I posted a link from ‘Planes Trains and Automobiles’ on Facebook last night (above), as this movie as well as ‘Uncle Buck’, have endured as trusted comedies that, no matter how often I see them, still move me to tears and stitches. What I love about the scene above is the sheer craftsmanship – all those visual gags followed by that lovely silence as the case goes flying. Fabulous.

Prolific director and screenwriter John Hughes, enjoyed a rich vein of extraordinary work in the eighties, and his impact on popular cinema cannot be underrated – ‘The Breakfast Club’, ‘Ferris Bueller’ and ‘Home Alone’ are just three of an iconic career.  For me though, his work has been largely overlooked and sidelined by history – I guess it’s easy to do that with frothy comedy, especially when it’s wearing leg warmers and shoulder pads. I felt it twenty years ago, and I feel it even more now, John Hughes was one of the greatest American filmmakers.

And it got me to Googling for interviews with the man himself. Blimey, there are precious few out there, he was quite a recluse.

Below is the best one I could find, recorded by the AFI. So I decided to clean it up, convert it into a single file and upload for filmmakers who want to know more about the extraordinary and elusive talent that was John Hughes. Enjoy.

Download the MP3 file here for your iPod

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

Following on from the podcast with Leilani Holmes last week when she discussed renting lights that are just too big for the team to use, I thought I would expand on that comment.

Electric power for your shoot is always an issue.

You can’t always just plug a light into the socket on the wall. On most bigger film shoots, the production will hire a generator that can supply power anywhere they can park the genny truck. But they are expensive because you need to hire their operator too. And old generators or ones not designed for film shoots can be noisy, and they are costly to run too.

For low budget films though, the reality is that they are going to want to just draw power wherever they are shooting. So how does that work? First, most pro lighting comes with a fitted 16 amp round, waterproof plug which can’t be plugged into a domestic square 13 amp wall socket. You can hire or make jumpers that convert round to square plugs though.

Some low powered lighting, such as Kinoflo lights (like fluorescent tubes), are excellent for low budgets as they draw very little power and give off a lot of light. But if you are really going to ‘go for it’ in a location, hiring in HMI lighting, you will need an experienced gaffer who can ‘tie’ into the house power supply, directly at the source (the power box under the stairs for instance).

They will connect a box called an FDU (Final Distribution Unit) to the house power supply which will mean that up to 15kw of power is now available from one source. Without this box, the largest single light you could operate by plugging into the wall would be a Blonde or a 2k.

And believe it or not, 15kw of power is not much – a couple of HMIs, some tungsten lamps and a few others will eat up most of the power. Then there is the rest of the house which needs power to operate. A crew member switching on a kettle or hairdryer at the wrong moment can often blow a fuse and bring the production to a halt! (keep spare fuses to hand ‘cos this WILL happen).

Also, on locations, if the lighting in a given situation isn’t good enough for a department such as make-up to do their job, the gaffer may also be responsible for getting a ‘work light’ to them so they can do their job.

How much does the power cost then? To use 3k of lighting for an hour would cost around 30p. Now do the math, you will probably burn anywhere between 5k and 15k for twelve hours a day… that’s probably about £1 an hour! Not too bad huh? If you are really organised in advance, you can ask the electricity board to  uprate the supply so that you can draw more than 15Kw of power out of the house too.

Remember, safety is always paramount. This amount of power can give you a fatal zap – it can KILL YOU. The most hazardous situations are outside at night and in the rain, or in locations by a river or swimming pool. Don’t even consider shooting near any water without a trained and experienced gaffer or spark who knows about power and safety.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

www.indiegogo.com/clowningaroundpost

Listen below…

Download the MP3 file here for your iPod

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

The fundamental principle of how every film is different and needs a unique marketing and distribution plan is the first step to successfully marketing and releasing your film today.  To create this plan, you need to consider…

1. Your Goals

2.  Your Film

3.  Your Audience

4. Your Resources.

You may think you know the answers to these questions, but take a moment to really consider he, Write them down even. Specifically your goal. Is it to make money? Launch a career? What? And is everyone on your team singing from the same sheet? Synergy and focus on a single goal is preferable as that way you can get much better traction.

