I am looking for musicians / composers from the West Midlands. If that applies to you or someone you know please feel free to get in touch.clyderidesagain@googlemail.com
We have had some very helpful responses to the Tattoo post so maybe people might be interested in the music side of things too.
ADDENDUM:
After a little digging last night I came across a magazine called Bearded, it's looks quite interesting. You can download it here in pdf form:
issue4.pdf
As promised to Helge, a long time supporter of our blogging exploits, I have been talking to Peter Brill (pictured left) about our sound and some of the technical details that people might be interested in. Peter will be the head of the sound department on location, in charge of getting all the necessary location sound for the film.
The brief exchange went like this:
C: I am about to write a post about the sound department and just wondered if you would be happy to comment and suggest some inclusions in the piece.
e.g. what do you record on to these days, do you sync up with a timecode generator or is the board still the most brilliantly simple and effective way of achieving sync sound, how many people are in your team, how do you relate to other members of the team - camera dept and editing dept in particular.
Many thanks Peter. I hope this is helpful to people out there trying to make stuff. I am often surprised to find that most people don't know what a clapper board is actually for or that sound is recorded completely separately. We are obviously going to be using fairly sophisticated equipment but the principles would be just the same even if you were using rudimentary kit. Robert Rodriguez recorded all the sound for El Mariachi completely wild on an old Marrantz tape recorder. As soon as they had finished shooting a scene he would ask the actors to gather round and repeat the dialogue into the little mic as close to the way they said it during their camera performance and then he would sync it up later. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. He just cut round the problems when they came up. His book, Rebel Without a Crew is fantastically inspiring as wellas full of helpful practical info.P: I will record all location sound to idented WAV files, with time of day time-code, on to a 40 Gb hard disk recorder, delivering to the Editor on 4 Gb Compact Flash cards.
This way I maintain safety back-ups of everything recorded.
I shall confirm with Savalas that my recorder is set to their preferred formats for post-production work.
The simplest and easiest way to sync the sound to picture is still, thankfully, the old faithful clapper board, so long as one can both see and hear those two bits of wood banging together! The board clapping tells everyone in the vicinity of the film set to be still and shut up!
An ideal location sound crew would be 3 people, with the mixer concentrating on acquiring the cleanest dialogue, effects and atmospheres to match the pictures, reducing unwanted noises by whatever means, and through a mixing desk, saving to a reliable recording medium.
The audio is also transmitted from the desk to various members of the crew with radio headsets. The sound mixer logs all the shots with notes for the Editor, detailing and identing all "wild" tracks recorded without picture for use in the sound editing and track-laying process.
The boom operator quietly concentrates on getting the microphone into the ideal position to capture the actors speaking clearly, maintaining the perspective that matches the lens, but without causing shadows or letting the mic dip into the frame. Not an easy task!
The sound assistant helps route cables, replace batteries in headsets, and generally look after all the equipment. When radio mics need to be used, they must be concealed from the camera lens but still maintain optimum speech quality without any clothing rustle from the actor. The sound assistant and costume department normally take care of this. Extraneous unwanted noises are invariably the ones we bring with us, be they squeaking asthmatic cameras, humming and buzzing lighting ballasts, rustling waterproof coats, mobile phones left on, unit vehicles needing to move just as action is called, the list is endless............but all can be anticipated and almost silenced!
Enough waffle for now Colin.
If you really are nuts for sound then you should also read anything with Walter Murch in it and you should try and see a doc made by Vincent Hunter, the Colour of Sound. I'll go and find out a bit more about that and how one might get to see it.
Pardon the pun, couldn't resist it, one of the key parts in this short film, Luci, is played by a dog. We actually cast this part a good while ago, a number of months ago in fact. The reason for this is the dog needs to be trained to do certain things so the earlier we cast the part the more chance we have of this working out.
So here is our dog, the wonderful Wilson (he has now been trained to respond to Luci).
We are currently looking for a tattoo artist to get involved with the film. Anyone who wants to suggest some contacts or put an artist in touch with us please feel free to comment on the blog.
The current line of thinking is that there will be a tattoo on the arm of one our leading lady which will also be the title of the film: I Love Luci.
If anyone is a budding tattoo artist or knows of anyone who would like to submit a a design for potential use in our little film then send in your designs. There is no brief other than it should fit in the bicep / upper arm area of a lady and it should manage to say "I Love Luci" in some way. The style of design I will leave up to your imaginations...
