My life ambitions

We all have dreams don't we? Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So today, I would like to tell you the dreams that I have in my life that I either need to meet now or eventually, some of which I have already spoken about before.

I want to talk about this because ever since leaving college, I see some of my friends going to university and some going down the path for an incredible career, making something of themselves. All of us do owe it to ourselves to make a dream become a reality, I don't use the 'YOLO' phrase un-ironically but along those lines, we do have a single life time and I don't want to spend mine just following the rules.

So without further ado, here are my dreams and long term ambitions.

Curious Incident movie adaptation


Image courtesy of www.wikipedia.org

This one has long since been a thing here on my blog. Many of you may be new here because I recently did a radio interview on Zetland FM, a local station where I live. I'll link the interview here: https://www.mixcloud.com/zetlandfm/zetland-fm-mid-mornings-hour-1-354/

The initial post that I made regarding all of this is linked at the side, from July 2016 and it has been something that I have desperately been wanting to make happen for so long, and I haven't backed down. As I've stated in the interview I conducted, I've been in contact with Warner Bros, Working Title, Studiocanal, I have a mutual friend of Matthew Vaughn who directed Kingsman who I've been trying to get things sent to him, even a cast list would you believe?

Even a small independent movie called Po, I got in touch with them and we were talking for a while, then that line went dry, and I have also tried contacting YouTube movie reviewer Chris Stuckmann who worked with autistic children before his YouTube reviews became his full time job. Probably best I fill you in if you are not already aware.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 best-selling novel by Mark Haddon and was adapted for theatre by Marianne Elliot and Simon Stephens, which resulted in it winning many Tony and Olivier awards and is still showing in many places. It follows 15-year old Christopher John Francis Boone from Swindon, who is described by himself as "a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties".

I've alluded to autism earlier when talking about Chris Stuckmann working autistic children, I say this because whilst the story never explicitly states what Christopher's condition is, the book's blurb refers to anything from Asperger's Syndrome, High-Functioning Autism and Savant Syndrome. Christopher lives with his father Ed and he wakes up one morning to find his neighbour's poodle Wellington, with a garden fork stuck in its corpse, and Christopher says he wants to try and find who killed him.

Following in the footsteps of his hero Sherlock Holmes, Christopher soon finds out clues for a mystery that hits so much closer to home for him. That is as much as I'll ever tell anyone who wants to know about the story, and I cannot recommend this amazing story enough so seek out the book or the theatre show, you're welcome.

I've been so incredibly certain that a movie needs to happen, so since February 2015 my life changed since finding out about this book, discovering who the perfect Christopher would be as well as putting together an incredible cast alongside him over those next few months, that being as follows; Taron Egerton, Gary Oldman, Rachel Weisz, Joanna Page, Andrew Scott, Carmen Ejogo and Una Stubbs.

I'm so passionate about this and I know fine well how incredible naïve and delusional I have been, but this is a cry for help and I need someone out there who has the power to help me out here, because we don't have a lot of time left to make this a possibility. I know the movie has been something that Warner Bros have been sitting on since 2011 with Harry Potter writer Steve Kloves and producer David Heyman working on it, I know I can make this work. I just need the chance.

GTA vehicle artist

Image courtesy of GTAWiseGuy

This is something that I have been wanting to tell you all for absolutely ages but now I feel ready to talk about it. Ever since I got Grand Theft Auto 5 back in January 2014, I have followed and developed an understanding and passion for the vehicles in the GTA world, you've probably seen me talking about it before already, but I'll remind you or inform you anyway.

Rockstar don't have the licences to utilise real world manufacturers so instead of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, in their place they have Grotti, Pegassi and Pfister, and all of the vehicle brands in the game utilise vehicles based on the real life brand's counterparts. I became really passionate about this when a few cars were added into the game and I became very critical of design, driving characteristics among other things.

When I was younger, I used to watch episodes of Top Gear and Jeremy Clarkson's end of year DVD's, and I'd be drawing on some paper piled on a book on my lap whilst watching them, and whatever car was on the screen, I'd take inspiration from all of them until at the end of the evening, I'd have a weird hybrid of so many cars. Fast forward to now, utilising the real world inspiration to make a car look similar to its real world counterpart, this is the perfect job for me, which is why I have now applied.

Over the past few months, I have been working away in a sketch book with designs that I am certain would be beloved in GTA, knowing fine how vehicles have been what has generated Rockstar the most money, I know what vehicles to put in and I also have ideas for what cars to use in themed updates. For example, the picture from GTAWiseGuy that I used for this section, he created a Mitsubishi Evolution inspired car called the Maibatsu Revolution which he created for his trailer for a fictional update he created, Tuners and Outlaws.

It was after watching his trailer that made me realise the potential with the in-game vehicles and how I could perhaps contribute, with my eye for detail in car design and having such a large array of possibilities. Since vehicles are the largest form of generating of Rockstar's in-game currency, I know what cars people want to see, I know for a fact that I can be a great asset to them.

I applied recently, and I am waiting on a reply, I am really hoping that soon I'll move up to Edinburgh to work for Rockstar North.

Giro d'Strada

Image courtesy of www.youtube.com

I wrote an article on this beforehand, link here if you're interested to know more: https://redsone-shot.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/an-idea-giro-dstrada.html

Giro d'Strada came about when I just got my PlayStation 4 steering wheel and I was driving on Assetto Corsa in a LaFerrari, and I was thinking about all the lucky bastards on Xbox who get to own Forza Horizon, because us PlayStation users don't have an equivalent. I thought to myself "I would love it if us PlayStation users had a free roam driving game", I then teamed that with "Utilising the physics of simulator based handling model games like Assetto Corsa", and then I followed that on with "Based in mountainous and coastal continental Europe". That my friends, was how Giro d'Strada was born.

