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(2001, 8'30", Digi Beta on 35mm)
Two 35mm prints available
An Edwardian gentleman is tormented by spirits who appear through holes in his sitting-room wall paper. Funded by the London Production Fund 2001.
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	Sales Agent: John Flahive, at the British Film Institute, 21 Stephen Street, London W1T 1LN Tel. +44 20 7255 1444. Promoted by: The British Council, Film and Literature Department, 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1A 2BN Tel. +44 20 7930 8466
'G.M.' was inspired by the work of magician and film pioneer Georges Melies (1861-1938), whose most famous film - 'Le Voyage Dans La Lune' - was exactly one hundred years old in 2001. The film was made possible by a grant from the London Production Fund with additional funding from Portable Whole.
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	CAST
The Man	Neil Edmond
Victorian Girl	Leslie Cummins
Landlady	Isabel Rocamora
Wall Spirits	Lisa Duncan
	Carolyn Williams
	Pat Reid
	Dave Sag

	CREW
Director of Photography	Paul Nash
Assistant Director	Mick Pantaleo
Focus Puller	Jason Ellis
Stills Photographer	Kalpesh Lathigra
Gaffer	Mark Johnson
Lighting Technician	Dean Holton
Runners	Kevin Feeney & Chet Khere
Production Designer	Don Rothwell
Costumes Designer	Vicky West
Set Dresser	Melanie Ford
Set Painter	Dave Grey
Make Up & Hair	Francesca Antoniou & Adele Croker
Post-production Supervisor	Brian Marshall
Music by	John Pattison
Sound Effects by	John Pattison & Robert Urquhart
Editor	Brian Marshall
Digital Compositing	Martin Pickles
Advising Digital Colourists	Matt Ramsay & Stuart Elliot
Produced by	Kate Fletcher
Written & Directed by	Martin Pickles

	NEWS May 16th 2005 'G.M.' is featured in Clifford Thurlow's book 'Making Short Films' printed by Berg in spring 2005. Chapter seven consists of an interview with me about the experience of making the film, from beginning to end. The book also reprints my eleven-page storyboard. For further information, please see book's website at www.making-short-film.com or Cliffords own site at www.cliffordthurlow.com
SCREENING HISTORY
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3rd July 2001	Cast and crew screening at Myrtle, the Brunswick Centre, London.
October 5th 2001	World Premiere at Sitges Film Festival in Catalunya, Spain. It is shown as the accompanying short with the French feature film 'Vidocq'
16th November 2001	Regus London Film Festival, NFT1, London (see picture below)
February 4th 2002	Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, France.
March 1st & 2nd 2002	Cine Lumiere, London
July 12th 2002	Halloween Society at the Prenelle Gallery, London
July 15th 2002	Dali Universe Film Festival, London
July 22nd 2002	New Producers Alliance screening with the feature film 'Lost In La Mancha' at the Fox Preview Theatre, Soho Square, London.
September 30th 2002	ICA, London by the Halloween Society.
September 2002	Yale Centre for British Art, Connecticut, USA
September 2002	MECAL Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain
October 23rd 2002	Kino Film Festival, Manchester.
November 30th 2002	Foyle Film Festival, Belfast.
March-April 2003	Kinofilm Best Of British Tour, England.
August 26th-30th 2003	CCA in Glasgow, as support for the feature film 'Russian Ark'
September 28th 2003	International Scientific Film Festival, Hungary
September 2003	Flexiff Film Festival, Sydney, Australia
7th May 2004	Welwyn Garden Film Society: 'G.M.' and 'The Commuter' were both screened as accompanying shorts for the Aki Kaurismaki feature film 'Man Without A Past.' Special thanks to Dawn Sharpless of Dazzle Films for arranging this.
22nd September 2004	Scarborough Silent Film Festival at The Stephen Joseph Theatre (McCarthy) Westborough, Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Special thanks to John Pattison
24th September 2005	21st Century Silents at the Bristol Watershed Cinema, Bristol, UK
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REVIEWS & PRESS:

Sitges International Film Festival Catalogue, October 2001:

"G.M. are the intitials of a much-loved film-maker: Georges Melies. His fantasy world is the basic inspiration for this short that has just one set (a room) and the great artist reinventing life and love from the four walls. The question is: a century apart, can there be harmony between the primitive, artisan magic of Melies and digital magic? The answer is on the screen."

Time Out, London, 14th November 2001:

"'G.M.' is nought to do with frankenstein food. but a tribute to the origial magician of the cinema, Georges Melies. A digital-effect driven exercise in drawing-room Victoriana and extra-spacial spirits in the walls thereof, it's a fond if slightly eccentric pastiche." (Nick Bradshaw)

Regus London Film Festival website, November 2001:

"G. M. stands for George Melies and this film is about fantasy characters who hide behind holes in the wall. Filmmaker, Martin Pickles, did all the special effects himself. He explained how the idea came to him: 'Actually I dreamt at least fifty percent of the events. I dreamt I was actually sitting in a screening watching it and thinking, ‘That’s a bloody good idea for a film, I wish I’d thought of that’. George Melies was a magician who becomes one of the great film pioneers. He would mix reality and fantasy and he was one of the great inventors of special effects. I wanted to make it feel removed from the real world that’s one of the reasons why I kept it silent and why I added grain to it. All of the grain was added digitally before being transferred onto 35mm.'” (Rachel Evans)

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