The current line of thinking is that there will be a tattoo on the arm of one our leading lady which will also be the title of the film: I Love Luci.
If anyone is a budding tattoo artist or knows of anyone who would like to submit a a design for potential use in our little film then send in your designs. There is no brief other than it should fit in the bicep / upper arm area of a lady and it should manage to say "I Love Luci" in some way. The style of design I will leave up to your imaginations...
This is the last week of British Summertime. Not that you would know it here in Scotland as the weather continues to be persistently bleak...
When the Script for I Love Luci was initially conceived I set it in the summer or early autumn. As it transpires we are gearing up to shoot at the beginning of winter. We had hoped that we might be able to get things moving fast enough to get the stuff shot before the end of British Summertime when you do at least have a reasonable amount of light in the day.
I am not overly concerned about how this affects the story. I think we can use it to our advantage if we apply a little creativity. There are some serious practical implications.
I have talked a bit about schedule in the past and one constant is the tightness of a shooting schedule. They tend to be lean by nature.
This Sunday the clocks go back one hour. Gaining an hour sounds useful on first impression but the reality is that all of a sudden it start to get dark at about 4 in the afternoon which takes a considerable chunk out of your working day if daylights important to whatever you're up to.
This coupled with what looks like an expanding production schedule means that we are heading towards the abyss of Scottish winter and some new thinking on the shooting schedule.
When the Script for I Love Luci was initially conceived I set it in the summer or early autumn. As it transpires we are gearing up to shoot at the beginning of winter. We had hoped that we might be able to get things moving fast enough to get the stuff shot before the end of British Summertime when you do at least have a reasonable amount of light in the day. I am not overly concerned about how this affects the story. I think we can use it to our advantage if we apply a little creativity. There are some serious practical implications.
I have talked a bit about schedule in the past and one constant is the tightness of a shooting schedule. They tend to be lean by nature.
This Sunday the clocks go back one hour. Gaining an hour sounds useful on first impression but the reality is that all of a sudden it start to get dark at about 4 in the afternoon which takes a considerable chunk out of your working day if daylights important to whatever you're up to.
This coupled with what looks like an expanding production schedule means that we are heading towards the abyss of Scottish winter and some new thinking on the shooting schedule.
If there's one thing I have learned over the last few years working at
Sigma then it's that you have to remain flexible. Too often you can
make a decision and have it robbed from you for reasons you could never
predict - although the schedule is frequently the perpetrator.
The very exciting part of having our first chunk of funding in place means that we now have tentative shoot dates and casting and crewing to start pulling together.
At one point it looked like we had all the HoD's (heads of department) in place. However, the nature of the project is that even though we are a funded operation we still can't pay high fees and we will be in production for a short period of time. The upshot of this is if people get jobs that will take them up to Christmas or just pay a lot more money then economics take priority.
We are forever planning and re-planning and changing and alternating and reconfiguring and swapping things about. I expect things will chop and change some more before we shoot. I suppose if there are people out there in a similar situation to mine then you should be aware that things are rarely set in stone before the camera rolls.
Tomorrow we have our first casting day. It's for the part of Tommy. The male lead in the film. This is very exciting. We have a bunch of guys coming into read for the role all of whom look like interesting options for the part. I love the idea that tomorrow I will be able to see some life coming to the script for the first time. I hope the schedule doesn't get in the way of anything that feels right tomorrow.
The very exciting part of having our first chunk of funding in place means that we now have tentative shoot dates and casting and crewing to start pulling together.
At one point it looked like we had all the HoD's (heads of department) in place. However, the nature of the project is that even though we are a funded operation we still can't pay high fees and we will be in production for a short period of time. The upshot of this is if people get jobs that will take them up to Christmas or just pay a lot more money then economics take priority.
We are forever planning and re-planning and changing and alternating and reconfiguring and swapping things about. I expect things will chop and change some more before we shoot. I suppose if there are people out there in a similar situation to mine then you should be aware that things are rarely set in stone before the camera rolls.
Tomorrow we have our first casting day. It's for the part of Tommy. The male lead in the film. This is very exciting. We have a bunch of guys coming into read for the role all of whom look like interesting options for the part. I love the idea that tomorrow I will be able to see some life coming to the script for the first time. I hope the schedule doesn't get in the way of anything that feels right tomorrow.
