Psych Ward - News

The end of the road?

Unfortunately, Psych Ward has not got through Round 4 of Storyland, so Rental Boys and Hardy Bucks are the two finalists. Best of luck to them both, and thanks to everyone who has supported Psych Ward, we hope to finish the story at some time in the future.

Cutting, cutting, cutting

Am ploughing through the offline edit of Episode 4, burning the midnight oil. It's a tricky-ish edit, but I've whittled it down to 8 minutes now, so just another minute to go! Leaving the hospital has given us a bigger range of moods and colour palettes, and the whole project feels like its opening up and spreading its wings a bit. Exciting...

Psych Ward 4 is online today

The fourth episode of Psych Ward will be online at www.rte.ie/storyland at5pm today. The episode sees the action shift from the hospital to the outside world. It's four weeks since we last saw Danny O'Hagan, and his indefinite suspension from work at St Mary's is starting to take its toll.

Through To Round 4 : Thank You All

We have got through to Round 4 of Storyland! When we started Psych Ward we thought, we might, MIGHT get to do three episodes. To end up doing four episodes is brilliant. Thanks a million to all who voted for us, it is very much appreciated.

Vote for Psych Ward 3

Psych Ward Episode 3 is online now. The voting is open at www.rte.ie/storyland and we desperately need your votes...

We are through, Part 2!

Unbelievable, we managed to get through to Round 3 of Storyland. Thanks SO much to all who voted for us, we are now under serious pressure to get the third episode up to scratch, but its a great problem to have...

Psych Ward 2 is online (finally!)

Psych Ward Episode 2 is finally up on http://www.rte.ie/storyland and the unforseen delay now means we urgently, URGENTLY need your votes.

An Important Notice

Psych Ward is entirely fictitious and the characters and situations are not based on any living persons or real events.

Episode 2 is wrapped

We've just finished episode 2 of Psych Ward, with the offline happening at Madhouse Films' luxurious state-of-the-art edit suite. It's the spare room with a laptop in it. Luckily this was followed by a top-class colour grade and sound mix in Reelgood (thanks Rory, John and Aidan). The episode is being delivered to RTE today and will be online at http://www.rte.ie/storyland on April 27th. Keep checking back for sneak previews.

We are through!

Great news, Psych Ward is through to Round 2 of Storyland. We finished third in a strong field of nine, which was a good performance. Now it's back to work getting episode 2 in shape. And then the whole voting fandango begins again! Still, it's a great result, well done everyone.

Voting Closes Today

5pm is the deadline to vote for Episode 1 of Psych Ward. If you haven't voted yet, you are running out of time! I really hope we get through, there's some good stuff in Episode 2. So get your votes in here - http://www.rte.ie/storyland/

The topsy-turvy world of Storyland electioneering

Normally when you make a TV show someone else handles the publicity for you. Then when you make a short film of your own, it falls on you to get it seen and the whole process of entering festivals and trying to get distribution can be exhausting and expensive.

But neither of the experiences prepares you for the full-on election campaigning that is Storyland! It's really a two-stage process, getting the show made first of all (which is not exactly a piece of cake). Then there's getting a second episode, which means getting people to vote for it

Still, we're doing reasonably well so far, and reaction to the show seems quite positive (fingers crossed) so we are quietly hopeful. If you've voted already, thanks a million, and if you haven't, what are you waiting for? Go to http://www.rte.ie/storyland/finalists/psychward.html now!

Episode 1 is live today...

Hey, our first episode is live online today. It can be streamed at www.rte.ie/storyland and it is also on Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook.

Most importantly, we need your votes - vote here www.rte.ie/storyland/

A bad day

Terrible, sad news. Niall O'Brien, the father of Ruairi O'Brien our Director Of Photography, passed away in the night. Niall had been ill for a very long time. He was an energetic, charismatic and funny man, who everyone will miss. In the scheme of things losing Ruairi from the shoot seems trivial, but he will be a big loss to us - the search for a replacement begins.

