I see another...review...

So another review came in. This time by Derrick Ferguson who runs a movie review blog - The Ferguson Theater.

Let's get straight to it...


Okay. Since I like to end on a upbeat note I'll get what I didn't like about ONE FOOT IN HELL out of the way first: where'd the second doll come from? Did the evil spirit of the first doll leave that body and jump into the body of the second doll? And if so, why did it go after Alice instead of Warwick? Because she was the one who nailed it down to be BBQ'ed? if so, that was a nice touch with the way the second doll nailed her down. But that part was unclear to me. As was the ending with Warwick mailing pieces of the doll to different people. Was it because he was afraid that the spirit would just jump into another doll's body and come after them again? Again, the wasn't clear to me.

And I realize there's only so much you can do in a short film but Charlie's death is a pretty big loose end hanging out there. Did Warwick and Alice go to the police with their wild story and found themselves charged with his murder?

Now to what I did like: you've got a very clean directorial style. I myself appreciate a director who trusts his actors and his story enough that he can let them do what supposed to do and not try a whole bunch of unnecessary camera tricks and angles just to show off. You didn't do that here. You put your camera down, put your actors in front ot the camera and let them work. I liked all three of your actors very much. They were quite natural and didn't come off as "trying to act" if you know what I mean.

And that stop-motion animation was simply great. I've a major fan of stop-motion animation and I heartily support anybody keeping it alive. In fact, stop-motion animation works better in a killer doll story such as this one as for me it's a lot creepier than CGI. And I liked how you got in a bit of humor with your horror when the killer doll is standing at the top of the stairs and gives Alice that cute little wave hello.

To sum up, I liked it. It's a respectable short movie that told a short, effective story. As i said, some of the motivations of Warwick and the doll confused me slightly there near the end but it didn't prevent my overall enjoyment of the film. You and your people should be rightfully proud of it and I hope to see more work from you in the future. I don't know if any of this helps but whether it does or not, you keep on making films. And definitely continue to use stop-motion! Can't ever get enough of that. 

Derrick

The first review...

So my understanding of how to get fortune and glory goes like this:-

1. Make/do something awesome;
2. Something happens;
3. Fortune and Glory!!

Now I'll all for stages 1 and 3, but it's part 2 that's still a bit hazy. Since completing One Foot I have been patiently waiting for stage 3, but I don't seem to be there yet. Then I had the idea (or just did what Bother Chris told me to do) and decided to contact a few horror themed blogs to tell them about my film.

And now reviews are starting to pour in.

The first comes from Ghost Hunting Theories; a blog by Sharon Day, a paranormal investigator and author from. You can find the review by clicking here.

So, we have our first review.

Surely I'm now well on my way to fortune and glory!

Growing up, networking and such…

 

I say growing up, but it’s more of a getting my life/priorities in order. By life and priorities, I mean work. It’s become all too easy stay comfy in the day job, however the typewriter has started to call.

 

(Hopefully you get what I mean. I could have said keyboard but you may have thought I was on a path to become a great pianist. Now I mention that I do have it on my list of things to eventually do).

 

Brother Chris has been writing for a while, however this year, there have been a few more opportunities for myself to help out on a couple of projects. For real life money. Basically as of this year I too can say I am a paid writer.

 

But what of the day job? Well, we’re not that well paid yet, so I must continue in my war with free time.

 

That’s where the growing up comes in. Brother Chris and I are starting to get organised. With 3 screenplays currently optioned we have a body of work to start building on. Hopefully at least one of these will see the light of day to carry us further.

 

And with this, the networking comes in. As we started to take things more seriously I decided  to attend a course back in June – First Draft with Pilar Alessandra of On The Page.tv

 

This 2 day course provided excellent information on getting a first draft together quickly, and then beefing it up in the 2^nd/3^rd drafts. It was also an excellent place for networking…except I’m terrible at networking.

 

The main issue I have with this is I’m not one to shout about myself. Also, a certain percentage of people who can shout about themselves, come across a bit arrogant. I’m sure in their day to day lives they’re entirely pleasant. However as soon as they start telling me they have the best idea, and they only ever had a specific actor in mind for a role, and will settle for no other, but the script is so good that they’re definitely going to take the part; when I’m being told this, I zone out, and lose interest. They start to sound like a…let’s just say they are annoying.

 

I have a constant battle with this as here, in this very enclosed forum, I know I have a great idea. I just don’t like having to shout about it at the risk of coming off as an arrogant sod.

 

So there’s that to work on.

 

In many ways the reclusive feeling more than anything qualifies me as a writer. It also helps that I trained as an animator, another introverted profession.

 

So I need to grow up. Break out of my shell. Get networking. Speak to people about my amazing idea.

 

It seems that’s the only way to get things get made.

 

Unless you not the only one in the crowd shouting. Then it’s just a case of who’s the loudest.

 

You wouldn’t have guessed that I once made a film called Jonny the Pessimist.

Something wicked this way comes...

One Foot From Hell was completed on 17th November 2013.

I've been busy with other projects but haven't forgotten about this wonderful film. Recently I've got back into gear and started to send it to Festivals. 

If you want to be kept up to date it would be best to 'LIKE' the facebook page as most updates will be posted there:

https://www.facebook.com/OneFootFromHell

Thank you to all who have been involved with the making of this film. It took a while to get to the end but here we are. Now I prepare for the Fortune and Glory stage...that's next right?

Whilst I wait, enjoy some stills from the completed film.

I'm still here waiting....

Let me keep you updated....

One Foot From Hell will soon be upon us.

