Here's a little pre-Xmas treat from Lord Tunley friend Steve Oram (aka Steve Aura of Lincoln films) featuring ex- Cave Children stalwart Simon Farnaby.

It's another minimalist gem from Lincoln Studios whose style makes the average Beckett play look like an episode of C.S.I Miami! If you remember I was in another Lincoln Films production a short while back.

Enjoy...

Pancake Day

Commercial video shooting fun...

















Sticking a pancake to a ceiling with Epoxy. All in a days work...

Fiiinniiiishhhheddd!!!

Yup, another project done and dusted and ready to hurl into the howling void.



It's a little sketch written by David Armand, starring Dave and Will Andrews. It also features (and hideously under-uses the talents of) Sarah Baker, Tony Way and Toby Davies. Josh Topp clutched a replica weapon and did art dept duties including high quality smoke wrangling.

Bob Pipe was on camera, Simon Batchelar recorded noises. Waen Shepherd somehow got a film score out of his computer, possibly by occult means.
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Finally, finally grading this action movie sketch thing which has now got to the point where I sometimes think: "Oh yeah, that looks good" and realise I'm looking at the original ungraded footage.

When it all gets too much I look at this totally mental labour of love, a really intricate project from, oh about a hundred years ago (via Shadowplay, like so many things).

Great Scotts

More skin of teeth, hand to mouth, fag and a fiver film making in the company of Alex Kirk and Bob Pipe.




We decided to get together, with nary a thought for preparation of any sort, to do a quick mock doc sketch about Ridley and Tony, the two characters me and Alex have been gigging from time to time.




They first appeared at The Forgery Club, a live comedy night organized by none other than Bob Pipe. The small world of Lord Tunley.

Mountains of Waen

Many are called, few are chosen.

I have gained access to the musical lair of Waen Shepherd who has manifested his physical being briefly in our dimension to do some music for our Epping Forest action movie sketch (which will be finished soon, honest)...

Forging Ahead

We (Alex Kirk and me) will be doing this:

(Ridley and Tony Scott as two painter decorators) at this:

Forgery Clubs are always a right good laugh and this is the LAST ONE EVER.

Oh, do come.

Waen's World

Waen Shepherd pops into Lord Tunley Heights to take a look at our Epping forest edit with a view to doing some music. Yay!



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If You Go Down...

So we survived a day in the woods shooting our action movie sketch with a smoke gun and replica weapons without getting shut down by parkies or shot down by anti terror goons.

Josh Topp took some pretty pictures. That's Bob "The Human Crane" Pipe on camera up a tree, Simon Batchelar on sound, Will Andrews and Dave Armand as our black clad action heroes, Toby Davies and Tony Way (as henchmen) and Sarah Baker as a hostage. Top stuff.

Smoke'n Gun

These just arrived for our action movie forest shoot sketch thang...

Short Back And To The Sides

Ahead of this shoot that is fast approaching I did a quick-as-all-hell compositing test to see what Dave Armand would look like with CG blood coming out of his noggin as though he's been shot... ... answer: kind of ok. It'll be fine I reckon with a bit of tweaking.

Play Date

 
Now's as good a time as any to remind you about Shadowplay, one of the best and most original cinema blogs out there. Not least because David Cairns has declared today "Shadowplay Day", a blatant, shameless attempt to boost his blog stats by the simple expedient of asking people to publicise it for him! And guess what, it's working.

Here's one of my fave posts.

Frightful

Yay! for Ben Wheatley and Michael Smiley et al who won a whole heap load of awards at Fright Fest for their film Kill List.

I know I've banged on about it before alarmingly (I'm biased as I'm in it for a fleeting, brutal moment) but, on seeing it again the other night in the MASSIVE screen one of the Empire, Leicester Square (pictured, badly, above) I can confirm its general brilliance. All two of you should rush to see it immediately.

V Is For Vagary

Been tinkering with some rough as a roofer's glove test footage we shot out in Epping Forest the other day to see what it looks like with a grade slapped on it.

That's TV's Dave Armand, of course, trying out a few moves.

