Here's the thing...as head of performing arts at my school, I am responsible for the school production every year. Every year I try to do something a bit different and this year I am going to try to make a motion picture. Except I don't have a script! I know exactly what I want the story to be about but don't have the time to learn the skills necessary to produce a good screenplay.

I want to create a version of Animal Farm called Pupil School in which the students throw out the teachers, take over power and eventually become the same as the despots they overthrew. OR at least threaten to - I am open to a more optimistic ending if the writer wants that to happen, wherein the 'good' characters like Benjamin do eventually overthrow the prefects as in the fifties cartoon version!

Anyone fancy it? It would be quite a lot of work for little reward, I'm afraid, but might make a fun project for someone with the time and inclination for it.

Hmmmm. I wish I could, I just have too much on my plate right now. Perhaps it needs to be a collaborative thing with multiple participants?

NIce. Did anything ever come of this? I missed it, but might have taken a stab at it.
At the very least, I would have reread Animal Farm.

Nope nothing - we got a sketchy script together and filmed some footage but the writing and editing was so time consuming, and my father sadly died at the time when we were most involved in getting it all together, that it came to nothing. I had bitten off more than I could chew really, and needed a lot more people on board (basically, me and some year 11 students) than I had, if it was ever going to work. A proper script, though, and we might have stood a chance!

I want to see the director's cut with commentary from Evans, in Welsh.

Pity. Sounded fun. I'm trying to imagine maybe the computer geeks taking over the
school (pigs), and then use the football team for horses, and so on. A cheerleader horse
lured away by some sparkly ribbons/jewelry, and so on. I can imagine "Old Major" is a
student who gets sent off to military school before the revolt. 'Course, it's easier for me to
imagine this as an American High School (go figure), but I think it could have worked.

Yeah it's still percolating around at the back of my head as a project. Still have the equipment, learnt quite a lot (like don't let a perfectionist semi-professional parent get involved and make the shooting time ten times longer!) and the outlines at least of a script so who knows - one day! And yeah your 'groupings' are more specific than were mine - it was the year 11 prefects and head boy/girl who were the pigs, and specific named students who played the roles of the other characters. It was going to have to be a fantasy project too - in a 'realistic' world, where are the parents/police/ etc etc. so we were making decisions about the style of it (non realistic etc) that would have also added to the shooting/editing time.