The script that still hasn't been looked at!!

Why is it that the things we know to be the most important in life almost always tend to be the ones that are side-lined whilst the mundane aspects of existence leisurely eat up copious amounts of time, especially mine???

A sane view would be to assign time where it was most required. Afterall weekends are all too fleeting, absorbed (as they are) by trips to the supermarket where all manner of braindead minions seem to instinctively know which aisle I want to be down and aim to prevent me from doing so. Then there are the delightful queues at the bank designed to forever remain static despite the valiant efforts of two middle aged women who never have enough colleagues to sit the three empty desks. And lest we forget the two pairs of canine brown eyes who stare longingly at me whilst I hastily eat a toasted (and always slightly burnt) waffle in the morning.
Perhaps I need to manage my time better or perhaps I'd be better suited assuming the life of a hermit where at least I may have a chance at working on something that might well change my life.

I'm not a diabolical genius or crazed inventor obsessed with time travel or anything but in my own way I hold the key for change. Yes, that desperate hope I've held for well over a decade of being a proper film director is within my grasp...finally. After a multitude of failed or abandoned projects, of half finished cinematic endeavours and scripts that were barely legible I finally have a decent chance. All things really do come to those who wait.
It's called 'Mannequin Kind' and was developed by myself, Julie and our friend Michael Lieber who is going to be starring in the lead role. It's been something we've talked over since February and in January we'll be shooting with an aim to enter the short film festivals............so watch out, the revolution is coming!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been too long, lets get this thing updated!!!

Greetings,

I have returned from the darkness to enlighten you all once more as to my present situation and whereabouts. And before anyone out there starts thinking just who, the hell, is this guy and why should I care? I wish to make it clear that I am in no way an egomaniac and I am well aware that my influence would be lucky to push the dizzy heights of three in terms of followers but, well...everyone has to start somewhere. So for those precious few of you who actually wish to read on I shall endeavour to continue.

In fact so much has happened I'm finding it difficult to choose a point from which to restart my story but in the interests of decency I think I'll start in January of last year, the 24th to be precise (if I have in fact covered this please feel at liberty to skip on). Why the 24th?? Why not the 23rd?? The 23rd would be a great point to start as it was the night I finally got to see Kittie live in Camden...something I'd wanted to do for around a decade. Of course it may have made even more sense to pick the 20th, my 28th birthday but I shall stay with the 24th for one very important reason...Julie Saunders!!!

I met her in a rain swept car park at Southend Victoria train station on a Sunday afternoon having had a late night the previous Saturday in London where I'd spent my birthday money on vinyl and (as I mentioned) later on saw Kittie. The trains in truth were not running, at least not as far as Southend, and a replacement bus service was put into effect which is why I was perched atop a flower bed in a jumper/hoody thing I'd bought whilst working in Burtons (gotta love a staff discount). The reason for all this can be placed firmly on a frustrated afternoon in that period of time between Christmas & New Year when everybody flocks to malls and desperately hunts for bargains in largely disappointing sales. My sitcom, High Spirits was still just a script, my attempts to convert it into a cheaply made pilot lay left in tatters by the way side and I wondered if anyone out there could help. So with a quick trip to Gumtree I scribbled a hasty advert pleading for actors, equipment and anyone who wanted to help and waited for the floods of emails. The four I recieved looked promising at first but all turned out to be time wasters (why is the internet full of those jerks) and then I get a fifth, this ones a girl..ding dong!! I replied, she emailed back..so far so good. We moved our correspondents to facebook, which I recommended purely because it gives the other person more of an idea of who you are, afterall we upload pictures and fill in all those like/dislike boxes for bands, music etc. First thing I noticed was how hot she was and then how much in common we had and then finally that she was single. We arrange to meet up and she came from Shepperton to Southend and it was a match made in heaven, we've never looked back from that instant onwards, although it took a few weeks to finally confirm our sentiments to each other and do stuff like hold hands. Julie I love you more than you can ever know.

Did we actually film a pilot for High Spirits? Honestly? Well, no it's yet to be anything but a script but who knows what the future holds. I've been too busy working on other projects since film school.

