June 20, 2007

Photo of Blogger Screening Mk 2

This is an appeal to all those who attended the screening last Thursday. I saw lots of flashbulbs going off at the Q&A and at the party afterwards so I was wondering if people would like to send in their snaps and I'll add them to the Hallam Foe Flickr account and post them on the blog too.

Posted by colin kennedy at 6:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 20, 2006

New blogger

As you will see from the new entry from Bart at Domino we have a new blogger in our midst who will be keeping us up to date with the progress of the soundtrack album, and anything he wants to share with us.

Thanks for the post Bart, we trashed a corner of our office so you wouldn't feel alone in the mess stakes.

Anna, Tiernan, Brian and Colin in mess sympathy

Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell

Posted by colin kennedy at 6:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 14, 2006

About this blog

ADDENDUM 27th November 2007

This site has been on the go for about a year and three-quarters now, regulars will know it's been primarily about the fourth feature film by David Mackenzie, Hallam Foe. Well it's time for a change.

Hallam Foe, our most recent baby, is now out in the world and has a life of it's own. Of course we will continue to nurture it here by bringing you news about new releases in territories around the globe and the forthcoming DVD releases (UK first I think) because we love it and we want you to love it too and know how to get your hands on it. But, it is also time for pastures new.

There will now be witterings on this site hopefully not just from me but also our 'man in the middle', Brian Coffey, and hopefully the odd sage remark from creative quarterback David Mackenzie. These offerings will of course include input from the chief playmaker, Gillian Berrie and some insights into the next big production, Rounding Up Donkeys, from Anna Duffield.

(Don't know why I wrote that paragraph in sporting metaphor, I don't even like sport and have a particular distaste for it as a metaphor, please forgive me...)

The main things we will be discussing, for the short term at least, are Rounding Up Donkeys, continued news on Hallam Foe and I will be writing about my experiences of trying to make a short film, I Love Luci.

Having enjoyed writing about the process of taking Hallam Foe from production to release I thought I might do a similar thing with my short. The only difference is that I will actually be directing this film as opposed to being on the support side of things, so the aim is to be even more frank about the process than we were with Hallam.

This could possibly be useful for other filmmakers trying to make their way into the world of drama as I am. More than that I'd like it to be an interesting yarn about the ups and downs experienced by someone trying to do something they love.

I am currently toying with the idea of putting my script online, let me know your thoughts about that.

It's time for a little update for new readers. Another bid for transparency on my part.

This blog is about the new movie from director David Mackenzie (Young Adam).

Jamie Bell as Hallam Foe

The movie is called Hallam Foe, it stars Jamie Bell and you can find out pretty much anything anyone is willing to tell you about it right here on the film's blog.

Click 'play' below to watch the trailer:
Hallam Foe trailer

Add to My Profile | More Videos

The blog is written by me, Colin Kennedy. Who? Good question. I have been working on the film in various capacities on and off since the first draft of the script came into the office a few years ago. When we went into production I started working as David Mackenzie's assistant. I think in retrospect this could possibly be the best place for a film blogger to work. Right at the heart of the production and decision making, ears waggling and fingers at the ready to employ a variety of recording paraphernalia. (My pockets are permamnently stuffed with electronics: dictaphone, iPod, camera, phone, video camera - all primed to capture stuff that I probably would get sued for trying to use.)

The good news is that anything that isn't going to land me on the wrong end of a subpoena ends up here in a bid to lift the lid on the filmmaking process, answer any questions about any aspect of the production and to introduce you to our beloved Hallam Foe, played by Jamie, who has even done some writing in character, little gems well worth hunting out.

Happy reading and welcome to the beautiful nightmare.

CONTACT: email Colin Kennedy for more information about Hallam Foe or movie blogging from Get Your People

Posted by colin kennedy at 12:57 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

October 27, 2006

Conversation Continues

The conversations that were started at the Geek Dinner a few weeks ago now are still bubbling away and word of the film is doing the rounds on the blogosphere. I have just been reading a great blog written by Suw Charman (Chocolate and Vodka), who divulges that she was at one point a contender for my job on the blog.

backpackers photo

I also found these photos that someone took while they were staying at the backpackers hostel where we were shooting (you have to go to about 2 thirds of the way through the slideshow to get to the HF shots.)

If you know of sites or posts that I have missed feel free to leave a link in the comments.

Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell

Posted by colin kennedy at 4:46 PM | Comments (4)

October 9, 2006

chitter chatter

It would seem that the conversation is starting to bubble away.

David in discussion

Gia's blog has a few comments as do Johnnie Moore and JP's (a particularly poetic response to a particularly poetic experience).