Jon will discuss so much more about 21st Century Distribution on our distribution masterclass. There are only 80 seats available, so don’t hesitate to sign up. You can get your pass on the official site at www.DistributionMasterclass.com – with the discount code CHRISJONESBLOG the two day course costs just £89.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

So there I was in a geology class, when it hit me, I want to be a filmmaker.

Now this is back in the day when there was no internet, no books on filmmaking, no DVD chat tracks… there were just movies that were made by wizards, and the very, very occasional hour long gold-dust-documentary about shooting an Indiana Jones or Star Wars film.

In short, if you wanted to make movies, you had to figure it all out yourself.

My decision to peruse filmmaking was based on the previous summer when I had made this film (above) on Super 8mm, with my pals as zombies, shot in my parents garden and woods in the back. It was SOOO much fun, I just couldn’t see myself being happy doing that thing I was supposed to do, study Geology to PHD level.

Nope, Zombies were my new passion.

My announcement that I was going to be a film director was met with a degree of scepticism. After all movies were only made in Hollywood, and as I said, crafted by wizards. But I did have complete support from my mum and dad, and that was crucial.

Necronomicon is clearly a homage (actually an attempt to copy the best bits) of my favourite movies of the time. You can see lot’s of Evil Dead, The Fog, even Michael Jacksons Thriller video. I was making this for myself, for the fun. I never really thought it possible anyone else would want to watch it. Even more impossible was the idea that one could have a career in filmmaking. How the world has changed.

So here it is (above), my first movie, shot on Super 8mm and edited by hand. The soundtrack was even played live at performances as there was no way to sync sound available to me.

So looking back, what did I learn making this film?

Script, Acting, Lighting and the rest!
It seems unbelievable now that it never occurred to me to write a script, that my pals were gifted enough to act and that lighting was no more than pointing a floodlight. Still, it did all come together – the message is, no matter what your available tools and experience levels are, take action. The results will surprise you.

The glamour of film
I was amazed at what people would do for me in order to be involved. The would happily work in the dark, in the rain, in the cold… and always with an excited grin. Granted, I did lose a few stragglers along the way, but the core group stayed as long as they sensed (rightly or wrongly) that I knew what the hell I was doing! I didn’t, but I thought I did, which is what counted.

Fun
The more fun the idea of the filming, the more people wanted to get involved. I personally chimed in with this, and it’s why I have found myself at odds with arthouse, pretentious, sincere and deeply serious films and film makers. I now recognise that this is what is important to them, and that’s fine. I just don’t want to be around it. It’s no fun.

How long?
I can’t remember how many reshoots we had, but it was enough for my mum to recall it pretty much every time I go home. Yes there were extended times of crew camping in the back garden, of near woodlands being lit up at 3am and freaking out neighbours… but you see, it all took so much longer than expected. That was a BIG lesson.

If you try and you fail…
… you will at least learn TONS! The film was a massive success for what it is, getting several repeat performances, selling T shirts, even spawning a directors cut with added new footage. But it had many technical limitations and I set about correcting them for my next film, and overly ambitious horror movie about the ‘end of days’. Set in Wigan. Ahem. You have permission to giggle.

Play the sound loud…
In a horror movie, it’s the sound that gets the audience, not the pictures. I learned the louder the soundtrack, the bigger the jumps, the more the girls screamed, the more the boys had permission to hold onto them… and the more tickets I would sell for the next performance.

Willing suspension of disbelief
Creaky acting, dodgy camerawork, ridiculous plot… none of it mattered as I had created the environment for people to ‘willingly suspend their disbelief’. Everyone knew this was an amateur film made by movie buffs, but they still went along for the ride, and they loved it! This agreement all began with the title, poster and casting… and the tag line ‘the ultimate in 8mm horror…’ I learned that ‘believable’ and ‘I choose to believe even though it’s nonsense’ are two different things. An audiences willing ‘suspension of disbelief’ is fragile for sure, but if respected by the filmmakers, it’s also maintainable with the most meagre of budgets.

Marketing
I was quite skilled with ink and paper and so created a poster campaign that ran for several weeks in my school. I wasn’t really aware of just how much excitement this campaign was stirring up, but I became aware at the lunchtime premiere when a thousand students all paid to see the film. Result!

