I'm back!

I know it has been a long time since posts graced this blog, Uni life kinda took over, but thats all done now so expect to see my news, reviews and behind the scenes information on a weekly basis once again. I have really missed this, its good to be back. Guardians of the Galaxy review coming this saturday!

Next Project

Hello, long time no post, sorry been busy, lots of content on the way though, including 2 films and a lot of pre and post production, reviews and news, anyway down to the matter at hand. I dont know what to film over my summer, here are the options:

Hunger
Big plans for this, I'm a little reluctant to do it right now because well its zombie but its kinda Colin like, follows a zombie rather than a group of survivors. I have done a lot of pre production and have the end of the script done but the start and middle are a little fuzzy. Basically its a love story about a zombie and a girl and the question of hunger or lust or love or whatever think I should do it this summer?

Alternate
Full script is written and ready to go but I need actors! A common problem in these productions... Anyway this is a bromance about a time traveller ready to repeat his life once again until his friend convinces him the only way to enjoy life over and over again is to do new things. I have a really specific visual feeling to this and would love to do it just need those damn actors!

Adapting SF SHORT
Not really sure if this is doable, its an exercise in production, lots of props and actors, make up and special effects. But I'm nothing if not ambitious and I have a really nice story about a how a pair of brothers adapt to the changing landscape featured in my full SF Return to Earth. I am itching to visually prove the concept of the world, think the future in TSCC for visuals, hard to accomplish but I think it could pay off, what do you think?

Noir
Finally my noir project, I have 3 of these going at the moment, one I have had for a long time, it follows the visuals but the lead is not really the character typical of noirs, so I'm not using it for my project at uni next year, freeing it up for personal project use! However it needs shortening as a script its around 30 pages spanning three murderers and more than a few murders. I have toyed with the idea of cutting it into parts and filming it over a few years, like a webseries with long gaps.

So those are my proposed projects, not sure how many people are still reading my blog, its been a while, but if you have any opinion please let me know, I'm really torn between ideas and getting nowhere by sharing my time between them, put me on the right track, What should I film!!!?!?!

A Short Story In Brutality

A Short Story In Brutality is finally finished check it out below:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XnyYuySYeA


Or over there, click on the pic >>>>
Sorry I cant embed it, youtube is being crappy but.... Im really happy with the project, I produced it so I worked on all stages in some way and I think it all came together pretty nicely. Big thanks to everyone who worked on the project.

Let me know what you guys think!

Drama! Reccie+Practice

We did a little reccie and practice shoot for our drama a little while ago, this is how it went, we took lots of photos on a sexy 60D!

 This first image is a quite high ISO but is a basic shot of the tunnel we want to shoot in.

 The next few are a little darker, thats the kind of ISO we want to shoot at so we will definitely need lights. However the location is really nice, we definitely want to use it.

 This is a few shots from a roof of a car park, it overlooks "Won Ting" a restaurant that we plan for Tom and Jenny to meet.

This is the second tunnel we looked at, it wasn't quite as dramatically lit so we are going to use the other one.

 This final reccie was of another potential stalking location however it might be a little to rural for the scene.

 The house we used for the location wasn't ideal but did work. The window let a lot of light in but for shooting we would have them closed, more lighting would be needed. The bed was well located and the wall just by it worked well for Jenny being thrown. The room was a little small though, we didnt have a lot of room to fight in.

This bathroom was cramped and the tap was wrong but light was strong enough and we got the practice and shots we needed to test.

Finally we tested a liquid latex solution that looked really cool. With blood effects on top  I think it will add realism and make the bathroom scene look really special.

Drama research begins!

Its not all practical so here is a little bit of my research for my upcoming drama project.