I say soon but there’s still a bit to do. Well a lot to be honest. In terms of structure the edit is now locked. In terms of grade, just needs a slight brightness/contrast tweak when I’ve swapped all the footage for the high quality alternative (it’s a complicated task when your PC doesn’t want to help with editing). Also I do need to try to tweak the animation but due to said unhelpful PC it’s not longer rendering out the animation so for now I‘m forced to be happy with what I have.

So where do we stand?

In short, sound. In more depth, I’m mixing the dialogue, then will start to get Axel Foley and get that all mixed in. Whilst this is going on I’ll be on the hunt for composers to score the film. Then there’s just a few final flourishes to complete the film, such as credits. Well, mainly credits.

If I get on top of it all I it should be ready for a Halloween release and then ready for festivals the of 2014. This I think is the most taxing part and I need to stay positive through. I'm a creative at heart, and mixing the sound, at least at this stage, is more a job that needs doing more than anything else. Foley will be a bit more interesting, but until then I need to make sure I get mixing and I keep motivated.


But in other news, you may have seen a few extra buttons appear at the top of this page. Due to lack of organisation and webskills I’m basically turning this ‘ere blog into a main site where you can access information about my work. For the time being, my showreel , and behind the scenes info for One Foot. Ok, so there's nothing in the behind the scenes yet, but there will be.

I hope to continue to fill it with more and more information to give a more rounded study on the making of the short. I can then start directing people here to find out about me and the film.

But for now I’d better get back to sound editing.

Oh by the way, we now have a poster that I need to post up here when we're closer to finished.

To keep up to date about the progress of One Foot, you can like the Facebook fan page here!

A whole host of randomness...

So what do I have to update?

I'd like to point you in the direction of the completed One Foot From Hell...but I can't.

I'd like to explain how my bonkers script is the most amazing un-produced film script ever...but I can't.

I'd like to also point out how I've completed all my half completed projects and how everything is going well and I'm on top of everything and got it all sorted...but I can't.

What I can tell you is that I've been to work, a lot. More than I'd like to to be honest. There are times when I find the day job really gets in the way. I sometimes wish that I could finish work early to do overtime on my film!

So in and around work I have managed to get some work on One Foot done. Darren completed the grade, which looked great. (Due to technical difficulty I had to make some adjustments myself and tweaked the colour ever so slightly).

I've now managed to start compositing the animation with the plates. There are 18 shots in total with 4 POV shots to amend. I have completed 8 out of 18.

I'm getting there.

In terms of all other projects I have going, they're all pretty much on hold. I really want to get back to writing but as highlighted above, time is stretched at the moment. Hopefully once One Foot is properly complete I'll get back into the script. For now it annoyingly has to be on hold.

You never know, it may resurface for Project 31!.

For now though, work on One Foot continues. You can "Like" the Facebook page at the link below where I post more often about the status of the film.

https://www.facebook.com/OneFootFromHell

I'm currently trying to turn this blog into more of a website about me with details of my films, behind the scenes stuff and links to Youtube and Vimeo. Somewhere I can point people towards and update easily. Note the new buttons at the top of the page.

I also have a podcast with Brother Chris. Website is below for direct MP3 downloads but you can also subscribe on iTunes. This also has a Facebook page to "Like".

https://www.facebook.com/ItWasOnlyAPound

http://www.itwasonlyapound.co.uk/

If you are already keeping up to date on Facebook, please spread the word. It's a little disheartening when I actually have more friends than I do Likes, but I guess it's direct evidence that you can't always please everyone.

To those loyal followers, I thank you!

Ray Harryhausen (1920 - 2013)

A hero passed away yesterday, and with this the world lost some of it's magic.

Ray Harryhausen was a technician, a sculptor, an artist, an animator and most importantly, a filmmaker. I don't want to give you his life story here. I'm not the man for that. Plus there are plenty of books for you to go out and read.

What I do want to do is tell you is how much Ray's work and life meant to me.

Now I'm no one special. I'm a guy that works in an office in Brighton who happens to make films in his spare time. I have good days, and I have bad days, but I enjoy the hell out of this life. I enjoy the the fact that you can't stop me doing this. If I have an idea for a film with a killer doll, you may say it's stupid and you may tell me it's a waste of time; but ultimately you can't stop me.

That's pretty much how Ray started. He saw King Kong one day and was hooked on the magic of Cinema. With the help of this family and friends he went out and taught himself how to make animated films. And this was back in the 40s. Not like today when any office worker in Brighton can get their hands on a camera and make a film.

I can't remember the exact day when I was first introduced to the films of Ray Harryhausen. It feels like they've always been there. But way back in 2001 I was faced with a big decision. Do I go to University and If I do, what do I study?

I was good at two things; Graphics and Maths. However I was never that much of a fan of continuing Maths and ending up in a Economics office staring at numbers all day. So, with pile of prospectuses (prospectii?) in hand I sat down with Mum and started going through  to find something art based to follow.

Illustration was the way forward...then illustration and animation...then solely animation. "Hell, I love the Ray Harryhausen films. That's what I will become...an animator!"

Okay that's quite a tenuous link. However, whilst at the interview I had to present my minimal portfolio. I also had a long discussion with the lecturer and a couple of students, about Ray Harryhausen, and how animation can bring the imagination to life. I'm still convinced to this day, that this is why I was accepted into University. My love of film, animated monsters and Ray Harryhausen!

Very important side note to cement this:- Whilst at University, I had the chance to meet Ray at a talk in Bristol on 21st March 2004. A great exepereince and definite highlight of my undregrad life. I also got a copy of his book (quite a hefty and pricey item for a poor student) and queued to get it signed. Something I will always treasure.

