Gavin Scott | Blog
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Denials of Absolutely Anything

Producers and publicists for the Terry Jones movie Absolutely Anything, about a schoolteacher granted miraculous powers, are denying reports that a real miracle occurred on set today. “Neil (Simon’s character) is supposed to be able to make anything happen when he waves his hand, with a blue flash which put on in post,” said a member of the crew who asked his name to be withheld. “But we definitely saw an actual blue flash near Simon’s hand as he passed a sickly bush in the school grounds.” (The movie...

01 April, 2014 / 0 Comments
Absolutely Anything Bicuits

We’re now shooting the scene in which Neil comes up with the idea of giving his dog Dennis not just the power of speech but the capacity for rational thought. Robin Williams has already recorded the voice but we have …. to provide the voice during the shoot. The way it works is that Mojo, our actor dog, sits at Simon/Neil’s feet looking up at him as Simon delivers his lines, and when it’s Dennis’ turns to speak, the dog handlers shout “Speak!” and the well-trained Mojo barks. Later his mouth...

31 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Absolutely Anything Breakfast chat

Sitting down in the canteen this morning eating bacon and eggs with producers Ben Timlett and Bill Jones, Terry and I realise we are in very exalted company. Last night Bill and Ben accompanied our star Kate Beckinsale who was presenting an award at the Jameson Empire Film jamboree (our other star Simon Pegg got two, of course) and they (B & B) sat in the company of stars like Hugh Jackman, Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwartzeneggar. Hugh, Tom and Arnold may have restrained themselves, but according to Bill and...

31 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
The latest on Absolutely Anything

Check out Terry's amazingly frank and highly entertaining Empire interview about our movie. https://www.empireonline.com/interviews/interview.asp?IID=1858...

27 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Absolutely Anything First Day’s Shoot

Absolutely Anything: First Day of Principal Photography Gavin Scott’s Production Diary The shoot gets off to a flying start when Simon Pegg, as Neil, goes into our bathroom set and sees his wish come true that the mess made by his dog Dennis cleans itself up. This scene did not take Terry and me long to write, but like famously expensive script line  “the two armies met”, actually getting two items of dog poo to leap into the toilet requires a LOT of great British film making expertise. First … the dog...

24 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Santa Monica Airport

COURTESY OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA The Santa Monica City Council will begin fleshing out the City’s options of Santa Monica Airport’s future next week. NEWS, SANTA MONICA, SANTA MONICA AIRPORT Airport2Park Urges Santa Monica City Council To Take Bolder Steps To Close Airport POSTED MAR. 22, 2014, 6:00 AM MIRROR STAFF The Santa Monica City Council will discuss the future of Santa Monica Airport at its Tuesday meeting. In the lead-up to the meeting, Airport2Park -- the organization a group of residents formed last summer to advocate for building a big public park on the airport site -- has...

23 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
As seen in tonight’s London Evening Standard …

Kate Beckinsale to star in Terry Jones' film project that he spent 20 years perfecting “LOUISE JURY, CHIEF ARTS CORRESPONDENT  Published: 21 March 2014 Former Monty Python star Terry Jones has admitted he is thrilled to have started shooting a film that he began work on more than 20 years ago. Jones and his team are taking over the former Ashmount primary school site in Hornsey to make Absolutely Anything, about a disillusioned teacher who is given superpowers by aliens. “We started it 23 years ago, but gave it up in 2003 when Bruce Almighty came...

21 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Absolutely Anything Rehearsal Day Two

Today Kate Beckinsale has arrived and I get to read the part of fiancé. Well, the lunatic Marine Colonel who thinks he’s her fiancé, who’ll be played by a real Marine Colonel named Rob Riggle. But until then Kate nobly puts up with me leaping through the window and threatening to throttle Simon Pegg, who, as Neil, wants to be her fiancé but finds his talking dog Dennis has come between them. I also play the sandwich lady during the scene in which Neil’s best friend Ray is turned into a...

19 March, 2014 / 1 Comment
Absolutely Anything Rehearsals Day One

To our production base, the old Ashmount Primary School in North London, where Terry Jones has just arrived. It’s great to see him again and to celebrate the fact that the script we’ve been writing for so long is finally getting made. which is an abandoned educational establishment and the perfect location both for the school where Neil teaches and the flat where he discovers his supernatural powers. It’s now buzzing with set dressers and carpenters and even people doing up the daffodils in the school grounds – and the...