The first big thing to research is the whole backwards thing, because that is a big big thing to attempt. I have been looking into it and I haven't found that many films that use it without it being a narrative jump backwards in time. Some things I have found that use it, a lot, are music videos, while researching I found this page specifically http://www.urlesque.com/2010/09/21/backwards-music-videos/. It shows 10 videos (although a few of the links no longer work) that use the reverse film technique. From watching these I get the general impression that the effect is often used to achieve interesting visual effects. This is at odds with our film, we have not yet discussed the visual advantages of reversing the film, our use is purely narrative. We want the audience to be confused as to what has happened and why, at first demonising our protagonist until all is revealed and we can begin to empathise. I think this has a few positives, firstly the emotions we are trying to portray, anger and jealousy, are universal but negative and when it results in violence that act by itself out of context is awful, we want to show that some awful things have context. I also think that this way round the narrative will make the audience empathise with Tom, who gets beaten, whether he knows about Jenny's boyfriend or not is unknown and so it is possible our experience is in line with Tom's, he gets beaten up and then the reasoning is explained.

Anyway back to the music video's from http://www.urlesque.com/2010/09/21/backwards-music-videos/ They show some interesting visuals and I am going to pass them onto Joe to look at from a camera perspective so he can get a few ideas of things to add in. I would personally love to put a Strike (Eisenstein 1925) reference of a backwards step into a puddle, just because I'm a fan, also its an interesting visual. All I could find anywhere else was the use of backwards time for a cheap special effect, obviously this isn't very helpful. I will continue to look for some better examples within films.

A few things to start research on are blood recipes, backwards editing and general drama research. In that vein I am currently reading "Poetics" by Aristotle translated by S.H. Butcher for my Narrative and Time module however the narrative elements of the document apply to drama or as Aristotle would have called it Tragedy. I also want to look at some "stalking scenes" to see how in a short time we can get the situation across in interesting and emotive ways.

Finally I had a good idea to frame the story today, as the situation seems a little extreme, if Dean was planning to propose it would explain the extreme situation. That could nicely be tied to the narrative end/ actuall start of the piece when he is washing his hands as there could be a ring of blood around his ring finger, washed off by water, a symbolic end to the relationship. Its something I will bring up on monday along with storyboarding and location hunting.


Filmography
1. Strike (1925) Eisenstein S., Soviet Union, Goskino

Websites
1. Top 10 Backwards Music Videos of All Time by Newman J., Date accessed: 05/02/13. URL http://www.urlesque.com/2010/09/21/backwards-music-videos/

2. Poetics by Aristotle Translated by S.H. Butcher. Date Accessed: 05/02/13 URL http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html

Uni work, DRAMA! The idea, the group and the beginning!

Our lesson this week began with a recap of characters that we have observed over the week and developed into fictional characters with fictional backgrounds and futures. There were some great observations within the group, the narratives built around them were really inspirational. I now never think I will struggle for an idea for drama, all I have to do is watch what is around me and create something around it, there is a lot of material for inspiration out there!

I had a lot of ideas for my own, a 19year old student type who bought a box of paracetamol and some teabags. In my mind he was suffering from a hang over and this was his cure, from this I developed a character who perpetually got drunk to keep up a reputation. The story I had planned would reach a conclusion as his teabags run out, a final push that makes him snap and smash his teacup to the ground in anger. After this the story would end, who knows if he changed or not. I had a lot of cool visual ideas for it too and am still excited about it but as a personal project as we have something other planned for our 2 minute project.

Speaking of that project we built our groups this week, unfortunately many of the people I wanted to work with were already in full groups however I ended up with a few guys I have worked with before and a few I haven't. Our group is Producer: Robin Booker, Director: Jordan Deakin, Art Director: Christi Elkins, Camera: Joe Butterworth, Edit: Amy Jackson, Sound: Joel Danby-Irons. I have worked with Joe and Jordan before and I am sure they would agree that both of those project could have been better managed so I thought to save that problem in this project I would take on the production role myself to ensure we got things done efficiently, professionally and on time. In that vein I have jumped right in and made a schedule

04/02	06/02 or 09/02 Me, Joe + Jordan practice shoot. Proof of concept. Location Scouting
11/02	11/02 After lesson, casting 16/02 and 17/02 Shooting Start of Editing
18/02	18/02 Show Annie Rushes
25/02	26/02,27/02,02/03,03/03 Finish Shooting + Editing as we work
04/03	04/03 Present semi finished film to Annie 07/03 Picture locked
11/03	13/03 Hand in.