The current intention is to shoot I Love Luci
on 16mm film. This is for a number of reasons. I am very keen to
shoot on film for the quality of image. To get a
comparative image digitallly the camera we would have to use is very
big
and we have a number of tight locations and a lot of handheld work on
this film so 16mm will save on space and
get the best image. Secondary to this is the amount of light we will
need. It seems strange to me but we need more light to shoot on HD
than we would to shoot on film now that the stocks are so good (for the
uninitiated: stock is the term for the film that goes in the camera and you get all sorts of makes and speeds, mainly Kodak and Fujifilm).
BTW, if you are thinking of shooting something on film you should try and buddy up to the reps for Kodak and Fuji to see if you can get a good deal on your stock. If you have absolutely no money and you still want to shoot on film then try going to production companies that shoot on film and asking for some of their shorts ends.
So we're thinking of shooting a standard 16mm gate with anamorphic
lenses. This will give us that classic 2.39 or Techniscope image. As I understand it though, anamorphic lenses are expensive and light hungry. Yesterday our exec producer, Gillian Berrie, asked why we weren't thinking of shooting on 35 and I explained that I didn't think there was a camera small enough for us to use that would fit all the criteria we need for an 'A' camera.
So I've had a very fun day looking at all the options for 35, having
previously discounted it as not possible because of the size of the
camera. However, after a little research into new cameras that are
about I have found two cameras that are perfect for the job and could
in fact save us quite a substantial amount of money for another reason
that isn't available to 16mm. If we shoot 2-perf on 35 we would half
the amount of stock we need because it's a far more efficient use of
the negative. I think this is a technique we used on Hallam Foe,
but I didn't go into much detail about it on the blog because I didn't
have time to research it properly. Another benefit to this is that a
mag lasts twice as long so you would get about 9 minutes out of a 400'
roll, this is lighter for the camera operator too and roughly equal to
the time you get out of a roll of 16mm.
The upshot of all this reading and looking into different cameras is that I have found a way of potentially saving us money that could be well used somewhere else as well as improving the versatility of our camera department. If it checks out well in the money department for post-production as well as the shoot then we are quids in and would only have to clear it with our financiers to get the go ahead. We'll see what happens.
BTW, if you are thinking of shooting something on film you should try and buddy up to the reps for Kodak and Fuji to see if you can get a good deal on your stock. If you have absolutely no money and you still want to shoot on film then try going to production companies that shoot on film and asking for some of their shorts ends.
So we're thinking of shooting a standard 16mm gate with anamorphic
lenses. This will give us that classic 2.39 or Techniscope image. As I understand it though, anamorphic lenses are expensive and light hungry. Yesterday our exec producer, Gillian Berrie, asked why we weren't thinking of shooting on 35 and I explained that I didn't think there was a camera small enough for us to use that would fit all the criteria we need for an 'A' camera.
So I've had a very fun day looking at all the options for 35, having
previously discounted it as not possible because of the size of the
camera. However, after a little research into new cameras that are
about I have found two cameras that are perfect for the job and could
in fact save us quite a substantial amount of money for another reason
that isn't available to 16mm. If we shoot 2-perf on 35 we would half
the amount of stock we need because it's a far more efficient use of
the negative. I think this is a technique we used on Hallam Foe,
but I didn't go into much detail about it on the blog because I didn't
have time to research it properly. Another benefit to this is that a
mag lasts twice as long so you would get about 9 minutes out of a 400'
roll, this is lighter for the camera operator too and roughly equal to
the time you get out of a roll of 16mm.The upshot of all this reading and looking into different cameras is that I have found a way of potentially saving us money that could be well used somewhere else as well as improving the versatility of our camera department. If it checks out well in the money department for post-production as well as the shoot then we are quids in and would only have to clear it with our financiers to get the go ahead. We'll see what happens.
Today is a pretty special day. We (Brian and I) made a significant leap towards making our film.We got the good word from our major funder that we would be able to secure the finance we need from them. I am speaking in mildly coded terms because this is the first step in funding and it won't be made public (i.e. announced to the press) until we have closed finance. That said, this is the foot up we need and our hope is that the rest of the metaphoric dominoes will fall well for us over the coming weeks.
This is the starting point for I Love Luci so it's eyes down now for the next few months and fingers, toes and all other appendages crossed that we can put together a great little film over the days and weeks to come.
Thank you to all that have supported us thus far, it means a lot.
Stay tuned for the ups and downs.
As the application approaches readiness (it's currently in the hands of our development executive having a thorough going over to make sure all the elements are in place) I thought I should publish the synopsis for the film here.
