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 With Spirited finished in August 08 and handed into Screen WM and The UK Film Council I was now looking for a new project to sink my teeth into and this came in the shape of Ronnie Thompson’s short screenplay, ‘Stained’.

 A year prior to starting Spirited I had meet an ex-prisoner officer who used to share his stories with me whilst I worked as a laborer. The guy captivated me with his brutal and real to life tales of the unseen world within prison. I knew that some of these stories would make great cinema and tried to put them together into some form of short screenplay. After sending it off to Screen WM and receiving some feedback from Dan Lawson the idea was rejected in favour of developing Spirited. 

 A year later and Bec presented me with a paperback book entitled, ‘Screwed’. The book written by Ronnie Thompson was a detailed account of life as a prison officer. Fate had come knocking on my door and I knew I had to contact him immediately and see if he would be interested in developing a short film together.

Luckily for me Geoff Thompson had reviewed the book and helped get me in contact with Ronnie who, at the time of our initial contact, was penning a short screenplay with writer Colin Butts. Stained would become my next short ,very different in both style and content to Spirited and the chance to work with a talented and enthustiastic writing team.

Since meeting Ronnie we have developed the idea together, gaining interest from both crew and cast, including Ricci Harnett (Rise of the footsolider) and Owen Morris (Record producer). We have also managed to get into the development stage of the 2009 Digishort / Digination scheme and are set to pitch the idea to the UK Film Council in Feb 2009. 

As of Jan we go into further development with Screen WM to really polish the script into an award winning short capable of projecting all parties into the realm of features.

 

 

Stained will be going into a development period with Screen WM and The UK Film Council over the next few months as part of their digi short / digi nation scheme.

This process will lead to a pitching session with Screen WM and The UK Film Council early 2009 where the funding agents will decide whether to green light the film.

‘Stained’ sees Lewis working with established writing talent Ronnie Thompson and Colin Butts.

David L. Knight managed to shoot these three making of videos for our new short film ‘Spirited’, starring Margaret John and Joe Dempsie.

 To see all three videos please visit www.spiritedshortfilm.com