I meet Tyres from Spaced and I’m pretty happy about that…

It’s been an incredible week in the life of Danny Quinn. The Belfast Media Festival is still ongoing at the time of this writing, but I have plenty of time to kill before I go to my next event. So far it’s been an incredible experience. I met a few old friends, ran into a couple of my former work colleagues and I met many talented individuals from the film and media industry: actors, writers, directors, producers, YouTubers, etc.

One of the biggest highlights for me has been the opportunity to meet and converse with Michael Smiley, who, I would argue, is probably one of the all-time great “hey, it’s that guy” actors. Loved him as Tyres in Spaced, but he’s also a fantastic character actor as his work with Ben Wheatley and the episode of Black Mirror: “White Bear”. I even got a selfie with him, which was lovely.

Smiley and his Blue Lights co-star Joanne Crawford were the featured guests for a live recording of The State of Us, a podcast hosted by Tara Mills and Declan Harvey and… look, I hate to admit this, but I’ve only seen two episodes of Blue Lights. That one's entirely on me. I have no excuse for not sticking with it as I’ve met and chatted with the show’s creators, Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, at other networking events. Perhaps I can pick up where I left off when I get home. I’m especially looking forward to Season 3 because that’s when Smiley joins the cast and, based on the clip they played during the recording, he and Crawford really do have explosive chemistry together.

I sat in on a handful of other panels throughout my time at the festival: Film4 had an insightful and inspiring panel discussion where the panelists talked about their roles in the company, their experiences of working in the industry and how they’ve been able to foster strong working relationships with filmmakers over the years; BBC Academy Live hosted a panel about working in media and I also sat in on a case study about the success of the Irish drama, Crá. Regrettably, that’s another program that I still need to see, but it was a good panel event, even though I speak little-to-no Irish. I did decide to set myself a goal to fix that… write a script in the Irish language.

I also watched a handful short films, three of which were made as part of BBC NI’s Greenlit program — Oisin Kearney’s Helpless was a playful and suspenseful little thriller with a nice helping of dark humour; Rewarding was a humorous and empathetic story about the difficulties of being a care workers and Mourning Glory was a funny and poignant tale about grief and loss. All in all, I was pretty impressed with these films. There’s clearly a lot of skill and talent present in these projects both in front of and behind the camera, and I sincerely look forward to seeing what they all go on to do next.

I’d say the same about the Two-Minute Masterpieces, which were a hallmark of the Belfast Media Festival. In past years, it was my favourite part of the whole event and this year was no exception. We got a handful of intriguing, clever and thoughtful stories all centred around the BBC Archives… How Foundation Is Made was a striking look at how women have shaped society, Ulla Mhacha was a spooky subversion on an Armagh tradition (and probably one of my favourites out of the films I’ve seen this year as I’m a sucker for folk horror), Inside Ulster was an amusing mockumentary based on the series of the same name, Outlasting was a phenomenal documentary about queer culture during the Troubles (and probably my personal favorute too as I loved learning about the history of Irish queer culture and it did strike a chord with me) and Yes Sister was a wonderful animated and heartfelt story about nursing.

Outside of the Belfast Media Festival, I’ve also been basking in the nightlife. I went to Voodoo last night to see the Voodoo Sessions, mostly because I wanted to get a taste of intimate live music while I was still in Belfast. The lineup included Boy M5, Ria Timkin and Dearest. The night itself was a lot of fun and I also met and talked with Ria and her bandmates afterwards. One of the bandmates was particularly proud of the fact that I likened them to David Lynch and Nine Inch Nails, but that’s the impression I got from them. If David Lynch was still alive and made another season of Twin Peaks, I could easily see Ria performing at the Roadhouse.

Anyway, I think that’s where I’m gonna leave off for now as I want to try and catch a couple of more events and mingle about.

Take care.