I know people are not keen to see such a spoiler as the script but a little more detail might be nice. So here it is:
ADDENDUM:
I wrote this entry quite some time ago but didn't publish it because I didn't want to influence the decision making process for our application. Things were very sensitive back then.
I know people are not keen to see such a spoiler as the script but a little more detail might be nice. So here it is:
I Love Luci is a comedy of missing teeth, an inappropriate paramour and one dog's ability to shape the fortunes of a couple destined never to be together.
Today is the last day Tommy has to win Marjory's heart before her man returns from another stint in the clink. But things aren't looking good. Marjory is totally pre-occupied by the fact she's lost her teeth, and it's about to get a whole lot worse.
ADDENDUM:
I wrote this entry quite some time ago but didn't publish it because I didn't want to influence the decision making process for our application. Things were very sensitive back then.
I have had the video that we made for We Are The Physics up on this blog before but I was asked to take it down by the record label. I think that any concentration of hype they may have wanted will surely have passed by now so here it is again for those that missed it the first time round.
I should add that if anyone is interested in having a music video made by Sigma Films then they should get in touch with the office.
I should add that if anyone is interested in having a music video made by Sigma Films then they should get in touch with the office.
Money, money, money...
As soon as you start down the road of trying to make something that looks the part, will be professional and stand up to the competition, you inevitably have to start talking about money.
I believe people should get paid for the work they do, even if it's just a token gesture, a little something for time and effort is an important nod to the fact that a large part of film-making is about making a living too.
The thing about shorts is that there isn't a lot of money to be made once the film is complete - no-one's going to get rich off the back of this. Who knows what the future holds with the development of online viewing platforms and the long-term decline of terrestrial television, but none of this will happen in a time-scale that is useful to us and our film so I shall have a debate about the changing face of broadcasting at a later date. (Although it does make me instantly think that there should be a clause in any contracts that the film has to be charged for when people view it in a capacity other than terrestrial TV and that some of that should come back to the filmmakers... to be continued...)
This, of course, all leads back to the same place: funding.
I mentioned previously that we are looking for the lion's share of our funding from Scottish Screen, our local funding body, and part of that process is putting in an application for funding. I am pleased to say that our application appears to be getting closer and closer to completion. The outcome of this will have a massive bearing on how we progress. Without the funding I am not sure we will be able to go ahead.
Whether approaching your local funder or looking for private investment it is apparent to me that there are certain things that would help with any potential investor. We're being very clear to identify all the people we want to work with up front, all the things that we predict will be problematic and trying to pre-empt as many of those problems as possible and, most importantly, making it clear where other investment is coming from and who those partners are.
This is conjecture but film making is an expensive endeavour and if the risk needs spreading then that's what you have to do. The more people I talk to about funding short films the more parallels I see with the way independent films are financed, namely patch-funding. For the uninitiated this means exactly as it sounds; funding is patched together from various sources in order to match what you have worked out is going to be the cost of making your film.
Of course this is by no means the only way of going about making a short film. I have made a number of shorts with little or no money and pulled them together using a huge number of favours and some of the best films I have seen have been done in the same way. This time, however, I am keen to finance the work and it's about time I took this step. I should also point out that I am trying to make this film outwith the framework of a scheme. This makes life a lot harder because many of the potential funders (government bodies, broadcasters etc) are not interested in spending money outside of their schemes. I think they feel they already make a significant contribution to emerging talent. However, there are always exceptions to the rule so why not try and batter the door down anyway.
I am pleased to say that we have got some interest as a result of conversations in Cannes so perhaps I should retract my remark about it not being a useful place for people interested in making shorts, it looks like it might have been very useful for us. We just need to firm things up now and get it all into our application.
Fingers crossed (as usual).
As soon as you start down the road of trying to make something that looks the part, will be professional and stand up to the competition, you inevitably have to start talking about money.I believe people should get paid for the work they do, even if it's just a token gesture, a little something for time and effort is an important nod to the fact that a large part of film-making is about making a living too.
The thing about shorts is that there isn't a lot of money to be made once the film is complete - no-one's going to get rich off the back of this. Who knows what the future holds with the development of online viewing platforms and the long-term decline of terrestrial television, but none of this will happen in a time-scale that is useful to us and our film so I shall have a debate about the changing face of broadcasting at a later date. (Although it does make me instantly think that there should be a clause in any contracts that the film has to be charged for when people view it in a capacity other than terrestrial TV and that some of that should come back to the filmmakers... to be continued...)
This, of course, all leads back to the same place: funding.