Shoot Day 5: The End Is Nigh...

The final day of shooting. There's usually a burst of energy towards the end of any shoot, and this is no exception. Got two new faces on board today, Justine Mitchell, who you might have seen being extremely funny on a show called Your Bad Self, and Bosco Hogan, who is an absolute gent. Wrap at 10.30 and then a quick pint in Devitts. With a delivery deadline at the end of the week it won't be a big session unfortunately.

Shoot Day 4

The day is pissy and freezing and naturally we are shooting outside first. Production base is a toasty warm pub with an open fire on Wexford St, which makes the prospect of wet feet all the more unappealing. The camera starts to play up to. Fucking pain in the arse. Then to Kevin St (squelch, squelch). A bit grumpy by the end of the day.

06 February 2009

Doing a camera test/location recce/rehearsal today. The Joinery is our venue, its a gallery/studio space in Stoneybatter which has a really great post-industrial type feel. Big thanks to all there for accommodating us. The rehearsal went very well, with Barry Ward playing opposite Hugh as Patient 1 and also as Jimmy Murphy, a psychiatric nurse. Barry is a natural choice to play Jimmy, he's a performer with a natural charisma and cheeky demeanour, and himself and Hugh seemed to get a good vibe going. We were roadtesting the Letus Ultimate 35mm and at Finn Richard's suggestion we mounted his tilt-shift lens on it, with amazing results. This rig gets you a film look for DV cost, though it's a beast to operate. Tapeless workflow means I'm cutting with minutes of wrapping the shoot. Superb. I really liked the atmosphere in the Joinery too, and the fact that it's next door to Lilliput Stores, a superb deli/coffeeshop doesn't hurt either. Hopefully they'll allow us to shoot there.

17 February 2009

Meetings all day. Meet with Gravitate.ie which is a great web company run by Ronan O'Caollai, an old college friend of mine. They very kindly agree to look after the Psych Ward web presence despite the non-existent budget. Have a good chat with Ross who is brainstorming some online marketing ideas for us. Meet with Jeremiah O'Leary, a true Dublin character, who may be playing the Grey Man. Jer has been in a lot of well-known Irish films, and moonlights as a banner-maker for trade unionists as well. He also does a mean Jim Larkin. Hopefully he'll come on board.

23 February 2009

Good rehearsal with Dylan Tighe who has a lot of questions about schizophrenia. Good to see someone taking the project very seriously, he looks to be getting into the part. Shane Thornton arrives with mum Ger, he's great in an understated way. Am feeling good about the project today.

Shoot Day 3

Ruairi O'Brien's back on the shoot. Fair play to him, it has obviously been a very tough week, but I suppose its good to be getting back to work. A long but enjoyable scout for a domestic kitchen location (involving lots of cups of tea with various friends) ended fruitlessly the previous week so in the end my kitchen stands in for Sean Meaney's house. Another day of having the production based in Grangegorman, meaning the crew are greeting by the unusual sight of a director in his dressing gown. Elizabeth (my gf) has moved in and gets up on her second morning in the house to find a dozen strangers tramping around the place.

Shoot Day 1

Our first shoot day. It's always a bit scary, but things are helped by my house being the production base for the day. An army of people descend first thing, and pretty soon Sonia Dolan is busy turning Dylan Tighe into Richard in my front room. Among the crew is Hugh Fox an amiable sound recordist that I worked with on Room To Improve and who just completed my cousin Conor Horgan's feature One Hundred Morning. There's also a DOP called Stevie Russell who is so much younger than me that it's frightening. Adrienne our brilliant producer worked with him before on a fantastic short called Martin directed by Sean Branigan, and I loved his work on that so it seems like a good match. A bit of the usual tomfoolery and then we are off, first to a back lane in Cabra, then Arbour Place in Stoneybatter (a street locally known as Chicken Lane). Then to the Joinery. Crew are great. Sean Griffin is a great guy to work with, particularly since I've never had a first AD before. Stevie gets right in the zone, the actors were brilliant, an really enjoyable first day.

