detective Tag Archive

1627

December 30, 2012 • mycrofilms, v.p.i., vultures

The Dicks Who Came In From The Cold

The final episode of Vultures hit the web just before Christmas, finalising the hell out of our final season with a real sense of urgent finality.

The Dicks Who Came In From The Cold is the title of the episode (it’s not just spies you know) and sees the events of the second series get tied up in what I hope is a funny, entertaining way. The story sees Janine Drew finally going through with her promise to quit college. She arrives home for the Christmas break intent on fighting crime in her home town (without her Ma finding out she’s quit). After watching Janine’s detective documentary, crime novelist Kate Marple hires the ambitious young sleuth to help her write an expose of rumoured crime boss Johnny Curragh. In the meantime, former dicks McGrain, Vultour and Tennyson have been brought together for a Christmas reunion by an unknown party. Everything comes to a head in this festive finale which should answer the question posed by the first episode of the new series ‘Where have all the good dicks gone?’

This is the one where we get to tie together all the storylines of the new series, which has predominantly dealt with the mundane lifestyles of retired crimefighters. This follows on from the fourth episode Dan McGrain In The Nick Of Time which saw the former dicks meet their first fully fledged adventure only for them to walk away from a return to detective life. In this one we also get to show the full extent of our series villains Johnny’s Blades. Like a mix of Charlie’s Angels and Josie and the Pussy Cats with a dash of IRA brutality, we hope they provide formidable villainy to proceedings. The artists sketch of Johnny Curragh as drawn by Mick Minogue definitely gives a sense of our Josie and The Pussycats (well, Captain Caveman) meets IRA spymaster vibe.

And the Charlie’s Angels idea is best represented by the Blades, Johnny’s trio of ball busting lady agents. Maeve Munroe was introduced in the last episode. The new episode will see the debut of Irene O’Haire as played by Alexandra Christle. McGrain and Vultour referenced the nice girl who they used to go line dancing with back in Episode 3 and here she makes her mark. And it will inevitably involve more unprovoked, albeit stylish, violence. And of course, there’s a third Blade but you’ll just have to watch the episode to see how that unfolds.

So this is it for Vultures in its current webcommy form. It may be the end overall but there’s still a few other potential outlets for our brand of detective comedy so we’ll see how it goes. It’s definitely exhausted itself as a low budget webcom and after 12 episodes I think we’ve pretty much told the story and had the laughs that we wanted. It’s also been really nice to finish it off as we started it in 2007 with a Christmas episode. I’d also like to personally thank all the good people who have watched and supported the show since we started making it. It’s been a lot of fun. Here’s the episode itself. Enjoy!

For more on the show, please take a trip over to VulturesPI.com

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1369

November 27, 2012 • mycrofilms, v.p.i., vultures

To The Rescue?

We’ve released a trailer for the next Vultures episode, and the fourth in our current series, Dan McGrain In The Nick Of Time. And here it is:

It shows that the new episode kicks things up a notch from the ex stalking, sandwich stealing and stakeouts of the first three episodes. The Vultures website has a handy little synopsis for it that goes like this:

The uneasy retirement of our detectives has been compromised and despite all their protestations to the contrary in our first three episodes, they are now finally caught up in a full scale adventure!

 They thought they were done. Unemployed. Their detectives days long behind them. Alcoholism and depression burgeoning. But no, they’ve finally been dragged back into an adventure kicking and screaming. Well, not kicking and screaming, because they are bound and gagged. Johnny Curragh has got his mitts on them. Well, not all of them…. there remains a lone avenger who will rescue them with style and derring do. His name? Dan McGrain! This shall be interesting…

 The fourth episode in our new series of Vultures sees us approach our series finale with the emergence of Johnny Curragh and his fearsome blades, the criminals that are running roughshod over our heroes hometown. Our erstwhile detectives have been trying to avoid trouble and now trouble is coming for them…

We’re currently editing the hell out of it in preparation for a December release. It’s definitely the most action packed episode of the series so far and will lead directly into the events of our final episode which we are gearing up to shoot this very week! And our plan is to finish the second series as we started the first one in December 2007, with a Christmas episode!

The Dicks Who Came In From The Cold is the fifth and final episode in this series and will see the mounting threats to McGrain, Vultour and Tennyson’s retirement from professional investigation come to a head. With a festive spin!

I’ve written the final episode and will also be directing it and likely, locked in an edit for most of December. For the shoot this week we’ll all be wearing the thermals and hoping to god that it’s not going to be as cold as the Christmas shoot back in 2007. We’ve learned a lot of things since then and wrapping up more efficiently is definitely one of them.

Dan McGrain In The Nick Of Time and The Dicks Who Came In From The Cold will wrap things up in quick succession when they’re released in December. For more info, tip on over to VulturesPI.com and subscribe!

