Most Recent 50 Kisses Updates

Filming a Kiss Goodbye by Baz Hodson
Every now and then an online competition arises which allows you to push your creative abilities on a self funded production. It’s always a welcome change from the day to day grind of making a buck, which doesn’t get any easier when you actually rely

50 Kisses Masterclass 1 – recutting your film
As part of 50 Kisses we have invited filmmakers to act on our feedback and that of the community. Already, one filmmaking team, Sweet Home Films in LA has made their film over 20% shorter, fixed some audio problems and overall radically improved their work.

‘Colton’s Big Night’ – a production designers view
A month ago a friend of mine, Sebastian Solberg, asked me if I wanted to be production designer on his next project, Colton’s Big Night, and of course I said yes. I wanted to be a part of this production for a number of reasons.

And the screenplay award goes to…
Amidst the excitement and exhilaration of this weekend’s London Screenwriters Festival, we announced the winner of the 50 Kisses Screenplay Award to a packed Hall in the Keynote speech. Who won? “Enough” by Kirsty McConnell (Read script here) Screenwriting Legend John August said of the

Bringing the Script to life- an Actors opportunity too by James Kirk
“Some people want it to happen; some wish it would happen, while others make it happen.” I came across this quote only months ago in between another sales call at a very corporate company where I was doing my day job, selling my soul to

Coltons Big Night by Sebastian Solberg
I first heard about the 50 Kisses competition through Chris Jone’s blog. I loved the idea of making a crowd sourced feature film and was looking for another project to sink my teeth into. A two page script, I thought ‘how hard can it be’?

Unbearable…
“What was I thinking?” “Why did I think we could pull this off?” “I need to be at back work in 6 hours…” “I wonder if they’ll have bagels on set tomorrow morning? All these things were rattling through my head going into the 14th

Enough by Simon Straub
The first desicion we had to make was choosing a script. It was rather easy because we had certain limits, no money, not much time to prepare and the cast had to be easy available. “Enoungh” gave us all that. A simple but strong story,

Close Encounters at 1.15am…
So it’s 1.15am and I look over to see the shop manager looking sleepily at the clock. I had told him we’d be finished filming by 11pm and we’ve still got a couple of shots to do. I look at the crew but they’re working

Shooting ‘A Ghetto Punk Romance’ on RED Epic
I heard about the 50 kisses competition through a friend and decided to read a couple of scripts out of curiosity. When I read Lloyd Morgan’s “Ghetto Punk Romance” I instantly felt inspired. It was one of those moments that you can’t quite descibe. To

And the winnner is…
So the votes are in and we can now reveal the top ten scripts for 50 Kisses. The winner will be revealed at the London Screenwriters’ Festival next week. So to be clear, this is just the best screenplay award. There will still be awards

A German Dream Date
We chose Dream Date because we found the script charming and witty. We could relate as parents to the storyline, and as filmmakers, well, we are all about the humour. So far in our films, we tend to stretch ourselves and try new things. So

What Do Writers Do? By Peter Carruthers, writer and filmmaker for ‘Never Forget’
As soon as my girlfriend told me about 50 Kisses, I knew I was going to go for it. I’d never entered a writing competition before but this seemed like a no brainer to me. 2 pages? Anyone can write 2 pages in a month,

Standing with giants: Guest Blog by Shaun Bond
I have seen a worrying trend in some of the short film competitions I’ve seen over the last few years, where creativity loses out to high production values and polish. Often this is because the competition is held by a company looking to use the

Q and A with Sweet Home Films’ Evan and Kerry Marlowe
How did you hear about the 50 Kisses Competition? Kerry: I met Chris Jones back in 2004 at a barbeque at Ealing Studios. He was talking about his book ‘The Guerilla Film Maker’s Handbook’ and how to be an independent film-maker, this information has stayed

No Excuses
Maureen: For a filmmaker, I always find myself making up excuses not to make films. ‘I don’t have money’, ‘I have to work a full time job’, ‘I don’t have time’. I went to film school thinking: ‘I can write, but I can’t direct’. I

Jo Buckman on her RomZom ‘You Used to Bring Me Flowers’
It’s this funny thing being known mostly as a Producer rather than a writer. Truth is I write a lot. I’ve got a drawer full of short film scripts ready to go, a TV pilot, a documentary and a feature outline. It’s just that while

The 50 Kisses competition changed my life by Nathan Gower
There. I said it. In all its seemingly hyperbolic glory, that first sentence is completely valid and one that I will stand by, regardless of whether or not I ever have the pleasure of seeing another of my scripts make it on the “big screen.”