Obviously there is a lot of wiggle room and I have scheduled shooting early but hopefully this means any major disasters can be worked around. If nothing goes wrong then we will have loads of time to play with and ensure we get stuff right. I uploaded this to the facebook group I created for us and am posting lots of things on there to get our group started.

Jordan has already put a brief synopsis up for his idea, we discussed it in the lesson and would like to try it so here is the basic synopsis:
Working title: A Short Story in Brutality

Film Genre: Drama

Length: 2 minutes

Target Audience: 15+

Synopsis: Dean, a young man has grown suspicious of his girlfriend, Jenny, and fears that she is cheating on him. After walking her to the train station he hangs around to see if his doubts are true. He stalks her as she as she meets her lover, Tom, and follows them back to his apartment. After waiting outside for what seems an eternity for Dean he finally enters Tom’s home where his suspicions are confirmed. He savagely beats Tom in a fit of rage and frustration while Jenny can do no more than sit and watch in horror. After the attack Dean calmly steps up and begins washing the blood off his hands in the sink as if cleaning away his guilt.

Visual Style: this film is like no her dramas of its kind as the whole story is told in reverse, and we see Deans story unfold backwards. As the sound is non-sync then this is possible. The overall tone of the score should be atmospheric. The film will be converted to black and white in post production in a nod to classic film noir productions.

I quite like the idea and something he hasn't included that I am excited about is running the sound in order so that the sound and visuals run in opposite. However its a pretty scary and "out there" concept this is why I have planned an early practice shoot, we can use undressed and basic sets and actors to do a kind of "proof of concept" edit to settle my nerves and make sure that it makes some sense. That is scheduled for shooting this weekend, the camera and audio equipment is booked. I think we are going to use my house undressed and a few of my friends for the practice shoot but we will also be looking at the practicalities of the locations we do use and identifying what we actually want.

After our practice shoot, assuming everything goes okay, I will give the footage to Amy to do a quick reverse edit and we will discuss the project in better detail before casting on monday. Here we will nail down storyboards and a script for the start of shooting on the 16th just 9 short days away. I am being as active as possible in my research and will post my finding soon!

This lesson we also looked at a few films, specifically we watched films that create emotion through techniques other than sync sound. All of these were interesting especially when looking at small character actions that convey emotions. The visual ways you can show emotion will be important for us as without the sound from the same scene playing it will be difficult for us to convey the correct emotions. I have to talk to the director and sound guy about the timings for the film. As it is three scenes it would make sense if the First scene had the thirds audio. The audio will run in reverse chronology however for this to work well we will have to make the first and third scene the same length. Details to be sorted on monday along with a full script.

Happy New Year!

Hey guy I know its a little late but I want to wish all of my frequent readers a happy new year and I hope you all had a great Christmas. Sorry for the lack of pots recently but I am taking full advantage of my holidays however normal posting should resume in a week or so, till then I hope you all enjoy the holidays as much as me!

Urban Exploring Documentary

If you have been following my documentary updates you will know this was on its way! This is the documentary I have been working on for a few months, I am stupidly happy with how it turned out. I was main cameraman!

I had a great time doing this project and think it looks amazing, well done to the rest of the team, work well done, it was a pleasure!

"They're US": Representations of Women in George Romero's 'Living Dead' Series by Stephen Harper

"They're US": Representations of Women in George Romero's 'Living Dead' Series is an essay by Stephen Harper which analyses the feminist views on the Living Dead series. The essay itself is well written, well informed and well evidenced, concluding in a persuading argument for Romero as a feminist film maker. Not only does this persuade readers that Romero is a feminist film maker but that he has represented women in not just binary passive/ active or positive/ negative but questions "the ability of binary categories of gender to comprehend the fluidity and diversity of images of women."

