Back to Filmmaking

Been a while since the last entry. Life can get a bit silly, I guess. Anway...

I wrote a bunch of scripts years ago. There they sat. Aging. Or not. Because the stories are still relevant. I've had to change one or two things in one of them but other than that we're going to shoot it late spring/early summer.

Because I need to make a fucking film again. Oh, sweet shit on a lorry, I need to make a film.

I've a bit of a "slate" of ideas, as some folk might say. This one we're starting with is relatively simple, being mock documentary, but is ironically the longest. I say simple as there aren't many crazy camera set ups. I'll be sticking to an established format in order to tell an out of the ordinary story. A dark comedy. Dark. As in Vantablack dark. And funny. At least, it's funny to me. Of course, funny is always subjective and I've learned over the years that my kind of funny is highly subjective indeed.

The others are less funny. Or perhaps not intended to be funny at all. Dark science fiction and horror. Bits of M.R. James, Lovecraft, mixing with dramatic questions I've been asking myself for years.

My current script is shot listed and out to my Assistant Director for a preliminary schedule and budget. After that, crewing and casting and, most likely, a crowdfund campaign. Doing some serious research into that but if anyone is reading this who has experience then any advice is always appreciated.

So, keep watching for that soon. I'll be bombarding, as I'm told one should with these kinds of campaigns. I've got some cool folks hopefully working with me on this. Should be good and I look forward to disturbing audiences with this little baby.

More bits of oddness on my Instagram: instagram.com/talcy73

Working with Aberlour

Had a rather more productive few weeks than usual, with my first couple of bits of freelance filmmaking work.

Several weeks ago saw me shooting a promo for Aberlour Childcare Trust's Woof Walk, a part of annual charity The Kilt Walk. My shoulder rig came in handy for that and did a pretty good job for what it is.



And this morning I was working with Aberlour Childcare Trust again, filming Britain's Got Talent Winner Jai McDowall's good luck and thanks message to all those who will be embarking on the Woof Walk and Kilt Walk in a few weeks time at Hampden Stadium. Jai does a fair bit of promotion and work for Aberlour and it's good to meet someone from BGT who has their feet on the ground. Nice chap.

Hopefully some more work coming up soon as well as my current feature writing gig.

I'd better get on to the rushes, then...

White-ish

Winter, I hate. Christmas, I love. It snowed last night, a light dusting of the "white shite" as I posted on Facebook. I just don't want a repeat of the last two winters when we were snowed on from a great height.

A polish of my feature script is about to commence along with the commencement of another feature. Depending on how confident I'm feeling after that I may go looking for an agent and for that I'll need a proper game plan. No sense in chasing just any agent. You need to kknow both who to approach and how to make yourself attractive as a client to them. Life is short. No sense in faffing about thinking, "I'll do it tomorrow".

Also got an outline for a promo for a campaign I've said I'll do. That and a short script. I also have another short I might give a polish to. A mock-doc. Black comedy. Pretty sick actually. A man eating himself for charity.

I haven't been to the cinema for over 5 weeks now. What the hell is going on there? Well, actually, I have been. I went to see my friend Jon Spira's film, Anyone Can Play Guitar, at the Cameo last week, complete with Mark Gardener of Ride doing an acoustic spot at the end. Nice bloke (but his set was cut short towards the end as the old lady who lives above the cinema complained about the noise!). Good film as well. You can buy the DVD at the link above. Quite proud of my mate for actually making the thing. Very from the heart and Jon is possibly the most passionate music fan amongst my circle of friends. He loves movies but he loves music and I think he' done his hometown of Oxford proud by showing the music that came from there.

No sense in not doing things. Now, where is that Ikea cabinet I've got to build...?

On with the Show

Been a while since my last blog post. Well, whatever.

Our film didn't win the competition it was entered into but I didn't expect to win anyway. We got some nice positive votes on the competition website, though, and I'm presently sifting through a couple of ideas for our next one. Yep, we intend to carry on. The shoot was great and our crew were a lovely, productive and efficient bunch to work with.

Next time is definitely going to be my own idea and script and longer. My own stuff is pretty far removed from the script we eventually made; I tend to go for sci fi, horror and some pitch black comedy and the two ideas I'm playing with are definitely along those lines. That stuff and they way we can express certain fears and ideas through it is what interests me the most. So on with the next film.

The feature script I recently finished has also had some nice praise from a source I respect and admire so I;m feeling pretty good about that as well. However, I need more under my belt feature-wise if I;m going to seriously think about approaching agents. One or two feature scripts are not enough, in my opinion. I need to make myself look like an attractive proposition to an agent (stop sniggering, you cheeky feckers) and being able to do more than one type of story and having more ideas developed on paper is essential. A new job is taking up my mornings but all the better. Existing in an essentially penniless state doesn't help me get on or boost my confidence one iota.

All in, a productive couple of weeks in October and early November. Good. The prospect of stagnating in a chair, wasting time on the Internet is less and less appealing.

Film Done

Well, we did it. This time last week, our short only existed on paper and now it's all done. We shot it on Tuesday with the help of a lot of brilliant people to whom I am extremely grateful. I spent the last few days editing it together and fixing some of the sound today (I have a few issues with what I did soundwise, but it's done).

So, here it is, Everything You Need from a script written by David Turner:



It looks fabulous thanks to Simon Vickery behind the lens, shooting on a Canon 7D DSLR. I'm amazed at the results we got and any flaws are down to me. It's a constant learning process. I'm also amazed that I simply decided to make a film and then went and did it. What with the new short and completing a feature screenplay recently, this his has been the most productive couple of weeks for about 10 years for me.

And I want to do nothing but make another, longer film now. Got to keep moving.

Plunge Taken.

We're shooting a one minute short film tomorrow. It's weird - I've made films of varying lengths before, fiction, documentaries, even a corporate for the Scottish Government which was to be watched by the then Minister for Education, and yet I'm more apprehensive about shooting one minute tomorrow. I guess that's me taking it seriously. But it has been a while since I've made any films. The last was in 2006 and was a mock version of those old public service films we used to get in the UK. Except that one was about zombies.

I have a great crew, a great actor and a lot of goodwill on my side. It's mine to fuck up.

Here we go again.