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1645

October 15, 2012 • mycrofilms, v.p.i., vultures

Jim Vultour And The Mystery Writer Writing Mystery

The newest episode of our webcom Vultures has hit the internets. There was a bit of a summer break but hopefully this episode brings the series back with a bit of style… and a man in a small car. Entitled Jim Vultour And The Mystery Writer Writing Mystery, it puts the focus on the character I play, the scruffy, myopic, socially inept Vultour. It’s pretty much him sitting in a small red car for 16 minutes but hopefully in a very entertaining way. We’ve synopsised the new episode as thus:

After the shenanigans witnessed in Janine Drew Presents Where Have All The Good Dicks Gone and The Lost Lunch of Niall Tennyson, the third episode further continues the stories of our quartet of disillusioned, unemployed detectives struggling to get some meaning into their lives. This time the focus is on the perpetually haggard and ill dressed Jim Vultour. Entitled Jim Vultour and The Mystery Writer Writing Mystery, it follows Vultour as he decides to stake out the home of up and coming mystery writer Kate Marple. Convinced she is stealing his ideas for her own book, Vultour sets out to prove her plagiarism the only way he knows how… stalking!

And that’s it! The new episode is written by myself and is directed by that wily rogue, the talented (and moderately handsome) Peter McGann. And here it is, embedded for your viewing pleasure.

It’s also the first opportunity we’ve had to properly introduce the character of Kate Marple, who you may have seen pop up in our Digital Comedy Lab trailer. Vultures has more characters and storylines than we will ever get to execute and so with the second series I tried to bring in some of our favourite new characters (Johnny Curragh, May O’Neil and Ronnie Drew have made it.. and a few more are still to come). Not all of them fit into the overall storyline but Kate Marple did. Myself and Paddy Dunne came up with the character back in 2008. She was a children’s writer (like Enid Blyton) but with a taste for really violent stories (not like Enid Blyton). We had an idea that she would be a love interest for Dan McGrain but that hasn’t followed through in the end (probably another reason why this series is so much shorter). But here she is, played by Niamh Moyles, and should hopefully prove just as lovely and violent as we always intended.

We’re into post production on the next episode Dan McGrain In The Nick Of Time (which will land next month) and will be wrapping this series up with a Christmas episode in December. In the meantime, enjoy the newest escapade!

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1374

September 14, 2012 • mycrofilms, vultures

Who Would You Be?

Here’s the trailer for the new episode of Vultures. We inadvertantly took a mid series break on the show as the summer ended up. That’s network talk for getting waylaid by all other kinds of summery noises and distractions. But now we’re back on foot to finish off the second series of the detective webcom we’ve been intermittently peddling since 2007!

The new episode is called Jim Vultour and The Mystery Writer Writing Mystery and sees us finally realising our ambition of shooting one episode entirely in a car. The story focuses on Jim Vultour’s attempt to stakeout a new character, crime writer Kate Marple, who he suspects of plagiarising his burgeoning detective literary attempts. So it’s a little bit of cat and mouse, and a lot of sitting in a car drinking tea. The episode was written by myself and directed by our acting/directing rogue Pete McGann. The trailer sees us continuing from episode two’s Ghostbusters dissection with the detectives asking who they would be in famous quartets. If it was The Beatles, Jack Street is definitely Pete Best.

We’re currently editing this episode and the fourth episode (no surprises, it’s Dan McGrain) and we’re also prepping for a new Christmas episode, which will round off this series of Vultures. There is still a chance that we’ll get flashbacks to how toe freezingly cold it was shooting the first Christmas episode (I wore three pairs of socks with my sandals) and throw in the towel.

Jim Vultour and The Mystery Writer Writing Mystery will go online at the end of September.

Photo by Ross Costigan. Or Compo if he was in The Last Of The Summer Wine.

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1368

June 24, 2012 • mycrofilms, vultures

The Lost Lunch Of Niall Tennyson

Gus McDonagh as the returning Noah Hennessy along with Seán Hackett as Tennyson.

The new episode of Vultures has just hit the web. The Lost Lunch Of Niall Tennyson is the second of four episodes in the second series of the detective webcom I’ve been making with Mycrofilms.

The episode is centred on the character of tetchy yet fragrant surveillance expert Niall Tennyson as he gets a place on a FÁS course for unemployed detectives. Much to his chagrin he is plunged into an irritatingly mundane mystery when someone on the course steals his trademark prawn sandwich at lunch time. And to think the second episode of the first series was about a dead hooker.

It’s learning time!

This episode is the first one directed by my dear mucker Peter McGann (who plays Matt McLoughlin in the series) and was written by myself and produced, as always, by Alan Slattery.

I based this episode on an incident during the aftershow party for Devious Theatre’s Cannibal! The Musical in 2007 where Ross Costigan (who plays Jack Street) had earlier bought an amazing gourmet cheese roll from Blueberry, put it in Ken’s fridge and then was horrified to discover that when he needed it most (7am after an hour of power) it had been stolen. Much drunken detective work took place until the culprit was rooted out. Let’s just say that the culprit was another Vultures cast member who isn’t too far removed from the mystery in this episode.

Have a watch, have a share and hopefully we’ll get the third episode out a whole lot quicker than we got this one out. If you haven’t already, subscribe to us Vultures on YouTube and also on iTunes.

Photos by Ross Costigan. Poor bastard is still heart broken over that sandwich.

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1248

March 15, 2012 • irish sitcom, mycrofilms, v.p.i., vultures

The Vultures Are Circling

We’ve just announced the date for the return of the Mycrofilms webcom Vultures.

