Wednesday turned out to be a good day to film on. Unfortunately for me, Tom was going to a concert that night so couldn't come filming. This left me with two options; stay and film as much as i could, or leave and wait for a few days. I chose to stay and film 8 shots with that most glorious of winter condition, the winter sun.

So, here's a couple of screenshots of the Wednesday stuff:

Then, last night (Saturday), we shot the majority of the remaining night shots. In all, we managed 56 shots though 9 of them were re-shoots from last week using a much-improved lighting set up. The footage looks better this week, so i hope that will translate into a really good film.

Here's a selection of shots from the Saturday shoot:

So there you are. There's a couple more night scenes to do but it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to do, which means i've finished the majority of the night shooting (yay!).

Please comment the pictures, i do appreciate your feedback (even if it's negative).

Until next time,

Scott

As many of you know, i've been planning my Media Studies Practical Coursework for some time now. Yesterday, i finally began filming it. We're only supposed to make a trailer or something short but i've decided to make a full short film and use the trailer as my coursework. I expect it to be about as long as 'Summertime Killer' was.

I wrote the script before Christmas and have storyboarding furiously since then. 14 pages of script & 204 storyboard panels later, i was ready to film.

The film is called "4:02" and stars Tom White as a student who wake up to find his parents have gone and every clock in the house has stopped at two minutes past four. As he searches for his parents, paranormal things begin happening and what started out as an odd night becomes a fight for survival.

After bad weather on Thursday forced us to abandon filming the first scenes of the film, last night was the first opportunity to get something filmed. And we filmed...lots. Starting at 7:00pm and finishing at 11:15pm, we filmed 54 shots completing several scenes and giving me over 26 minutes of footage to play with.

Here are a few screenshots of some of the footage shot last night:

The next lot of filming will, weather permitting, take place on Thursday when we will be filming something a little less scary and little lighter.

Until next time,

Scott

As many of you may already know, i released a teaser trailer a few days ago (on August 1st) to promote the film. A release date of the September 1st has been set and everything is shaping up nicely.

The Trailer again, if you missed it (shameless advertising i know...):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7aTXronjlSQ

The film is practically finished, albeit with copyrighted music. However, with the expert talent of Jorn Lavoll, who has offered to do some custom music for the film, this should be remedied if not in time for the september 1st release at least for the DVD release.

Yesterday, i had the cast and crew over and we (all 3 of us) had a premiere of the film. I am pleased to say that they thoroughly enjoyed it and were pleased to have been a part of it. This means ofcourse that i haven't wasted my summer. Hopefully all of you will like the film just as much.

Now that the film is mostly complete, i can post some more screenshots to tantalise you all (NOTE: I've reduced the resolution of these shots):

Enjoy the pics!

I'll post again when the DVD features are finished (Yes, there's gonna be a DVD with special features) 

AE

It's been a while since my last production blog on 'Summertime Killer' so, because Chris keeps asking me, i've decided to give you an update.

Last time, i told you about my efforts to grade the film and gets the colours to an acceptably professional look. Today, i am still working on it; it's taking alot longer than expected because of the uneven lighting we had on the day of the shoot. Much of the footage is very dark and some is too bright. I am, at least, over half way through to grading, with most of the bigger grading challanges completed.

The last few days have been devoted to getting a few effect shots of of the way that occur in the middle of the film. This included building a 3D model of a knife that Chris throws during the film for a slow-motion pan past the camera.

This shot is coming together pretty well and looks as if it'll be amazing when it done.

I've also attempted to get our pistol to fire. Our prop was a gas blowback pistol but it wasn't working right and instead of blowing the slide back, the gas tended to explode out of every gap in the gun. Therefore, i've has to hand animate the slide coming back as well as adding a muzzle flash. I also added a brass ejection to this shot.

NOTE: I've still got to add muzzle smoke to cement the realism on this shot.

And on top of that, i've finally got Chris to smoke.

On the day, we agreed that Chris wouldn't smoke in my house so we'd have to add on the smoke latter. By filming a real cigarette burning against a black background, that getting rid of the black, I've managed to get some fairly realistic results:

So, that's where i'm at. I reckon by the end of next week, all the grading will be done and i can concentrate on the dubbing and audio mixing of the film (luckily the film's audio isn't too complex).

I'll update you with more pics when the grading and the effects are done.

