Me and Chris get married!!

Here are some photos from my wedding in Thailand.

this is my engagement ring. I'm getting married in may but we havent organised anything yet.

erm.. im not sure this is what i should be putting up on my film blog but Im really enjoying taking random pictures tonite and uploading them. blogging is very therepeutic. i used to worry if i was boring people now i dont care. i mean if you are bored you can just go onto another page. nite nite

This is my BAFTA. it's cool. I won it for 'shadowscan' a short film check it out on utube. the budget of shadowscan was 10 times the budget of my feature film honey and razorblades.
I would like to win another one because people pay attention to you for a bit and give you money to write scripts. Then they say they can't ' commit to' (their words)making the filmbut at least that way I have money and then I can go off and make films that are cheap and me and my friends can commit to.
I would like some money and also would like some attention because it feels nice.
better than that by a long way is making films that show the world more as it really happens rather than how guys in an office in soho think it happens. also I think audiences want things that are new and different but properly new and differnt and unexpected; whereas film execs always want it as new as the last new thing that did well at the box office... I wanna make films for people who want to see new shit they've never seen before but also shows life in a way they recognise but hasnt been seen before.

take the beach... what the fuck was that to do with backpacking? it didnt seem real to me at all- am I the only one who thinks that?

also that's why we've made our sex scenes seem really real as well... I'd be interested to see what people think but I don't want to put up the sex scenes on u-tube because that might be embarassing for the actors to have sex scenes out ther out of context. maybe I should ask them...

PEC are shit
this is a picture of me expressing rage over my senheiser mic which I bought from PEC and only worked for less than 12hours. it went down on the first day of filming and its still not fixed.
it went back to senheiser and still not working. PEC the company I bought it for are incredibly patronising in that 'oh your just a bunch of girlies you don't know what your doing' kind of way. they never returned our calls and suggested that my XLR's were just too cheap (they supplied them as part of the bundle so I guess they should know)
do male lo-budget filmmakers get that kind of brush off? I mean you take out a loan and a few hundred quid and three months later your having to hire your mates dictaphone to acquire sound... does it make sense?? but hey I guess the old boys need to get their bacon sarnie money from soemwhere..
god this is really ill-mannered and ranty but I'm just really fucked off...and much the poorer from having dealt with these guys... their shit mic is gonna cost us loads in ADR on the feature..I'd sue them but a) I can't be arsed b) I don't know how and c) I'd probably lose and everyone at PEC will laugh at me more than they do alredy... hmm
I feel much better now.
Richmond film services are lovely on the other hand and I will only get gear off them in the future... well unitll they think I'm stupid and tell me my XLR's are to cheap.
I think that blowing off steam helped..

Technorati

Technorati

who the fuck's technorati?? how did they get on my blog? do other bloggers have random robots coming onto their blogs?

Thats me giving shobsy some direction. it was i think before we did the 'truth or dare' sequence. I discussed with each of the actors whether they would pick truth or dares. when we decided on that i also gave the actors the question or dares to give to the other actors. it gave the scene a bit of life because then they were genuinely surprised

bangkok blues

so here i am in thailand. its kind of scary because we're down an actor. the part of spencer seems to have a forcefield around it and some really great actors have touched him then had personal things or pre-existing jobs come up and take them away from it.

I feel like I'm doing soemething wrong. I hope the universe is kind. we've got so many gret people locations and actors in place, we're just waiting for spencer to arrive so we can move forward.

just be patient i guess. went to do a recce tonight and meet the owner of a go-go bar we recced last night. he was an amazing bloke. thai with a strong cockney accent, he used to live in peckham and supports millwall. he's like a thai ray winstone. I asked him to be in the film but he refused, i think he's be a great actor. anyway we played pool. He was the best player I've ever played. jaw dropping I thought.

well i hope we get to shoot in his bar. it was very pretty. We are thinking we'll probably do volounteering scenes down in khao lak while waiting for spencer. the volounteers we were with up in uttaradit are back doing tsunami work now. then we'll do phi phi.

better go to bed. met a great writer-director based in thailand called richard wilson who is helping us out. very helpful.

any way tis late very tired. been so busy on production no time to do script. rob and sandra seem to have picked up the production ball fast so i will work on script tommorrow and let them do production.

peace an love tinge xxx

prepping for shoot

the edit lesson went really well. so now batch capturing stuff from thailand for shadow orchestra album launch visuals.

also writing script. its shaping up really well.

doing visual editing as I write and seeing images of thailand is very helpful. also gives me stiry ideas and ideas of how to shoot it.

still nervous. need to to sort out financial stuff and budgets.

