Ticketer

A short comedy film depicting a strange day in the life of a traffic warden…

When I was invited to take part in this project, I wasn’t all that sure about it at first. A comedy about a traffic warden? Surely there weren’t many laughs to be had from that and what there were must have been well exhausted by now. I confess I imagined the obvious: wardens targeting flash motors, keeping up their ticket quota, getting into slanging matches with motorists. But, as my friend and soon to be writing partner Martin Ballantyne pointed out: it wasn’t going to be like that at all. We would be avoiding those clichés like the plague (sorry – couldn’t resist!)

You may have come across Martin at your local multiplex. He appeared as ‘Scary Face’ in the ‘Harry Potter’ series and as one of Heath Ledger’s henchmen in ‘The Dark Knight.’ So he has a few connections with the business (unlike me!) Regular script meetings have ensued (apparently that’s what you do) and we have the elements of a rough script knocked together. We tend to brainstorm ideas and then work on individual scenes, although obviously we’ll need to collaborate more closely when we put it all together, which should be happening over the next few weeks.

Although the project is still in the formative stages, we already have a director, most of the cast, DOP, a couple of locations and the soundtrack composer. That’s all tentative to some extent of course (there isn’t a script for anyone to look at!) and there are bound to be scheduling conflicts when we get round to the shoot but we’re hoping to go in the summer.

I may appear myself in a small role – hey, I have my own IMDB page due to my stellar ‘performance’ as the Station Master in ‘The Lost School’ (2011) (see above) and maybe I’ll write myself some lines this time. But then again maybe not! The shot where I look at my pocket watch about a minute in? That was about Take 14!

More news about ‘Ticketer’ as and when it happens…