Archive | September, 2007

I AM ALIVE… JUST!

So I survived the shoot. Just. I have ended up in Casualty, but more on that later. We wrapped Gone Fishing Last night… I had promised to keep up in the blog, but by day three, it was apparent I could not. And so I am going to write it now, day by day, just [...]

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Shooting days two and three…

Shooting days two and three…

Today and yesterday were as expected, REALLY TOUGH. Yesterday, we spent the whole day in Ealing Studios on stage 3, where we had built a set. Most of the highly charged and emotional scenes took place in the set and so from a directors point, it was a wonderful day. Lynn Blakely, who plays Emily, [...]

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Day one…

Day one…

Day one. Highs and lows. We have been very fortunate as pretty much uniformly, we have an excellent and very professional crew. I bonded very much with Johno, our first AD. What a cool guy. And very talented too. Also the camera team are simply awesome. As are the sound team too for that matter. [...]

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Minutes to go…

It's 5.42 and Johnno, first AD turned up 30 mins early. I love film industry pro's, no-one is ever late. Right now I don't feel much. Not tired. Not excited. Not daunted. Just focussed. I am planned. I have a great team. We can do this and it will be awesome. Let's see how the [...]

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Less than 12 hours to go…

Less than 12 hours to go…

A few hours ago, the camera truck arrived and I took a pic of the contents for this blog. Blimey! Look at it all. Two 35mm cameras and all the bits. Not much like an HDV camera and tripod is it! Ok. It’s 11.30 and I will be up at 5.15 tomorrow morning. Breakfast at [...]

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One day to go…

One day to go…

So. The final day before the shoot. And so far, bedlam. Without doubt this is the most hectic day of any shoot, and it’s frantic. We managed to get our leading man, against all odds – Bill Patterson. I am over the moon as Bill is a warm and charismatic presence who is ideal for [...]

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2 days to go, and as I write this, now 1!

2 days to go, and as I write this, now 1!

Today has been a heady mix of AMAZING and AWFUL! It started out extremely well with a Tech reccie with DP Vernon Layton and First AD Jonathan Andrew. I have never done this kind of really in depth reccie before hand and I found it very useful. It gave Vernon and I an opportunity to [...]

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We got worms!

We got worms!

We have tried very hard to get EVERYTHING for free, and I just got word that we saved £40 or so by getting our worms (used as props) for free – courtesy of www.wormsdirectuk.co.uk! The will be arriving at the studios in the next day or so before being put in my fridge. Apparently that’s [...]

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James Wilson joins an ensemble of young talent

James Wilson joins an ensemble of young talent

Great News. We have just confirmed James Wilson for ‘Gone Fishing’, in the part of Simon. We auditioned James some time back, and when he came into the room, he just lit it up. We also interviewed about 100 other kids, most of whom were solid little actors who would easily take an episode of [...]

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Three days and counting…

Three days and counting…

Final organisational touches are now coming together. This is a kind of fluidity to production that is very tiring – dates, crew, cast, locations, all interdependent, all changing regularly. It’s most frustrating when people pull out knowing the huge impact it has on us, even though they have been involved in negotiation and things have [...]

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Casting Coming Together

Casting Coming Together

Great news. We have Lucy Joyce, a very experienced young actor to play Young Emily in Gone Fishing. She has a huge amount of TV and move credits to her name and it’s very exciting to be working consistently with very professional actors throughout the cast, especially as there are so many young actors in [...]

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Costume design without a fitting!

Costume design without a fitting!

Late last night I had my second big meeting with Costume Designer, Linda Haysman. We were checking over the costume for the two young boy characters in the story. Mainly Young Bill, played by Devon Murray. We had worked quite hard to stay within a selected colour palette that would co-ordinate well wit the colours [...]

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Watch our set go up!

Watch our set go up!

So the set is going up. The one day shoot on the stage, scheduled for Sunday, is going to a great day for people who have contributed to Gone Fishing, to come a see how the whole process works. There is a time lapse Quicktime film of the first few hours of construction that you [...]

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And so it begins…

And so it begins…

Today was the first day that I really had that feeling of 100% immersion in the film making process. Where nothing else matters. It began at 8am, stage 3 at Ealing Studios, a huge sound stage that we managed to get for the sets for Gone Fishing. Set construction began with Mark Sutherland at the [...]

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New Technology Communications

New Technology Communications

Yesterday was hell. We had a few people drop out, a few production disasters that have cost needless money and hell, and I mean HELL from agents. Both casting director Catherine Arton and myself pretty much checked out last night… But then we had some GREAT news, which I can’t reveal just yet. Hopefully tomorrow [...]

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