The moment EVERYTHING changed for me was after the premiere when I looked in the cash tin and there was over £100 from ticket sales. I could now make another movie. And it was that afternoon, sitting in my Geology class that the direction of my life changed forever. I was going to be a filmmaker.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

PS – If you liked this post, you will alos like the one on a Horizon Documentary from the eighties – check it out here http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2011/02/how-to-film-the-impossible-the-moment-everything-changed-for-me.html

Yesterday afternoon at the Apollo Cinema 20 excited teams of film makers gathered to see who would emerge as winner of the 2012 Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge. Having watched a few online I had some idea of the quality this year and had very little hope of our film getting any further than the short list. However I was excited to see what other teams had done. The 48 hour film challenge is very much about the taking part and not the winning. Anyone who managed to get a film finished should be proud of themselves. Of over 360 teams who entered only 171 managed to get a film completed by the deadline. Having said that with a development deal with Vertigo as 1st Prize there was a lot at stake.

After an intro from Louis Savy the festival director who promised us we were in for a treat we settled down to watch the shortlist. Before that two other films had been selected for us to enjoy. They were hilarious both intentionally and unintentionally. It got us off to a fine start.

As we went through the films I decided I didn’t envy the judges in having to make a decision. 20 films of absolute quality. Amazing what people have managed to achieve in a weekend. It’s always fun to see how people have used the random elements to make their films. Some of the interpretations were genius. Our film Backwoods seemed to get laughs in all the right places and got some warm applause at the end. Certainly seemed to be a crowd pleaser. Also glad glad my slightly ropey compositing looked ok on the big screen. I think we had the coolest VFX shot of the night too.

A top three had to be decided though. Third place went to Jake Wynne and his Superluminal team for their film Eight Items (watch here). A film that featured some of the best and most natural acting in the competition. It starts brilliantly by dropping you right into the action and uses the random elements extremely well especially the very difficult line of dialogue they had.

Second place was team Bughunt (watch here) with their film 6 Minute Leap. Very stylishly shot and a film that really sets up all the elements and ties them all together brilliantly in the final few moments. It’s difficult to say more without giving stuff away so just watch and enjoy it yourselves.

First place was a very popular choice. A film that has already got a decent following of fans online including Graham Linehan. Future Inc. is a film that has such warmth and charm it really did stand out from the crowd. A nice and fully rounded story with wonderful performances and real heart. Conrats to Martin Stirling, Andrew Ellard and the rest of the team. A well deserved win (watch above).

So after the awards it was to the bar for some celebratory drinks and a chance to chat to our fellow finalists. Was nice chatting to some of the other teams who I’d been following on the always fun twitter feed as the films were being made. Always good to put faces to names. Louis’ final words to us was to encourage us to go make a feature film. With that much talent in the room the British film industry clearly has some brilliant young talent around so lets all go make some features.

The whole shortlist will be online soon and I urge you to take the time to sit back and watch them. You won’t be disappointed.

Same again next year everyone?

Tom Worth
@tomworthtweets

Final guest blog about SciFi London 48 Hour challenge films, this time from pal Tom Worth… take it away Tom…

I love 48 hour film challenges. I’m not sure why though: they’re exhausting, stressful and at the end you have a film you wish you’d had time to polish a bit better. However, there’s something about the experience that is incredibly satisfying. I’ve done three now. One was years ago and was in fact the first film I made. It was me and three friends with some blagged kit and no idea what we were doing. Our film was rubbish but we had a blast and learnt a lot. (Thankfully this was before YouTube so none of you have to sit through it…!)

The last two years I’ve been Producer on a much more experienced team entering the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge. So I thought I’d give a bit of an insight to what I’ve learnt from both our successes and our failures. We were shortlisted last year and have made the final 20 this year so we must be doing something right.

Last year was a bit of a reunion. The previous year we’d made this little short film called Sign Language that went on to completely unexpected success picking up various awards including the Grand Prize at Virgin Media Shorts. So we decided to get the band back together and use some of the money we’d won to make a 48 hour film. It was the weekend of Oscar, the Director’s birthday so it seemed like a good way to celebrate.

Our plan was to be ambitious and stand out. We were in it to win it. We decided beforehand to try to make a Victorian Sci-Fi; found an amazing location and hired a few potential props, lights and even a generator just in case. We also had access to a very cool VW camper van called Joni owned by one of our actors and our 1st AD’s partner was pregnant with twins and said we could use her belly… So quite a mix of ingredients before we’d pulled anything out of the hat. The film ended up costing nearly three times more than Sign Language which seems ridiculous in hindsight.

