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July 31, 2006
Interview with Hugh
Hugh interviewed me yesterday and I shared some of my scatterbrain, ill-considered and badly constructed sentences with him.
You can watch it at YouTube if you click the link,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trU-Su06Y54
My pal Lee Thomas pointed me in the direction of Slingshot this morning, they have some intersting stuff to say on the subject of movie blogging and marketing, and its written down in whole sentences that make sense, if you read them over and over again and get some help from your teacher. LINK
Posted by colin kennedy at 6:03 PM | Comments (4)
blogging with best of them
Hugh Macleod
Today I have been blogging, or re-organising and generally fannying about with the blog with one and only, world renowned and regular of the technorati 100, Mr Hugh Macleod of gapingvoid.
Hugh has been the mentor behind the Hallam Foe blog and always been there for my queries and boring questions. However, he is the ultimate blog enthusiast and we have been sharing the odd bottle of wine and experience over the last couple of days in a bid for me to improve things here at the HF HQ.
I'd just like to say a big brown-nosing thanks to Hugh for his help and glad to hear he's enjoyed his trip to the dear green place.
Possibly time for a pint now I think, or a dirty vodka martini.
Posted by colin kennedy at 4:17 PM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2006
Result!
I am on the phone to DM as I type:
Screening seemed to go very well. Financiers, sales agents and distributors all feeling very encouraged that there is a good film there. There is still a good way to go, but the future is bright!
The troop are off for dinnner with BVI and Peter Carlton from FilmFour after they have finished their glasses of rose, echoes of Cannes there me-thinks.
The two stand out quotes from David are:
"Good vibe"
and
"I haven't quite managed to breath a sigh of relief yet, but it's coming."
Hee-hee! Smiles all round.
Posted by colin kennedy at 5:44 PM | Comments (12)
Blowing up paint
Well I went and visited the set of the Sony Bravia commercial. It's being directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast and the Guinness ad with the surfer and horses). It has a crew of around 200 people, roughly 30 of whom are in the pyrotechnics team(!) and 14 riggers, the locals said crew had been there for about the last 3 weeks. This qualifies as a big job. A very big job. Rumour has £9m.
I recommend wearing headphones to watch this:
Posted by colin kennedy at 10:36 AM | Comments (4)
Big Day for Hallam
Nerves anyone? Contact Steve for some free gifts and a copy of his nail-biting anti-nerves-self-help-mind-over-matter-hypnotherapy CD. It looks great!
The world is full of useful tips from hucksters telling you how to get what you want, but I'm sure today the desire to stop biting one's nails may tempt even the most sceptical to visit Steve's emporium for those struck with digit issues.
Today is the day of the screening of the director's first cut of Hallam Foe. Present at the screening will be all the financiers and David, Gillian and Colin. After the show will be meetings, and possibly a couple more screenings, for everybody to discuss what they feel about the movie, their first reactions and anything they felt was unclear or could have worked differently etc etc. Basically it is not dissimilar to the sign-off process for any project in any industry, tense times for all concerned - and that probably goes for the financiers as well as filmmakers by the way.
Posted by colin kennedy at 9:51 AM | Comments (2)
July 24, 2006
Exciting Stuff
Scotland is a busy place at the moment. Friends of mine are working on probably the biggest commercial ever to come to Scotland - the new Sony Bravia TV commercial
So while we continue pressing towards our imminent screening I thought I might go down to the set this evening and have a look at what's going on. They are blowing up a tower block with paint.
I'll take my little DV camera down and see if I can get a shot of it, it should be amazing.
You should check out the website for the making of the last one with the bouncey balls www.bravia-advert.com/commercial
Posted by colin kennedy at 3:02 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2006
On the move again
The ceilings have been repaired and the lovely flat renovated, all ready for the return of messrs Mackenzie, Monie and Burgess and their flying Avid.
It will be all packed up tomorrow and removed by the movers on Saturday when work will resume instantly to make the most of the time before next weeks screening.
Posted by colin kennedy at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Event horizon
The only news I have to offer really is that there was a screening of the film on Monday. Very shortly David must deliver his director's cut of the film so all preparations to get it looking as much like a finished bit of work as possible are underway. There is a screening in London on the 26th of this month for all the financiers.
