Continue reading »]]> Looking for money to fund your short film or creative project?

I’ve created a new web site, Help Me Fund It, that might be able to help you out.

It’s basically similar to the sites you might see advertised on telly, topcashback.co.uk or Quidco and suchlike, but rather than have users sign up and keep the money for themselves, they choose your project and the commission goes to you instead (less a small amount for admin).

It’s all very early doors yet and I really need some people to use the site, set up some projects and test everything out.  At the moment, I can’t progress any further with the development of the site until I get some real life projects in there.

So if you fancy earning a bit of money for your short film, head over to http://helpmefund.it and try it out.  I can’t guarantee how much you’ll earn, but it doesn’t cost you anything to try. I’ve got it working with Facebook, Google+ and Twitter authentication, so there’s no need to even register.

One caveat I should mention, I only have UK merchants listed on the site at the moment, so it’s probably not much use to you if you’re outside the UK. The plan is to get US merchants on board once the site finished and stable, probably in a few weeks.

As always, any feedback will be gratefully received.

Continue reading »]]> It was appraisal time at work recently, and whilst having my review it was quite rightly pointed out to me that I tend to hold back on launching a project if I don’t think it’s perfect which often times it can never be. Both at home and at work I’ve left too many projects/screenplays/web sites half finished where I’ve got so far and then run out of steam because I wanted it to be perfect first time. Apparently it’s an INTP trait, but that’s not really much of an excuse.

As it happened I’d been looking through the cool ‘cube grenades’ that Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) has done over the past few years. This one in particular really hit home in the light of that revelation:

So my new ‘rest of my life’ resolution is this: Get something done, be bloody amazing while you do it and don’t worry if it’s not perfect – nothing is perfect and it can always be improved later.

Amen to that!

Continue reading »]]> I’ve created a new web site called UK Hot Deals to generate a bit of money to fund my filmmaking activities. UK Hot Deals blogs and tweets the latest special offers and discount codes from a vast array of High Street and Online shops. Everything from the latest fashion to the latest tech, there’s something for everyone in there.

Tell all your friends – it would be great to get a few more followers on the Twitter feed (by the way if you follow me on Twitter, UK Hot Deals will be knocking on your door, so let me in!).

You never know, you could save yourself a bob or two and help fund a great feature film!

Continue reading »]]> Yes, it’s umm, 2011 , and has been for ages. Well, well, well.

Just been doing some major updating of the Scribomatic web site which I thought I’d shout about. It’s basically the same old site, now all nicely WordPressed up and, hopefully, more useable.

Apart from that, it’s the same old stuff, different year, really.

Progress on all of my projects is painfully slow.  I’ve been working on editing a short demo reel for my good friend Ben Shockley‘s new film project, which is cool. I’ve also been tinkering with some new ideas for films (though once again I find myself in the shadow of Duncan Jones – I swear that bloke is me, 18 months ahead of me ).

I guess really I should actually do something this year, rather than just talk about it.

Here goes…

Continue reading »]]> For the last few months I’ve been plotting and scheming to bring together a short film project. Last night the final key piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Some time in the next few months Mark Benton, Ken Colley, Ben Shockley and myself along with some talented designers and musicians will be getting together to make a short film entitled The Man Who Wished.

But we need your help! Yup, that’s right, it’s the old ‘help us fund out short’ plea.

However, with this project we’re doing things a bit differently. The film will be released under the Attribution Creative Commons license which means that if you invest, along with all the usual things we can offer (copy of DVD, signed piccies etc), you’ll also get a digital copy of the film to use in any way you see fit – sell, distribute, mashup, frame, eat etc. For profit, if you want.

If you’re interested, you can read the screenplay here and if you like what you read, you can clicky on the Indiegogo link just to the right there for more information on helping with a donation. Or there’s Paypal if you prefer to donate as much/little as you like.

Continue reading »]]> There’s something brewing that I’m really quite excited about.  Based on years of grinding against a system that is outdated and regulated to the hilt, Clive Davies-Frayne (aka @filmutopia) has come up with the Lone Gun Manifesto, a way of making films for the 2.0 world:

Pretty exciting stuff huh? Well, I think so. When I first read this the other day it was like a great weight had fallen from my shoulders.

There are several things I find liberating about this. First and foremost is the fact that filmmaking this way makes the whole process so much easier. Obviously this won’t be for everyone, but for a techy geek like me, being in charge of the camera and the sound and the actors (as much as you can or want to control actors) is near heaven.

You’re not waiting on other people to sort things out, you’re not worrying whether the DP is getting the shots you want, you’re not worried about coverage, you’re not worried about lighting.  You’re just making a film, telling a story as simply and honestly as you can. Once you’re comfortable with the technology, it’s all about the story and the actors.

I rewatched Woody Allen’s ‘Manhatten’ last night. Utterly inspiring on all levels. The long master shots with the actors going in and out of frame. The dialogue that is to die for. The genius use of natural lighting. I could go on…

Another thing I like, and this I think is truly genius, is the whole Open Source aspect of it. Not only does it fly in the face of the whole Digital Economy Bill debacle that went on this week in Westminster, but it becomes a flexible way of making films that can share a core belief without being dogmatic.