Our 2011 entry – Silent Girl – looked amazing for what we achieved in the time, but falls down by not making any sense. Some people may have given us credit thinking we were being really clever and they just didn’t get it… But no, we just made a film that made no sense, sorry. Watch below.

This year, however we were much more relaxed. So relaxed in fact that I only really started to plan three days before the event. We had no locations, no props and just a few lights, but a really great crew. In many ways this was much more freeing as having done it the year before, we had more of an idea of what could be achieved. We also approached it more from the point of view of having fun with our film-making friends rather than trying to make a film that would win. The film we made is pretty silly but we had a lot of fun making it and that was what we wanted at the start. Also it actually makes sense this time (just).

So what have I learnt from these past two years?

Take your time. This may seem counter intuitive but don’t rush to shoot something until you’re ready.

Both films we’ve done we’ve not been able to shoot till the Sunday morning and I think this helped. On Silent Girl we did shoot the camper van stuff on Saturday night and actually that’s the main reason the film makes no sense. I was so desperate to get something shot that we filmed that before the script was completely ready. We changed the story slightly after shooting that night and that’s the reason the film doesn’t quite work.

Similarly you should take time in the edit to work the film until you’re happy. Don’t just settle for a halfway decent edit as soon as you have one because you’re worried about time for sound design, etc.

Write a script. Filmmaking is so much easier when everyone has a script and you all know what you’re doing. Actors can learn their lines, your DOP knows what he’s shooting, Art Dept know what they need to source/make, etc. You can also shoot out of order and know you are still getting everything you need. Get a writer on board who can write a good script once you’ve agreed on a story structure you’re all happy with. They can be doing this while the rest of the crew sources props, makes costume, recces locations and starts VFX.

Get a good size crew. One Writer/Director/DOP/Editor will struggle to do all those jobs. Better to have more people concentrating on their own little bit. I’d say the crew you should aim for is: Director, Producer, Writer, DOP, Focus Puller, Sound Recordist, Art Dept, Costume, Makeup, 1st AD, Editor, VFX, Sound Design, Composer, Grader. Plus get some runners and drivers to help out if you can. Sounds a lot but really only your Producer and Director and maybe your VFX team will have to do the whole 48 hours. The rest you can stagger to when they are needed to keep your crew fresh.

Blag whatever you can get your hands on. Locations, props, kit, people, cars, vans, whatever you think might be useful see if you can have access to it before you start. You never know what you might need and better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

Trust your crew. It’s amazing what talented people can achieve. The 48 hour Challenge is a chance for your whole crew to prove what they can do so let them go for it. Last year our Costume Dept made the maid’s costume from scratch through the night. This year our Art Dept made blinking darts, sprayed guns and all sorts of other weirdness.

Have some actors on standby. Trying to cast a film you’ve not written is tough.

Last year we had a couple of actors in place but had to scramble to fill the other roles on the Saturday. In the end we were lucky to have some awesome talent come on board at the last minute. This year we asked friends who are actors if they were available if we needed them which gave us a bit more flexibility with casting.

Leave time for grade and sound design. This year we gave our grader and sound designer about an hour to do their thing. What they did was amazing but if we’d have given them maybe two hours or more then our film could have looked and sounded near perfect.

Edit as you go. If you can start getting rushes to your editor as you shoot, they can then be transcoding, synching and maybe even starting to cut scenes while you’re still shooting. Each year we’ve finished wrapping at about 5 or 6 on Sunday but it’s been ok as we’ve always started the edit process by then. If you wrap at 6 on Sunday and you have to then transcode and synch all your footage, you’re going to struggle.

Check your credits very carefully. It’s easy to make mistakes when you’ve been awake for 50 hours straight. Get someone to check them carefully. I made a ton of mistakes in our credits last year including getting one of the character’s names wrong and misspelling many of the crew’s names.

Set deadlines. As producer you need to set deadlines for when you think you need each stage done. Set two deadlines. One when you want it done, this is the one you tell your crew, and one when you need it done. Keep this to yourself and don’t panic until you’re near it (I hope none of my crew are reading this).

