ResubPPP// Nest Magazine

A while back Leeds College of Art's Nest magazine approached a friend of mine, Tom Stephens, to see if he wanted to film their second launch party. He agreed and then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to help and I obviously jumped at the opportunity to be behind the camera again. We weren't paid for this in any conventional terms but a free beer for a few hours work wasn't that bad at all.

I really enjoyed the experience despite it not being one of my most favourite things to film. Everything we did was valuable experience and experimenting with shot selection with close ups, pans and zooming shots all helped me to analyse the situation and deduce which shots would work the best.

As the launch wasn't that big there weren't a massive amount of variety of shots that we could use. But what we did get I thought was really good and the jazz band they hired did a really good job. I also liked getting to grips with the Sony XD cam which is more experience I can take into the industry should I ever have to use one.

I was only involved in the filming of the event as at the time my editing skills were less than average. However knowing this at the event gave me the motivation to go and start to learn how to use programmes like Premiere Pro. Which I am now very competent in using as a result.
However here is the link to final Nest video edited by Tom Stephens.

https://vimeo.com/63394156

ResubPPP// Flickr Account and Business cards

I have also set up a flickr account which I think will be very useful for me as I can upload screenshots from my videos to add more depth to them as viewing them as photos as well.

I really like Flickr and the way that its set out and even if i'm not noticed for me videos I can be noticed for these images which are screen shots of them. I have also made a YouTube and Vimeo account to upload videos to a quantity audience and quality audience respectively.

Although Vimeo is a fantastic website both visually and how easy it is to navigate I don't think its the one for me. Vimeo's quality ability doesn't not come without cost, actual cost, from you, every year, for about 40 quid. Now I know you pay for quality but you can get 1080p videos on YouTube and they look just as good as Vimeo. Vimeo would be a fantastic tool if you were already rich and could afford to pay for it every year, but alas, i'm not rich, and being rich also helps with filmmaking so Im going to either win the lottery or stick to YouTube.

Despite staying on YouTube its layout has nothing on Vimeo's. It looks like it was made overnight and looks more like a Facebook news feed other than anything else. More customisable options are needed I think.

I also emailed a company called Mama's Sauce which design and print business cards. Unfortunately when they replied they said that they wernt designing any at the moment but were very happy to print any designs that I had.

I'm definitely going to pursue this as some of their work is fantastic with business cards you would want as a piece of art. Plus business cards are a fantastic way to network and the better looking and sexier my business cards look the better and the more likely people will hang on to them whether they are looking for a filmmaker or not.

ResubPPP// The Film Files

Recently I decided to create a page about something I love, Films. My object with this is too try and educate people into which films they should be watching and the ones that should be avoided at all costs. The page isn't so much about full reviews but short snippets of information as well as pictures and  screenshots from the great films that have been made across the years.

I also think this page is a good way to go as it will enable me too broader my knowledge of the motion picture industry as well as learn more and more about how and why good films are good and exactly why the bad ones are rubbish. I post on this as often as I can, but so far I have put up 99% films that you should watch. However my thinking behind this is that it is always better to tell someone to watch a good film rather than tell them to avoid a bad one.

Its started off pretty well with a lot of my friends on facebook joining and liking the stuff I post, but I need it to get bigger so I can broadcast my opinions to a wider audience. I think that having a facebook page about films and the such is a good thing to tell an interviewer or potential employer as it shows a love for the job which is always vital in doing a good job.

I also hope that I can eventually fashion a website to the same effect as this page as it will also enable me too get acquainted with adobe Dreamweaver which will be an invaluable tool for me later in life. The facebook page is really just a link to the website through facebook.  

ResubPPP// Sixteen FIlms

Another company I've received info about is from Sixteen films. They Are currently putting together a film which is  a political thriller set after a nuclear attack. This is a fantastic premise for a film as the contradictory terms, nuclear and political, as after a nuclear attack there wouldn't exactly be a solid or even stable government. I'm very interested in how they will tackle this as I love the whole disaster/apocalypse genre, as most of them are not completely impossible. One thing I could foresee Sixteen encountering is making it exciting, as after a nuclear war people/situations aren't exactly going to be normal and people will be irrational and scared and will do stupid things. The political side to this needs to be interlinked with the ensuing madness which would be inevitable after a nuclear holocaust.

From their website they seem to have a really good collection of films they have produced. With some names I recognise like 'Looking for Eric' the story of Manchester United fan meeting his hero Eric Cantona. Sixteen films look like another really good quality production company which is another great avenue into the industry. Sixteen, Harbour and Imaginarium are all companies I'm going to be emailing, among others, next year to try and get work/placements. I'm looking a lot more towards paid work as it looks better on the CV and it would never be a bad thing to be paid to do something which I love. 

ResubbPPP// Harbour Pictures

Another company i'm going to be looking at is Harbour Pictures. They've got a lot of new productions coming up and I think it will be a great opportunity to link up with others in my field to try to get a lot more hands on film experience. This particular production is a remake of Arthur Ransom's  Swallows and Amazons. A wonderful tale of two families of children going on adventures in the lake district in northern England. My largest concern is that it wont be filmed in the lake district, it will be green screened in a studio in London, which I think would be a massive shame as the beauty and serenity of the english countryside should only be captured through a camera.

Harbour Pictures have produced two well known feature films: Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots. Kinky  Boots was actually filmed about 20 minutes from me as it focuses on the cobbling history of Northampton which is my closest town.

These smaller production companies are a good place for me to start getting film experience. Despite my final goal being a director I really want to work on a film set doing a variety of different jobs so I can get a good broad knowledge of the industry and how each and every individual cog works so when I come to direct my own team, i'm not under prepared because I havent seen how it operates before I attempt it. 

I havent been in contact with them like I have with Imaginarium, but I think that all of the companies I have been looking are valuable gateways into the industry and despite me favouring the stories of ones over others Im going to email and send covering letters to as many as I can find.

ResubPPP// Imaginarium Studios

I was recently sent a production list for some films coming up in 2013, and I stumbled across one from Imaginarium Studios involving George Orwell's Animal Farm. I'm a big fan of the book and I subsequently emailed the studio asking if they had any places for me to be a part of this awesome looking project.  I then decided it would be a good idea to research what they did. The company is mainly centred around creating believable characters using performance capture technology, like Andy Serkis with Gollum, who incidentally, is who is directing and producing Animal Farm.

I'm not usually the biggest fan of CGI but Serkis is such a pioneer in this field with Gollum and King Kong that I decided that if anyone was going to use CGI well it was Andy Serkis and Imaginarium. I visited their website and found that is was very professionally, yet simply, laid out with some interesting graphics and animations. They also mention internships and placements on a section of their website and I'm going to send them a CV and covering letter to see if I can get involved on Animal Farm. I also rang the Imaginarium shortly after as I thought it would be a good way to get me into their minds and charm them a bit over the phone. I spoke to a nice receptionist who told me what I already knew and I told her that I had already sent an excited email to them regarding this project.

It turns out though that production of this isnt due to start till early 2014 which is definitely a bonus for me as it gives me time to send my CV and covering letter and could well be something that I could do after uni is finished. Imaginarium studios are definitely a company I am going to explore more about next year but for now Im going to send in CV's and hope for the best.

I really like the idea of using performance capture technology with a book like Animal Farm as the expressions and emotions which are brought out by the suppression and totalitarian control of the pigs. I also think that this technology will really make the emotions on the animals faces much more convincing and will make the evil characters seem a lot more sinister than without it.