WWWWWWWWHAT!!!!! Film school? What? When? How? Why? Ok so you're reading this in the privacy of your own space but can I at least hope I evoked such a reaction?
In the January of this year (that's 2011) I enrolled on a certificate film-making course at the London Film Academy and had a blast. After the over indulgences of Christmas and months of pleading those in charge at work to let me take the time off I spent a month learning about HOW to make a movie and actually MAKE a movie. I made a promise to myself that I would be top of class for once in my life, that I would push for something I wanted to achieve and not allow the opportunity to slide through my fingers like my GCSE's, A-levels and University education. There we 12 of us and only 4 films being made, those chosen to direct would have to prove themselves worthy of such an accolade and EVERYBODY wanted to direct. I pulled out every stop and was chosen to direct a short film by the name of Heirloom that I was able to stamp my mark upon. I cast a young actor by the name of Michael Lieber who has since become a good friend to Julie and I and who called us up with an idea for a movie that we are now preparing to shoot when we all the relevant time available. Being at the LFA gave me a huge boost of confidence in myself and belief that I can do something that people might well respect me for. We'll have to see on that one but while I'm blowing emphatically on my own trumpet I'm going to say that I graduated with a distinction, something most others didn't manage. MUST BE HUMBLE, MUST BE HUMBLE!!!

You may not know that Julie and I also have our own radio show on www.essex-radio.com on Wednesdays at 8PM and sometimes we get as many as 3, that's 3 whole listeners. Can I hope to double these figures? Or even scale the dizzy heights of double figures, who knows??

Stay tuned for more of these blog entries, seriously there's so much I haven't even touched upon...and if you respond I promise I'll continue with stories about the 4 weddings...yes 4 and I might even touch upon just how I chipped my elbow. If you're really lucky I might give details of our new business venture in making music promo's for some awesome new bands.

Curious??

Dammit Janet!!!!!!!

A fond greeting I bid all of you who have returned to read this blog, I shall endeavour to be worthy of your time. But, I make no promises.

From my last blog post until this very moment rather a lot has happened, some of it funny, some of it dull, with (by far) the largest portion dedicated to the killing of time until the weekend showed up and I got to see Julie....let me off I'm in love.

Lets see, the week pretty much passed without much incident, the usual pattern of waking up, going to work, returning and falling asleep saw off that Monday through Friday slog. Because for me friday night is the point I long for, 2 whole days spent with Julie and a late night that very evening. This friday we rented the new Ridley Scott 'Robin Hood' movie using a free voucher we had claimed online....thankfully therefore we parted with no actual money for that privilege. Were I to delve into the numerous reasons for that movies failings I'd be here until the day after doomsday....yes it really is that bad, not AVATAR bad but close enough. What annoyed us most was the fact that it came from Ridley Scott....the dude knows better, I mean this is THE guy who gave us 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner'!!!!!! Add to this the drunken comments of my mother who chose to remind us at every opportunity that the historical accuracy was far removed from reality and the fact that its 150 minute running time dragged its heels to the point where death seemed a viable option of escape!!!! Watch at your own risk!!!

On Saturday we made our way to Southend for an errand but ended up staying in town for a while. Julie found an awesome dress that she'd wanted for about 20 years...perhaps I should clarify, it was the style rather than a specific dress left haning on a rail since 1990. We had lunch in 'The Alex' which for those of you unfamiliar with Essex is an alternative pub where Julie and had our first meeting way back in January. We then paid a visit to my nan; returned home; cooked a meal and curled up on the sofa to watch 'The Hangover' of sky movies. Another terrible movie...what are the odds. Ever since it came out I've heard nothing but praise for this damned film so, naturally, expectations were raised. Not one laugh did either of us have :(
Thankfully Julie had bought a copy of 'Mafia 2' so the evening perked up considerably as we stole cars and sold them to dodgy Italian-American characters.

Now on Sunday we recorded our first ever radio show which will hopefully be aired on Essex-radio....worry not I shall post a link in due course. I don't want to say too much until we know whats going to happen with it but we had a great time doing it and look forward to recording more. Stay tuned!!!!!!!