Don’t panic. Especially don’t panic when reading Twitter on Saturday night that lots of people have wrapped before you even have a script. They will either have made a story they already had in place (cheating if you ask me) or their story will be crap. Stick to your guns and make sure you’ve nailed your story before shooting. The only time you need to panic is when you leave to hand in with 35 mins before the deadline and TFL says the journey will take 34 mins. Then you can panic but only then.

Have fun. What’s the point of putting yourself through a weekend of no sleep if you’re not going to enjoy it. We had a blast for much of this year (and last year too) and that’s what makes everyone want to come back and do it again.

And just to finish here’s a shot of our lead actor Al leaping over a log and stacking it into a tree. Unfortunately we weren’t recording sound. It’s still pretty funny though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zljHtfVpJSI&feature=youtu.be

Good luck everyone and see you on Sunday.

Thanks Tom, and good luck!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

So my URL is http://www.facebook.com/chrisjonesfilmmaker

Which I can manually edit down to fb.com/chrisjonesfilmmaker which is much better for business cards.

If you want to get your vanity URL for your Facebook page, I wrote a post on it here… http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2010/07/facebook-url-for-you-and-your-film.html

And a post on why you should have your photo on your business card here… http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2010/03/networking-in-cannes-tip-better-to-be-remembered-than-it-is-to-be-cool-.html

All good prep for Cannes!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

Transplant Log Line: In the near-future and using illegal cloning technology, a cardio vascular surgeon sacrifices first her ethics, then everything that is dear to her, to ensure her desperately ill son lives.

I have just completed our application for the iFeatures initiative and submitted the treatment for Transplant. Above is a short teaser from an audiobook I created for the entire story.

If you want to be kept in the loop about Transplant or maybe get involved later, join the newsgroup here, and you will get sent an email link to a longer section from the audiobook. Be warned, it’s a heart stopper! Literally.

So why on earth did I record an audiobook?

For a number of practical reasons really, and it has had some surprising results.

First off, working in indie film, I have come to realize that most people don’t know how to read a screenplay, especially investors. However, everyone IS a story expert, and if they are getting involved, they want to experience that story. For me the best way to convey my narrative to these people is via a treatment, almost a short novella. The format just doesn’t get in the way when reading.

As a story development tool too, a long treatment is also an easier format to work with (again for me at least). Do all the hard work here and when it comes to fleshing it out into a completed screenplay, it’s a much simpler task. In fact it’s a joy.

I recorded the audio for this in my living room with actress and friend Jo Wyatt (who normally records voiceovers for characters in Disney movies).

What did I learn from recording it?

1. With the tools available now, it’s easy to do.

2. It’s easy to podcast it to people who can listen in their car or on the train.

3. It took longer than expected to record, breaking the recording into two sessions.

4. I began adding some sound effects in the edit but gave up as it kind of interfered with the experience when listening.

5. It gave me access to post production tools in the writing phase. When listening, I was able to imagine the film and the shots and became aware very quickly of redundant scenes or lines. This redundancy was more apparent to me when listening than when reading the treatment. This was VERY cool and I went back and re-edited the text.

6. The first paragraph of the treatment served as a great teaser – I can email the clip above as an MP3, about 3mb.

7. Getting people to download the teaser is easy, but to download the whole audiobook is much harder.

So should you record a recording of your treatment?

If you are considering spending tens of thousands and three years of your life on a film, I would recommend it as due diligence. The ability to edit the audio like editing pictures, effectively jumping from screenplay to post production, is worth the investment  alone.

Do let me know how you get on, and remember, if you want to listen to another longer clip from Transplant, and if you want to get emails from me about the production, join the group here…

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix

Guest post from Adele Kirby on her SciFi London 48 hour film challenge film.

I’ve been going to the SF London Film Fest a few years now, and annually considered the people who undertook the 48Hr Film Challenge to be a pack of loons. Having now completed it, I can safely confirm this as truth.

I’m a novice writerly sort myself; this whole film-making business is something I considered better left to people better qualified. But after watching a couple of the 2011 shortlisted films at the SFX Weekender in February, I had an itch. I also had a twitter account and predilection for enthusiastic tweetage.

By the close of the Guerrilla Film Masterclass a few weeks later, I accidentally had a huge team of very awesome (and far more qualified) people wanting to do this thing. I accordingly called them Team Awesome and we got started.

