Day 3

Well after last nights technical crisis – or as my positive self wants to assert “hiccup” we’re back rolling once more.  Various problems have arose but we’ve been able to fix them.  I have to admit I’m in my element if things are tough, not neccesarily wrong but certainly not quite right haha.  There’s no bigger thrill really.

Still we’re on Day 3 and we have to shoot 8 scenes befre the end of the shoot, out of sequence that we’ve lost or missed due to overrunning on other areas/days.

But at the moment the main priority is to effectively administer all other areas of Production.  Soundtrack for the film, for example and soundtracks to be used, all elements of contracts sorted and also splits for profits and various other elements.

All good fun!

Day 2…I think

Wow – well if I thought Day 0 was good!  Today’s had its fair share of problems and tricky issues that’s for sure.  But I’ve solved them all again – with help again from a fantastic cast and crew – this time the crew saved the day!

The comaradiary is actually heart warming, it’s been so long since I’ve been in a project of this size and depth that I’m loving every minute.  Finally appear to have found something I love doing as well.  I think if you live off challenges, to feel “adeuqate” as a person, on your course through life, only the most demanding of jobs can and will make you happy.  The heady display of problems is actually fun, but only if you’re able to step up and meet them head on by “knowing” you will find a way through to a solution.

Day 2 has therefore been hard and tiring but great.  Six hours sleep on another 14 hour day and I don’t care.

Scheduling as always on a film like this was going to change.  No matter the prep you find yourself in a situation where everything (or at least half) has changed.  Due to takes, due to light, due to a number of other circumstances – not acts of god but certainly unforseen.  Still that is another set of challenges that’s as fun if not more fun – what I can’t get over is that if we had a budget there’d not be as many challenges and in that situation I think it would be even better.

Good so far – some might say naive to the fact that it’s Day 2 – but I’ll be the same by fifteen I know I will!

But what could be better, fifteen days to shoot 108 scenes at around 110 minutes or more of footage with four named actors, lots of press over many areas.  As I just said, if you’re realistic you’ll get nothing, if you’re unrealistic you’ll gain everything.  Here’s to a good friend of mine David Hyner and my Director’s vision Tony Jopia.

DAY 0 – DEADTIME

Well it was the first day of the shoot today!  5AM start and we’re just about to WRAP.  Plenty of problems arose, thismorning at least but now they’re nearly all fixed.

Half expected to collapse under the pressure, but soon found I was thrown into total project management mode.  Interesting how it conflicts so much with Buddhism and meditation.  For to be excited, wired or high in Buddhism is to be in an impermenant state, one that won’t last and won’t really help you – or anyone else – to achieve happiness.  At the same time you can’t ignore the high feeling or excitement of the shoot – especially when it’s going well – for me though I felt even more wired when it wasn’t!  Still I’d rather be wired than falling over…ha

BUt Day 0 couldn’t have been better, WE EVEN HAD a special guest turn up…ooh can I say yet – better hadn’t lol.  Another big name from the world of rock anyway – fates seem – seeeem to be on the side of this film.  If I was more centered with my meditation I’d be able to deduce how well it was going, but I’m enveloped!  Still that’s life.

Day 1 will be a full days shoot, as hectic as today if not a little more, but more to be sequenced shot and shot on time.

Till then! – Pictures to come!

The Quiet Before the Storm

So here I am, sat amongst a sea of papers, folders, more folders, pens, clothes and god knows what else.  Quiet before the Storm wasn’t exactly very apt I don’t think, as it’s not quiet at all – but the Storm is a comin!  God I sound like I’m reciting The Storms of Acias all over again…

So starting tomorrow -lest I forget and my time is totally eaten by the Production we will start our feature film DeadTime.  I’ll be posting a blog a day about the day to day goings on, which is generally solution management and people management.  It’s going to be very interesting that’s for sure.  Plus my meditation reminds me to be objective at all times, to stay steady collected and calm – which is a good thing trust me, but at the same time, exciting moments are coming!