Additions:
New post on marmaLADYablog
New post on Steve Clayton: Geek in Disguise
New post on The Obvious?
New post on Monkchips
New post on The Park Paradigm

I love this, it's so exciting to go to other peoples sites and see the discussion developing, being part of this burgeoning experiment in getting the word about our film out into the big wide world. So this blog is a kind of essence of blog, links to video, photos from other sites and snippets of the conversations from other blogs.

I have added a section to the sidebar called 'Geek Dinners'. Hopefully we will have more of these dinners in the future and in that section will be articles about each of them with who was there and links to their sites. Thanks to Hugh for bringing this idea to Hallam Foe (amongst many others I have to say).

Here is a link to a little video on Gia's site with a valuable comment about conversation from Lloyd Davis, the perfect end to this little video and hopefully the start of much much more.

Posted by colin kennedy at 12:19 PM | Comments (4)

April 14, 2006

hugh macleod

[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here etc.]

My name is Hugh MacLeod. I'm an old friend of both Peter Jinks (who wrote the Hallam Foe novel) and Dave Mackenzie (the film's director). Besides that, I'm a cartoonist, and have my own blog, gapingvoid, which is one of the largest blogs in Europe.

Dave and I met in the early 1980s, when we were 17. Since then we've shared too many adventures to mention.

I met Peter a decade later, when he and Dave were sharing a flat on Royal Crescent, in Edinburgh.

When David's earlier movie, Young Adam hit the USA I blogged about it incessantly, hoping to turn my American readers onto it.

When the Hallam Foe blog went live Dave asked me to lend a hand in the project. So here I am.

My background is in advertising. To me, the blog is a no-brainer medium for getting the word out on a movie. But very few movies have embraced it properly so far. There was King Kong, and now Sunshine, but I believe the blog-as-film-marketing-device is still very in its infancy. So Hallam Foe allows us to move this conversation forward.

I have three things to say about this blog project so far:

1. Colin Kennedy, the guy in charge of running this blog, is doing a stellar job. He "gets it." That's really exciting.

2. The blog needs a redesign- badly. I'm down to London next week to talk to the film's web design agency about what to do about that, so I'm not too worried.

3. Though it's intellectually interesting to blog about the making of the film, at the end of the day, we've got to sell movie tickets. The blog has got to help get "bums on seat", as the British like to say. So far the blog has a x-hundred-whatever readers, and though we will thank them sincerely if they go see the movie, we need much more than that if we're going to see a return on the millions of dollars already invested in the film project. Films are expensive beasties, there's no getting around that. So how do we scale the conversation upwards?

The answer [my answer, anyway] came to me quite suddenly this morning. I posted it on gapingvoid:

One of the things I'm going to recommend to the Hallam Foe execs is that they hand out free movie tickets to bloggers.

As with my Stormhoek meme from last year, I would utterly insist that bloggers would be under no obligation to write anything, good or bad, if they didn't want to.

Last September the movie "Serenity" gave out free tickets to bloggers, but only on condition that they write about it. I think that was a big, big mistake.

Here's my question: Assuming [A] the movie turns out great and [B] is worth talking about, how many bloggers do you think would need to see the movie for it to make a sizable difference to the idea-virus/buzz/marketing efforts?

100? 1,000? 5,000?

I think the more bloggers see it, the better. But of course, I would say that.

Based on what I know, this would be a cheap and easy way of getting the word out- of getting the snowball rolling.

What sayest thou?

Posted by Hugh at 2:53 PM | Comments (8)

April 3, 2006

Bloggers

All the bloggers will be listed in the Bloggers category. Jamie Bell is 'Jamie' or 'Hallam' and he is posting in character. As you will see this affords him certain liberties he couldn't take if he was writing as himself. Also he has been keeping a diary in prep in a bid to get to grips with the character of Hallam. Hopefully he will post some of this.

Other bloggers are David Mackenzie the director, myself David's assistant, Angus Pigott the associate producer, Hugh Macleod the esteemed blogger and technorati 100 regular, and others I can persuade to play.

Keep coming up with suggestions and questions, anything from the financial to the fun, and I'll go and get the answers from the relevant people.

Posted by colin kennedy at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)

March 27, 2006

colin kennedy

I am an old pal of David Mackenzie's and a filmmaker too. As a source close to the centre of production on Hallam Foe I have been asked to cast an eye over the proceedings and report as I see fit.

Hopefully we will also be having some contributions from Hugh MacLeod of www.gapingvoid.com - esteemed blogger and regular of the technorati 100.

Jamie Bell and David Mackenzie will also be blogging when they have the time.

Over the coming weeks I will endeavour to spot any interesting goings on and keep you all posted with the various developments on and off the set.

We have just started shooting today, so the pressure is on.

Posted by colin kennedy at 6:32 PM