18 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
A Flight of Lies

A Flight of Lies was my second thriller, and introduced the character of Ronald Foster, a sort of modern comic counterpart to John Buchan's Richard Hannay: a wonderfully ill-informed, impulsive young man who stands for everything the British Secret Service likes least. the novel is told in form form of letters and memos which gradually reveal Ronald's unorthodox impact on international affairs. The story was inspired by a piece I did for BBC Radio about the hunt for the bones of Peking Man. A Flight of Lies - First 50 pages...

13 March, 2014 / 2 Comments
Rupert Bear in Space

One usually associates Rupert Bear with Nutwood, but in this marvelous images from a 1960's annual, here are his pals, pigs, badgers et all, gliding across the surface of a new planet as if they belonged there. And Rupert himself, of course, supervises from his personal UFO.   Who else Albert Bestall and his heirs could have made space seem ...

12 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Galactic retirees

This is a picture of a galaxy which has put its feet up. Dating back to the early days of the universe, it began its career creating stars as fast as it could. And then, for some reason, decided its stellar family was big enough, and stopped. What does that mean for the inhabitants of the stars it did create, billions of years ago? Have they evolved mightily since then? Are they the wise and far-seeing aliens of our dreams? Who knows. But this is what has just been reported about these...

12 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Brocks Fireworks Poster

This poster for Brock’s fireworks perfectly conjours up for me the cosy world of my 1950’s northern England childhood. We never actually had a bonfire in our back garden, which was a bit small for that, but we did let fireworks off there, and the Big Bonfire was just across the park from our house. For weeks anticipation grew as we watched the park keepers add autumn leaves, fallen branches, old bedframes, decrepit sofas and all sorts of wonderfully inflammable things to the growing pyramid. Topped of course, by Guy...

11 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Pop Culture

Some of the images that find their way into my sculptures, which I’ll upload from time to time as I come across them …...

08 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Absolutely Anything

Absolutely Anything is a comedy I began writing with Monty Python’s Terry Jones many years ago. Terry and I became friends when he directed on of the episodes I wrote for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and we’ve worked on projects on and off ever since. We’ve now got an amazing cast for the movie, including Pythons, Robin Williams, Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale, and Terry has asked me to do a daily blog from the set when we start shooting at the end of March – so stay tuned. In...

02 March, 2014 / 0 Comments
Surprising Scenes

Every now and then I look at one of the toy figures I’ve collected for my sculptures and a little joke occurs to me, which leads me to take a photo. Here are a few of these whimsical creations ...

23 February, 2014 / 1 Comment
Old Airport Forest

When the Santa Monica Airport is finally closed down I propose it should be converted into an urban forest, the asphalt replaced by dense, shady stands of trees of all kinds, threaded by bike paths winding past pools and streams, and little unexpected playgrounds, bandstands and bowers. But I don’t just see this as a place of delight and recreation: I want people to work there too. I’d like those winding paths to lead us to eccentric, charming, tree-house-like buildings where cutting edge companies create new products and ideas which...

20 February, 2014 / 0 Comments
Treasure Island Kids

Treasure Island Kids was the overall title for three children’s movies I wrote for Daybreak Films about a group of children at a summer camp on an island in the Pacific which turned out to be the place where the events of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island had actually taken place. In The Battle of Treasure Island, the first movie, which I directed, the kids arrive at the ramshackle camp and are not impressed with the facilities or the eccentric old couple running it. So much so that they want to...

20 February, 2014 / 0 Comments
War and Peace

    One of the delights of working on the adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace as an eight hour mini series was that the director, Robert Dornhelm,is a brilliant cook, so script sessions became long leisurely talks over the best combinations of food and wine imaginable. And because writing the script required me to be in Rome for many weeks, staying at the hotel where Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway had been guests and strolling across the city to the offices of Lux Vide, the production company every day, the hardship...

20 February, 2014 / 0 Comments
The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne

The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne had a long genesis. I originally wrote a screenplay about Jules Verne and Captain Nemo called "Nemo and Me"; this aroused some interest in the UK, where I was then living, but no sales. The executive of an American company then visiting London asked me to write a second Jules Verne feature which she said her boss would soon be in a position to pay for. I plunged into it, but of course the promised funding never came through. I was, however, able to...

20 February, 2014 / 5 Comments
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