Why the Freddy pic above???? Simple the original movie came out today on blu ray and I (naively) thought I'd go and pick it up from Southend this afternoon. No such luck with the sucky shops we have here to I've had to purchase it on play.com and won't be able to give it a spin until thursday (postman permitting)

Stay cool people
Love

Not going to Jamaica!!!!!

As late afternoon morphs seemlessly into evening on what has been a cloudy monday I find myself trying to piece together every thread of the weekend just passed and realising that for 2 days spent not doing much rather a lot happened....confused, I shall explain.

For me the weekend begins not on saturday morning but friday afternoon, 3.05pm to be exact...the very moment that the school bell rings out and finally offers me liberty from the shackles of the work arena. Another week over, another weekend to spend with Julie and the sanity that she provides for me whilst I regale to her the details of my last (and largely pointless) 5 days. Our weekend was originally to be spent in Southend but due to a family gathering in Liverpool and the necessity of looking after Snowy it was obvious that I would be driving down to Shepperton afterall. Not that I am for one second complaining...a flat to ourselves, an escape from Southend, the chance to listen to more Smodcasts (more on that later) and two whole days spent with Julie is more than I could ever wish for. As usual I jumped into my car at 8 and got stuck in what was left of the frantic traffic jams that block the Dartford Bridge on a friday evening as everyone and his dog seems intent on doing the same. Not that it bothers me when I have a long back list of Smodcasts to plough through and an ipod with more memory than I know what to do with. To those of you scratching your heads in wonder at what the hell a 'Smodcast' is I recommend checking out i-tunes. Nothing more than a podcast put out by Kevin Smith and (usually) Scott Mosier but about as funny and wide ranging as conversations about nothing can be, I've found myself obsessively working my way through the 120 of them that I currently have back logged...only 97 more to go!!!!! Anyway at about 10 I arrive in Shepperton and get to hold Julie after thinking about doing just that since the previous Sunday and we struggle in with the x-box that I brought down so that we could play Assassins Creed 2. One cup of tea later and I'm relaying the details of the weird stalker I have on facebook...yes another one folks....who lives in Egypt this time, how cosmopolitan am I??? Now me being the facebook slut that I am I accept EVERYONE and ANYONE that requests friendship from yours truly and every now again I get a psycho asking me random questions. Now after only 3 days of saying 'hi' on that facebook pop-up chat thingy I'm asked for my phone number and invited to Egypt that night because they want to 'hear my voice'....best thing to do in that situation is log off, IMMEDIATLY!!!! All this and I'm still not finished with Friday night yet, for the best bit is yet to come!! As the early hours of Saturday morning roll into view we are aware of voices outside, lots of voices that quickly esculate to heated and shouting voices and as we peer out of the window a horrible sight awaits our gaze...CHAVS. Not one or two but about 20, all of them inebriated to some degree and all in mutual agreement that the place to be is outside our flat (ok it's not 'our' flat but we were the only ones there). Before we can take all this in the road is quickly semi blocked as other chavs just pull up and stop to talk, to such a degree that other drivers have to use the opposite side of the road to carry on their journey. Within minutes arguments broke out, kids were swearing at each other, glasses are being broken, two of the bastards decided to lean on my car and three of them chose to enter the garden (our garden) and converse in some privacy. Thankfully with Snowy needing a wee in the garden they rapidly dispersed at the sight of a large husky coming their way but it wasn't until a fight broke out and some complete psycho started headbutting someone who offended him that attentions were diverted away from our front garden. With the wounded man taking refuge in his car as the psycho kicked it and screamed at the window we reached a mutual agreement that enough was enough and called the police, luckily they arrived while Julie was still making the call so someone else must have raised the alarm. Most of them ran away pretty quickly, a few were questioned and 3 of them spent about an hour searching for their car keys that (I'm thinking psycho boy) had thrown into the park across the road. Eventually they gave up and went home only to return early on saturday morning when after 30 mins they found the keys and finally buggered off, we hoped permanantly.