In Night of the Living Dead (1968) his representations of women are as passive, inactive characters who do little to help the cause. Whilst that would seem incredibly negative Harper flips this around in a few ways. The strongest proof for Night as a feminist text is the argument that the females passivity is the fault of the overly aggressive patriarchal males who force them down, thus making Night not a critique of weak women but a critique of patriarchal society. This is evidenced first by Johnny's playful teasing "They're coming to get you Barbra" which Harper argues is not a reference to the zombies but "playfully foreshadows the aggression of all the men at various points in the film.". The other main piece of evidence is a piece of speech from Tom who says "if all three of us were working together" things would be easier, Harper points out the important people Tom is talking about are the three male characters. This is a little weaker in my mind as it is Tom is trying to force Ben and Mr Cooper to get along, the women aren't involved in the conversation, however maybe the point is that they should be involved. The final evidence for a feminist reading of Night is the character of Mr Cooper who is an extreme stereotype of a controlling patriarchal male, however his constant fight for control is evident and it is worth noting the young female character fights back against him finally devouring his body. Harper argues it is Mr Coopers "authoritarian personality" that epitomises the male oppression within Night and excuses the female characters passive behaviour. Finally another possibility is that "Night might be read as a satirical comment on traditional representations of women in horror cinema" this is definitely a possibility when you consider the satirical content ofDawn of the Dead (1978).

Harper than moves over to an analysis of Dawn of the Dead (1978) in which the heroine is much more active but not an opposite to the passive feminine character of Barbra. Fran is a more complex character she is a professional in her field and is a strong character who is "consummately articulate and aware of the men's sexist assumptions about her". She is also pregnant and feminine and often takes on typical gender rolls such as nursing, home making and mothering. There are two specific scenes Harper analyses one being the scene in which Fran sits opposite a zombie, a pane of glass separating them and the other a scene in which she succumbs to capitalist desires making herself up with expensive lipstick and mascara. The first scene, with the 'softball zombie' shows Fran's "commendable sensitivity as she sees it as both her unborn child and identifies with is an oppressed and forgotten woman. The second scene sees Fran as a "mannequin" who "applies her lipstick" and "adopts the vacant gaze of the stereotypical consumer". Whilst it would be easy to read this scene as an anti-feminist scene showing a woman steeped in capitalism, make up and stereotype that is only what is on the very basic surface. A closer reading of the scene shows that "Romero refrains from criticising Fran for her participation in the makeup ritual and focuses instead on the social pressures that work to turn intelligent women into consuming mannequins." Harper concludes this section by fairly summing Dawn up as a film in which Romero "critically examines the many possible images of femininity available to women in the 1970's"

Day of the Dead (1984) and the remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990) written by Romero and directed by make up artist guru Tom Savini. In Day, Sarah is the most active female of the series, she flips the roles of Night as she acts as "protector for her emotionally shattered partner". Haper notes that Day offers the clearest parallel between humans and zombies through Professor Logan and Captain Rhodes; "Professor Logan's objective is to 'condition and control' these unruly creatures, just as Captain Rhodes seeks to control (both professionally and sexually) the ungovernable Sarah". The main point of Day is a continuation of the theme in Dawn that Sarah is a strong and active female that "also acts in a caring stereotypically motherly fashion towards her partner". Harper's analysis of the remake of Night is interesting however I don't personally count it as one in the series. Harper sums Night up as a representation of the limitations of feminism as well as a visual parallel of the differences between women in the 60's and in the 90's.

Harper sums the whole series up as positive towards women and as feminist texts that don't just show women as active and passive. The development of women in the films is clear and the fact that Romero has managed not to fall into the pit holes of strong sexist action heroes and over sexualisation is commendable. When I personally analyse Romero's thee most recent zombie films I will keep this article in mind and see if Romero has continued to fight for feminist values.

Thought Bubble 2012

This year I attended the Leeds Comic Con Thought Bubble, its the second time I have been and I was extremely excited and less drunk than last time. I got up nice and early to experience the con in all its glory, and glorious it was! A began with getting my #1 of wolverine and the X Men signed by Jason Aaron, and spent the next few hours wondering round waiting for cues to go down whilst I got various things signed. I would like to thank every comic artist and writer I met for being kind and cool and making the con a wicked experience. A highlight as always was Jamie Mckelvie and Kieron Gillen who wrote some wicked things on my comics and had a quick fun chat. I got to tell a lot of talented people that I enjoyed there work and I'm sure when I review their work in the future I will mention all of my con stories so keep your eyes out for that!