I mentioned previously that we are looking for the lion's share of our funding from Scottish Screen, our local funding body, and part of that process is putting in an application for funding. I am pleased to say that our application appears to be getting closer and closer to completion. The outcome of this will have a massive bearing on how we progress. Without the funding I am not sure we will be able to go ahead.
Whether approaching your local funder or looking for private investment it is apparent to me that there are certain things that would help with any potential investor. We're being very clear to identify all the people we want to work with up front, all the things that we predict will be problematic and trying to pre-empt as many of those problems as possible and, most importantly, making it clear where other investment is coming from and who those partners are.
This is conjecture but film making is an expensive endeavour and if the risk needs spreading then that's what you have to do. The more people I talk to about funding short films the more parallels I see with the way independent films are financed, namely patch-funding. For the uninitiated this means exactly as it sounds; funding is patched together from various sources in order to match what you have worked out is going to be the cost of making your film.
Of course this is by no means the only way of going about making a short film. I have made a number of shorts with little or no money and pulled them together using a huge number of favours and some of the best films I have seen have been done in the same way. This time, however, I am keen to finance the work and it's about time I took this step. I should also point out that I am trying to make this film outwith the framework of a scheme. This makes life a lot harder because many of the potential funders (government bodies, broadcasters etc) are not interested in spending money outside of their schemes. I think they feel they already make a significant contribution to emerging talent. However, there are always exceptions to the rule so why not try and batter the door down anyway.
I am pleased to say that we have got some interest as a result of conversations in Cannes so perhaps I should retract my remark about it not being a useful place for people interested in making shorts, it looks like it might have been very useful for us. We just need to firm things up now and get it all into our application.
Fingers crossed (as usual).
As I mentioned very briefly in my last post I am just back from Cannes.
My feelings about the place are pretty conflicted most of the time, but there is no doubt that it can be very inspiring.
It is not really suited to doing anything regarding short films but there is the Short Film Corner there where you can see literally thousands of shorts.
I recommend trying to see Love You More by Sam Taylor-Wood, a brilliant period piece but also something that really seems to echo the feelings I had as a teenager - if it's possible to go about exploration in a mopish fashion I guess that would sum it for me.
Also quite inspirational was a discussion between Jason Solomons (well worth listening to his Film Weekly podcast) and Mike Figgis. I found when I first started making films that it was greatly heartening to hear people you admire talk about problems you were experiencing and that you both came to the same solution or opinion completely independently. My feelings have changed a little since then.
I now feel a bit more confident that my own solutions to problems are just as valid as those of the people I admire and in fact it's probably better that they are different. I suppose that's just growing up but when you become aware of it as a maker of things, particularly in such a formal craft as filmmaking, there is a very real sense that you have made some kind of step.
That was what I took away from my time listening to Mike Figgis. I love a lot of his work and I loved listening to him speak. In the interview he spoke very much in anecdotal terms rather intellectual hypothesising, which can often become impenetrable and meaningless, but I didn't agree with everything he said. I don't know why that feels important at the moment but it does.
The long and the short of it is that I have come away from Cannes feeling that there are some slight but very important changes I need to make to our script. I'm not quite setting my stall out properly at the moment and that needs to be right.
If anyone would like to recommend some dark comedies please feel free to leave them in the comments. Cheers...
My feelings about the place are pretty conflicted most of the time, but there is no doubt that it can be very inspiring.
It is not really suited to doing anything regarding short films but there is the Short Film Corner there where you can see literally thousands of shorts.
I recommend trying to see Love You More by Sam Taylor-Wood, a brilliant period piece but also something that really seems to echo the feelings I had as a teenager - if it's possible to go about exploration in a mopish fashion I guess that would sum it for me.
Also quite inspirational was a discussion between Jason Solomons (well worth listening to his Film Weekly podcast) and Mike Figgis. I found when I first started making films that it was greatly heartening to hear people you admire talk about problems you were experiencing and that you both came to the same solution or opinion completely independently. My feelings have changed a little since then.
I now feel a bit more confident that my own solutions to problems are just as valid as those of the people I admire and in fact it's probably better that they are different. I suppose that's just growing up but when you become aware of it as a maker of things, particularly in such a formal craft as filmmaking, there is a very real sense that you have made some kind of step.
That was what I took away from my time listening to Mike Figgis. I love a lot of his work and I loved listening to him speak. In the interview he spoke very much in anecdotal terms rather intellectual hypothesising, which can often become impenetrable and meaningless, but I didn't agree with everything he said. I don't know why that feels important at the moment but it does.