Here’s to tomorrow and our first day of shooting Sat the 21st!

8 days to go

Well there are 8 days to go, this has to be the home straight now.  Cast and crew are all ready, we’ve got our problems but we’re finding solutions.  This experience is going to be amazing, taxing but also a lot of fun.  Press is being proliferated out across the net, so our named actors are doing some great work for us.

I have to admit being super orgnised has helped a ton, if ever I needed to project manage anything after this, i’d be your man haha.  I must have worked in about four roles up until recently, seeing as I was going to do Production Management as well as Producing the film.  Normal on an indie film, but with the cast and crew numbers that we have it became unfeasible.  Thankfully we had an excellent PA who was up for the job.
Our cast and crew have been fantastic we have a great mix of different people and they’re working together very well.  Now all that remains is to “shoot the thing” as I’m sure a hundred other filmakers have said over the years!

Signing off for now…

Continuity

Well I’ve started creating Breakdown sheets today for the script – all 70 of them – or something close to that number.  We’re shooting our horror film out of sequence so continuity is vitally important in all aspects of the films development and production.  But when it comes to shooting it’s extremely important.  The idea of the Breakdown sheet is to make it easier for all members of the crew to know exactly what’s going on and exactly where we’ve come from (in the script) and where we’re going to (in the script).  The more eyes on a job, as I learned at Aardman – the more likely problems are to be solved and the less likely that there is a large problem to appear.

We have three weeks left and as Producer the brunt of the work has hit me.  I finally learned to delegate this week!  It was that or sink (sink or swim being the phrase here), but even with a small number of PA’s that was easier said than done.  We have about four or five PA’s for DeadTime.  I guess the ideal number would be ten but we can’t really afford to feed them all!  Saying that we’ve been very lucky, we have an exceptional crew.  Ed Wills is creating some fantastically magical (to me at least) gory horror pieces for the SFX side of the film.  Our Makeup Artist Michelle Crooks is delivering on continuity and has managed to get a sponsorship deal of sorts while we shoot the film for makeup – go Michelle!

So with such a brilliant crew it obviously makes a world of difference and coming back to continuity it assists with this no end.  We could have had people who lacked initiative and who basically weren’t very good but it’s certainly the reverse.

So now it comes down to the last three weeks.  Hectic is the wrong word and my typing speed must be way up at 95 words per minute.  Haven’t had such a big project like this since I marketed my book or finished my degree last year – so I am enjoying it, because I like to stretch myself to be a better person and I feel that situations and jobs such as the Producer’s job, make you come up with solutions to a variety of problems.  Not everyone would push themselves to be a better person on four hours sleep, but I’ll certainly want to, because for me that’s more important than just doing the job – I really mean that.

Best get back to the 55 emails I had today and see what else needs attending to!

Don’t forget to check out www.deadtimefilms.com and join our facebook group!

And the most important thing…

If you’re going to make a film, it’s got to be diplomacy, or excellent communication skills.  I just read a blog entry on Chris Jone’s website about a Producer who was talking about many of these elements, but for sales and distribution.  Regardless they’re the same, how can you get as much as possible without paying for it, or by providing something but not at standard retail price.  Maybe that’s just good selling, but I think in Film especially it’s a whole art form to itself.
In my eyes the reasons a lot of would be authors tend to fall short is because they live outside of what I’d call this diplomatic mindset.  I’ve nearly finished reading the JFK biography at a whopping 650 pages and it’s enlightened me that’s for sure.  One thing JFK always did was negotiate around the issue, whilst presenting the facts, saying what he wanted (especially when it came to Moscow) and then seeing what he could do with his charm by his side to move things along.  It worked better with some than others Krushchev being an absolute nightmare to charm.  But regardless, it worked on the population of the world, for no matter where he went, communist or capitalist he drew massive crowds, as did his wife Jackie.  More to the point this man was a fantastic diplomat and of course after learning about WW I and WW II he knew to his regret (his brothers death) how important it was to make sure that diplomacy came foremost and when every minister for defense wanted to use nuclear weapons it was sort of nice that he was around really.  Jokes aside he was the best diplomat at one of easily the worst times.

