Now Wash Your Hands

Now Wash Your Hands

We have entered ‘Now Wash Your Hands‘ into the Virgin Media Shorts Competition. Check it out!

Vote for the film and share it with your friends.

Script Breakdowns

I am currently supervising an Independent Study on being a Short Film Production Assistant. This is all in preparation for a course that I am teaching in Winter. 

In reference to the topic of Script Breakdowns, here are a few relevant links for research.

And then the following videos.

Short Sighted 2013

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On Monday 17 June, I was at Short Sighted 2013, an all-day event at BAFTA on short film distribution. The day involved various sessions on subjects such as:

– Submitting to Film Festivals
– online film distribution models
– post production and tech specs
– cinema and film festival programming
– viral film
– the anatomy of a sale
– traditional distribution vs. online distribution

Key speakers included reps from the London Short Film Festival, The London Film Festival, Encounters Film Festival, The British Council, SXSW, Vimeo, Short Of The Week, Distrify, VODO.

And of course, there was plenty of networking to be done. (Love it!)

One of the main points that I took away is that I, as a short film makers, need to be watching more short films. Also, as an independent filmmaker, need to be watching more independents. As filmmakers, we need to be supporting the industry, and we need to be researching and seeing what else it out there. I’m watching a lot more shorts on vimeo and short of the week, and I recommend you all do too.

CAMS Connect

I have just returned from the CAMS Connect Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. CAMS is the records management system that we use at my work.

St Louis, Missouri

This is the post that explains all of the #CAMSConnect tweets you may have seen coming up.

Continue reading “CAMS Connect”

Shiftwork Showreel 2013

Check out the Shiftwork Showreel. I was the 1st AD for ‘Don’t Do It’ and ‘Don’t Wash Your Hands’ – both of which are about to be submitted to film festivals.

We’re currently working on our next two productions: ‘Dead Letter’, which I am directing, and ‘The Estate Agent’, directed by Nils Lindemann, which I am Producing. More details to come.

If you like the showreel, please share it. TIA.

Dance class or Production Meeting?


Betty Boop dances

I’ve been missing quite a few dance classes recently. Usually I’m at 1-2 hours of ATS classes on a Monday night and 2 hours of Bellydance on a Tuesday, with 5 hour workshops twice a month (Performance technique and teaching bellydance). It is important to me to get to my regular classes: I don’t go to a gym, and it’s my main source of exercise. It’s also how I cope with stress, and relieve the build up of stress-related tension in my muscles.

However, with all the film projects I’ve got going at the moment, and with how busy it has been at work, I keep missing my dang dance classes. It’s so frustrating!

Continue reading “Dance class or Production Meeting?”

False Murder

or DoPing my first feature

I have just finished three out of ten days of scheduled production for a feature film. We’re shooting in Hackney and Westbourne Park.

The story concept is by first-time director Swapnil Waghmare. Swapnil is Producing with Noel Wilson. The script was written by Catherine Adams, who is also starring in the film. Lead actors include Jonathan Hansler and Rob Marni.

I’m shooting on Canon 7Ds. We’re using multiple camera set ups. The performances have been amazing, we have a good crew, and we have been getting great footage. I’ll share behind the scenes stills once they’re ready.

Updates on my film projects: All I Do Is Dream

ALL I DO IS DREAM

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Pitch: A glitzy new short dance film. Recreating glamorous Hollywood films of a bygone age. A new short film set in Broadway New York about a young woman’s dream to dance.

My role: Production Manager, First Assistant Director.

I’m working with the Producer, Kira, and the Writer/Director, Andrew, of This Big Productions (https://twitter.com/ThisBigFilms)

Shooting: Late July in Ireland

Progress: We will soon be releasing a Kickstarter Campaign to raise funds for the film. Expect lots of promotion for it.

Behind the scenes
Director Andrew Montague shooting our Kickstarter Video

 

We recently confirmed our Make-up Artist. We’re still looking for a Costumier.  

Online: You can check out the website (http://allidoisdream.wordpress.com) and the twitter (allidreammovie.twitter.com) and the Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/allidoisdreamfilm)

Interesting tidbit: Our Production Assistant, Luis, is a student at the Business School where I work. He has been helping us with our social media presence.

 

London Bellydance Debut: photos

Nasmat London Debut

Thanks to Maani Photography for these photos.

This event The Arab Quarterly show on Sunday 17 February 2013 in the Hoxton Hall.

My costume was from Zara’s Zouk.

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Editing: Reasons for a cut

Multiple Oscar winning editor extraordinaire Walter Murch (who literally wrote THE book on editing) famously said…

 

An ideal cut (for me) is the one that satisfies all the following six criteria at once:
It is true to the emotion of the moment
It advances the story
It occurs at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and “right”
It acknowledges what you might call “eye-trace” – the concern with the location and movement of the audience’s focus of interest within the frame
It respects “planarity” – the grammar of three dimensions transposed by photography to two (the questions of stage-line, etc.)
It respects the three-dimensional continuity of the actual space (where people are in the room and in relation to one another).
Or…
Emotion (51%)
Story (23%)
Rhythm (10%)
Eye-trace (7%)
Two-dimensional plane of screen (5%)
Three-dimensional space of action (4%)
Emotion, at the top of the list, is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs. If you find you have to sacrifice certain of those six things to make a cut, sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom.

WALTER MURCH, In The Blink of an Eye