Showing a film without it's visual FX and without completed sound is a very difficult thing. Although the people judging the film at its next stage are seasoned professionals and have seen dozens of films in their early stages the reality is that imperfections in a film can snap you out of the suspension of disbelief and this affects your judgement of it.
rat-a-tat-tat!
An antidote to this is to do things that will not end up in the final film. For instance, if there are sound issues then temporary music tracks can be laid in to make up for the holes. George Lucas famously cut in footage of dogfights to make up for the missing vfx shots in the first Star Wars. But thew truth is that these things are less than a best case scenario and that little fact makes the process every bit as nerve racking as you would expect.
Posted by colin kennedy at 10:37 AM | Comments (7)
July 18, 2006
Verity Foe
Verity now has her very own MySpace page. Claire Forlani kindly submitted some details about Verity's character so now I have some ammo for the site.
Her URL is:
She's a nasty bit of work that Verity!
Posted by colin kennedy at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2006
Photos
There are a whole raft of new photos on the horizon. About 2000 of them to be precise. This is obviously too many for us but we shall start paring them back and distilling them until we have a body of the finest stills from our stillsman - Neil Davidson.
Neil Davidson watching Ms Berrie sleep standing up.
The photos are a complex issue. We need them for the posters and press stuff, but there are so many, probably over 20,000 in total, it takes quite a bit of time to wittle them down.
Once we have a bunch we like they have to go to the various parties who are in them for clearance. All the cast have clauses in their contracts allowing them the power of veto over anything they don't like. When the shots are cleared we should be able to use them for all the various, like the MySpace characters for example.
Posted by colin kennedy at 3:45 PM | Comments (2)
July 12, 2006
Distribution - the sequel
I had an after thought about the distribution blog and people who are interested in learning more about this aspect of the business and in working in this area. If that's you, you should check out the Film Distributors' Association website where you can see what companies are working in the UK and what kinds of films they specialise in.
This is also a great place to get the jump on what's coming out when - although dates in the distant future are liable to change so don't go dictating your life by the schedule they have mapped out.
Posted by colin kennedy at 5:26 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2006
First actual shot from the movie!!
Work has just started today on some of the visual fx shots in the movie. So the idea is that I will track the progress being made by the company doing the work so that you can see how the process works from start to finish.
I have chosen a couple of shots where it's obvious to see what work needs doing but that don't give any of the plot away.
So here's the first shot:
How cool is that!?! I love this stuff,
Posted by colin kennedy at 4:58 PM | Comments (7)
July 10, 2006
Distribution
Today we have our UK distributors in Scotland, Buena Vista International UK.
BVI are visiting from London to meet up with David and Gillian. They will be discussing various things, release dates, marketing strategies, P&A budgets and content (so that means posters and trailers) and all things to do with the films release. So hopefully they will have some stuff to say about the blog too.
All very exciting stuff, but I don't know much more detail than that I'm afraid. I will no doubt get the low down either later today or tomorrow.
BVI have a couple of websites you should check out, The Film Factory and Disney
Posted by colin kennedy at 11:51 AM | Comments (6)
July 5, 2006
MySpace marble extraction
Soon Hallam Foe will be entering the marketing phase. Like me I'm sure you're all keen to see the movie and hopefully for it to be a world wide smash hit and then we can all go on and make more films and have more fun blah blah blah blah blah.
Part of this is the P&A - prints & advertising - an aspect of the process as important as every other in that if no-one knows about it then no-one will see it, except by accident.
So as well as traditional media (check out the marketing speak for TV and mags) we will be using the internet as well. Or I will at least in my own little maverick way. But then I guess that's the idea, genuine enthusiasm for something is a better tool for raising awareness than the trad gloss P&A because its from the heart rather than the wallet, or for the heart rather than the wallet. Although having said that, sure as shit some fat cat's going to get a little fatter off this kind of activity.
Anyway, in a bid to get more people reading the blog I thought I'd get a MySpace space and set it up for Hallam Foe. Then I thought, well I could do it for Kate Breck too, so he's got a pal, and one for Andy the porter.
I think I might well be losing my marbles, but what the hey, I'm having fun in the process...
Posted by colin kennedy at 12:41 PM | Comments (8)
Good, Bad or Indifferent
Last night, in discussion about all things film, DM and I talked about the correlation between experience and result, whether or not the level of enjoyment experienced while working on a film has any bearing on the quality of the end product.