Janine Drew Presents Where Have All The Good Dicks Gone? hits the net this Monday, March 19th (I made that title way more complicated that I needed to). It’s the first new Vultures episode since The Long Goodbye in 2009 and the first of what will be four incoming webisodes between now and June. We’re also lining up a new Christmas episode but we’ll see how everything else goes first.

Everything else being the various walls that we’ve flung Vultures shit at over the past few years, some of which have stuck. The feature film version of the show (which has the equally long but sleeker working title of The Dicks Who Came In From The Cold) has been shortlisted for the Digital Comedy Lab which will see 2 filmmaking teams (1 Ireland, 1 UK) get €50,000 to make a feature mockumentary. So we’re going to get really competitive about that because we want to win. The plot of the movie is the same storyline that we had been saving for a potential follow up series and we’re confident it’s suitably cinematic. The quartet of new webisodes bridge the gap between the lives of the detectives in the first series and our ultra exciting second series story (none of which are too indebted to each other).

Speaking of mockumentaries, the new episode is the first Vultures one to be shot in that format. It follows Janine Drew’s attempts to make a documentary about unemployed detectives in her hometown for her first year college project. The results are tragic and comical. Yes, we’re going for a general tragicomic tone on this one. We hope you enjoy it when it hits.

If you don’t, it’s entirely my fault as it’s the first Vultures episode I’ve written and directed entirely on my own. Yup, I’m finally off the stabilisers. I could probably blame Alan Slattery, my trusty producer…. and I guess in some way, I will.

All the main cast are returning as well as other familiar faces and some new ones, like this ginger rogue Ronnie Drew, younger brother of Janine Drew. He’s played by Colin O’Brien who I had the great pleasure of working with last year on Devious Theatre’s production Shifting. He’s a fantastic young actor and also a total scumbag, which helps.

The episode will go online at some undetermined time Monday and can be viewed on VulturesPI.com, YouTube or if you’ve subscribed on iTunes you’ll get it there. Give it a look, spread, support and share, it’s all very much appreciated.

Photos by Ross Costigan… who may or may not be in the episode….

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1263

January 16, 2012 • mycrofilms, v.p.i., vultures

Vultures Have New Meat

Nearly 3 years since we wrapped filming on our low budget detective webcom Vultures, we announced last week that it’s coming back for a series of new webisodes (like episodes…but on the web…)

So I’m going to write a little bit about why we’ve brought it back and what we’re doing and what to expect. Since we finished the first series in 2009 we’ve been shopping the show around in the hopes of getting it funded/broadcast/commissioned. And it’s just been a really long process. RTÉ weren’t interested. They turned it down in three different formats and told us that it wasn’t ‘broad’ enough and comedy isn’t really their thing. Yup. We should have paid more attention to what Graham Linehan said. We’re going to wear ‘not broad enough for RTÉ’ as a badge of honour. But it hasn’t all been negative. We’ve had some really positive responses and chats with nice people and there’s ongoing interest that we’re trying to sustain.

And sustaining interest explains the return of Vultures. The first series was filmed three years ago so we’re aware that considering the long commissioning process we’re now trying to sell people on older material. So we’ve decided to shoot some new material to freshen up the show.

It’s not a second series though! The process of making anything that took the time and the budget of the first series means that we won’t do anything until we have both time and budget! Which also translates as being less stupid nowadays… less. We wrote a second series that I’m really happy with and we’re still looking for funding. The new episodes, if anything, are like a Series 1.5. Like when Arthur Conan Doyle did all those flashback Sherlock Holmes stories to kill some time and generally be cheap about coming up with new material.

Unlike the long episodes we did in the first series (lesson learned: become your own script editor) these ones are all short and self contained and they bridge the gap between what we did in the first series and the storyline for the second series that we may maybe might make, possibly potentially. You won’t need to have seen the show before to enjoy them. We’ve got four lined up and we’re planning a new Christmas episode to complete the ‘series’ for 2012. The first one is called Janine Drew Presents Where Have All The Good Dicks Gone? and it shoots in Kilkenny this coming weekend (that is absolutely a Bonnie Tyler reference). The episodes will then be released between March and June on iTunes, our YouTube channel and VulturesPI.com.


The new material revolves around Tennyson, Vultour and McGrain, the unemployed former detectives of V.P.I. and new addition, college student Janine Drew. We’ve got the cast and crew on board and there’s also a few new faces lined up, so we’re looking forward to getting back into the fun stuff.

The only cast member we needed who we couldn’t nail down was Eddie Brennan who plays Fred Bass. Eddie perpetually has rugby training and all through the first series he would say things like ‘Fuckin’ hurry up, I’ve to go to rugby training.’ When approached about a scene in the new episode, Eddie said ‘I’ve got rugby training that day.’ So yeah, we’re gonna kill Fred Bass off in the first episode. Or maybe just get have him lost at sea. Whatever works. More updates as I have ’em!

The sexy new promos are by Ross Costigan Photography. (Who coincidentally is currently getting ready to wear a new fur coat and pitch his voice up a few octaves)

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