Trailer Trash

Shooting the promo for Psych Ward today on the streets of Dublin 1. Am horribly stressed, and feel most unprepared.

David Timmons (DOP on Tonight Is Cancelled) has very kindly agreed to step in and help us out in the absence of Ruairi O'Brien (who is off shooting with Brian Kirk on Father & Son). Armed with Paddy Jordan's EX-1 we set off. I am still nervous as hell, it's a horrible feeling when you think you don't have your shit together.

Not sure how it will go with Hugh, though worries are assuaged when he shows up already perfectly made up to looked exhausted (thanks to Tom McInerney). Once he popped on those scrubs Danny O'Hagan was standing before us. Crew takes a break for the Ireland vs All Blacks game (Guinness and toasties in Cummiskeys on Dominic St.) The game then deflated us a little. But we want back at it and got some great stuff. Then we had to shoot a simple 30 sec pitch by me down by the canal as well. Didn't get to it until 11pm - and then did about 15 takes. That shit is harder than it looks!

30 January 2009

Just got a call from the (magnificently accented) Jo Schofield in RTE Drama. She must be from Yorkshire. Definitely somewhere up North in England. Anyway, we got a Storyland commission. Absolutely delighted - our first commission from RTE Drama - albeit a micro-budget. But still, really happy. Hope we can deliver the goods now...

16 February 2009

Casting, casting. We've no time and no money. Luckily I have Thyrza Ging, who cast Danger High Voltage for me. She recommends Shane Thornton and Johnny Ward, two very talented young actors who she worked with on Lenny Abrahamson and Mark O'Halloran's tv series Prosperity. She also puts me in touch with another rising star, actress Sarah Greene (Eden) for the role of journalist Jenny McArdle. I meet all three and am impressed enough with them to offer the parts straight away, without auditioning.

Shoot Day 2

Ivan McCullough is our DOP today, I've been an admirer of his stuff for a while, since seeing the brilliant short film Frankie at the Galway Fleadh in 2007, when it was easily the film of the festival. Having him involved is a real coup. A bitty day of filming in Danny's house, in our newsroom location, in a car park and on the streets of the city by night. Some marvellous looking shots.

7 January 2009

The pitch went quite well I thought. They were reasonably friendly and seemed interested in our idea. It felt good that there were two RTE insiders and two external people on the panel, seemed a good balance. I hadn't seen our promo (DVDs are so fucking unreliable, they really are the format of Satan) so we got to show it to the panel for the first time in the middle of the pitch, luckily I had my laptop with me. It was a bit scary but it really helped a lot - a bunch of pictures are definitely worth many thousands of words. Dr Sam was on hand to field any of the questions about realism - it's a get out of jail free card for a programme maker working on a medical story to have a real-life doctor on the team. And Hugh's kind words about the script and the project generally helped a lot too. Getting good people involved in projects is what this business appears to be all about.

6 January 2009

Pitching today to RTE. This is a first for me. I have done some informal pitches to people both inside and outside RTE before, disastrous results. For once though I feel like I've done my homework this time, which really helps soothe the nervews a little.

Unfortunately our super-producer Katie isn't going to make it - Manhattan calls and who can blame her? Instead we have the very lovely Shirley O'Connor, also from Blinder. My brother Sam is coming along and Hugh has happily agreed to represent for Psych Ward as well. Feel a bit better having such an army of quality people on board. Nerves not helped by the prospect of a camera recording the pitch and our pre-match and post-match thoughts.

October 18, 2008

Bumped into Hugh O'Conor at Film Board drinks reception at the Cork Film Festival, where Danger High Voltage and his film Spacemen Three was in competition. Chatted to him about Psych Ward and he seemed interested in Danny and his world. Would be tremendous to get such an experienced and talented actor for the project.