Sara in the office is doing an amazing job as is justine. They are really getting stuff done I'm so imoressed.

Illya has replied with a bunch of equipment that OSCAR may be able to lend us.

I have bought a senheiser 416 and boom kit to go with the trusty ol' PD 170.

now thinking about rain jackets for it and a backpack. i found the shoulder bag a real hassle in tough terrain like when we were up north.

I have a feeling that on this shoot a backpack is the way forward.

gonna organise all the kit, laptop, printers etc on monday so we can get be prepared for everything.

better confirm with rob and sandra too. rob could do boom and look after kit take care of lens changes etc. and sandra would make a great 1st AD/ bookeeper.

our accountant has prepared spreadsheets for us to keep track of cash so me and sandra can go through it together every night and know how much are actuals are coming to. Really can't afford to go overbudget.

justine spoke to film london who suggested I call paul tribitz at the film council as he might have some money to put our way. I'll give it a go.

Part of me would still love to take a director of photography out... part of me is looking forward to operating.

id like to hire a steadycam thing maybe VMI will give is a deal.

still waiting for all the actors agents to properly confirm. I'd like to really get on and read through the scripts with them and talk scheduling.

Shobna has totally confirmed but she isnt free to go through the script till sunday. Jules is coiming round this afternoon so I'll show her new draft. hmmm.

there are tasks that i'm avoiding, i need to get a charge card for the company account so i can withdraw cash out there.

apologies if this blog is boring but i guess im just writing the diary of a feature film.... fear is interesting i guess... i have lots of fear! heh heh

that's me, in middle, volounteering in flood zone.

morning.

on my way to a final cut pro course.

I don't think I'll edit the feature myself but I'm definitely editing other stuff myself at the moment: music videos and visuals for my fiance's band, the shadow orchestra, as well as other bits and bobs. just did a job for the contact theatre in manchester filming performance poets- amazing experience.

the thai shoot is prepping well. I'm very lucky being half thai.

long skype chats with my mum who also makes TV shows for kids to help them understand environmental issues.

She's helping a lot setting up the shoot as is illya. It's been really fun. Justine has doen a budget and we're working on a schedule though i noticed we managed to leave a key scene out.. probably cos my waffling confused her! She's probably already spotted it though. she tends to have done most producer typte stuff before I've though of it - i've noticed.

we had a long skype session too it was great. beats conference calls because its intimate, free and incredibly relaxed. its like being in the same room so you can work on documents check things out on the internet together.

had a session with bee from futon in thailand. I really would like them to perform in a bar scene- that reminds me i have to check with jordi their manager. also he's apparently really knowledgeable about locations in thailand having shot a few ads there and recced it very thoroughly.

texted the tsunami volounteers up in the flood zone. they are happy for us to come up which is great. be good to see those guys again.

so far cast:
juliet cowan (this life and other stuff)
shobna gulati (coronation street and other stuff)
stuart bowman (he was the original begbie in the play of trainspotting.. very good actor)
celyn jones (shackleton and lassie- fine improviser with great comic touch)

I've worked with them all and its like going on tour with a quartet of very fine musicians. they are all good improvisors.

at the moment i'm just taking the script from treatment to a script (which we'll impro around) and the script is being adjusted to our schedule and locations.

better go learn how to edit

speak soon peace and love tinge
ps check out a couple of little shorts i did on u-tube and my space.. there's more coming soon as soon as i get my final cut figured out