So I continued my love for animation, especially the stop motion effects in films, not just Ray's credits, but such examples like Jack the Giant Killer, Puppet Master and of course King Kong (what do you mean which one? I ought to slap you. 1933 of course!)

In a roundabout way, without ever seeing Ray Harryhausen film, I wouldn't be who I am today. I probably wouldn't be working in an office in Brighton, I wouldn't be providing animation for Brother Chris' Jenny Ringo films or trying to control a killer doll.

So as I said, like many others, I grew up with these films. However I've seen a lot of tributes, including one I'm pasting below, that mention how much he meant to our childhood, and how a large part of our childhoods have now been lost. To me his films are more than this. Yes I watched them as a child. But I never stopped watching. I still watch today. I will always watch.  And I'm sure that one day, way when I have kids, or even Grand kids, I'm sure one day I'll be sitting them down to show them real magic.

So life goes on. I'll go back to work and sit in theoffice; and no one will mention how we lost a legend on Tuesday, how the world of film has lost a genius and how a shocking number of people are still unaware of the magic he created.

But I know; and the people I love know. And I'll carry on fighting killer dolls and chasing beach monsters and writing bizarre films set in Victorian London. I'll also continue to imagine more crazy ideas for films. Because that's what I do.

That's what Ray Harryhausen taught me. If you put your mind to it, no one can stop you bringing a skeletons back to life.

"Ray Harryhausen took a part of all our childhoods with him when he went.
Thankfully he remained with us long enough to realise how universally beloved his work was by so many. Thank you, Ray." - Joe Dante

Thank you Ray. Thank you.

Ray Harryhausen
1920 - 2013

Sucker Punch...

I feel I'm going out on a limb here...but I liked Sucker Punch. Only I'm not sure I'm supposed to.

I'll try to keep spoilers at a minimum.

There's been a lot of bad reviews regarding this film and to be honest I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to get from it. I'd seen the trailers and really liked the visual style of genre mash up in the action. Samurai with Machine guns? Can you really go wrong with that?

So I made an effort to get out of Worthing, something that nearly defeated me, and went to see Sucker Punch.



I'll start with hmmm. I started off not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. The opening was cool, minimum dialogue, just depressing visuals with a depressing cover version of Sweet Dreams playing over it. Then the plot begins, with Baby Doll taken to a mental home and is put in line to be lobotomised. This is the drive of the character, to escape before literally losing her mind.

However, in the institute, as part of their therapy, the girls have to act out their problems on stage, in order to work through them. Baby Doll reacts to this by escaping into her own head, thinking that they are dancers locked inside a club unable to escape and having to put on a show each night for the seedy clientele.

Ok so far it's a bit messy, the transition from the institute to the club could have been smoother, but a few jerky movements and we're there. So now we're escaping from a club.

Another reason for the messy transition comes from some of the set design. It seems to jump between the Club and Institute. So for example, one minute Baby Doll is in the dressing room, all lit up, and the next she's running through the dingy corridors of the institute, but still in dance club costumes.

Anyway, along the way she enlists the help of fellow inmates/dancers and together they try to gather the 5 items required to escape. This is when it all goes very video gamey. I've read that Zach Snyder didn't think he was making a video game style but it can't be helped when characters are given mission objectives.

So rather than 90 minutes of sneaking around the club, which would have been a completely different film, Baby Doll has to use the weapon of dance. A dance so completely mesmerising, it can hypnotise those watching, enabling her cohorts to steal the required items.

This is where we get the action, Zach could've just shown a dance, but no dance would've been enough to convince the audience, so when dancing, he has Baby Doll escape further inside her head to some other world where she has to fight samurai with machine guns, zombie Nazis, knights, orcs, dragons and robots.

So to keep you up to speed the action is as follows:

You have fighting Baby Doll...



...inside the head of the dancing Baby Doll...



...inside the head of therapy performance Baby Doll.




So she fights/dances/performs to steal what she needs. Therefore the film is pretty straightforward, in a round about way.

The film is pure escapism, rather than facing the truth, you escape to somewhere more exciting. I've done it before, especially in times of distress. Dentist's chairs come to mind.

As you can see the more I thought about this film the more I found I did enjoy it. I was a little disappointed when I started, but during the film, gave up trying to work out how it was wrong, why it was bad, whether the female leads are anything but eye candy and came to a realisation that the girls on film are locked in a mental institute, so why should this make any sense. You have WWII bombers fighting Dragons for example. I'm not going to try to work this out, just enjoy it as is. This idea of the film being purely insane, is also backed up by the video on the end credits, the main villain of the film (Oscar Isaac - awesome by the way) sings Love is the Drug, cabaret style with the Institute's therapist (Carla Gugino). This film is meant to continually come at you with surprise attacks. Hence the Sucker Punch.

I was going to hide this in a spoiler box, but you may want to hear my other thoughts as to what it could be. I have been thinking that maybe all the girls are just personalities of Baby Doll. For example, she is taken to the mental institute because she accidentally killed her sister. Once there she meets two fellow inmates who are sisters, the older Sweetpea looking out for the younger Rocket. Surely an extension of BabyDoll;s character that she tried to look after her own sister. So now she has become bother older and younger sister.

THIS IS A SPOILER:
This is also present in the ending when Baby Doll is lobotomised, but we see Sweet Pea escape. Although she doesn't escape, She is the only personality to survive in the lobotomised Baby Dolls mind. This is why Scott Glenn, the mysterious advisor in all the action dreams, is present at the end. Sweetpea is still inside Baby Dolls head because she doesn't exist.


