Sunday 31 May 2009

Rough Cut - Completed!

I just completed the rough cut a couple of minutes ago - inbetween watching The Wire, packing to go back home and shamelessly playing video games (Hey, I've finished university, I can be lazy now).

But of course, the edit is only one such task in the Post Production process. For those who are not too familar, here's a quick checklist of stuff we've still got to do on the film

- Render out cut to give to composer - so they can start composing the soundtrack to the film
- Record Foley - Foley is an sound process where a whole track in the edit is dedicated to making the real life sounds of the film - clothes, footsteps, gun handling, moving boxes, so on. It's a dark, unnoticed art - in that when a sound is missing, you notice it straight away, but when it's there, you don't conciously register it.
- Record Atmosphere - Another dark art of the Sound Edit - layering atmos, or a "wildtrack", over an entire scene to plug any gaps in dialogue, and also works very well to set the scene - Cutting the visual also means cutting the audio, but the atmos will be laid across all the clips to hide those cuts and create a desired mood.
- Render out footage to give to the visual effects artist - here, we add some effects that we couldn't do on the day - enhancing blood, bullet holes, so on and so forth. This will work with the real effects in order to create the best possible image
- Colour correction / Grading - This is a process where we smooth out the visual a lot more - and also create the desired look of the film, warmer tones for outside, darken the image to create a murky feel, so on.

Crikey! Still a lot to do. And when that's all done, we can start thinking about sending it to festivals, editing the "Behind the Scene's" stuff and more! 

And probably signing on!

Lots of love,
David!

Thursday 28 May 2009

Reshoot day!

Hello one and all - Today is going to be a very brief reshoot day - Just Nico and myself doing a couple of pick up shots that will help the story come together - at the moment there's some pieces that don't quite make sense, and this will help it become a lot more structured. 

Monday 25 May 2009

So editing is well underway-  need to do some filler shots but nothing too taxing...

So, as a teaser... here's a line from the film...

"One week there's fifty mexicans dying of swine flu... a month later there's a thousand living dead roaming across the East Midlands"



Wednesday 20 May 2009

Poster...


A mock up poster. Probably won't be the final one, but just an idea.


Frame stills

I was pretty tired last night after day two of shooting, so a mega quick update before I leave to shoot the action sequence.

Shoot was ok, lighting troubles were a major factor as we couldn't hide the lights as easily as yesterday - including one part of the evening when John, our lighting expert, ever so slightly moved a lamp and the bulb blew. Goodo.

But overall, the scene played out fine! Today is our big action sequence... good times.

Here are some frames taken from the film of our lead actor, David Nicolson. 


Monday 18 May 2009

Production Photos






First day of shooting!

Hello readers!

First day of shooting went well! I had two fantastic people helping me out on costume and make up, so many thanks to Jenni and Emma!

The shoot went fine, The only real trouble was cleaning the blood off the wall...

Just putting together the rushes now!

David

Production begins...

First day of shooting tonight... Will update afterwards when uploading footage!

Dave

Friday 15 May 2009

Updatey Update

Script is done, here's an excerpt:

INT. BEDROOM – DAY

Black bin bags cover the windows in the bedroom, just like in the kitchen. However, in one of the windows there is a small hole cut into the base of a bag. Alex peers out of the window. There are cars parked at each side of the road. This could be any street in England. Except that there is no human movement.

 

Alex turns and looks down the opposite end of the street. He looks annoyed as he spies a FIGURE is shuffling away from the camera, heading up the street and out of sight. The figures clothes are torn and dirty. The figure shambles further away from sight and eventually it disappears around the corner.


Shooting starts on Monday, picking up the hire gear today. I haven't updated recently, I've been loaded up with a bit of flu! But I've had some amazing support from Associate Producers and the film promises to be one of the better things I've worked on.


Friday 1 May 2009

What I've been up to




Things are getting rather busy. So here are some photos.


















































That last one is just an example of what stuff I've been up to recently on my other production, which is pretty much complete now.