Let it be said: Team Awesome was absolutely a team affair, as was always my intention.  I didn’t assemble a group to carry out my particular vision; I assembled a team to produce a film in which we could all claim creative ownership. Mission Objective 1 was obviously to complete and submit a great film; Mission Objective 2 was to have a damn good time doing it and build creative partnerships that would far outlast the key 48 hours. In this, we absolutely succeeded, with a hugely enjoyable shoot and plans already afoot for further films.

We were a team of 19 in the end, 18 of us innocent 48Hr virgins. Veteran Edward McLeod Jones bought invaluable advice on workflow, which got us across the line within time, and that was despite set-backs in post.

Whatever the competition rules on “pre-production”, PREPARATION is absolutely key to these events. I’ll first explain our preparation; then you can then see the film and I’ll explain our reflective conclusions. As first-timers, the learning curve was MAHOOOSIVE.

So we were many, and the objective was to make a film that pitched to our collective interests and strengths. First, we met up to pool our combined skills/equipment/resources.

That was a big pool.

From that meeting we determined the sorts of stories we were interested in telling, considered some visual effects that we wanted to explore if appropriate to the inputs and identified live special effects we had the ability to pull off.

• there was a definite interest in doing a comedy, largely because we found very few in the previous years films (though over the course of the weekend we found out why that was the case…) and wanted to make something that would stand out and get a reaction from the judges after hours of viewing serious films
• we had a near-7ft actor in our ranks, so I started trying to find a short actor to play comedically against Jez Hellion; we also had Michael Thyx, Alex Wadam and Jen Carnovale on stand-by call for the Saturday morning, when we would decide the story and therefore casting
• we had, between us, an arsenal of classic SF props that only a collective of A-Grade geeks could aspire to own. I will openly admit to becoming a little obsessed with using the big blaster and light saber…
• we wanted the option to shoot outdoors, in daylight, again because it seemed an idea to stand our film out (and again, we discovered why most teams don’t do this!) so I arranged three very different locations to give us choices for the weekend: a park, a house and a quiet street
• we met up for a test-shoot to get everyone confidently working together and check the workflow for the real thing – this was an invaluable session which helped us break down, time and plan our workflow
• our ambitious schedule was based around completing the shoot on the Saturday, transcoding the video on set so that a rough cut could be assembled on the Saturday evening and the actors called for or released from pickups on the Sunday. We set out with the best of intentions, but that’s probably not a model I would try or recommend again…
• to maximise our efficiency on the Saturday, we sent one member to the Apollo and gathered the rest of the fellowship, standby actors included, at a Starbucks central to our three locations, meaning we were already having a very jolly morning together before receiving the inputs and mobilising

So our film requirements arrived and were…

TITLE: Reading for Survival (win!)
PROP: Chocolate we see a character open a bar of dark chocolate, break off the top row, go to eat it, pause, smell it… then throw that piece away (double win!)
DIALOGUE: Anyway, it seemed like a perfect place to spread some news around about the Nitrogen Cycle. (…the F**K…?!)

Our story team took the inputs, looked at our locations/cast/effects possibilities, threw ideas on the table and started piecing the puzzle together.

• After a pow-wow we ran with Lance Nielsens’ comic idea for two intergalactic fisherman trying to have a quiet day fishing on earth. The concept worked beautifully for our tall/short casting, let me put quite a few of the props into a Tardis-like icebox (geek win) and allowed our live effects man Dominic to gleefully gloop an actor courtesy of blowing up an unseen monster with the massive SF blaster gun
• Jez happened to have The Art of War on his kindle, which became the key prop to incorporate the title of the film: we were imagining the book as a cross between the Art of War and the Hitchhiker’s Guide, trying to instruct the guys on how to defeat the monster
• the dialogue had us stumped though and throwing around a series of daftish ideas, because who would ever actually say that? Adrian came up with the idea that the ‘nitrogen cycle’ might not be the chemical process but an object… a cycle, powered by nitrogen. The fact that we were doing a comedy made it conceivable that Alex’s character could be a kind of bumbling, well-meaning fool who would try to make and sell a bicycle powered by nitrogen. Well, it was that or he was going to need to take a piss in the lake…
• the monster was obviously tricky – we’d all liked the idea of including a monster somehow, but obviously without a lot of special or VFX time, we were limited in what we could do. I’m not sure we got away with the monster; we certainly wouldn’t have gotten away with it if we hadn’t opted for comedy
• finally, having made a call on concept, cast and location, we trotted the team out to South Weald Park (with a few prop-stops en route), with the writing team assembling the script on the train
• Team Awesome worked like clockwork, giving us a smooth and very entertaining (albeit chilly) shoot
• with the footage digitized on location – which I would highly recommend –  our editor was able to assemble a rough cut on the Saturday night. Our composer had been considering music throughout the Saturday, swiftly producing a beautifully complementary score which he was laying down that evening; and with footage sent off for VFX on the light sabre and ship shots, everyone felt very jolly by the end of Day 1

