Nearly finished

Nearly finished editing and sound mixing my film. I feel really good about this. I got an e-mail on the 18th April asking if there was any films being made because the actor just wanted to do something. It started a chain of events that got us to make a film that is about to be finished this weekend. I had a rough draft of a script on my computer that I'd more or less forgotten about and dragged it out and dusted it off but apart from that the whole thing has gone from not even existing as an idea to being a finished short (9 minutes) in just over a month. We actually filmed it at the start of this month. Its a bit rough round the edges but basically its a film and it has a lot that I'm pleased with and and because it was such a nice experience to make, it may be leading to a writing collaboration between me and the two actors. We are thinking of trying to do a science fiction film next but one that's a bit low key and takes place on Earth in the recognisable (and therefore easy and cheap to film) present. 

3 days of lovely filming weather and an assembly I'm pretty pleased with

I've just spent two evenings shooting at magic hour (where you get about an hour of good light between being too light and too dark) and a hectic morning in a church (where we again had to shoot everything in an hour) getting a short film shot. It was made very quickly and cheaply with a minimum crew but we were blessed with the weather and beautiful sunsets which if nothing else made it beautiful just to be there. 

I shot on my little Mini DV camera (Panasonic NV DS-27) which i bought cheap off e-bay. It cost about £40.00 and has served me well. Because its old it has manual over-rides for everything and in low light its great to be able to get the exposure you want rather than the typical washed out general flatness that the auto exposure thinks is right. Also you don't get that annoying auto focus thing where it keeps looking for the contrast and going soft and then coming back into focus. All in all I'm very pleased with this camera and although its a bit of a dinosaur compared to the modern HD cameras, it still gives images that have a certain charm.

The finished film looks like an animated chocolate box which is kind of what I wanted but would never have dreamed the extent to which it happened. I don't think I'm someone who is too romantic really but the script is and I thought it needed to be steeped in atmosphere which Heysham certainly gave me. 

I decided that in order to get it shot in the time available I would dub the entire film so I didn't have to worry about the background noise when I was filming and if i hadn't made this decision it wouldn't have got shot at all (also the sound capabilities of the camera are pretty limited). I have got an assembly edit where I've had to cut around the sightseers up there as they walk behind the actors heads during the close ups (by some force of will it all got done) and they all made loads of noise. I'm really pleased with the assembly as I wasn't sure it would all cut together but it does. One of the extremely pleasant things I always find is that an awful lot of people do try to stay out of your shot if they see you filming or at least they don't linger if you are polite and ask them nicely to move out of the way, but they are never quiet (and why should they be? They don't owe film makers anything).

The good thing about editing without sound is that its like cutting a silent movie. You are always cutting for the visuals rather than the audio. Also post synching means that you can pick the sound completely independently of the image and get what you want for both. It means that I can hopefully create the atmosphere by adding the sounds of waves when in realty the tide was miles out when we filmed and even though it was shot at dusk when all the birds and bees have gone to bed I can record all my atmos tracks in the middle of the day and give it a summer feel. The dialogue is going to be a bit of a bitch but I'm half Italian so dubbing sound is in my blood (at least its in half of it).

I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday getting an assembly together and am very pleased with the way it's come out. I was worried because I only got one shot of a really crucial moment and then the light went. We hadn't really rehearsed it so the actress just jumped up unexpectedly and said her line and by the grace of God i caught it on camera. it looks rough but that adds a certain something to the whole thing.

The actors have now watched the film and seem pleased with it all and we are planning to record all the dialogue next week and then get recording all the other sounds as well. As i type this its pissing down with rain and the forecast for the next few days isn't too good so I only hope we can get our atmos tracks to sound like summer at all or else it'll be odd having chocolate box shots of Heysham and the sounds of a hurricane in the background. No birds and bees there.

'Gert's bucket'

The shoot for 'Gert's bucket' went well, managing to get done in less than 4 hours.
I'm reasonably happy with the content but we'll have to wait and see the end product.
Big thanks to Ray, Trevor M. Trevor J, David Dale and me mam. A very big thanks to
the Bow window cafe in Bare for allowing us to film there.  

Two good shoots then mine....

Several members of the Lancaster film Co op were present at Cec's film shoot last Sunday, taking up roles as sound engineers / boom operators / actors / actresses  and extras. (Information about the story etc has not been made public domain yet) The day went well but we were unable to complete the shoot due to time constraints.  Such is life.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday saw Ray operating the camera for a short film he had written. Acting was David Dale and Louise Geatch both from the Lancaster film Co op and also me and Ian doing the wrangling.

The location was Heysham Head and the weather was perfect, providing us with a magnificent view across the bay and 2 great sunsets.
A big thanks to St Peter's church at Heysham Head for allowing us to film there.
Furious editing is now taking place to try and get the film ready for the Made in Lancaster Festival at the Dukes in the second week of June. (good luck with that then).

My shoot which should have been tomorrow at Bassenthwaite lake has been cancelled due to a bad weather forecast and players pulling out. Hey Ho. Even more frustrating considering I was at the lake today doing a reccy and the weather was fine. Typical.
But the scheduled shoot at the cafe tomorrow will go ahead as planned so not everything is lost.
We are going to shoot a short comedy sketch (a few mins) with some resemblance of an idea and hopefully some improv.  All a bit experimental and it could go tits up. But if you don't try....