Wishing to explore somewhere I'd never been I asked Julie what was around Shepperton and she mentioned Kingston, not the place in Jamaica but a town on the outskirts of London with a massive mall and large number of charity shops...awesome lets go, I want pre-cert VHS tapes and random vinyl!!!!! Apparently parking is both a nightmare and staggeringly expensive in Kingston so we went by train which was far from reasonable as a valid alternative option, £5.50 to go 10 minutes down a train track is tantamount to rape of the wallet in my book. Nevertheless its a place I haven't been and has the potential to be awesome.....a potential that was never at any point in danger of being met. Of the three charity shops we found only one had vinyl, all of it 1970's organ music collections, none of them held any VHS and the people in there gave us the dirtiest looks I've ever seen. So lets check out this mall...thats if we can find the damned thing because it would appear that the idea of signposts is a concept all but lost to the local council who seem more interested in hiking up parking prices, 90p for 30mins!!!!!!! What's this we find...a market. Could be interesting, wait is that a stand selling cheese that has more flies buzzing around than an Indian cow...a dead Indian cow. Nice, but what the hell is this, a massive shack/stall selling VHS tapes. Yes, I did almost wet myself at the discovery of this but sadly everything I wanted looked as though it had been pissed on, dried in the sun for 10 years and then offered to slugs as food. Every sleeve was bleeched white, brittle and/or missing large sections dissolved by (I can only imagine) garden slugs. The fruits of my search.....one pre-cert copy of 'War of the Worlds' (1953) that Julie bought me from a shop keeper so old he looked like an exhibit in The British Museam. The mall itself, was it enough to redeem Kingston and warrant an eager return??? In a word, no!!! A boring, generic place with no character and braindead consumers...pretty much like everywhere else then.
As we returned to the flat we decided to immediatly pop to Tesco's in the car and pick up some ingredients for dinner so that once we were back we were done for the eveing, shoes off, crappy movie to watch and each other to cuddle. Our crappy movie of choice from the options available to us...'The Taking of Pelham 123'....the remake!!!!! Dare I spend hours discussing just why we hated it as much as we did or is it perhaps best for everyone if we just avoid that avenue and all agree that even Eli Roth has made better movies than this?? I think we should leave it, its for the best.
To our joy (and surprise) we were again disturbed my noise outside the flat as another group of chavs gathered right in our front garden and once more took the opportunity to shout, swear and punch each other before eventually dispersing at an ungodly hour.

Which leaves us with Sunday, which offered a great opportunity to play 'Assassin's Creed II' before we remembered that the bit we're stuck on is impossible to beat and after countless attempts...well we gave up. Instead we played the Sherlock Holmes game and took steps to catch Jack The Ripper.

And that's it really, apart from me forcing Julie to watch the 50's 'War of the Worlds' that happened to be on Sky movies.
Which leads up to me relaying this all to you right now as I count the hours down until friday again so that I can be with Julie.

Take care people
xx

Hmmmmmm????

Not much to report here today if I'm honest...what else did you expect, a car chase or terrorist attack??

Right this minute I'm updating my website to try and back up my claims of being a legit writer whilst at the same time making sure I don't give too much away and find my blood & tears plagiarized by somebody else.

http://rosslevere.webs.com/

enjoy
xx

Romeo's Daughter!!!!!!!!!!

I just had to put this on here, it's the legendary Jeff Goldblum at a stage door in London :)

Hello again,

Dare I start with a profound apology and beg forgiveness for not actually updating this blog as I'd promised??? Perhaps I should but I won't, life has been getting on top of me lately and to be honest the idea of taking time out to spill my mind on the web to my adoring fans who perhaps number 4 just didn't seem worth it.