Baby Doll is content to live out the remainder of her days, in her own mind, as the protective Sister Sweetpea.

END OF SPOILER

There's an obvious omission from this review. The portrayal of the female leads. This is not a black and white thing to answer. On the one hand you have the strong, fighting women, albeit wearing festishied costumes. One the other hand, when not fighting they are all a bit weepy and seem to accept their roles as objectified dancers.

However, I think, this is far to easy a judgement to make. The girls are the same characters. You can't simply split them up into their different emotions. They are strong to fight back, but also vulnerable. You also have to take into account the subject matter of the film. It's set in a Mental Institution. I think it's pretty safe to say that they aren't the strongest of minds if they're in their in the first place. You can't have a group of Warrior Women in the mental home, otherwise surely you;d have to question why they were they if they were so strong in the first place.

I'm not getting into this on here. I enjoyed the film. I also enjoyed 300 and didn't think it wrong that there were no fat men in pants on their team. As with many other films, the male heroes are usually Adonis types. I should really be on side with Seth Rogan as he is a heavier build and was recently the lead as the Green Hornet, but he's not very good.

So back on track with Sucker punch, a quick mention to the soundtrack which includes some cool covers and is actually awesome. There's a great cover of Search and Destroy by Skunk Anansie played over the dragon sequence.

Overall I think the reviews have been unfair to Zach Snyder. There's a lot of great ideas in Sucker Punch. The fights are exciting, using some insane camera techniques that I have no idea how Snyder kept track of. I think the main problem was the way the film is put together, which I admit, is a little confusing, resulting in a lot of bad reviews. Who knows if the studios had a hand in messing it about.

But who says that every film has to be the greatest film ever made. Sometimes you just want to escape from day to day life. Sometimes you just want to have something else to think about. Sometimes you just want to watch an anime school girl fight a samurai with a machine gun!

Too much?

Long time no see...

...or write.

Ok, I've neglected this blog in recent times. I'll be honest. I'm lazy, and didn't have much to say. Actually I did have things to say, but I was likely to go off on a rant, therefore taking up time that could best be spen on other activities.

So way back in October I was plannign something. At that time I thought this was best represented by quoting Back to the Future, click here to remind yourselves >>>

Ok so that was supposed to be the start of something big. And then it got too big, and I didn't move forward at all and it slowly became simply a blog post with a Back to the Future quote.

However, I'm getting back onto the proverbial horse. I will release bits of information regarding whatever projects I'm working on.

This is also due to the fact that I have, at this time 7 projects on the go in some state or another. 8 projects actually as I'm going to drag another out from the past.

This means that things are going to get more interesting on here, but also equally as vague as I still believe in the idea of not giving too much away.

Just think if I'd announced the project back in October, and still no closer to actually showing anything. Damn. I should have actually said it was just a Back to the future quote. Now if I had a DeLorean I could go back and change what I said. Actually I suppose I could just scroll to the top and remove it.

It's been said now. I suppose I'll just leave it for future generations to see. People will want to see how it went down.

And I suppose that's the point of the blog. In years to come the Future Men and Women will look back at this blog. Wonder what happened in the gaps but ultimately will see how it all went down.

That is if my career mirrors Bill and Ted and at some point I'll have to fight a future robot version of myself and save the world with film.

Be excellent to each other and party on dudes!

Jenny Ringo Needs you...

Well it needed me actually. Here's my account of workignonf Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw.

So there I was minding my own business when Brother Chris suddenly announced it, “I’m making a short film and I need you to do some animation.”

With nothing better to do I jumped at the chance...


...Ok so it didn’t really go exactly like this. Well actually, pretty much. This was before the exact details had all been worked out. You see it started as me filming 20 seconds of Animation, tops. Then it stretched to me becoming half of the art department. This naturally led me onto the Prop handler/wrangler and finally settling on general dogsbody, including a bit of Fake Shempery.



But I still jumped at the chance. If Chris could pull it off, this film would be mental, and prove that all short films didn’t need to be about two people arguing in the director’s living room.
Here be my experience on Jenny Ringo and the Monkey’s Paw.

I’ll split this into 3 separate sections due to the different jobs I worked on.

Animation

So my initial task was to use my animation skills to animate (obviously). There were two short sections. Now I don’t want to give too much away with any of this so I’ll be brief. I needed to animate a Monkey, which I can say, as monkeys clearly play a large part in the story. This was just a ten second clip to visualise a monkey doing stuff. (I’m good at hiding the spoilers).


For this I used my tried and tested technique:-storyboard the clip, film it to get timing right, start drawing on paper, frame by frame. I then scanned the pictures and composited the whole thing together on the PC. This sounds simple, and relatively is, but takes time. I think the drawing, scanning and compositing only took about three days max. After an evening of tweaking, the first scene was complete.

The next scene once again needed to visualise some stuff. I had a chance to elaborate a little with this though and managed to come up with a cool little scenario for a famed Russian playwright/Star ship navigator. Somehow this one didn’t take as long. Well, I say that, but when I finished this one it was the early hours of the morning. This scene ended up being about 15 seconds long.

There’s nothing too complicated with these scenes. But hopefully they help to take the film that extra level to show what can be done with low budget independent shorts.

Art Department/Props

None of this is chronological by the way. I didn’t animate until after principal photography had finished. Before that I was given the task of Art Department along with Charlotte my girlfriend, and we dived straight in. There were 4 major areas. The living room, kitchen, hallway and one bedroom.


We basically had to make Brother Chris’ flat not look like his flat but like someone else’s flat. With the living room we needed to make it look as though we hadn’t just added a load of cool looking things on the shelves but that someone actually lived there. This was fun to go round and collect what we already owned and buy a few odd looking objects to fill the spaces. Here are some of my favourites:

The Creepy Doll – Strangely I felt safer with this after I bloodied it up.



