"You can have anything at all, except what you really want."

An irresistibly (un)romantic comedy.

Monday 30 May 2011

(ir)resistible back in development

We've decided that to do the (ir)resistible concept justice we need a proper budget so it's not going to be made straight away. The idea is that (ir)resistible becomes a 2nd or 3rd Feature project for Penguins with Freckles. We're concentrating on a new project which lends itself more to a no-budget execution.

It's called Across the River and you can find out more about it here.

Tuesday 31 August 2010

Encounters film festival

FORGIVING YOUR P.E. TEACHER‘ has been officially selected to screen in competition in Brief Encounters Best of British programme as part of Encounters International Film Festival 2010.

- I know what I'm doing.

Wednesday 26 May 2010

the teaser video is ready to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4tWTAitcgk
let me know what you think. And feel free to make your own versions.
And it's embedded on the blog: http://wbmalone.blogspot.com/p/teaser-video.html

lens repairs

sendeancameras.com, great. 2 of my ebayed nikons had bent filter threads. £49 each to straighten mount & supply filters. Done in days too.

Wednesday 19 May 2010

P E Teacher at Made in Essex

Forgiving Your P. E. Teacher to be shown at Made in Essex www.signals.org.uk/madeinessex.html Saturday June 5th from 3pm

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Radio mics

Gone off buying radio mics as most of them are gonna stop working in
2012! Including all Sennheisers! Back to trying to get sound guys/gals
with kit to collaborate for nowt...
Also now know that my Rode ntg2 is nowhere near as good as an Ntg3.
Could hear so much more ambient sound with my Ntg2. Damn, was hoping
it was good enough.

converge 2

I am an idiot.  I somehow thought 4th and 5th was weds & thurs so missed day 1 (which I'd even paid for in advance!) Gutted, but still got lots of info:
1. Rigs - A shoulder rig is not the only way to go.  The gunstock by Zacuto & the Hoodman wristshot support might work better for run n gun.  Also consider the Glidecam 2000.  Maybe stick to a lighter, simpler set-up when not on legs. 
2. Keep expecting to see Adobe demonstrating their H.264 support but still haven't seen it working.
3. Zacuto zfinder pro3 is def the way to go: no misting, new baseplate, but still works with old stick-on plastic clips. Can't wait till mine arrives next week from Creative Video, hopefully.
4. Different people are using different settings for contrast, saturation etc. but Philip Bloom's were: all the way down for detail and contrast and saturation -2.  I think that's right, so long as you're going to do some color correction to bring it all back in post.
5. Clapper boards are a good idea for drama, even with Pluraleyes to auto-sync sound.  The iPhone app can work but only on close shots.
6. 2 camera shooting.  Roger Charters did it a lot on 24 to save time and to enable editors to cut anywhere.  I think it can work for comedy too.  Obviously lighting is compromised so needs to suit the occasion.  If mixing 5DmkII & 7D remember 5.6 on former has about the same look as 2.8 on latter.
7. Aliasing is something that needs to be watched out for - repetitive patterns and thin lines need to be completely out of focus or big enough or avoided.
8. Bloom confirmed his opinion that 160/320/640ISO were what we should shoot at for minimum noise.
9. Talking of noise, the Nikon D3S is amazing in low light with it's noise reduction on it was still getting usable pictures at over 25,000ISO.
10. Also about noise, when the chip gets hot it can get noisier so if you're planning to shoot continuously consider using 2 bodies.
11. Get Shotputpro to archive cards to 3 locations - look out for "gorilla - something?" to replace that & the E1 ingest.
12. Get a FireWire 800 stackable cf cardreader by Lexar.  They're faster and you can daisy chain them or drives.
13. Budget in a hardrive as part of your quote for clients so they have an archive of what you've done and the footage so you only have to keep it for a set amount of time.
14. hurl blog is a good source for HDSLR info.
15. Mark Moreve has already shot "love loss" a full length feature on a 5dmk2.  It looked good.

Roger Charters

 
talking about his career up to & including shooting "24"

Tuesday 4 May 2010

converge 2

going to this on 4th & 5th May to learn more about DSLR filmmaking.
converge 2 more info

Monday 3 May 2010

mmm...


what are they looking at?

and another screen grab


another screen grab


screen grab from teaser shoot


shooting

Went out with Ben Hecking (DOP) last night to shoot some teasers. 1st shots of Irresistible are in the can (on the card). Walking up to random women in soho and asking if they'd like to be in a film was often unsuccessful, but it worked enough so that we got some really good shots.  Ben had done a test and decided we shouldn't use higher than ISO600, so for a few of the night shots we were wide open at F1.4 and used an LED light for a bit of fill.  There'll be stuff up here soon.  Thanks to all our amateur actors.

Friday 30 April 2010

Didn't win EEFF

But I'm happier with Forgiving Your P.E. Teacher than I would've been if I'd made either
of the winners.  I guess that's a good thing.

Thursday 29 April 2010

research

Going to this http://bit.ly/cdPgnW tonight as research for (ir)resistible.  Bookshop poetry readings.
Aubin & Wills Penned in the Margins

Wednesday 28 April 2010

Distribution surgery David Wilkinson @ guerilla films

Smart guy with good taste but very clear about how little chance a
very low budget film has of getting a theatrical release, or any cash
from tv or DVD. Did confirm that 2 ideas I had were good.
1. Weekend working will get better Cast n Crew than a 5 (and prob 3 or
4) week block.
2. If there is at least one person (actor or celebrity) that people
have heard of, at least distributors will watch it.
So, I'm shooting almost every weekend from... July? And does anyone
reading this know anyone (world?) famous well enough to ask them to
spend a day (or 2) having fun appearing in (ir)resistible?

Tuesday 27 April 2010

equipment

having some problems putting together my matte box (chrosziel cwah 169) bars/support (indirails pro) follow focus (d|focus) and nikon lenses.  It's all a bit compromised!  I think I'm going to buy some more on lens NDs and try to avoid having to use the matte box.  At the moment, changing lenses is not going to be a very smooth process. Should be able to test that on Sunday though, me and Ben are probably going to shoot some teaser material.

Monday 26 April 2010

trying to write a treatment

I'm meeting some guys through EEFF this week for 1 on 1 "surgeries" & tomorrow is the script development one with Jon Croker.  They need a treatment so I'd better write something for him to operate on.