Abel Diaz - Complete Credits

Just a little record I keep of what I've done, on top of my IMDB page (and will still keep even after that, as its reliability is notoriously unwieldy at the best of times). Stuff both on-screen and off, for your perusal.

AGENT: Andy Townsend, Long Road Talent. (Contact here.)

Film/TV Credits:

PRODUCED/PLACEMENTS/AWARDS

• 2022: ITV Original Voices 2021 (Opportunity for BAME/Disabled writers to train on ITV Continuing Drama Emmerdale).
• 2021: Doctors (TV, BBC One). Daytime drama. Completed Writer's scheme.
  
• 2020 - BBC New Voices Scheme (Development opportunity with CBBC/Cbeebies)
  

• 2020: Pablo (TV, 2x11mins, CBeebies/Paper Owl Films). Pre-school, animation. A 6 yr. old boy with autism explores the world in his own unique way. 

- Participated in writer's room for Series 3 (TBA). 
- #2.38/83 Oink Cluck Neigh: Pablo doesn’t want to leave the city farm, so he decides to become an animal and live there! 
- #2.36/81 Headache Volcano: Pablo has a funny feeling in his head when he plays on a hot afternoon, and it won't go away.

• Finalist - ITV Original Voices Scheme 2019 (Opportunity for BAME/Disabled writers to train and write for ITV Continuing Drama Coronation Street).

• 2018: Wrapped Up (short film, 15 mins.) Dark comedy. A lovestruck finds herself in deep when she kills her boyfriend, who was sleeping with her brother.

       - Winner - Best Student Film: Kiev International Film Festival 2019.

• 2017: Creative Access: Bobette’s Story (Promo, 2 mins.) A recruitment video for Creative Access (a service that enables B.A.M.E youth into internships in media industries), centring on one of their success stories, theatre manager Bobette.
• 2015: Silver (short film, 10 mins. Dir. Zay Basile. Script editor, credited under ‘Special Thanks’). A tale of love between two living statues in the heart of London.
• 2015: Spiderfly (short film, 5 mins.) Romantic thriller. Two lawyers, following the closure of a murder case, embark on a ‘killer’ affair of their own.

DEVELOPMENT

• Never The Bride (TV, 6x60mins, Free@LastTV). Horror-fantasy-drama, based on the books by Paul Magrs (Doctor Who). The life-after-life of Brenda, the Bride of Frankenstein, moonlighting as a supernatural-busting gumshoe in the coastal town of Whitby.

Film (Crew):

• 2020: The Reason I Jump (Feature film. Dir. Jerry Rothwell. Transcription assistant). A documentary about autism, based on the best selling book by Naoki Higashida.
• 2019: Love Sarah (Feature film. Dir. Eliza Schroeder. Floor Runner). A young woman who enlists the help of her mother’s best friend and her eccentric estranged grandmother to fulfill her late mother’s dream of opening a bakery in Notting Hill. Stars Celia Imrie (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and Rupert Penry-Jones (The Strain).
• 2014: Shattered Reflection (short film, 10 mins. Dir. Katarina Leskoova. Producer). A young woman battles with bulimia, embarrassed to tell her friends.

Non Film/TV work:

• 2023: I Am, You Are: Let's Talk About Disability, Individuality and Empowerment (disability consultant, non-fiction book. Ladybird/Penguin)
  
• Pablo The Official Guide (contributing writer, non-fiction book. Paper Owl Films/Penguin) - TBA
  
• Pablo The Stage Musical (co-writer of book, Selladoor Worldwide/Paper Owl Films) - Southbank Centre, TBA.
• 2016: Iron Joe (published short story for Doctor Who charity anthology Time Shadows). The Sixth Doctor and Peri travel aboard the newly inaugurated Transcontinental Railroad, only to come face to face with the ultimate terror of the West: a bandit made of metal known only as ‘Iron Joe’.

Articles/Other Writings:

• 2021, Bang2Write - 18 Experts Share Their Submissions Pet Peeves
  
• 2019, Bang2Write - 22 Industry Pros Share Their Advice on What They Don't Want
  
• 2019, Bang2Write - What 22 Industry Pros DO Want From Your Writing
  

 

Doctor Who: Time Shadows - An interview with me (17/7/16)

Thanks to all those who have bought a copy of Time Shadows. I'm very proud of the hard work put into it and hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I and the everyone else enjoyed writing it.

Recently, the guys at Pseudoscopic did interviews with their writers. Here's mine:
http://pseudoscopepublishing.com/timeshadows/2016/06/28/writer-interviews-part-2/

Doctor Who: Time Shadows - Charity Anthology On Sale Now! (14/6/16)

After several months of hard work, delays and personal to-dos, Time Shadows, the unofficial, unauthorized Doctor Who short-story anthology for the benefit of the Enable Community Foundation, is now available for order! Enjoy a collection of 25 fun, dark or wild tales with all twelve Doctors, from a variety of veteran and new authors to the franchise (including Daleks' mainstay John Peel and myself, Abel Diaz), all connected by an over arcing story giving the anthology its name, starring Twelve and Clara. It also comes with a foreword from Gary Russell, an accomplished Who author (Scales of Injustice, Divided Loyalties)and script editor during the Davies era.