The Brain – You always need a brain.



With the Kitchen, we were tasked to mess it up. Not just mess it up, it needed to look like it had never been cleaned. As if no one had ever even thought of cleaning it. As if no one would dare clean it. The trick for this is canned goods. Beans, macaroni and cheese and the slightly worrying meal in a can. I think we chose the all day breakfast as we couldn’t find the one with the omelette in.

Messing up a kitchen is easy. Lay a few unwashed dishes around, leftovers from lunch, add more dishes for effect and cover with beans and so on. Please note this will create an unpleasant smell and a sight you hope never to witness in the real world.


Once the scene was complete we got to tidy the Kitchen up. Lucky Us.

The hallway and bedroom was simply a case of dressing doors or walls with stuff that the characters might have decorated with, whilst subtly revealing a bit of their character in the decoration. Jenny was always going to be spooky, gothy and halloweeny. Gavin was never really explored deeply. Just a slacker type so we opted for an assortment of posters torn from music magazines.

Fake Shemp and Everything Else

I also appear in the film in a couple of Fake Shemp roles. 1 looking terribly like the ghost from Carnival of Souls and another, well let’s just say I got the role because apparently I look smarter in a suit.


Further to all the above, I was generally there for most of the filming. Helping out where I could. Whether this was as a drinks wrangler, monkey wrangler, sound wrangler or safety pin wrangler; I was always happy to help out.


Yes the days were long, and there were a couple of occasions where I had to sit in a room on my own until snacks/drinks were needed; but this is all part of the fun; because at the end of the day, I was part of something truly original.

I just hope the curse never catches up with me when I cut of the monkey’s paw in the first place.



------

You can see more of Pete's awesome animations on his YouTube channel here and keep up to date with what he's working on next at his blog here (which you should follow to encourage him to update it more often!).

A little normality here please...

Ok, so nobody said moving flats was simple but I never anticipated on it being this complicated/annoying/hazardous/idiotic/stupidic and most of all toatally stressfull. And I've kind of done the main part.

Anyway I've been trying to get back to normal for a while now without the slightest bit of luck. For a short time it was working, begining with character sheets for a new script I'll be workign of with Brother Chris'. However with his impending wedding and writing hiatus I may go it alone for a while.

Then things got stressful once again and I lost the ability to write (this wasn't really due to the stresses of life more the joys of life when I replaced my TV/Monitor with a larger TV which I temporarily use as a monitor so any prolonged exposure to slowly burns out my already damaged retinas.

Anyway the latest adventure of normality I had was showing the music video I finished before Christmas, Bitter Ruin's Soldier, at Son of Moviebar last night. The crowds seem to be dwindling, which is a pity as the nights are always interesting but the film went down really well. I managed to spit out a few sentences this time around and was excited to find out that someone in the audience knew the story of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, on which the video was based. So finally a small victory it would seem.

Anyway, I'm cutting this short as I need to do some "proper" work. Breaks over guys.

However, before I go, without further ado, the most excellent Scott Pilgrim trailer:-


It really is awesome.

Movie time once again...

I've got billions of things to blog about, well four actually, so let's go back one week, a single day after my birthday and a second adventure geeking out in London at Collectormania.

So here's the obligatory opening picture of R2D2. I decided to attend yet another Sci-Fi convention to celebrate my birthday, this time Collectormania. I say this time as though it's a completely different event, however it clearly isn't. So with girlfriend in tow we took the train to old London town. It's the same old story, there are booths selling stuff, celebrities signing and talks, both free and expensive. The mine drive this time around was to see Anthony Michael Hall, he of Breakfast club fame and more recently seen in The Dark Knight. Unfortunately he cancelled. I also got excited about the possibility of meeting Jess Harnell,the voice-over artist of Wakko of the Animaniacs, who also featured in the film Comic Book: The Movie. Unfortunately he also cancelled. So I was left with two main choices, Steve Blum, the voice of Spike Speigal form Cowboy Bebop and most recently Wolverine in game and cartoon forms. I was also interested in meeting Katherine Isabelle, though not widely known she has popped up as a guest star in a variety of US shows, have a brief scene in Uwe Bolls Rampage and was the leading lady in the awesome Ginger Snaps.


So to cut to the chase, the reason I have a strange expression in this photo is due to the fact that I just had a strange experience discussing the film Rampage. I remarked that that was the last film I saw her in at which point she confessed that she hadn't seen it. I then wasn't sure where to go, I explained that I saw it at Phantasmagoria in case she smelled a pirate. It then got weird as I wasn't sure if she was happy with he film, hadn't been shown due to distribution problems, or if it was just considered a job. So i got my autograph, photo and left.

As this was the second convention this year I wasn't feeling as much excitement as before, there were things to take photos of, and people to see. George Takei was one, Billy Dee Williams, Shannen Doherty (looking miserable) and John Rhys Davis were others. Doug Bradley was in attendance but I didn't want to approach him for two reasons, firstly I'd have to mention Chris and Ten Dead Men and hope that he knew what I was on about, and secondly, I didn't want a repeat of last time and have Halloween quotes spat at me. So I left him alone.

We later attended a talk by Steve Blum. This was cool, not many people turned up so the atmosphere was very casual. Unfortunately this meant he went straight to questions. I managed to think of one, asking which medium he preferred to work in, anime, western animation or video games (he said he enjoys them all so which he's working on that day is his favourite). I did have another question regarding a point made in Comic Book the Movie about how, with all this voice over talent, major studios still feel they have to cast "stars" as the voices in their animated films. There was no way I'd be able to say all that, and the face that the question had become more specialised and fan related, I kept quiet.