Sunday night, on the other hand, turned out to be a pressure-cooker for the post production team. For all our planning and scheduling, we ran into delays in post and then because we were working so intensely on the edit, we lost clarity in the final checks and simply didn’t have time for a full colour grade.

And there are parts of the film that we did sit and pick at, but couldn’t fix because we just didn’t have the coverage to choose takes from.  Yes, our stunningly efficient Saturday shoot started to have serious consequences on the Sunday. We probably had more edit time than many other teams; what we didn’t have was as much footage to edit.

You see, while we had the film in the can at 7pm (win!), we had not spent enough time scripting and story boarding and with the limitations of daylight, did not have enough time on set to rehearse actors and have several takes on each shot. Jez and Alex did a super job, but we were on location at 2pm, shooting at 3pm and leaving the park before it was locked at 7pm. A lot of other teams shot indoors for hours or through the night, and that was a choice we denied ourselves with a specific exterior location.

Glooping Jez, while very entertaining for the rest of the crew, also meant we had an actor literally shaking with cold next to a breezy lake at 6pm. That lacked a little foresight on my part as producer – but where to find a wetsuit at such short notice? That would fit Jez? So concern for his welfare plus the fading of the light saw us accelerate dramatically over the last legs of the shoot, where ideally, we would have had more time, rehearsal, takes and coverage.

Our advice to teams for future years?

• plan to shoot where light is not an issue, so windowless interiors or at night
• plan to shoot late on Saturday, to give yourselves loads of time to really nail out the concept and storyboards
• give yourselves plenty of takes because you’re unlikely to have the luxury of doing pick-ups if required
• have as many people doing individual roles as possible, so you don’t break anyone over the weekend. We had every crew and post-production role covered, and while it was a mission to co-ordinate, it meant that most people had a really enjoyable weekend and only a few of us got creamed-crackered in the final stretch
• get your team together beforehand, run a test shoot if you can, build a sense of camaraderie before you make the charge
• make sure all your post production team are geared up for an all-nighter on the Sunday
• time your schedule backwards from submission time
• choose one, maybe two locations and have a good prior think about what sort of stories will be suited to that environment
• comedy is HARD. It’s hard anyway; it’s harder under pressure. We made a few choices intended to make the film stand out, and while it will have, we didn’t always land those choices as solidly as hoped. Think very seriously about doing it funny (though I’d probably do it again)
• ENJOY YOURSELVES! More than a single prize is at stake. We didn’t shortlist with our film, but had a super weekend and have built some great working relationships for the future!

Adele

TEAM AWESOME
Adele Kirby (writer/producer) @adele_kirby
Lauris Beinerts (director/producer) @human_0_1
Lance Nielsen (writer/assoc producer)
Robert Macfarlane (DOP) @DirectorRobert
Jenna Jovi (AD) @jennajovi
Michael Thyx (2^nd AD/actor) @MichaelThyx
Alex Wadham (actor) @AlexWadham
Jez Hellion (actor)
Jen Carnovale (actor) @Jen_Carnovale
Adrian Bentley (writer) @AdrianSBentley
Janis Sokolovskis (sound)
Edward McLeod-Jones (DIT)
Dwayne Blee (editor) @dwayneblee
Andrew Kristy (composer) @filmAndrew
Dominic Arthur Peters (SFX)
Mark Williams (VFX)
Jéanine Palmer (costume/props)
Emma Carolina Faith Gorbey (MUA)
John Henry (Monster wrangler)

Thanks Adele…

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix