SKIN AND OTHER IDEAS

I'm happy to wait on rest of the Misdirection and on the stories The Accessor and Hope Is Eternal. I did start planning ideas for a story called Skin. I originally got the idea for this from a film called Artemisia, but also from my work at the Radiotherapy Department. It's about people's bravery in the face of illness. I also watched Life Without Me and that was quite a good help. At the time I was meeting up with a model named Lia who was doing a lot of artistic nudity work and i thought it might be a good idea to use this in the story. I am always trying not to write the same story and this was something i hadn't used before. Like Artemisia I thought the lead character Melanie could use life drawing as a form of escapism, drawing her body as it changes under the strain of illness. Liz from Surface was willing to do a life drawing of Lia as a picture for the cover of the story. We talked about using her spare room as a location which really wasn't that as we could have found anywhere to do this. We could have use Surface or we could have asked a college or university. Basically we could have used anywhere and we had transport to shift her materials and i was prepared to buy anything else we needed. However for reasons which should not really have happened it broke down over things which had nothing to do with the project.

That project as it stood was therefore in limbo since then. I talked with performers from Casting Call Pro and from Star Now to get the shoot restarted and am grateful for the interest of Caroline Waite and Claira Watson Parr. With Claira I discussed what art she did so we could perhaps moderate the story. I was quite intrigued by her sculpting as i felt that could work just as well as life modelling. The lead character could really use any medium for escapism and i could afford to supply the materials for her to do the sculpting. That line of enquiry is up in the air, but still possible.

During the course of the year the two people i mainly met that it appears i could work with, with ease is Carrie Hill and Katie Challis. My meetings with Carrie have been more regular than most people i've worked with so i'd consider her quite accessible. Also i feel i can make her into the lead character or a subplot character, but she'd need to be a different to how i planned to shoot with either Lia or Claira if she was the lead. I think she'd take on the role of an art student rather than a life model. I also thought Sam Clift would be really good to appear in this story as the boyfriend of the lead character. I was trying to get Sam and Carrie to come together to have a go at the shoot whilst Sam was in Nottingham, but i was struggling to find a day. That should really have happened to be honest and been completed.

Regards costume i planned to draw up what Carrie or Sam might possess as the story is set in the modern time period and doesn't need anything special.