This...

A day of non-directing fun today appearing in the promo photos for Down Terrace, friend of Lord Tunley Ben Wheatley's excellent micro-budget debut (which I am in). Got a free pizza lunch out of it as well so I have officially made it as a feature film actor.

Here's some hasty snaps of the shoot.

The 'innovative' framing of this picture illustrates why I wasn't taking the proper photos.

That's Robin Hill, Julia Deakin, DOP Laurie Rose's backside and Tony Way entering stage left.





Mr Wheatley hisself















David Schaal awaits his close up while Tony Way reads this review from Down Terrace's Glasgow Film Festival triumph.

Ploughing On

Experienced my first wave of Animation Ennui today as I realised how far I have to go to completion of my ill advised first foray into 3D cartoonery, "Giant Robot vs Gerbil"

Still I did do some (extremely) rough sets for the city, which is what these here gloomy pics that look like something from a late 80s budget computer game are. They're just place-holders for blocking and will be souped up beyond belief in the final stages. That's my excuse anyway.




This will look amazing when it's done, honest.









Not unlike Bethnal Green.







Giant Robot himself pops in to liven things up. Fails.











In other, more exciting, news: "Going On" is finished! But I don't think we'll be putting it online for a bit as we want to show it to TV bigwigs first.

Onwards...

Warghhhhhhhhhh

Struggling through some post sync dubbing for Going On I was reminded that this is the single best moment of ADR ever recorded by a human.



Good old Mike Schank. From "American Movie" the funniest, darkest, sweetest, most movingest 'making of' doc ever.

KAPUT

This is what the Royal Festival Hall looks like:












This is what the Royal Festival Hall looks like on my dv camera, the one I'm supposed to be capturing valuable footage with:



Bah.

From The Vaults

Another blast from the past now, it's the first animation I ever did! You have been warned.

This is 'Dog and Log', a little cartoon I did for my nieces a good few Xmas's back. Altogether now: "Ahhhhhhh". It has to be said, they were massively underwhelmed...

Dog and Log from Gareth Tunley on Vimeo.

The voice is of course the inimitable Alex Kirk.

Colour Correction Blues

Geeky Spoddiness alert.

Post production for Going On is taking ages because a) there's loads of it and only one of me b) we had to ADR (dub the dialogue) in a scene and syncing it is difficult c) my camera is broke and d) colour correction is a freakin' nightmare.

Colour correction is basically the process of making the colours the camera sees look like the colours we see in what is sometimes laughably called the real world. I made the mistake of looking it up online and found this mind mangling optical illusion that explains why colour correction is vitally important and totally impossible in one brain frying swoop.

Which square is white and which is grey A or B?















I tricked ya! They're both grey. I shit you not. Don't believe me? this helpful chap explains why in a great little article on colour correction.

As you were.

Frightful

Old Lord Tunley compadre Stuart Barr has started reviewing movies for the Frightfest website including this demolition of something called "Wrong Turn 3". My fave bit is where the cast "gets lost and wanders around the shrubs at the bottom of the producer’s garden for a bit".

One day I will direct a feature and Mr Barr can trash that too!

I Should Coco

Way back in the mists of time (last Sunday) we did this...

Well here's the result: the first ever "Edward and Martin's How To Guide To How To Do Everything" episode. This one's about putting up shelves. It does what it says on the tin - sort of.




More soon. The Lord Tunley pledge: I'll post them hereabouts before they go anywhere else!

I Think We Blew The System

...and here's part three of The Mainstage, the bit of music show spoofery I directed a while back for the lovely people at Channel X:



That's Rich Fulcher, of course, with Alice Lowe and a heavily disguised Idiots Of Ants.

Parts one and two are here and here.

Word.

I Wobot

More adventures in 3D land. This is the titular robot for Giant Robot vs Gerbil.









Rough sketch...





Just add a few hours of Geeky Spoddery...











And he's DONE!


















He stubbornly refused to become totally freakin awesome but he's mine...




Over to Vimeo for a quick vid:

Robot Design Test Render from Gareth Tunley on Vimeo.

Shooting

Just yesterday it was fag and a fiver film production time shooting some sketches.



That's the inimitable Alex Kirk on the left, the outstanding Steve Evans (tied to chair) and Josh Topp doing his art dept duties with elan aplenty.

In the foreground is a high end, ultra high def 8K digital camera with super fast low light lenses and 35mm cine sized sensor cunningly disguised as a cheap bit of tat off eBay.

This had nothing to do with filming.

Mr Topp adds the final touches to "the wife". Real actors are expensive.

It really would take far too long to explain.


Recession tip: Tescos instant mash is 50 pence cheaper than Smash.

Mr Evans begins to doubt who and what he has got involved with.

Thanks again to the team, a splendid time was had by all.

With luck the final sketches will be even more wrong-ass than these snaps suggest. I'll post them here of course as soon as they're done.

Mainstage Part Two

Here's the second part of The Mainstage, the taster tape I directed a while back. This bit boasts the charming Shelley Longworth and the multifariously talented Idiots of Ants



Part One is down here a bit. Part three in a bit.