.

Now, the fruit of my labour has been recorded by my university's Sound Arts students, and it will be broadcast on Resonance FM on 28 May at 2pm (you can listen to it online anywhere in the world and a podcast should be available later). It will also be played through The Exponential Horn, the UK's largest loudspeaker, at the Science Museum, but I don't have the exact details on that yet.

My first professional credit – brilliant! I haven't heard the actual recording yet, but I have faith in the students.

The Importance of a Good Structure

Concept sentence, action-idea, premise, tagline... It sounds really easy – somebody wants something for a specific reason but it is impossible because of a specific obstacle. And that should be the core of the screenplay where all of the events and actions stem from. So basically 'nail down the premise and build your film from there'.

SIGH. More of then than once, I have heard the term 'development hell'. Getting caught in a limbo of honing this, changing that, amending this, correcting that. Bringing a secondary character forward as the protagonist, making the antagonist the protagonist, cutting characters and merging storylines. Cutting useless plot dimensions and focusing on the main storyline sounds simple but it is harder than it appears. The temptation to add complications and twists is a hard one to resist.

During the past few months, I have been focusing on nailing down the basics of the film. This has consisted of writing the premise, moving onto a 2-page outline and finally working out a 5-10 page treatment of the film. With each step I've taken, I have received valuable feedback that has been really, really useful. Workshopping with my fellow students has led me to notice a lot of inconsistencies and ways in which I should hone the focus of the story. For me personally, this has meant changing the themes of my piece and eliminating useless plot twists. It is safe to say that I have learned far more during the past two months than I did last year.

In terms of my film project, I feel like I am in a relatively good place. Next up, I need to do a bit of re-writing on that, take a few ganders at my secondary TV project and finish work on a small extracurricular project, which sees me write a five-minute radio monologue that will be broadcast on Resonance FM. It is a really exciting opportunity and collaborating with the sound arts students, who will be taking care of the practicalities of the sound world, has been really enlightening and refreshing. Stay tuned for updates on this one - my first real production credit! :-)

I also got promoted at work, which makes me a very happy bunny indeed. It is not a major change, but it is nice to feel appreciated. My employer has been really good to me in terms of allowing me to work four-days-a-week due to my studies and even giving me a promotion while on that limited schedule.

Also – in the beginning of February, I finally moved to a nicer home and so far, I'm loving it. After all, an aspiring writer not only needs to write a good structure for her feature films, but also needs to establish a 'good structure' for her life as well – a nice bed to sleep on, a quiet environment to write in and good transport links wherever her quill might take her.

Overall, I am really happy about everything right now – I wish that life could always be this rewarding, thrilling and exciting! :-)

Bang - it's 2014!

The new year has begun with a bang: during the first week and a half, I already finished an essay and a two-page project outline for university. On top of that, I returned to my job in the office and begun to pack up my things, as I am moving to a new place at the end of the month. However, I have to admit that I quite like being a busy bee.

I spent an amazing Christmas in the English countryside with my boyfriend's family. It was my second Christmas without my family, so I felt very homesick, especially on Christmas Eve. However, Christmas Day was amazing! Everyone made me feel very welcome and loved so I ended up having a really nice, relaxing time. Having time off from everything was really good as well. I allowed myself to do nothing for a good five days, and then slowly returned to work-mode by picking up university work. And on Monday, I returned to work in the office.

Writing-wise, I have just begun work on my final university project, due in December 2014. We were asked to choose between writing a 90-page feature film or 60 pages of original TV, and I really struggled with my decision. While I've always wanted to write television and create my own show, I was under the impression that most production companies, even when their work focuses on TV, ask to see a film script instead of TV script. According to my understanding, this is mainly due to the fact that film tends to tell a complete story with a distinct beginning, middle and end, illustrating the writer's ability to keep a story together.

Fortunately, we were told that while we were to choose one or the other as our main project, we could pursue the other as a minor project. I felt relieved that we could do both, but the dilemma persisted. Which one should I choose as my main one?

After careful consideration, I finally decided to focus on a feature and pursue TV as a second project, aspiring to write a script for that, too. Now I don't want to say too much about my two projects, but I do have distinct ideas for both, but they might still change considerably. The feature is a science fiction thriller set in space while the TV project is a dark drama set in post-WWI London.

So yeah, that's it for now. Blog-wise, I've changed the layout - do like the new background? I made it myself from illustrations of Charles Dana Gibson. A romantic writer girl at work...