Jon Ellison

 Hello readers, sorry for not posting anything last month. I've been busy. Plus, I did post quite a lot the month before. I came across this petition recently, which I think is worth signing. Apparently, the Government intends to impose a catastrophic 50% funding cut to arts subjects at higher education level in England. Through the guidance letter, Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, has had this to say; "The OfS should reprioritise funding towards the provision of high-cost, high-value subjects … We would then potentially seek further reductions in future years." This 50% cut could jeopardise the future of the UK Arts and for those who want a career in th creative arts. So far, this petition has had 153,224 signatures, but the more signatures this petition gets, the merrier. Arts education matters a lot to the future and no less than education in other sectors. As was always stated; Education is a right, not a privilege. The link to the petition is displayed belo...

Earlier in March, I submitted one of my feature film scripts to two film festivals, one of them which is Best Script Award based in London. I write this article as a follow-up to the progress with some good news. I've heard back from the Best Script Award and I'm pleased to confirm that my film has won an award for Best Film Awards - Screenplay For Children (Feature), March 2021. So basically, this film is called Thrill House and focuses on a working-class family who enter a game show whilst on a fight for survival. As a matter of fact, the script won me another award a few years back - Achievement in Writing 2017 which was presented by Seven/Five Productions. So this award makes it my second. I display an image of my certificate, plus a link to a list of the Monthly Winners for March 2021. https://files.vlastnawebstranka.websupport.sk/60/40/60400eca-c853-4fb8-a22e-9ef2745dea36.pdf

Displayed below is a link to my online portfolio. It showcases some of the films and videos I was involved in production for. My roles for each project have varied including as a writer, camera operator, editor, sound recordist, runner, etc. https://jonellison.portfoliobox.net

 Hello blog readers. So, here's a bit of news. I have submitted one of my feature film scripts to a couple of festivals. One is the Best Script Award festival which is based in London, England, and runs on a monthly basis. The other is the Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards festival. The film is a family adventure drama. Without giving too much away on what the film is about, I'll put it this way; it includes a working-class family, a TV game show, and sabotage. I first began developing the idea five years ago and also submitted the script as part of my dissertation. I guess I should talk about some of the family movies which influenced my writing. Not all of them have influenced just this one project of mine in particular, but are most likely to serve as influences for other projects as well. Some of the influences are very loose. I must warn readers that there may be spoilers. Also, this list is in no particular order. Films Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory ...

 Although my main speciality is writing, some readers may not know that I possess experience in animation. It does sound ironic, but it's true. As a matter of fact, the first time I experienced making animated films was at the age of nineteen. When I studied a music course at a local college, one of my assignments was to write an essay on production companies. It was a course that followed when I achieved an A-Level in Film Studies, plus an AS in Photography, and I'd missed studying film. Therefore I decided to write the essay on film production companies, despite my obsession with film-making annoying some of my classmates who were very focused on music. One of the companies I studied was Aardman Animations. I bring this up because Aardman stayed in my thoughts since then as did how stop-motion animation worked and it led to the very first animated short I produced. The Coils Of A Blue Snake As you can see, this film is very basic and centers on a snake performing a brief sway...

 Hello fellow readers. For this blog post, I shall be ranking what I personally regard as the top best musicians. In this case, I'm defining an individual musician, which means that I shall be excluding music bands such as Queen and the Stranglers from this list. I'll be judging each musician by their skills in vocals, instrument playing, writing, and/or so forth. Some of the musicians are known to have performed in bands, but these bands will mostly have featured instrument playing musicians, with technical and/or writing skills. I judge not so much on one's personality, nor do I consider the "iconography" or success. Each time, I shall provide a list of what's included in the musician's portfolio which I personally recommend. For some, I have provided YouTube links, but only for those that I could find. Because this is a review based-post, all of the information is opinion-based and I'm sure you have different opinions, which is fair enough. But in t...

 Obviously, and I believe it's been widely agreed, only very few good things have occurred this year. I remember so much that happened during the first few months of 2020. One moment was when I had a jam session at Duffy's in Leicester (my hometown). The session was with some members of a music society at De Montfort University and I was the guitarist and vocalist. At the time, I was in the middle of finishing a Masters in Creative Writing. It was a performance of a song I wrote called Marching Down The Street which I wrote eight years ago, back when I was studying for my bachelor's at Northampton University. Of course, being that the song was entirely original, none of the society's members were familiar with it and they did their very best to keep up with the chord sequences and so forth. The performance kept the students entertained, yet did spark some surprise. The song has a bit of a military theme to it. Somehow and for some reason, one of the students said to me ...