So if only would be authors would step into his shoes, or anyone else who’s been successful for that matter they’d see a great deal.  I think some of this can be taught, a good friend of mine uses the phrase “look into people” instead of “look upto people”.  What he really means, as an expansion, is that you should get to know people, get inside their lives, don’t harass them but build a friendship with them – then strengthen that friendship and genuinely enjoy each others company.  Sometimes that doesn’t work, but I firmly believe that for 75% of people it would work if they just applied charisma to the diplomatic relation for example that they needed to have with a literary agent.  One case in point is Tess Geritsen, so sick of being ignored she made friends with a Literary Agent (In new york I believe) and only after this time did she find herself being published.
I’ve done similar things myself in the recent past and you’d be surprised what it can garner.  After all the person who knows your industry is a literary agent, or someone who actually sells work on.

So back to film.  Diplomacy is crucial – as ever it’s not the only requirement, it never is, but it’s a major one at that.  Getting it right however, if there is such a thing at all – let’s just say there is, gives it its own prestige.

Dominic Took

It’s been awhile

Busy would be an understatement.  I never knew casting for a film would be so much fun, nor so much work haha.  But it’s been great, a very enjoyable process that’s not actually quite over.  We have a fairly large cast (at least in my terms) of about 12 and three or four of those are complicated multi layered roles that required really good actors.

ASoA

I was following A Swarm of Angels recently (I’ve been trying to remember the website for months).  ASoA is the internet’s answer to real filmaking.  With a consortium of individuals acting together and voting on various parts and elements of the film, they also decide what to green light, who will be cast and what will be made.  It’s a highly collaborative process and I believe a British invention, which I have to admit is nice to know (I always thought it was american).  What happens is that ASoA get people to put in £25 into the program and from this £1,000,000 fund (50,000 consortium members I believe) they all take a part in the films production.  In theory that could make for an amazing film, but the organisation will have to be extremely good to pull it off.

Say Hello To the Devil

In the meantime I’m going to be starting on a new short film sometime soon (can’t say what) and my screenplay Autumn Leaves is finished.  I’m just getting feedback at the moment from actors and various other people to see how good it is – seeing as it’s my first screenplay.  That and I’ve been adding to my new novel The Blue Gemstone, which is the third novel in the Acias Series about Gracious and his ever expanding travels through the universe (No not Dr Who).  It’s a penultimate novel where nearly everything comes together, so it’s certainly an exciting write so far.

Until next time happy filmmaking!

The Path of Gracious – Great Comments from PYR Imprint

I finally got a reply from an editor in the US about book two in the Acias Series “The Path of Gracious”.  I finished this book at Christmas 08 but had been waiting patiently to hear back.

It does appear that the story is very intriguing, so that’s the first plus.  Secondly he liked the overall idea, thought it was very original which is certain to be a plus as time goes on.

Book three is incorporating more and more of those ideas and I think it’s far better in it’s written style too.  So with some luck someone may take number 3 and I can finally start earning some money from it, seven books later!!  Shame it wasn’t this year, the epic fantasy market is going mad in America, probably due to Twilight I guess, but they’re selling fast.

Must get book three done when I get some time, hopefully after we finish filming DeadTime.

Manchester Short Fiction Prize 2009

Well I just found out my entry to the Short Fiction Prize 09 has been logged and checked.

I can’t wait to see what comes out of it, I sent my best work anyway a short called “His Futile Guilt” I wrote in 08 and recently read at a festival in Cheshire.

It’s been very well recieved so far and the cash prize is massive so it would be fantastic to win – not to mention I could do with a bit of money!  The writer still looking for a job!

Well I’m finalising a script at the moment for our Production Company so I best get back to it!

Here’s hoping it wows the judges.