How this all began and the magical throughline of creativity…
14 April 2022 · 2 min read
It all began with a riot. Four nights or rioting across the UK actually, but mainly in London. It was August 2011 and walking through Ealing the day after, on my way to the office at Ealing Studios, reminded me of a war zone.
This was the start of Create50, though right now, it was just a simple idea.
Why not run a competition with our screenwriters to examine the issues around these riots? Keep it to one page. And then offer up the winning scripts to filmmakers via the internet. See what people make? Get writers writing, filmmakers filmmaking, and most of all, filmmakers and writers collaborating, getting writers produced.
It became known as Four Nights in August and was a huge hit.
The winning script was written by Milethia Thomas and the resulting film made by Anil Rao. It’s called ‘Why?’ and you can watch below (both pictured here after they received their awards).
Following the success of Four Nights in August, we decided to expand the scope of the concept into 50 scripts featuring a kiss on Valentines. And 50 Kisses was born. And this time it would be a feature film.
Once again, Anil entered a film, and ended up winning! It’s an amazing film and showed his creative flare in imaginative storytelling. I recall him showing up with his mum and the passionate speech he gave at the end. 50 Kisses ended up in the Guinness Book Of Records and we had many screenings around the UK. Anil was often at these screenings giving a talk afterward. His film, Neil is again a visual tour-de-force.
Sadly in 2018 we lost Anil. I had been in touch with him just before and knew his health was failing. He had also wanted to get involved in Impact50, but his health just prevented him from doing so.
Milethia Thomas, from Four Nights, did get involved in Impact50 and her winning script resulted in a film that is included in the final edit of Impact50, titled ‘Francis of Fell End Farm’. Again, it’s a story with no dialogue. Just pictures. Pure cinema.
On May 31st we will be revealing the Award Winners in Impact50 and to honour Anil and his extraordinary creative spark, we will be re-naming the Best Film Award in The Anil Rao Best Film Award. I personally feel this is a brilliant way to remember him, and if he is out there in the cosmos looking down, I know for a fact this would make him smile.
I will be thinking of Anil when I walk the red carpet and I invite you to do the same. Anyone can join us at the premiere and you can find out more here… www.Impact50film.com
Chris Jones
www.Impact50film.com
Written by
Chris JonesPassionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
