News

6th June 2025

Wheel back down to 2024 and you’ll see a bunch more pics from when I went to the Tim Burton exhibition. Such a time.

4th June 2025

A Few Words on Writing a Trilogy

So… right. I’m writing a film trilogy. Does this mean I have lofty goals of it being the next Star Wars or Back to the Future, or even the Cornetto trilogy? No. Because those trilogies were made by established filmmakers with studio money, and not easily, mind: Edgar Wright had to endure years of doubt and sketchiness with Shaun of the Dead, as his original studio folded and the project ascended to Universal, with worries that its low-budget charm would be ruined. And famously, George Lucas didn’t exactly have a fun time selling Star Wars. Plus there’s the issue of getting ONE screenplay to a studio, let alone three, and in this time of cutbacks and uncertainty in the film industry, what’s even the point in writing a trio of film scripts? All the movies I’ve mentioned were only greenlit based on individual merit and commercial success: they certainly weren’t greenlit as trilogies from the get-go.

Partly I’m writing these scripts for myself, to make up for the lost time all filmmakers experience of trying to get projects off the ground. For every script you see turned into a movie, there are countless others in development hell: either accepted by producers but not quite achieving lift-off, or scripts that don’t amount to much beyond the hard drive of some poor schlub’s laptop. Been there, done that. Still doing that, in fact.

But the thing about being a screenwriter writing ‘spec’ or speculative scripts (that is, a script you’re not being asked or paid to write but one which proves your talents as a writer and hopefully impresses someone enough to see as a blueprint for a movie), is that there are days of overwhelming pointlessness. Why would I bother writing a screenplay? I’m sure every artist has many of those days. What’s the point in art? Okay, let’s art for art’s sake (the MGM logo’s motto)… but then, no money, right? And a screenplay is not a complete work: it needs to be made into a movie, or it’s pointless. Believe me, I’m all too aware of all of those thoughts. On a daily basis I experience the thrill of a story moving forward with exciting ideas, and the sickening knowledge that until the (eventually, hopefully) finished script gets to a producer, it might as well just stay on my hard drive forever.

Again you ask, why are you writing a trilogy? And what’s an ‘unofficial’ trilogy?

I’m making up for lost time, to answer the first question. When I first started shooting movies back in 2009, I was lucky enough to have sponsors and the support of a community. I was enabled to make three feature films in as many years, all of which were seen and enjoyed and turned out mostly how I wanted. Then came the shaky years of “art versus commerce” where I set about learning how the film business worked, and how I didn’t fit into it in many ways. From Cannes to Hollywood, I was told “keep dreaming, kid” or words to that effect. (It was actually more like “nah” and not even as avuncular as “keep dreaming, kid.”) One producer told me “you’re going to hate this industry,” perhaps referring to my starry-eyed ambitions.

Okay…

But something happened during the following years, the years leading up to now. Something happened during the rejections and the ghosting and the projects that didn’t quite catch fire and the fourth movie I made (the one that got onto blu-ray and got an admittedly shaky distribution deal)… and that something was self-belief in myself as a writer.

It helped that I teamed up with a phenomenal co-writer and creative producer to eventually get our action script to Hollywood. It also helped that I began a long collaboration with my friend Oliver Semple to develop a “brain trust” of scripts and concepts that are still in development and being fired off to producers. But it really helped that it gradually started sinking in during the pandemic that life is short, and I was born to write scripts and daydream them into existence.

This trilogy is for all those near-misses and nowhere-near misses. It’s for all the years I got enthusiastic about a script that ended up as a treatment or half-written story. Some of those ideas have blossomed into this trilogy, so it was all really a proving ground for something bigger. I’m making up for lost time.

Unofficial Trilogy

What is one, anyway? You know, the Cornetto Trilogy. George Romero’s first “of the Dead” Trilogy. The Man With No Name Trilogy. They’re all movie series that are sort of linked, sort of comprised of three individual stories, where either characters or themes from each kind of wander into each other, bleeding over each other’s lines in the sand but not completely relying on each other.

My unofficial trilogy does both of those things. Each film is standalone but characters do end up wandering between films, and the themes of each movie do relate to each other. So it’s an ambitious attempt to link three stories but also let each of them stand alone and be ugly enough to make their own way in the world.

I’m at the halfway point now: 135 of 270 pages written, with the second half of Film 1 and the entirety of Film 3 still to go. For me it’s a way to create something ambitious and commercial but also make up for years of agonising waiting and striving: creatively, it’s three for the price of one.

And now I’d better get on with it. Stay tuned.

21st May 2025

As my sister just told me, “well now you have to write it.”

CLICK THE IMAGE…

9th May 2025

The mighty Creative Boom asked me to weigh in on the issue of Trump’s proposed shock tariffs of 100% on the production of movies outside the US.

I tried to add some sanity to the discussion:

https://www.creativeboom.com/insight/could-tariffs-close-down-the-uk-film-industry/

29th April 2025

After months (technically years, and more on that at a later date), I’ve started writing my next big screenplay project: a trilogy! I’m sure there’ll be much more soon, but for now… here’s a blurry image to mark the occasion.

All work and no play makes Miles something something…

3rd March 2025

See how artist Sam Gilbey came up with our amazing podcast poster as a work in progress and read about the new podcast starting 27 March by clicking on the image below:

26th February 2025

Very excited to announce THIS. More soon!

23rd February 2025

The most amazing speech about indie filmmakers working with the industry. Go Sean!

28th January 2025

After years of online friendship and chats and plotting and planning, I finally met up with the legend that is Katy Cowan of Creative Boom, for a fun afternoon in Manchester.

Katy is like my sister from another mister: we share the same goonish sense of humour and love of art, culture and perhaps most importantly MOVIES, which brings me to the crux of our new project: as mentioned a few times on the Creative Boom podcast, Katy and I are launching a new movie podcast this spring called The Films That Ruined Us. This new podcast will cover two movies each week in different categories that Katy and I have picked from our long histories: whether it’s deeply traumatic film experiences, or beloved stories we’ve obsessed about for decades.

Although we’re both movie fanatics, I’ll be coming at it from the added perspective of being a filmmaker, and Katy will dive deeply into her psyche to unravel just why these particular movies have had such an impact on us.

Finally, here are some snippets from a photoshoot we did to provide artist Sam Gilbey with reference for the podcast poster: take a look… maybe you can guess what we’re channelling here. And as the last pic shows, I couldn’t take it seriously for long.