My own story is a fun little sci-fi western called Iron Joe, starring temperamental old Six and his steadfast American companion, Peri. Naturally I won't spoil much, just give you the little blurb:
The Sixth Doctor and Peri are aboard the recently inaugurated Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. However, the train is soon assailed by bandits, including one whose legend has spread all over the west. An unstoppable man of metal known only as “Iron Joe”.

Get your copy here and support a really good cause for the physically impaired and disabled. Every penny counts and we are beyond grateful for it and the lives you help make a difference to:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/matt-grady-and-samuel-gibb/time-shadows/paperback/product-22750801.html

Thanks again and hope you enjoy our collective labour's fruits,

Sincerely,

Abel.

Remembering Keith Matthews - Support His Works (27/2/16)

Now normally I don't do plugs or tell my followers or the average punter online to do this or buy that, but this is something very special and something very close to me that I feel the need to share it with anyone who will listen, and who wants to laugh.

Keith Matthews was the manager of the Oxfam charity bookstore I work at, and was a vastly talented actor, musician, theatre director, and writer in various mediums. He performed in many shows over 45 years, as well as being an expert on the UK radio game show Just a Minute (on which he contributed to two published books as a consultant with his almost encyclopedic knowledge). In the midst of all this and acting as a carer for his frail mother, he found the time to write a ridiculously large number of plays, poems, short stories and novel length works. He was a friendly, welcoming and trusting man who always had your back and would help you anyway he can. Be it practical advice or even cracking a joke, Keith could work wonders and even meeting the likes of Peter O'Toole, Kenneth Williams and Paul Merton didn't go to his head.

Sadly, Keith passed away at the still youthful and lively age of 55 in June of last year. He had just finished helping out on the most recent Just A Minute book, and his spirits were never higher. As his coffin passed into the incinerator, accompanied to the tune of Somewhere Over The Rainbow from his favourite film, I thought that was the end of it. Keith's amazing talents and gifts would be remembered by a select few, but ultimately be forgotten to history.

But then, life had other plans: during the twilight of last year, his close friend and fellow thespian Richard Taylor managed to compile Keith's various manuscripts and through Amazon's CreateSpace, finally got Keith's life works published in a series of volumes. Click on the link to go to the special Amazon UK page which lists the following:

• Poems, Stories and Song Lyrics: A collection of just that, including the very touching Real Life Dreams, which was read at his funeral.
• Fiction and Fact: 11 Short Stories and Novelettes: another self-explanatory collection, offering a mixtures of thinkers, shockers and knee slappers.
• All Three Volumes of S.O.S (Save Our Souls): Probably Keith's pride and joy, S.O.S is a semi-autobiographical sitcom series of plays that tells of the hijinks at a charity store. He had performed it before, many years back with a full cast at the Oxfam, and had even gotten talking to a producer at BBC Radio (3, if memory serves) about going one step further. Needlessly to say, the audience lapped it up and Keith took great pleasure in the series' power to make them laugh.

All five are available on paperback and kindle, each for under £5, well below what similar books would sell normally. If you can spare the change for even one of them, please do so. Keith had a unique gift in life, and now even after he's gone, I hope he will continue to bring joy into the lives of others for years to come. It's how he lived, and it's how he would've liked to be remembered.

- Abel Diaz,
writer and friend.

Confirmation - Doctor Who short story comission (26/5/2015)

So, being a young writer thirsty for some credits that could be attained without having to have secured an agent or major clout beforehand, it seems fate dealt me a nice hand for once when this came to my attention. A charity Anthology based on one of my favourite franchises, Doctor Who:

Here' the link to the publisher's website for further details: https://timeshadowsanthology.wordpress.com/about/

So, I threw my hat in and submitted an outline for a Sixth Doctor short story entitled 'Iron Joe', dealing with the Union Pacific Railroad and an unusual and rather alien type of bandido terrorising it. Following a few chats with the publishers, I recieved this message today:

'We'd like to officially commission your story for Time Shadows: Into Abyss. Welcome aboard!

Out first draft submission deadline is Aug 15. Let us know if that works for you.

We look forward to collaborating with you!

Sincerely,

Matt and Sam (The heads of Pseudoscope Publishing)'

Naturally, I'm overjoyed about this. I get to fulfill a teenagehood dream to work on a beloved property that has had a huge influence on me, and I get a published title to my name. Huzzah! 

More details to come as this develops. It will be quite the ride...