And that as more or less it for the convention. Trains were all messed up so I was pretty stressed at we then had to make it to the south bank to experience the Movieum., the most hated word in the English made up language.

This was a strange place. It's straight-forward, being a museum of film props, but I tries to educate in the process on the making of a film, but doesn't succeed. Also a lot of the items in the corridors were just not labelled so I had no idea what some things were. I realise this was Batman, but what is if for, Is it just a decoration piece or did it serve some design purpose. Answer on a postcard please. So there were a lot of cool things in the museum. Costumes from Harry Potter and a lots of James Bond stuff. I got quite excited when I saw the Glaive from Krull.


The coolest part of the museum though was a temporary exhibition/shop of animation cells. They were hidden in a small room, where a lady offered us some sweets and told use to ask if we needed help. Which all seemed fair enough until we realised that all the cells were for sale. I wasn't sure if she expected us to buy anything. There was a lot of Batman stuff in there which was really cool to see. One day I hope to buy something like that as I really like animation cells. At the moment I cannot justify spending that much (£200+). I got a bit worried when flicking through a folder when I came across a sketch of Charlie Brown selling for £3000. There were so many expensive pieces that the public could just look through. So we left to continue the journey.

So we had a great time visiting the nations capital. We would've stayed longer but the heavens opened, pouring down on use. It was a cool, self indulgent, film geek day.

Some more photo's from the Movieum

Busy-ness as usual...

So I’m busy, but only for the time being as the music video work is coming to a close. It’s been a while since I’ve made a complete short film and I’ve had to get used to the amount of work needed, not just in the actual animating but also with the planning, and just now, the actual time needed to render the video out. So far I’ve had to split the video into 6 parts, and each subsequent part into two when the effects were added. This is mainly due to both file size, and programs crashing after too long.

Anyway, when I have a little more time I’ll write up a complete review with pictures and links included as a making of style report.

At the beginning of the month at the Halloween inspired Son of Moviebar, my film In Case of Zombies was screened. It went down really well which was cool to experience, however the Q & A this time around was more me mumbling and not really giving any amount of decent information out such as how the film predated the Zombie boom and other factoids. Instead I umm’d and err’d a bit then sat down. Fortunately the rest of the Q&A’s were just as brie so I don’t think the audience minded much.
Since then I’ve kind of been well busy animation and editing.

Running out o things to talk about I’ll just mention the complete mess that was Channel Fours 3D week. Not so much a week than an evening as the same programs were repeated all week. On Monday I decided to miss The Queen in 3D, not the Helen Mirren film, but some old footage of her coronation converted to 3D (for some reason) So my 3D adventure began with Derren Brown presenting some pointless magic in 3D. It was pointless. The next 3D experience I had was on Friday, due to contradicting screening times I missed Flesh for Frankenstein.

Friday was Friday the 13th Part III. Awesome. This has my second favourite 3D moment (the first being the random man with paddle board in House of Wax) where a man puts his washing out. Great stuff. Having never seen it in 3D before I was not disappointed.
The film is still good. In 2d it manages to keep you entertained, however only in 3 dimensions do the Yoyo, juggling and popcorn scenes really make sense (to a degree).

On Saturday we watched The Greatest 3d Moments. Channel Four returned to their favourite top ten format to reavel ten 3d moments, however all of these were more interesting than the rest of the 3d programs to be shown on Sunday (JLS and Hanna Montana). However, only small clips were shown but not before a massive introduction by an assortment of “comedians” who watched the clips the night before, and then even when the clips stated we were interrupted by another talking head to explain the clip were were trying to watch.

Basically the whole week was a dissappointing mess. It could have been cool if they manged to get hold of as many 3D films as they could, or they should have just planed a single day as most of the programs were repeated this weekend. Also I got very annoyed as it came across that everyone thought it was 80’s kitsch, rather than 50s when it all started. So it was all a bit of a mess and was all kind of a waste of time.

Still, I saw a man putting his washing out. Excellent.

Next week is the Karloff blogathon. I shall return.

I gave a Q&A.

This is just a quick update whilst I finish burning some cds. The other night Jonny the Pessimist was shown at Son of Movie bar and I had to do a Q&A. Me, of all people had to get up and speak publicly. And I did, and it went rather well I think. It didn't actually help that it's been five years since I made the film so I can't remember most of the details but it was cool to see it in front of an audience. There were a few questions asked about how long it took, how John Otway got involved and why the London Halloween films festival (where it was shown) is held in January. I just hope I came across well and not like a blithering idiot as I've got to do it again next month with In case of Zombies. I'm looking forward to this on as although it was shown at the Halloween festival, I couldn't make it down so I've never seen an audience reaction. Hopefully it will go down well.

Until next time.

My memory sucks.

So I'm trying to remember how this years Esting competition is going to work. I know from the 800 entries there will be only 15 finalists (whether this changes due to the amount of entries) and then those 15 get sent on a secret mission of sorts. I just can't remember when. I know it was supposed to be sometime in September, 15th I think, but I can't be sure.

Anyway, no point worrying about that when there's more on the cards. Today I finished principal photography on the music video. I say that but there's still a bit to do, but most of it now takes place on the computer, which failed to turn on for the last two days. Seems fine now though. So that's coming along until the next hiccup.

Alongside the music video I'm doing some editing for OpenBook having filmed their London event a couple of weeks ago. I need to edit this into a 2/3 minute trailer for future events.