That was pretty much all of the first day, I decided not to go to any of the talks this year in order to soak up the experience and get lots of signings but I have heard they were good. Unfortunately we didn't have tickets or the money for the after party but thats an experience I'm happy to leave until next year.

On the second day I got a few commissions incuding Jamie Madrox by Guillermo Ortega, the sad thing about that being that I;m a massive fan and wish I had taken some things to get signed but didn't know he was there :( however his commission was awesome!

I also got this wicked image by James Eskdale, a really nice indie artist, I bought his and Glen Makin's Sons of Keel, I will be reviewing it soon.

One of my favourite con stories of the year was trying to get my brother Jimmy's Walking Dead signed by the most popular man at the con Charlie Adlard. Because of talks and cues messing him around he failed to get one during the first day. I fortunately was there right at the end of the day when he had practically no cue so I happily got my X Files signed. On the second day I made it my mission to go with him and get that thing signed.... due to alcohol however we got there at 12 so he was fully cued up till his talk at 3. So at 3.30, half an hour before his talk ended we waited at the front of a cue infront of an empty table and waited for out "no sketches" signing. (The reason he had been taking so long was all the sketches he had been doing.) Someone from the cue before the break got a few thumbnails drawn on the front of his comic before us so Jimmy asked real nice and Charlie responded with a quick sketch of the governor, just what he wanted. It was awesome to see him genuinely being a nice guy and a wicked artist much like everyone at the con. To me thats the best thing about con's getting to meet what nerds consider celebrities and actually having a conversation and seeing them as people not just creators of characters.

I will be reviewing some of the indie stuff from the con soon so keep your eyes open for that!
For a more detailed account of the con check out http://myheartliesinfilmandcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ive-never-felt-more-in-my-element-my.html
This is Ari my housemate who come to the con with me!

100 POSTS

Its been nearly 3 months and I am 100 posts in! Thats.... quite a few! I have now got over 2000 views which is amazing, that means 20 views per post which im happy with, thanks to everyone who views regularly. Big thanks to those of you who promote my stuff and an even bigger thanks to those of you who help with my posts and put up with me ignoring you real life people whilst I write! :)

thanks to ALL of you

NOW TO MORE POSTS!!!!

Larp. Larping Around, Dara O'briain's Tough gig

I am a LARPer, I'm not ashamed of it, its good fun. The publicity around larp isn't all that big and most people don't know much about it so this is a little attempt to illuminate a few people with a few video's. It is the big CP event tomorrow I hope everyone has fun, wish i was there!

Firstly Larping around. This 10min doc is a good piece of work showing the LARP that I attend. Although it focuses largely on kit it shows a few peoples perspectives and is a fair representation of the kit side of LARP. It also includes some good battle scenes and is a generally nice little piece.

In a field of really POOR diy docs about LARP this one stands out as a professional looking infommercial style doc that gives a good insight and good images of the LARP community. This is for sure the best LARPdoc I have seen! But my work will be up there competing sometime!

Another goodish representation of LARP is in Dara Obriain's Tough gig in which Dara, the funny guy that he is, takes the challenge to do a gig in front of and about Larpers. So here it is

I think maybe he is a little harsh at times but it does pretty fairly show what goes on at LARP. You get a war, you get attacks on your camps and you get some people that think the while LARP is for and about them and their character is the most important thing in the world.... they can be annoying, some people do get too into it but they are easy to ignore. I liked the stand up and although this isn't the exact larp group I go to it shows how much fun it can be!

Well thats a little look into the world of Larp, I would really like to do some personal work surrounding larp either fiction or non fiction but I have a lot of project on at the moment so that will be something for the future. Its not something everyone will enjoy, some people just wouldn't get it but its like that for every hobby. Give it a try if you want, if not don't but at least try and understand it and understand why we do it! Well thats my little little attempt at spreading understanding over for now.... :)

Zombie FUN!