Scott

On Wednesday i finished the first cut of the film. It's now called 'Summertime Killer' (as was suspected in the last blog) and lasts about 20 minutes. With the footage mostly editing together, i can now begin 'grading' the film.

Grading is the process by which you change the colours of your footage for a desired effect; Saving Private Ryan was graded to look slightly unsaturated and washes out for realism. However, grading is not a recent invention. It has been used for many years to give a film mood and depth where lighting could not. More recently however, and more often in the indie film world, grading is used to make digital video look like proper movie film (usually standard 35mm), which has more depth and saturation. 

It's kinda complicated to explain but basically, you muck about with the contrast, colour balance, brightness etc until it looks nice

Today, i graded the first few minutes of the film, which take place in one of the character's bedrooms as he wakes up. This comparison should explain a little more than i can.

Here's the original footage of Chris opening the curtains and being dazzled by light:

And here's the graded version. The saturation and contrast have been increased slightly and i've added some nice light rays coming though the gap:

I know have to grade the rest of the film. Then it's onto audio. This is all going to take time but at least i'm not bored out of my head like some people...

*cough* Jo Tivey *cough*

I'll post another update when more of the film is finished.

Scott

As i have mentioned in my earlier blog, i had planned to film a little film over the summer by the working title of "Revenge Vendetta". On Saturday, Tom Dodsworth and Chris Williams (R.O.F Christ0v) came to my house and we shot it. From about 10:00am till 2:30pm, we worked solidly breaking only to order Pizza.

After many hours filming in the morning, and a short half-hour stint after lunch, we capture all of the days footage onto my PC and watched it back. It turns out I only need to shoot about 4 more shots before everything is done.

And here for you today, i have several screenshots of our footage. Enjoy!

So, with the film now shot, "Revenge Vendetta" (or as it's new title may be "Summertime Killer") has entered post-production.

For those of you not familiar with the media terminology, this is the stage in which i must edit the film. I will write more when the film is nearing completion.  

Scott

So, this is my first Myspace blog...ever.

I guess i should start by saying thanks to all of you who've added me, i only started on Monday so to be this far by Wednesday is quite a success. For those of you who haven't added me yet, shame on you.

Now that that's out of the way i feel i should get down to business...or pleasure depending on your point of view. I could try and post something witty and fresh but i can't be bothered so instead i'll lay out my battleplans for the summer.

Obviously Friday is the Prom and i'm sure we're all getting excited about it by now (unless you haven't paid, haven't got a suit/dress sorted, haven't got anyone to go with and don't know when it is). Yesterday, i picked up my outfit from Moss Bros and its now been secretly stowed in the bowels of my wardrobe until on Friday my eager Mother will finally see her only son in a full evening suit for the first time ever (it's really not that big a deal to me...).

Ofcourse once the Prom and afterparties are over (none of which i have been invited to) we'll be off on one of the longest summer holidays ever and, barring the GCSE results day, i'm sure we'll all be kicking back and relaxing in various countries. I'm off to Portugal's Algarve for 2 weeks near the end and will be out of the country for the 23rd August, so my results will be waiting for me when i get back.

At last all the exams are over and we can finally relax. I hope you all did well and i'm sure i'll have a long chat to those of you who are also going to Yateley 6th form about it in September. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you all "What was your best & worst exam?" I'm pretty sure "Spanish oral" and "Biology Core" will feature prominently. See, i'm trying to keep using long words so my vocab doesn't turn to mush over the next 10 weeks.

I'm sure we've all got stuff lined up for the summer. I myself will be busy in July on a couple of film project. The first, "Revenge Vendetta" (shite working title) is a considerably shorter version of the 40 mins action film i had planned for the summer. Basicly, it's just the opening scene but rest assured, it will still be enjoyable and i'll still post it here...eventually. The second film project is mostly all CG (Computer Generated) but there'll be quite alot of compositing and....
*Rambles on in F/X jargon*

Anyway, that's my summer. I'll probably update you all (if you're really that interested) in a few weeks, possibly after the 7th July when filming on "Revenge Vendetta" takes place. I'll post some stills for you to laugh at. So until then, have a great summer, keep in contatc, and remember; if you've got a job over the summer, don't work too hard. I haven't. Fuck getting a job, i've just done my GCSEs; now i'm gonna relax and you should all do the same.

Peace,

Scott