The long and the short of it is that I have come away from Cannes feeling that there are some slight but very important changes I need to make to our script. I'm not quite setting my stall out properly at the moment and that needs to be right.
If anyone would like to recommend some dark comedies please feel free to leave them in the comments. Cheers...
...after a fairly extended period of absence.
We have been busy though, Brian and I. We are currently trying to put the funding together for I Love Luci. Comparatively, it's quite a pricey short, some people have shot features for the same money (under £60k). However, it's only pricey in a particular context and we are aiming to make a film reflective of our potential to make something for the cinema, films for the big screen.
I can't really discuss who we are talking to about finance at the moment, apart from obviously we will be making an application to our local funding body Scottish Screen. This is de rigueur for any UK production. Some local funding is available to projects that fulfil certain criteria (applications come with a set of guidelines you have to comply with and it's a good idea to build a relationship with the people at your local screen agency when going through the process).
In short, things are progressing, slowly but surely. It is nerve racking though when you get to the point where it's time for people to put their money where their mouth is. Everyone who has read the script has had a very favourable response but that doesn't mean they'll be willing to put any money into it...
The image below is of my room in Cannes this year, but I thought it might be a source of inspiration for Marjory's room in I Love Luci.
We have been busy though, Brian and I. We are currently trying to put the funding together for I Love Luci. Comparatively, it's quite a pricey short, some people have shot features for the same money (under £60k). However, it's only pricey in a particular context and we are aiming to make a film reflective of our potential to make something for the cinema, films for the big screen.
I can't really discuss who we are talking to about finance at the moment, apart from obviously we will be making an application to our local funding body Scottish Screen. This is de rigueur for any UK production. Some local funding is available to projects that fulfil certain criteria (applications come with a set of guidelines you have to comply with and it's a good idea to build a relationship with the people at your local screen agency when going through the process).
In short, things are progressing, slowly but surely. It is nerve racking though when you get to the point where it's time for people to put their money where their mouth is. Everyone who has read the script has had a very favourable response but that doesn't mean they'll be willing to put any money into it...
The image below is of my room in Cannes this year, but I thought it might be a source of inspiration for Marjory's room in I Love Luci.
Recently Brian and I did a fairly comprehensive tour of Glasgow's west end looking for locations for I Love Luci. Although this hasn't had a direct impact on the writing there were always a couple of locations that have been present in the script right from the beginning.I remember David quoting Wong Kar-wai as saying that he likes to find a location and then a story. David followed somewhat similar principals on Hallam Foe. I have to admit I am not entirely following their lead but I am trying to apply my story to some locations that I have always wanted use, so my approach is not totally dissimilar.
Before being a filmmaker I studied painting, at that time my environs always had a big impact on the work I made. It seems this is still the case with my current projects.
We are pretty much crewed up for the music video for We Are The Physics.
We are also quite well sorted on the locations front. Although I will be doing a good long walk in the rain tomorrow taking pictures and trying to get everything nailed down.
We have a fantastic team on board so fingers crossed everything turns out good.
It's a kind of Glaswegian take on the Attack of the 50ft Woman - proper B-movie fare.
We are also quite well sorted on the locations front. Although I will be doing a good long walk in the rain tomorrow taking pictures and trying to get everything nailed down.
We have a fantastic team on board so fingers crossed everything turns out good.
It's a kind of Glaswegian take on the Attack of the 50ft Woman - proper B-movie fare.
We would like to wish everyone working on Rounding Up Donkeys all the very best of luck today as they start their first day of principal photography.
ALL THE BEST X
Essentials for your first day on set:
Hat
Very warm coat
Pens
Paper
Scarf
Good boots
Camera
More pens
No hangover
Immodium
Callsheet
ALL THE BEST X
Essentials for your first day on set:
Hat
Very warm coat
Pens
Paper
Scarf
Good boots
Camera
More pens
No hangover
Immodium
Callsheet
Another draft of the script (I Love Luci) is complete. This is the 8th draft.
The process is becoming more satisfying with every pass* these days. The developments are more subtle as I encounter nuances within the piece that escaped me while I was getting the bigger picture in shape. The result is these smaller more delicate changes make far more of an impact and greatly improve the story.
The script is now more malleable than ever. As it becomes stronger it becomes more enjoyable to work on. There is a point you reach when during any creative endeavour where this happens. All the elements are in place, to all intents and purposes you have a finished piece, so now the real work can begin. I'm not saying anything new here but it is at this point that the difference between something that simply works and something that is truly poignant can occur and the act of tinkering with the thing is ultimately very satisfying because you can't really do anything wrong. It feels a bit like decorating a house, everything's in place but it's now time to make it your own and you can go on refining and altering until you are exhausted, or bored out your brains or more preferably once you have something that exceeds expectation.
I'm finished for now, but I'll no doubt start again tomorrow, my previous experience tells me this time doesn't last for long so I will capitalise on it.
The next question is whether or not to publish my script here. A good friend of mine is an ardent advocate of publishing things on your blog that you might otherwise keep private. I understand his point of view but remain sceptical on my own behalf. David Mackenzie took the brave step of putting the Hallam Foe script on the web and while it is generally regarded as not having been a terribly successful experiment it was the start of something for the film. Certainly it's presence online has gone from strength to strength from that day on and the action itself was a true indictment of the will and imaginative force driving the film.
What is really up for grabs here?
Hallam Foe was put online to get reactions and suggestions to the script. But, as David has said in many interviews / Q&A's, the act of reading a script is very distant from a literary experience so he was being asked fairly ridiculous questions in response, like 'what's the music going to be?' The mechanical nature of a script prevented any helpful intuitive response from readers unused to this experience.
All in all, having the script online wasn't useful to David directly. That wouldn't necessarily be repeated here however. For starters I'm not nearly such an experienced filmmaker as David. But more importantly, the audience for this blog is no doubt considerably more film-savvy than the readers of Gapingvoid, which mainly concentrates on marketing theory, so there may be more chance of getting helpful crit.
Of course I'd be a liar if I wasn't concerned about my rights too. In essence I'm not too worried about the response I might get to the script, that seems like a risk worth taking. But I don't have the same safety net as there was on Hallam where the material came from a book that had already been published and was backed up by a substantial and very competent legal team.
I have put things on here in the past and rediscovered them elsewhere on the net passed off as the work of somebody else. Ultimately I didn't really care about those little snippets of video, but this is entirely different. I have spent months creating this and the last thing I want to do is jeopardise it's life by exposing it to those more ruthless in the world.
If anyone has some genuinely good ideas about how I might protect myself I'd love to hear them. For now I'm going to hold back on publishing my work.
I should say that if anyone is interested in reading the script with regards to co-production then email me and we can discuss.
* "pass": once you have a screenplay each return to the script where you go through the whole thing is informally referred to as 'doing a pass'
The process is becoming more satisfying with every pass* these days. The developments are more subtle as I encounter nuances within the piece that escaped me while I was getting the bigger picture in shape. The result is these smaller more delicate changes make far more of an impact and greatly improve the story.
The script is now more malleable than ever. As it becomes stronger it becomes more enjoyable to work on. There is a point you reach when during any creative endeavour where this happens. All the elements are in place, to all intents and purposes you have a finished piece, so now the real work can begin. I'm not saying anything new here but it is at this point that the difference between something that simply works and something that is truly poignant can occur and the act of tinkering with the thing is ultimately very satisfying because you can't really do anything wrong. It feels a bit like decorating a house, everything's in place but it's now time to make it your own and you can go on refining and altering until you are exhausted, or bored out your brains or more preferably once you have something that exceeds expectation.
I'm finished for now, but I'll no doubt start again tomorrow, my previous experience tells me this time doesn't last for long so I will capitalise on it.
The next question is whether or not to publish my script here. A good friend of mine is an ardent advocate of publishing things on your blog that you might otherwise keep private. I understand his point of view but remain sceptical on my own behalf. David Mackenzie took the brave step of putting the Hallam Foe script on the web and while it is generally regarded as not having been a terribly successful experiment it was the start of something for the film. Certainly it's presence online has gone from strength to strength from that day on and the action itself was a true indictment of the will and imaginative force driving the film.
What is really up for grabs here?
Hallam Foe was put online to get reactions and suggestions to the script. But, as David has said in many interviews / Q&A's, the act of reading a script is very distant from a literary experience so he was being asked fairly ridiculous questions in response, like 'what's the music going to be?' The mechanical nature of a script prevented any helpful intuitive response from readers unused to this experience.
All in all, having the script online wasn't useful to David directly. That wouldn't necessarily be repeated here however. For starters I'm not nearly such an experienced filmmaker as David. But more importantly, the audience for this blog is no doubt considerably more film-savvy than the readers of Gapingvoid, which mainly concentrates on marketing theory, so there may be more chance of getting helpful crit.
Of course I'd be a liar if I wasn't concerned about my rights too. In essence I'm not too worried about the response I might get to the script, that seems like a risk worth taking. But I don't have the same safety net as there was on Hallam where the material came from a book that had already been published and was backed up by a substantial and very competent legal team.
I have put things on here in the past and rediscovered them elsewhere on the net passed off as the work of somebody else. Ultimately I didn't really care about those little snippets of video, but this is entirely different. I have spent months creating this and the last thing I want to do is jeopardise it's life by exposing it to those more ruthless in the world.
If anyone has some genuinely good ideas about how I might protect myself I'd love to hear them. For now I'm going to hold back on publishing my work.
I should say that if anyone is interested in reading the script with regards to co-production then email me and we can discuss.
* "pass": once you have a screenplay each return to the script where you go through the whole thing is informally referred to as 'doing a pass'
One of the realities of making a short film is that there isn't much money involved - i.e. you don't get paid for your work, certainly not initially. It is a labour of love, or a compulsion at least. The knock-on effect of that is things have to slide a little when the offer of paid work comes along.
To this end Brian (producer on I Love Luci) and myself are making a music video. Again, not a particularly lucrative profession but any little contribution to the coffers is always welcome so this will help while we're getting the script in shape.
We are working with a fantastic young Scottish band from Glasgow - We Are The Physics - on their next single release You Can Do Athletics.
If you like fast punky pop then these guys are for you.
Of course, this has involved a good bit of writing and research to get to the point of commission and I am now about to write a detailed script. Once the script is in order the next steps will be scheduling, budgeting and crewing up for a shoot in the very near future. Exciting stuff and very good fun, if a little on the stressful side as with all film making.
The production company is Sigma Films and the record label is Fake DIY Records. I'd also like to put a little nod towards Gill Mills and iCast for making the introductions.
To this end Brian (producer on I Love Luci) and myself are making a music video. Again, not a particularly lucrative profession but any little contribution to the coffers is always welcome so this will help while we're getting the script in shape.We are working with a fantastic young Scottish band from Glasgow - We Are The Physics - on their next single release You Can Do Athletics.
If you like fast punky pop then these guys are for you.
Of course, this has involved a good bit of writing and research to get to the point of commission and I am now about to write a detailed script. Once the script is in order the next steps will be scheduling, budgeting and crewing up for a shoot in the very near future. Exciting stuff and very good fun, if a little on the stressful side as with all film making.
The production company is Sigma Films and the record label is Fake DIY Records. I'd also like to put a little nod towards Gill Mills and iCast for making the introductions.
Check out this great band...
...but that is only one of the things we need to get in place before we can go into production.
Although our script is by no means in a position to start shooting we are already considering the things that need to fall into place in order for this to go ahead the way we want.
As with all stories there are certain things that are peculiar to ours that we need to make sure are realised properly on screen. We have some false teeth to cope with so we are dealing with a company from London who are specialists in making teeth for films. This means that the actor won't be in too much discomfort while we're shooting and my hope is that we won't have to do any work in post to enhance the realism of the teeth. I'm not a huge fan of CGI so I want to minimise the likelihood of having to do this kind of work. It's hugely expensive and we will never have enough money to make it just right.
The company we are working with are called Fangs FX and have done some great work.
The other thing about the teeth is that it has a knock-on effect on our casting. We are ideally looking for someone who has small teeth so that the FX gang's work is made easier.
I'll post the script soon so that you can have a better idea of the context we are working in. I am still working on it though and don't want to make it public just yet.
Although our script is by no means in a position to start shooting we are already considering the things that need to fall into place in order for this to go ahead the way we want.
As with all stories there are certain things that are peculiar to ours that we need to make sure are realised properly on screen. We have some false teeth to cope with so we are dealing with a company from London who are specialists in making teeth for films. This means that the actor won't be in too much discomfort while we're shooting and my hope is that we won't have to do any work in post to enhance the realism of the teeth. I'm not a huge fan of CGI so I want to minimise the likelihood of having to do this kind of work. It's hugely expensive and we will never have enough money to make it just right.The company we are working with are called Fangs FX and have done some great work.
The other thing about the teeth is that it has a knock-on effect on our casting. We are ideally looking for someone who has small teeth so that the FX gang's work is made easier.
I'll post the script soon so that you can have a better idea of the context we are working in. I am still working on it though and don't want to make it public just yet.
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