All Friends Fans and Collaborators... I have an idea, I dont think it is original but it will be fun! I would like to do a new zombie project but not a film.... sort of.... The basic premise is to get 5 armed friends with cameras attached to them to try and survive in a forest in daytime against a horde of zombie's, it will take a lot of people but would be great fun, who is interested?

My current projects

I haven't posted that many reviews recently so you may be wondering what I am up to, well......

1.Writing any reviews I can at any time I can!

2. Catching up on Minecraft, its epic! My minequest has only just begun!

3. Reading Classic X Men comics from the first run of uncanny, they are pretty bad but I will give you a full review in batches of 10 comics at a time.

4. Reading War of the Worlds, I am a fan of the record a disliker of the films and have been reading the book to review, I would also like to hear the radio broadcast that fooled nations into panic. I will let you know how that all goes soon.

5. Project Cortman. A project I am working on with my bro Jimmy Weaver to give I Am Legend an accurate screen adaptation. I just bought another copy of the book and have begun scribbling thoughts all over it, I may post a few of my thoughts to you guys that have read the book for consideration.

6. Finishing my scifi pilot. Its been going for around 8months and it feels like a marathon episode, I have no idea how long it is in time but im on page 62 now and its nearly finished! Let me know if you want a sneaky read.

7. After said 8 months I am itching to film something in the universe of my movie as a kind of proof of concept and as a visual guide for any readers. I have always said that even though Im writing my SF now I dont want to film it till I am respected and trusted with a budget (fingers crossed that eventually happens) so for now its gonna be a short. Concept images have been posted and Im kinda spitballing ideas whilst finishing the big pilot.

8. Reviewing my favourite films in specific detail. If you missed the post I am going to be doing reivews of my favourite films every Sunday (I hope) for you guys to read. They will be big reviews gushing with the reasons I love the films so much. Some of the films are in franchises, some of them are complete franchises I will talk about lots! Dont miss them!

So thats what I am up to! "Working" hard

New Series of Reviews!

It occurs to me I haven't reviewed some of my favourite films, I will be doing that soon, one a week in reward to all you readers who are interested in what I think about my favourites!
Some title this will include are:
The Matrix Trilogy
The Terminator (1,2,3,4,series)
Alien (1,2,3,4,Prometheus)
Blade Runner
And many More!!!

1000 Views!!

Im on 1000 views!! In just 6 weeks!!! Thanks to everyone that has read and enjoyed. I hope Im not getting too annoying but really I hope everyone that is interested enjoys my posts. Thanks LOTS EVERYONE!!! KEEP READING!

SDCC Panel Video's

There are a few panels and talks I watched at SDCC here they are

Firefly Reunion Panel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V85olh2aZ34&feature=relmfu

Joss Whedon Dark horse Panel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dEEHn7ZiXU

Joss Whedon Nerd HQ
http://www.break.com/nerdmachine-2012-livestream/2?vidID=2348225

Nathan Fillion Auction Panel
http://www.break.com/nerdmachine-2012-livestream?vidID=2348341

Nathan Fillion with Adam Baldwin
http://www.break.com/nerdmachine-2012-livestream/2?vidID=2348039

Guest panel pt 1
http://www.break.com/nerdmachine-2012-livestream/2?vidID=2348073
pt2
http://www.break.com/nerdmachine-2012-livestream/2?vidID=2348054

Gillermo Del Toro Panel
http://www.break.com/nerdmachine-2012-livestream/3?vidID=2348037

Stan Lee Panel (its a little cringeworthy)
http://www.break.com/nerdmachine-2012-livestream/3?vidID=2347900

Last patch of SDCC news is on the way

Review Report Reveal.... What?!?

“God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can't live with that.”

Hi people my name is Robin Booker and I am Robin Booker Films! This blog shall "Review" things I watch and like, "Report" the news I like and "Reveal" what I am working on!

I shall also be posting a quote from a film with each post and leaving you guys to let me know when you figure it out.