Someone questioned Clive as to whether there was the need for such a manifesto with the the likes of Dogme 95 around. The beauty of this is that it isn’t a Dogma, it’s a practical mindset, and one that is so open that once you get past the ‘One Man (or Woman), One Camera’ scenario (and let’s face it, if you’re not doing that, you’re not doing Lone Gun), pretty much anything goes.  If you want to play safe, you can, if you want to experiment and make movies that break the mould, go for it. If you want special effects, fill your boots. If you think some bits are just plain silly, forget about them then. Whatever works for you and the project.

As Clive pointed out on his posterous blog this morning, there are different levels of doing this. You can be as hardcore as you like, you don’t need to be bound by anything. Just get the camera, microphone and actors and go (although make sure you have something worthwhile to say first).

For the short film I’m preparing at the moment (expect more news about that this week), I’m going as Lone Gun as is practically possible. However, the script wasn’t written with Lone Gun in mind, so I’ll have to make some concessions, but ultimately it will pretty much be me running the show, which is how I have always wanted it to be. Not because I’m a control freak, but because I love all aspects of filmmaking, and the bits of work I’ve done that I’m most pleased with were the bits I did on my todd.

There’s lots more about the whole manifesto that I could wax lyrical about all night, but I won’t on this occasion. I don’t think I’ve been this fired up to make a film in a very long time.

I’d be fascinated to know what everyone else thinks about it.

Continue reading »]]>

So like just about everyone else in the known universe, I went to see Avatar in 3D the other week. While the story was solid enough and the effects were just stunning, I walked out of the theatre feeling a bit empty.

It was the 3D. It just didn’t work for me. Admittedly I’d had this element of the film oversold to me by various parties, but ultimately I found it annoying for the following reasons:

1) Unless an object is in full view, it doesn’t really work. A ball in the centre of the screen works great, but as soon as the camera moves in and the edges of the ball touch the edge of the screen, the 3D effect is lost – sometimes distractingly so. Several times in the movie my eyes were pulled away from the action by a branch or something that was floating in the middle distance, apparently between me and the screen, suddenly snapping back as it hit the side of the screen.

2) Because of the depth element to the image, I found it took me a fraction of a second longer to get into the shot and adjust my brain to what I was seeing after each cut. Towards the end of the film my poor noodle was struggling to keep up with some of the faster cut action sequences, and I often found myself mentally two or three shots behind trying to process what I’d seen (This may just be me getting older and stupider…).

3) One of the key weapons a Director has in his cinematic armoury is depth of field. With the aid of a good focus puller he can draw the eye around a scene and add punctuation and stylistic elements to a shot that greatly aid the storytelling. This means that quite often much of the foreground and background is out of focus (the ‘filmic’ look), so burning embers falling down, apparently just in front of me, are also out of focus. When I try to look at them, they stay out of focus and it makes my eyes go funny.

I think this is possibly the biggest flaw with 3D. A perfect 3D system would be like life, where your eyes can alight on something in the near distance and everything in the background goes out of focus, then, when you shift your gaze to the wide blue yonder, objects near you go out of focus. But this is no good to the Director who is saying, ‘Oi! Over here – look at this wonderful actor, see our story’!

The problem, I suppose, is that 3D is cheating – you’re still looking at a two 2D images and your brain is being tricked into perceiving a depth that’s not really there.

The only solution to this would be to open up and have a wide depth of field, which would destroy every cinematographer living and make all films look crap. Even then it still wouldn’t work as everything would be in focus and it would still seem wrong.

I think for sports events, this is a good thing. You want a wide depth of field to keep the fast moving ball in focus at all times and get a much better sense of where the ball and players are in relation to each other, greatly enhancing the experience. But for cinema, it just doesn’t cut it.

It’s a shame as I went in really believing that 3D was upon us, but now I think it’s just a novelty, a gimmick that really adds no great value to cinematic storytelling. It’ll just take one major 3D film to flop (Alice in Wonderland?) and it’ll all be over (again).

What do yo think? Does 3D have a future for you? Do we just need to rethink or refine how we shoot it? Or is it dead in the water?

Continue reading »]]> Things never quite go the way you expect, do they?

Last month, more on a whim than anything else, I applied for a management position within the company I work for, and ended up getting it. And rightly chuffed I was too.

So for the past two weeks I’ve ended up more or less doing two jobs as I tidy up affairs from my old IT Applications position and start my shiny new Marketing Communications role.

Rao and quite a few other people offline have, in the meantime, been asking about Return to Earth. Well, through all of this, I’ve had my thinking cap on, and thanks for some very good feedback from the previous draft I’ve finally nailed what the actual film is about.

I’ve also been playing with Mariner Software’s Contour, which has also made me realise that even though, after all these years, I thought I was starting to get what all this screenwriting malarkey was about, ultimately, I knew Jack. Quite a humbling experience.

Nonetheless, the fourth draft is starting to take shape now and muchly pleased I am with it too.

On top of that, I’ve been encouraged by various parties to make another short film. So, together with Blogger/Twitter friend @draconianone, we’ve been plotting a new featurette.

More details of this will emerge over the next few weeks as the script is finalised. Most of the actors are already lined up (the usual suspects plus a few surprises, hopefully).

Watch out for now customary Twitter onslaught of begging/pleading for finance to begin!

Trust me, it’ll be pure gold.