Having edited making of footage before, I don't feel this will be that challenging, however I've never really filmed events before so I'm not sure what the coverage will be like. I did film a live dvd a few years back but this involved a roaming camera and a base camera. I manned the base camera. Anyway, here's hoping all is well. However I've never used a Mac before nor Final Cut pro, and I had a whole checking my options in life moment this weekend.

This was mainly due to above fact and the following. There's more and more students graduating each year, and each year technology improves. If the universities have the money they'll get the new kit. Compared to me, who not begin the richest person in the world can't afford new and interesting programs let alone a Mac, so continues to use the programs I was trained on, setting me back about five years. If you want to compete, like everything, it seems you need money.

But as I realise, I don't think I ever really wanted to be an animator. I just got the skills is all.

Anyway, so I'm up to date on the music video, I'm doing some extra experience work, I just need to find a job and things will be...not on track. Things will be at a level where I cam earn a little money, enough to live, and then start thinking about quiting my job in order to follow a career in something interesting. That is unless the job I miraculously find is interesting.

Beyond that I pick up the scraps left by Brother Chris to develop my writing.

So we're all up to date. In more pleasant news I saw 500 Days of Summer t'other day and was well impressed. It's a different (and far superior) take on run of the mill romantic comedies. Starring the always excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was wasted in G I Joe, and Zooey Deschanel, who also always gives a good performance, it revolves around Gordon-Levitt character falling in and out of love with Deschanel. With a back and forth storytelling style, and some neat visual styles, it does not fail to impress and gives you a good feeling on the way home. Plus it had a cool soundtrack.



It reminded me a lot of In Search of a Midnight Kiss which I saw a couple of days before. This is a lot closer to Woody Allen's Manhattan, but in Los Angeles. it centres around a lonely guy not wanting to spend New Year's eve alone and sets up and ad looking for anyone to kiss at midnight, hence the title. It's an independent film from Alex Holdridge and is very similar to the films of Richard Linklater. I realise I'm just saying what other films it's like but my blog mind has come to an end. If you like any of the films mentioned then you should check it out.

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day Three

Day Three. The final day of the festival and check out day at Dark Water hotel. I'd survived.


There was a winding down feeling on this day and not so many Q&A's for the films. Also the schedule was catching up with me so I was tired. I'd also only had an ice cream for my dinner the night before.

We checked out of the hotel but Deckard must have got Jens as she was nowhere. Instead was a woman, who I'm sure didn't actually work there, especially as she asked us for a rating of our stay, maybe she knew about the Dark Water stains. Anyway, under pressure we gave a good rating. She didn't make a note of this, maybe she was just interested. Maybe she knew something we didn't. We handed over the key and left the Dark Water room to take its next victim.

Breakfast time once again. No one joined us today so we took the time to fill out the feedback questionnaires. First on the bill was Dogs of Chinatown. This film had some of the same people in from Contour, which was shown at last years festival. The fights were good, but it suffered from the criminal element. It's hard to feel sympathy for criminals. also there was a good visual style at the beginning, which returned at the end, but was lost in the middle. Still, it entertained with fighting.

Following this was The Assessment. A horror film, similar to Severance. It also starred the awesomely named Keith Blaser. Anyway, it was a bit dragged out, with a lot of moaning of what to do in the middle by the characters. There was a good lake death towards the end, but it's nothing special.

The Bodyguard: A New Beginning was up next, a film by Chee Keong Cheung. Filmed in both Hong Kong and London, once again it had good fights, especially a good chase scene through a shopping mall. It does suffer from the sympathetic criminal though. Rival triad bosses going after each others daughters for revenge of some kind. I didn't quite follow the reasoning behind it, but you stopped caring. Action was good though, and the Hong Kong setting gave the film a higher visual dynamic. Chee gave a Q&A after the film with actor/fighter Mark Strange which was interesting, especially the stories surrounding Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

We then said our goodbyes before attending the final film, Underground, again by Chee Keong Cheung. This is basically a tournament film. And that's it. A string of fights, good fights but towards the end you didn't really care. And that's about it. It stars Danny John-Jules as a shady businessman type and Mark Strange as a homeless fighter. It could have done with a more developed storyline between the fighters, but the choreography was good.

And then we ran away in order to get our train home. So we began the long drawn out wait for trains. Sunday travel is never good. But eventually we made out connections and arrived safe and sound, back in reality of day to day life.

In summary it really was an awesome weekend. Great films and cool Q&As. It was disappointing that the attendance wasn't larger. I'm not sure why the turnout wasn't greater, you;d think the guest speakers would have got some attention. I just can't help thinking that Swindon isn't the best place for a film festival. However, I'm glad I attended, as I said at the beginning of this three post adventure I doubt it will be topped in the near future.

Now I really should get back to making music videos and stuff.

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day Two

Day Two -

After watching a bizarre kids program (in which one character gave another a moustache as a present) whilst we woke and got ready, we set off for breakfast at the festival. We sat and ate when who should come over and join us but Uwe Boll. Awesome.

We talked about films and the state of the world, and the state of films in the world, until it was time for the first screening of the day, Side Effx. This film has problems. It was followed with a Q&A by the director, who was brought on to edit the film into something watchable after the first director was let go. He was aware of the problems with the film, mainly due to the pacing. It was a good try, but did suffer from random corridor wanderings. Good fights though, and wire work.

This was followed by The Disappeared. Described as an urban ghost story it didn't fail to deliver. There were a couple of creepy moments but towards the end it fell into run of the mill story telling, getting a little predictable. Still, I felt it was well shot and acted.

