Black Falcon Video Productions (2006)...

The Murder of the Reverend Pralph (2006):

Filmed with members of the Sealed Knot, this short (which I acted as cameraman on) was shown on BBC Local TV and the Community Channel. It was a re-enactment of a local historical event when a group of soldiers murdered a preacher when the two parties met and got into a disagreement.


The Blast (2006):

This was a promotional video that I helped to shoot for a local rock band at one of their gigs (in a local pub in a cramped stage area being buffeted by hyper teenagers). It was a lot of fun to shoot, and the final product was pretty good too.


Kathy North (2006):

I helped to shoot this promotional video (I was operating two of the three cameras) for a local cabaret singer, at one of her performances at a local hotel.

"Skinner" - some pre-edit screenshots etc...

Today I uploaded the footage from Sunday, so this was my first real chance to have a proper look at what we got - and I'm pleased.


Shooting wise I was aiming to be fast and loose and not meddle with too many camera settings, especially as I'd be really finessing the actual look of the film during editing (it'll be 2.35:1 with liberal use of Magic Bullet for colouring) - but I did specifically choose to go to manual exposure for a certain shot (to allow for a 'flood of blinding light' to appear on screen) - indeed I wanted the film to look a little bit like it was through your own eyes, and how your eyes adjust to different levels of light - so I generally let the camera automatically adjust throughout, save for that one specific shot.


Also, I decided to use manual zoom - and indeed I wanted to inflect a little bit of a 'grindhouse feel' onto the zooming in this short. I don't mean like great big crash zooms, rather the creeping manual zooms you would find in various euro-zombi sleaze flicks like Oasis of the Zombies, for example.


I've really been into my grindhouse cinema of late (it's all been 'cannibal this, and killer that' in my DVD player lately, haha) - so yeah, I've brought a touch of that to the visuals with the manual zoom, which is deliberately twitchy (but not MTV twitchy), and uneven in its pace - it really does help add to the creepy nature of the content too.


Also, I was just trying something out in the edit today - I was mainly starting to figure out what look I want to give it in the colouring procress, but while doing that I got a bit distracted and a bit 'grindhousey' and randomly took a small clip and did this with it just for fun (I haven't used a 'stop motion' effect before, so this is my first one of those ... although I don't know whether I'll use that effect in this particular short, but still) - I thought it might be a interest, it's only a few seconds long.

"Skinner" - the new DeadShed short...

Today I filmed the new DeadShed Productions short film - it's called "Skinner", and it's a noir-inspired horror piece about a forensic detective examining the scene of the latest victim of the titular psychopath.

(Click the image for a larger view).

All the dialogue is done through a narration - a noir-inspired voice inside the head of the protagonist, who is played by Sean Connel, who has previously helped me out on 2005's "Trapped", and 2008's "Signing Off".

The short itself - which I'm aiming to edit it to around five minutes max - was conceived on Monday (yes, as in six days ago) when Sean emailed me saying he was coming back from London for a week and was wondering if I had anything to film. He fancied doing a bit of acting in a short film, and indeed I fancied shooting a new DeadShed short.

Annoyingly however, I didn't have anything at the time - I most definitely wanted to shoot something, but what? I put my thinking cap on, and referred back to some of the wisest advice I've ever read - from Robert Rodriguez - list things you have at your disposal, and put those in your movie. Indeed that's what I did - I knew I had these gory props I was going to use for the as-yet unfilmed third entry in the Zombie Man series (one day, I promise), as well as a gas mask and boiler suit (for the same as-yet unfilmed project, actually).

I then thought about 'what kind of movie could contain these things?' - and there we go, it grew from there. That afternoon I started bashing out the short script, while consulting back and forth with Sean on the direction I was taking, and had it all finished up the next day.

Ahead of filming (on Sunday 2nd August 2009) I gathered all the props and such together and 'dressed the set' ... ... otherwise known (when you stop looking through the camera's lens) as 'putting things near each other in the garage', haha.

Indeed, this was a case of quick and sharp filmmaking - conceiving of the idea, writing the script, and getting it shot all in a week - and that's a very relaxed week too. If we'd compressed the time this is the sort of thing you could put together during one of those '48 Hour Film Festivals' - although I am planning to spend more time on the editing than such a festival would allow.

As for working with Sean again, it was great - he was spiffing last year when we did "Signing Off", and he was even more spiffing today. I could see how he has developed his acting (which is his chosen career path - I guess we've both chosen hard careers to pursue, ha!), and it was nice to (for myself anyway) put together another little narrative short.

It all helps in improving (and experimenting with) my writing, camerawork, editing and direction - indeed I felt more confident than last year when directing. I have improved my focus in what I'm looking for, and improved my communicating of those ideas. Of course each year has been a case of improving on those four key areas, naturally, it's just that this year I was paying attention to the development (for both Sean and myself) at the time of the shooting.

We were able to shoot the short very quickly, which is always nice, and as I'm beginning to wrap up on this educational DVD about the environment, I'll be able to fill the downtime with editing for this new short film (before we get going on another educational DVD, that is). Plus it was nice to get the DVX100B into action again, as of late I have been mostly editing - so it's nice to mix things up a little - and as a further bonus, I get to indulge my love of making horror-themed films.

More news on it as-and-when, of course, but I just thought I'd throw up a blog about it in the mean time.

Trapped (2005)...

This was my first zombie short and I sought to improve upon the previous year’s “my NIGHTMARE” in all respects, and I would say I succeeded with “Trapped”. I experimented with creating my own music (even though I’m not musically gifted – hence why I now use music by friends of mine, and royalty free stuff), produced a more focussed looking film, and a tighter edit. Again, it’s another one of my fond memories – my mates and I out and about causing havoc filming zombies in the woods (and my garage).


You can watch Trapped (split into two parts) here:

my NIGHTMARE (2004)...

Following hot on the heels of “Digital”, this was my second narrative short, and it was a semi-surreal serial killer thriller. In fact it was the last thing I ever filmed on my Hi8 camera (it never worked the same after filming), but it has gone on to become a fond memory of mine – my mates and I out yomping around in the woods chasing each other around, referencing “The Evil Dead”, spraying plenty of fake blood mix about and generally causing havoc. It was shot very much ‘on the hoof’ (the script changed every single weekend) ‘from the hip’ and was a great opportunity to experiment.