Yeah, still banging on about Goat Songs. Indulge me.

The premiere was fun. There were a lot of people there, some of whom I didn't even know. I gave an off-the-cuff, thoroughly unimpressive speech ahead of time, but the film got a round of applause at either end. And it looked good. People laughed at the jokes. They understood what it was. It was a huge relief. It transpired that the projectionist didn't know that Theatre of Blood was supposed to follow it, so there was an awkward twenty minutes where the lights went up and people were chatting, until someone (not me) ran off to get him. 

There's a lovely awkward photo of Cian, the producer, Nicky, the star and I, standing in front of the Belfast Film Festival banner, looking like a particularly thick cut sandwich. I may need hit the stair-master. I know I do a Hitchcock cameo in the film, but I'm not here to emulate his famous silhouette.

 Susan and I had walked there in the rain, because Hollywood glamour, which explains my too spiky hair and wrinkled jeans, but too many packs of M&S Cheese Tasters in front of Captain Marvel explains the tent-like proportion of my shirt. I need to remedy that for film number two's photo op. 

I want to make another one. Because, of course I do. It's more-ish. And the experience was so overwhelmingly positive, that I can't possibly imagine anything going wrong with the making of a film ever!* It was genuinely a really fun, uplifting thing to do, and at my age too! Learning to do something new, and on the hoof. You can see my progress throughout the film, as we filmed them in order - the set-ups become more sophisticated and visually interesting as the stories progress. I learned a lot - always work with people who are better than you - the impostor syndrome is quashed by the superior results. And besides, you're going to feel like an impostor anyway, as being a director is such a dilettante's role. I listened to everybody on this film, keenly aware that at least three members of the crew were far more qualified to direct than I was. And yet, it's very much my film. No one else could have or would have wanted to make it. My sticky fingers are all over every digital frame. A film comprised of five vignettes about the theatre, that references Euripides and nicks lines from Shakespeare, and features a cameo from the director as "white haired arts idiot"? I also sing the theme tune - a droned out version of Hoson Zeis, if it wasn't already achingly pretentious enough. I fucking love being pretentious. When you're an autodidact, every approach to learning is a pretense, an over reach, an entitlement. Happy to have everything slightly exceeding my grasp. It's reaching for it that makes all the difference. 

So, I'm looking to make another film. A narrative film, with more than one person in it. And featuring either the sea or the woods. Something intimate against an epic backdrop. Something beautiful.  

*irony.