What matters now is that presently I am here updating the happenings of my life over the last few weeks and months....so bitch no more, the wait is at an end :)
I guess the most striking thing to happen recently would be the death of my grandad on the 31st July. Not that I'm being blaise over the loss of an important family member but we all knew that time wasn't abundantly on his side. He had both prostate and bone cancer which combined with an age of 86 means that really you're left to count the clock down with the target of being as comfortable as possible. So it has to be said that with some fortune he was admitted to hospital the day after my parents flew to China for a 10 day vacation. There he was given the best care and without failure either my sister or I would see him everyday. In fact we were waiting for the doctor to allow him to go home, waiting for the day when they said he would be discharged 'tomorrow'. With my parents returning on the 31st (July) it would be only a short time before all of us were able to pull together and look after him in the comfort of his own home. The last time I spoke to him was on the Friday, the day before I'd been the best man at some very good friends of mine (more on that later) and had been unable to visit him with Julie. So on that friday I was anxious to see how he was doing and whether we had a discharge date yet. Julie and I found him still sleeping and were in two minds on whether to wake him when I nurse kindly stepped in and made that decision for us by lightly tugging on grandads big toe. He then woke and smiled at us, apologising for being so tired but that he'd had a rough night and that he had only managed to catch about an hour of sleep. And with absolutely no knowledge that I'd never be able to talk to him again Julie and I said our goodbyes and shook his hand promising to come back when he felt better tomorrow. The next time we saw him he had been moved to a private room and had taken a serious turn for the worse. The doctor appeared after 20 minutes to tell me that death was close...that night or early morning close and that I was to say goodbye now or perhaps miss my chance. What do you say to a dying relative with no preparation knowing that it might be the last time you ever see them??? That they don't ever brace you for but I said a few words from the heart, made a few calls and spoke to family members. Within an hour of me leaving his side he passed away and only a few hours short of dad coming home to see his dad.
Inevitably the following weeks were spent organising funeral details, coming to terms with the loss and looking back at his life and sharing a few precious memories.
Rest up grandad.....Ronald Levere 1924 - 2010 x x

Work has been driving me nuts of late, 4 months in and I'm already rather frustrated...now that has to be some sort of record because usually it's a matter of weeks. Why?? You may well ask and you'd be right to. Can I give a clear answer, perhaps?? Frankly I'm bored and 2 weeks ago I had a mini break down when I came to the conclusion that life hasn't gone where I wanted it to....the answer??? A film-making course in London!! Yes, that old dream of being able to study film-making and get me some experience in the industry I love so much. The reality is perhaps a little less easy to achieve but this time I want to follow my heart and avoid ignoring it only to find that the middle aged man staring back at me from the dusty mirror is me and that my life has been spent wallowing in fantasy and shite jobs. Not that I am for a moment being pessimistic here, I have afterall finished my film script and am rather proud of it for a change. But lets remove those rose tinted glasses and take in the horrible hue of reality. I'm a teaching assistant in a school populated largely (although not entirely) by kids who have about as much desire to learn ANYTHING as I do for joining a golf club. The days roll into weeks, then months, terms, years etc...I want out. Like The Ramones sang 'it's not my place in the 9 to 5 world, no it's not my place' I wanna make movies. Nothing new in this revelation but unlike instances passed I know have the perfect girlfriend by my side....Julie Saunders. She makes me so happy that I could write all day about it but to those of you too jealous or queasy to stomach such sentiments I shall refrain from causing you to revisit this mornings breakfast. Suddenly the last 7 years that I have struggled to make any sort of ripple appear wasted and it has become crystal clear that I just haven't tried...or tried hard enough...to get any of my scripts read by those with any power. The reason??? Disorganisation?? Contacts?? Nope!! I just didn't have Julie and now that I'm lucky enough to have her I don't want to let either her or myself down by living in la-la land anymore....reality must improve!!!

Hang on!!!! What about Romeo's Daughter??? Well I collect random movie soundtracks on vinyl and a few months back Julie bought me a copy of Nightmare on Elm Street 5 - The Dream Child and on it was an awesome song called 'Heaven in a back seat' by Romeo's Daughter. Today in a charity shop I found a CD copy of the album by Romeo's Daughter that the song was taken from...the upshot being that for the extortionate price of £1 I have the album on my ipod :) Cool ain't I????

Peace and love
xx

As promised!!!!

Yes, I may well have been threatening to update this blog on a more frequent basis so I thought that far from throwing down a non-existant gauntlet from time to time I'd prove a point....and, well, you're here.

Today I have (thus far) been wrestling with the audacity programme in order to further my influence on the world through the medium of internet radio. Not exactly a massive undertaking but please be aware that it comes without any instructions and won't accept MP4 files which dramatically reduces my back catalogue of music. Nevertheless I shall persevere with creating a pilot and with a little fortune shall be making my joint debut on the airwaves.

Other creative projects are in need of attention and will be looked into over the coming weeks. Although my attentions may be swayed by the new xbox 360 that sits in the corner and tempts me from acheiving what it is I wish to.

love
x