Acting in ‘Colton’s Big Night’ by Alex Williams
I’ve been interested in acting and filming for a while, and had been looking for roles and auditions for films,programs and anything that would help me with acting and give me a real experience of what being on set and performing on camera would be like, so i started getting some background extra roles and

50 Kisses.. join me at the crossroads of this feature film project
Nine months ago I had an idea for a competition to get screenwriters writing, filmmakers connecting with writers and making films. We had no budget and no sponsors, but it seemed like a good idea. So we did it. The result was 50 Kisses, which we have taken further and more openly than any script

Making ‘Colton’s Big Night’ by Camille Sainsbury
After reading all the scripts, I chose Nathan Gower’s ‘Colton’s Big Night’ because of its comedy factor and the interesting Colt character, which would give me another opportunity to direct a child actor. Also, its interesting to explore the perspective of children and how they interact with the world around them. For ‘Colton’s Big Night’ I

The Last Supper… SD Disaster! By James Cookson
As soon as I read the idea for the 50 Kisses filmmaking challenge I knew I wanted to be apart of it. Of all the scripts I read there was one that really stood out, Richard Greens “The Last Supper”. Unfortunately like most projects I work on in my spare time, I left the shooting

Writing A Ghetto Punk Romance by Llord Morgan
I’ve been putting off penning this blog post for a while. Self-reflection isn’t a skill which I exercise very often, but here goes. I first encountered Chris Jones at Bournemouth University during the Southern Screenwriting Festival. The lecture was framed around Chris’ experience with his short “Gone Fishing” and shooting for an Oscar. Afterwards, I

Writing ‘Other People’s Kisses’ by Gabriella Apicella
Late on a cold evening in March, I encountered the woman who inspired “Other People’s Kisses”. She was drunk, miserable, homeless and clearly in need of help, and in my semi-inebriated state I decided to try and help her. That night she slept on a bed made from spare blankets and cushions in a pair

50 Kisses The Feature Film Enters Post Production
Last night I worked into the wee hours with editor friend Simon Reglar, planning the post production process for 50 Kisses. Simon is an old pal who worked with me on Urban Ghost Story before pursuing a career as an editor – he is currently wrapping up on Merlin for the BBC after which he

Making Love Letters by Sue Whiting
A snog, Valentine’s night, a two minute script – easy. So what on earth made me think of setting it in an optician’s? No idea. Various stuff filters through the murky quagmire that is my brain: sunsets, violins, roses, impossibly handsome men… stop. The practicality button clicks on and all images are dumped in the

The making of ‘Smasheroo’ by Anne Misselbrook
I read all 50 scripts with my ‘Producer’ hat on knowing that due to my very limited budget, I could achieve a film at fairly short notice, with one location and with a minimal number of actors. In other words it was the accessible location, low number of actors and low financial cost which determined

Playing a Hitman by DJ Donnelley, in ‘The Moment’
Evan asks, “How’s your Irish accent, and would you kiss a guy no tongues?” The text came through on a sunny California Saturday morning. After working with Kerry and Evan Marlowe on their first feature project, “Blood Rush,” I have to admit, I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been at his request, or

‘The Nearness Of You’ – creating WW2 with NO budget by Sam Heydon
Why did I choose to make, “The Nearness of You?” Well, I was very impressed by its insightful, sensitively drawn script with a story that drew me into an authentic historical setting and kept me guessing until the end. I knew that the actresses could work wonders with the superbly crafted dialogue and well, the

Writing Smasharoo by James Howard
I found 50 Kisses via Twitter, where I usually just read and write jokes. (I once tried to write a comedy with another Twitter humorist, but didn’t get past page 30. Maybe two-pagers are more in line with the short attention span of social media mavens.) The concept of the contest intrigued me. I knew