I love the name, I'm very proud of that. Assetto Corsa is Italian for racing setup, and Giro d'Strada is Italian for tour of the road, and that is exactly what you will be doing as you compete in the Grand Tour World Championship organised by the in-game fictional version of the FIA, and revitalising famous road racing events along the lines of the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and the Tour de France Automobile.

There is a heavy emphasis on the social aspect too, you'll have your own teams and team bases in which you can hire other players or go and join a friend's team at any time to represent them in races against other online players that you have been matched up with, or you can go it alone offline as well. I even have an idea for a constant broadcasting radio station to play in the game which brings together players and other members of the community on Giro d'Strada, so we don't have a repetitive set of radio stations like we do on pretty much all games.

To be rather selfish, I want Giro d'Strada to exist so I can drive a LaFerrari Aperta on a mountain road with my friends, but I wouldn't be pushing for this game to be a reality if I wasn't sure it would benefit everyone and not just me. I mean traditionally, I've always been a circuit racer, I would go for Shift over Need For Speed, and the Forza Motorsport games over Forza Horizon but since getting my steering wheel, I need to get my hands on a game that will allow me to go across a mountain road in the glorious sunlight and looking at some incredible views.

As far as this goes, I have reached out to Assetto Corsa developers Kunos Simulazioni with the help of 2013 FIA European Formula Three champion Raffaele Marciello, who has been so helpful and kind to me so props to you, Lello. I haven't got a response and I'm kind of hoping that if Rockstar North do employ me, they don't see my side project here as something that would negatively impact them, I don't think Giro d'Strada would be an immediate competitor to Grand Theft Auto.

My novels

Image courtesy of www.connieberry.com

We all do it don't we? "I wish I could write a novel", I do too. I have a few ideas and I am here to share them without going into too much detail because some plagiaristic arseholes may be out there ready to claim them for themselves.

First novel idea, 'Nadine' is the name with a titular character, who I've named after one of my closest and most beloved friends, a Dutch girl who loves MotoGP, Star Wars and Pokémon. Anyway we follow a bitter, veteran, widowed British police officer who discovers a young red-haired and freckled girl who has been interfering with the work of one of Britain's most ruthless mob bosses.

Throughout the story, we find out more about the background of Nadine and discover some really tragic circumstances. The themes of this story is deprivation of youth and tragedy.

Next up, 'Winds of a new beginning', I have a longer version of that but it follows a boy who has travelled to the fictional Scottish city Emeriavale to bury his recently passed grandfather, who grew up there. Whilst there, the boy meets an older woman who knew his grandfather, and was engaged to be married to one of his grandfather's friends before he was killed in very unfortunate circumstances.

However, the boy is miraculously sent back in time to the day that his grandfather's friend was killed and tries to do his utmost to prevent what happens to him. The main theme of this novel is living a full life, since the main character's grandfather died at an older age having led life to the full, whereas his friend wasn't given that opportunity, I've always said I'm more sad if someone young dies and I hope that I can make something that tells people to live their life to the full.

Final idea, and this one I don't want to go too deep into, I'm calling it 'Pulling Favours' and I want to remain as vague as can be, we follow a guy at university who engages in many casual relationships with a load of girls. To put it bluntly, my aim with this novel is to illustrate a lot of hypocrisies and flaws in this society's stigma and taboo against sexual culture.

I'm very much looking forward to writing this one, not just for the reasons you might think (Wink wink) but because I believe it has the potential to make everyone re-think a lot of their morals and viewpoints on something that is quite a sensitive and controversial subject to discuss. Who knows?

I'd also love to write a whole series of novels based on The Accountant, the movie that was released last year and had Ben Affleck as an autistic man who was both an incredible mathematician and assassin. I just wish I knew anything past just wanting to continue the story, I'd probably just entrust it to someone else.

Motorsport interaction

Image courtesy of www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk

Yet another blog post that I have done before, but I won't bother making you go read yet another one and just tell you about the Blancpain F3 EuroCup. The Stéphane Ratel Organisation - who used to run the British F3 championship - and I had some conflict a few years ago which led to the demise of British F3 in the guise that it was and eventually brought back but not under their control. So they have every right to be annoyed with me but I want to make amends.

There is a hole in the market for many types of drivers to compete in, a small scale series with much lower costs that can give full-time F3 drivers and higher tier drivers a side campaign to race in, lower tier drivers to prove themselves against them and then sponsors may consider investing in them. Basically with the cost of motorsport these days, a Formula Three championship utilising a four round mini championship is beneficial to all parties.

SRO are ignoring me, which is a shame because the F3 EuroCup would be of huge benefit to them, I have no doubt.

Those everyone, are my life ambitions. I seek to give back to the world and I hope you all join me as I aim to make all of these a reality and please if anyone can help me, please do. Because as much as I am trying to take charge, I don't know how to do it.

But what are your life ambitions? Feel free to create your own version of one of these however you know how, and you all owe it to yourselves to meet these goals because well, are you really content just confining to these rules? What will be your legacy?

Thank you all of you for taking the time to read my article, I hugely appreciate it. If you're new here, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or go to the Follow By Email option to have these sent straight to your inbox. So until we meet again.

Luca.