The New Year rises.

For all the ups and downs which come and go as the year closes out, to me, its just another day. I don’t attach the significance that most do to the calendar flip. It gets colder, it gets warmer and gets colder again, that’s about it for me. Every year at a specified point I get older. At other points everyone else I know gets older. But I do appreciate the magnitude of a year end to everyone else. It’s a time to mark down accomplishments. File away failures. Remark on wants and hopes and jot down resolutions to better the next year. The next cycle.

I don’t do resolutions. I believe in resoluteness. I and my partner and team are all working toward the same thing every year. We keep throwing it against the wall and some pieces stick. Eventually the wall will be covered and we’ll find a bigger wall. Until then we just get older and more tired. But we keep moving. We suffer our down turns. Our depressions, anxieties, lives, jobs, crutches all hold us back but we still make some head way here and there.

This year some projects have suffered – especially from me personally, due to finances, family and mental health issues I suffer – and I owe great apology to those that feel let down by this. Chiefly Malcolm Holt, Abbey Stobbs, Glenn, Hayley and Katie Ellis, Stevie Jayne, Chris Iddon, Bryn Jones, Philip Moon, Dawn Crute and the rest of the cast and crew of Birthday girl. It is going to be finished as soon as I can, I promise. I owe apology to my team for my delay with KILLING TIME as well, as the final draft is frozen on my screen having already passed by team’s eyes.

And other projects are moving along at an incredible speed. ALLEY CATS is moving into PRE-PRODUCTION pretty much by the time everyone recovers from their hang overs. About 90% of WE CAN BE HEROES was filmed this year and will be getting handed over to an editor in the first few months of next year. Some of our almost abandoned projects/tests/sketches have resurfaced and are nearly finished.

And IN THEORY was finished. Which I’m proud of. It is deeply personal to me and I feel a great swell of pride that some people have identified with it – because if you have you are as broken as I am, and knowing you are not alone always helps with the hurt – even if its just for 6 minutes.

It’s all peaks and valleys. And it looks like an impossible climb when you are in the valley, and it all goes by so fast when you’re riding down from the peak.

This year is no different to the last couple in one sense: I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for my team. I owe my life in many parts to my brothers – Wayne and Jim. Without you guys I would still fight, but I can’t say I wouldn’t be prepared to lose. You keep me going when my demons swallow me whole. You keep me strong when I’m broken. And duct tape me to keep me alive when I need it most. I love you guys with all my heart.

I also want to thank some collaborators who always help when they can and I appreciate them more than they realise. Wayne Madden, the big puppy dog that he is. Dawn Crute whose essentially mini lady Wayne Thompson by what I see these days. Andy Telford, you’re gonna be going some crazy places this year bro. Andy Yates, he’s too shy for the film work, but he helps me focus on the money. That’s a good thing right? Liam Ellis, you need to come back into the fold. Get back to your basics and find out you are still that guy to me. Johnny Sample. You’re a dick, but you’ve always been a legend to me and helped us so many times in so many ways I’ll always be there for you in any way you ask.

Much love also to my mom, who tries damn hard and is my number one fan, always.

And more than anyone, Danielle, my partner, lover and best friend. When the darkness is so thick I can’t see myself, she holds me while I cry and never judges me for it. Never makes me feel any less of a man or a person when I can’t find out which way is up as I drown and breathes life back into me. Every day. Thank you.

Thank you to everyone. We don’t always seem like we’re working – there are gaps in our social media, there are gaps in our websites, and there are delays in our work – but over the next 12 months, we hope to show that everything has been building to something bigger, everything has been coming together to launch ourselves, not a project or a movie or a short – but as a group, as a company and as filmmakers – through several projects of all variety.

I could go on – we’re both sick and dripping – but its time for me and Danielle to curl up in bed and watch STRANGE DAYS – if we time it just right, it’ll turn 2000 and FALL IN THE LIGHT will play as we move into the future together.

Happy New Year everyone.

– Hank.
09:40pm – Dec 31 2017.

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