Last night we held out first test screening for ‘Gone Fishing’. Blimey. What an evening. We had about ten people round and we watched it on my big video projector. This was an offline cut, with temp music and sound. After the film played, I asked a number of questions and we entered a three […]
Traditionally, on low budget films, you always have trouble getting certain crew members. Stills photographers and sound recordists are usually toughest. We were very lucky as we had Ro Heap record the sound excellently, and Mark Reeve took the stills. I only just took delivery of Marks pictures and I am blown away. Not only […]
I spent the whole of last night with editor Eddie Hamilton as we fine cut the first assembly of ‘Gone Fishing’. We have been cutting using a Dell laptop, digitising in offline media at DV50 from DVCam, and then using a 32” domestic telly as a preview monitor. It all works flawlessly. As I mentioned […]
So the shoot is over and I spent a weekend in post shoot blues. As tough as a shoot is, the days after it can often be worse. There is also an inevitable pile of production problems, misplaced bits and bobs and dreaded bills to deal with. But most of all you miss the buzz, […]
I woke with very serious pain in my leg. At 5.15am, I wasn’t sure I would get through the day. But I knew I must. At 7am I hobbled onto location to find a largely new crew, reduced in size and looking at me slightly bemused – who was this guy hobbling onto set? What […]
This was supposed to be our final day of shooting, but it was now clear that we needed an extra day. Many people in the cast and crew chose to come back for the extra day, but some had other work they needed to do. I was touched by the enthusiasm everyone showed, especially those […]
The post mortem on Day 3 highlighted some key areas where we could tighten up the shoot. If we continued the way we shot on Day 3, we would need two weeks to complete. DP Vernon Leyton had a chat to his camera team and they worked out a few ways to move a little […]
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 […]
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, […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
OK, it’s time we started to reveal who some of our talented cast and crew are going to be… First off, I am more than delighted to announce that seasoned DP, no British LEGEND, Vernon Layton, will be shooting ‘Gone Fishing’. This is awesome news as Vernon truly is an artist. Among many others Vernon […]
I got a few responses from yesterdays blog and I just wanted to share with you one from a film maker I met on one of my courses a few years back, Oli Lewington… Hey Chris, I’m a long-time follower of your various activities – got the books, done the course, blah blah blah. I […]
Production is really kicking in now. Daily, hourly, even minute by minute, new crises arise as others are fixed. Often, it can get SO hard that you really ask, what on earth am I doing? And then you remember, ‘Oh yes, most people have real jobs!’ As I haven’t made a film for some time, […]