This was in response to a blog I wrote about somebody openly exclaiming 'you poor bastard' when they heard I'd been working on Hallam Foe.
You can have a great time working on a film and make a great film.
You can have a great time working on a film and make a shit film.
You can have a shit time working on a film and make a great film.
You can have a shit time working on a film and make a shit film.
It took us about 2 seconds to agree on the fact that no matter whether you enjoyed yourself, collectively or as an individual, did it have any real bearing on the quality of the movie that was made.
And just for the record, Hallam Foe was quite a tough job and we suffered a few major setbacks but all-in I had a great time, incurred some injuries that I will probably have the lasting effects of for the rest of my life, but had a great time. And the buzz at the moment is good - long may it continue!
Posted by colin kennedy at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)
July 4, 2006
Storyboarding
This is really a subject that is part of pre-production. But I am about to start on some storyboards of my own so I thought I'd write a bit about.
They say 'a picture is worth a thousand words' and it has long been a feeling of mine that the reverse is also true, a word is worth a thousand pictures, books might not be so popular if that weren't true. This can obviously be a problem though when you want everyone to be thinking of the same picture. Cue the storyboard.
Here is an example of one the boards we used on Hallam Foe. They were done by a fantastic artist called Derek Gray. Note that they are done in 2.35:1 aspect ratio (scope). It's important that the drawing looks as close to what you envisage doing as possible.
You can go into a lot more detail (lens details etc), as is often the case when working on commercials, but in our case the drawings are a guide rather than a rule.
In fact, we pretty much abandoned them for the actual shooting of the scenes in favour of getting through the schedule, but without that prior thought and planning we wouldn't have had the means and unity to make the decisions we had to, so they were a very important part of the process.
The other crucial thing that the were used for was determining which parts of the set needed to be green-screen, and so replaced later with plates, and which parts could be covered with backdrop.
We had a massive backdrop that was created using photos taken on location, I think it's called a translight, but if anyone out there knows different let me know. It looks a bit like a giant shower curtain in this shot, but once it was all stretched out it looked great.
the translight
Posted by colin kennedy at 10:17 AM | Comments (8)
July 3, 2006
Serious Facilities
Serious Facilities are responsible for providing our editing system.
We are cutting on an Avid. This is a digital editing system which is pretty much industry standard although there are plenty of other aletrnatives.
The system we are using comes pre-packed in a bunch of flight cases so that you can use it wherever you want. So it was very easy for it to wing it's way down to the set when we were in Peebles, get re-located to Glasgow where it was covered in debris when the ceiling caved in and then into the centre of Glasgow for a spell.
It seems that it will shortly be on the move again now the team are back from their holidays.
Posted by colin kennedy at 1:38 PM | Comments (0)
Hotel Du Cap
For all those who like a decadent nosh up this post is for you. The ceviche de daurade is highly recommended by the way.
While we were there so were Harvey Weinstein and Kirstine Dunst, the latter I didn't recognise and unfortunately subjected to a rather undignified strip as I was determined not to be left out of a dip in the Cotes D'Azur simply because one my arms wasn't working.
Sorry Kirtsine, I promise not to flash you again, but you were in Europe and we're not quite so easily offended by that sort of thing this side of the deep blue.
Get a load of this: Hotel du Cap
Posted by colin kennedy at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
Two and a Coo
The last blog of people's blogs reminded me that while we were at the Beluga Bar I met someone who was a follower of Get Your People... We had a brief discussion about all things Hallam and also agreed that I should post something about the importance of tea, as this would greatly amuse her grandmother, a fervent believer in the restorative properties of tea.
On the surface of it this might appear as a pretty banal part of the process. Do not be fooled. This can be the start of a burgeoning career in filmmaking. At the bottom of the ladder in no matter what department you work in, the duty of tea-making will almost certainly fall on your shoulders more than the others around you. And while it may never be directly attributed to your success the ability to make a decent cup of tea will never sell you short as long as you work in the UK. For all you non-Brit citizens we refer to this nationally as a 'cuppa' - an example of common parlance might be,"Does anyone fancy a cuppa?"
In Scotland this could quite easily meet with the reply,"Aye. Ta. Mine's two and a coo." Roughly translated as 'Yes, thank you. I take it with two sugars and milk'.
It's getting a bit thin on the ground for things to write about round here at the moment, I'm going for a cuppa.
Posted by colin kennedy at 10:10 AM | Comments (2)