Light Work

More stuff you can watch and pretend you are working.



"Visions of Light" documentary. All about cinematography and that, innit.

B3ta Rockers

Meanwhile those lovely people at B3ta have featured "Scientology: The Truth" in their legendary newsletter

Here it is again...



Also in said newsletter was this little claymation horror gem.

Recce Homos

Two grown men wandering around some woods looking for a secluded spot. Nothing untoward about that whatsoever.













Actually it's me and Dave Armand wandering around Epping Forest looking for locations for a short sketch that we will hopefully be shooting very shortly.


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Writer's Rock

I have been writing a sample script which roughly translates as looking at the internet every five minutes.

Actually it means I've had to download a program that switches off your web connection and means you have to be a high level hacker to get it back on (slight exaggeration).

It does mean I can look at writery websites like this and say that I'm "working".

http://www.sitcomgeek.blogspot.com/
http://www.advicetowriters.com/

Empire of the Fun

I may not have been busy recently (I have actually, I've been writing - honest) but Peeder Jigson has been flat out hectic.

Here he is being interviewed in Emipire Magazine.




Yes THE Empire magazine. Me and James Bachman were as surprised as anyone.

I'll stick a proper link up as soon as one appears.

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Gallo's Humour

Seeing as I've been so remiss posting anything I thought I'd draw your attention to this:



It's a great interview with George "Midnight Run" Gallo and if you're a writer you can watch it and call it work.

Result.

Via www.filmmakerjunction.com

Out Of It

I have been writing, honest! - a spec script - not even the thing that the tests below are for but I shall return soon.

Road Worrier

Yet more tests to make sure I can make things stay in one place while the camera's moving.

This time, walking down a frickin' road! I bet even Peter Jackson struggles with this. Do you see anybody walking through nondescript streets in South London in Lord of the Rings? No. That's because he can't handle it!.

See that badly lit, fake-ass looking car? It stays in one place.



Few more tests to go, then I should probably write something.

Kernel Of An Idea

Forgot to mention: The latest Peeder Jigson video will be showing at the Kernel Club tonight along with other shorts, with live comedy from friend of Lord Tunley's Will Andrews. It's at the Roxy Bar and Screen.

Attack the Blocks

I know you're thrilled by these motion tracking tests but look: this one has objects that cast shadows AND (crucially) the camera goes round a corner



The blocks only slide a tiny amount, barely noticable.

Please contain your excitement.

I Should Get Out More

What's wrong with this clip of a chess set?



Apart from the kids' toys and homework...

Yes, one of the chess pieces is not really there. I'm getting better at this motion tracking malarkey (mostly by making the movement in the shots easier and easier).

Mouthbreathing spods take note: I'm still using Blender and PFTrack but thinking of switching and trying something else.

Tentacle Debacle

So I'm doing the first of many really rough and ready tests way ahead of a short film idea, trying things out to see if they work before even bothering putting them in the script.

First up: can I make it look like tentacles are coming out of a toilet? Answer: sort of.

Not too much of a debacle this one as it just about worked. Only thing I don't know is if i could make it work again.

As usual it's the blessed motion tracking that was the headache.



But it looks ok for a test nest pas?

Reeling in the years

A new, ultra short (minute and half!) reel.

Making the grade

Rendering out a better looking version of Brothers the other day made me painfully aware of how utterly shit the grade was (no ones fault but my own, don't know what I was thinking, it looks more saturated than a Douglas Sirk film).

So... I have decided to fix it using Magic Bullet.

As John Peel used to say when stopping a record he'd been playing at the wrong speed to play it at the right speed: "compare and contrast..."

I may be going overboard at the mo (a common schoolboy error when doing your own grading) but will reign it in in due course...

More Peeder

More actual for real, finished, ready-to-watch, completed, concluded, "ready", totally done stuff...

Production on the Hobbit lumbers on and director Peeder Jigson shows us round one of the massive studio sets.

I Bring You Fire

The sun is shining and the weather is sweet, yeah. But I am inside trying to make some trees look like they're on fire behind James Bachman.