After this was the Star Hyke series preview and cast Q&A. Star Hyke is an independent comedy, drama, sci-fi series with obvious comparisons to Red Dwarf and Hyperdrive. It kind of stands on its own, the CGI is well done and Jeremy Bulloch (of Boba Fett fame) is awesome as the ships doctor, providing most of the laughs. However, we were shown episodes 4 & 5 so it was a little hard to follow having missed half of the series. Brother Chris has seen the whole series and did say that it's best to see the first three in one block in order to grasp the concept. I'd still watch it when it airs on TV though, and think it would probably get better as the series goes on. The Q&A afterwards was cool, with cast keeping things lighthearted, and of course the awesome Jeremy Bulloch.

Then was the "dinner break" a long gap between films in order to get something to eat, so of course we just ended up chatting with friends. It was good to hear some industry speak and see how easy/difficult it is to get films released these days. So no food was had. Whoops.

The penultimate screening of Saturday was The Passage, directed by Mark Heller and written by and starring Neil Jackson, who attended the screening for the following Q&A. This film surprised me. It does have a slow build up as you get to know the characters, but does deliver towards the end. When it was introduced, Neil Jackson explained it was based on true events, so I thought it would just be him wandering around Morocco. Which does happen to a degree, but let's just say, if all of it was true, he wouldn't have been able to introduce the film. Neil then held a Q&A which was awesome, especially as I asked a decent, Creative Screenwriting style question about treatments and such. If you didn't know, Neil has been in a bunch of stuff including the Blade TV series and more recently Push and this was his first produced screenplay. He seemed to love writing and said in a way he used that to get into acting in the first place. Anyway, it was really interesting talk and he's a nice guy.

I then attended the final screening of the day, Mark of the Devil., directed by Michael Armstrong, who also attended for the Q&A. This is a film from 1970, starring Udo Kier and Herbert Lom about witch-finders. As with Witchfinder General, it's not really a horror but I feel always comes across more like an educational video but just a little bit nastier. It was also described as an early example of "torture-porn", a concept taken to extremes with the likes of Hostel and the umpteen thousand Saw sequels. Mark of the Devil is ok. Not a brilliant film but it still made me squirm in places, plus it was good to see something from a different era on the bill. The following Q&A was excellent. Again, Michael Armstrong is a director form a completely different time of filmmaking and due to this questions were few. He was a friendly guy and did have a passion for films, even if he was a little tipsy at the time. He also mentioned the original Haunting as one of the scariest films made, a point I definitely agreed with.

It was time to leave and find Brother Chris, who had left to seek his fortune. I said my goodbyes to friends and to Neil and Michael and left. Meeting up with Chris in a shouty Italian restaurant we left for the hotel. Once there we took pleasure in the Ice Cream vending machine once again, I'd yet to have any dinner so a mint magnum would have to do. Excellent.

-Today I also bought a book called "I Am Batman" which was awesome. I'll give a little excerpt:
My name is Bruce Wayne.
My home is Gotham City.
I live in a big apartment.
I own a boat and a plane.

I have nice clothes.
I have a fast car.
And I have lots of other fancy toys and gadgets.
...

The Joker is a tricky foe.
His jokes are never funny.
Sometimes they hurt people.
...

Fighting crime is not easy.
But my gear and gadgets help make it all possible.
I am not just Bruce Wayne.
I am Batman!

Awesome!

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day One

These days it's getting pretty hard to beat the awesome-ness of past events. This past weekend is so high up on the scale I doubt it will ever be knocked off the list.

Last weekend Brother Chris and I attended the Phantasmagoria Film Festival held in Swindon. A great showcase of independent genre films from horror to martial arts. For us this was just the beginning.

Day One -

We took a train. So far so good, then found our lodgings in the form of the Travelodge. Then the weirdness began. I'm convinced that the girl checking us in was called Jens. Which just conjures up images of Blade Runner-esqe androids. So we took our key, gave warning to keep away from any Harrison Ford looking types, and made out way up to the room. Brother Chris settled in easy enough. I on the other hand was disturbed by the freaky Dark Water-esqe drip stains on the wall, just above my bed. I did not want to be dragged away in the middle of the night by a long haired Japanese ghost girl.

For the time being I managed to suppress my fear and we left for the festival. Well, sort of. We left on the hunt for dinner, where we passed a pub. At which point we stopped as Uwe Boll was inside with two people. We decided to go in, find something to eat and stare at him. Instead, we went in, Chris recognised one of the people so we went over and joined them. Having a drink with Uwe Boll. Awesome.

We later left for the Arts Centre for the first film of the first day, Gnaw. A good horror film. It was a little predictable at times but the effects and acting were good enough. After a brief Q&A with director Gregory Mandry. We had a time for a quick drink before the last film of the evening. In this time I was introduced to Julian Richards, director of The Last Horror Movie and Darklands as he'd met Brother Chris before. We then went in to see Uwe Boll's film Rampage. It's a brilliant film. Well shot and edited. Uwe Boll comes under a lot of bad press because of his video game movies, which aren't that great but as he pointed out, still sell a hell of a lot more than his regular films, which are always better. Rampage should definitely be checked out though, and Brendan Fletcher is quite convincing as the young guy whose is tipped over the edge to go on the titular rampage.

So a great first day. Now we really needed to get some food, and head back to the Dark Water room. After an encounter with take away food we got excited by the Ice Cream machine in the travelodge, with the the futuristic method in which fridge opened and suckers gripped the ice cream to dispense out of the front of the machine. We were still in Blade Runner territory. Thanks to that machine, and watching the end of The Howling, I could ignore the evil water stains and went to sleep, ready for the next full day of films.