Its been a while since I've posted here, my apologies.
I've had an idea floating around for a new {Satellite-State} video, and after various messages back and forth, its finally going ahead. Not giving too much away here, but SS is one of my fav bands, and I cant wait to get started for them.
I found this post http://thomashawk.com/2008/08/simon-blint-director-of-visitor.html
And have been reading it, and have been amazed and outraged at this guys story. If you don't want to read the linked article, then I'll sum it up for you.
The museum he visited had stopped it's 'no photography' policy, and the guy had also paid for a family membership to the museum. He was shooting from a balcony making art when the head of the museum abused his powers and had him forcibly removed from the building.
The full details are in the linked post above, but the main thing that this all screams out to me is the fact that photographers get targeted unfairly.
While on an industry visit to London in Feb of 2008, I was taking pictures of the London Underground, as there is some amazing architecture there, when this random guy taps me on the shoulder and says 'no flash photography down here mate' to which I pointed out I wasn't using a flash at all. He then decided to try and pass himself off as a police officer in normal dress, and he was going to 'nik' me unless I stopped my photography.
Not only did he insult my intelligence by assuming I was a naive tourist who would fall for his 'I'm gonna nik you' routine, but impersonating a police officer as well.
If I hadn't of been using a Fuji Finepix S6500fd (which is big and looks like a DSLR) I doubt he would have said anything to me in the first place, but some people seem to have a prejudice against photographers. Photography is NOT a crime people!
I'm breaking all the rules I learnt in film school in my latest film.
I have a work-in-progress name for it - 'under', and I really think its going to be quite innovative.
I'm going to be using all of my equipment on this project, which will require quite a bit of rehearsal.
Basically, I'm going to have audio and visual linked together at the start of the film, split them, and tell 2 versions of the same story (one via visuals, and the other via audio) then make them come back together at the end of the film
I handed in my final year film named 'Spider' today.
After about 2 years of development, re-writes, shooting and editing, 'Spider' is finally finished.
The total length is 15 minutes, and is too long for YouTube, but WILL be available on my website. www.filmsbynick.com as soon as I have finished the mini-site for this film.
Its been a long road developing spider, and this film has had more work gone into it than any other film I have done to date.
NIN (Nine Inch Nails) have released an instrumental album under a Creative Commons license.
The beauty of this is the fact that filmmakers, animators, musicians, and anyone who is creative are being encouraged to use these tracks, re-mix them, or do anything they want with them.
Ever since NIN broke away from their record label, Trent Raznor has wanted to work closely with creative minds, and this is the perfect opportunity. It is also a huge help for me, as it means I could use tracks from 'Ghosts' in my film 'Spider', as long as I release the film under the same license as 'Ghosts' is released under.
For more information, go to ghosts.nin.com
Just finished the third day of shooting for 'Spider'.
I've also started the post work on the rushes I've gathered, theres going to be a LOT of post work in this film, not a single scene will survive without SOMETHING being done to it, be it CGI overlays, colour correction, or a total transformation of the sequence.
As it stands now, I only have 4 scenes left to shoot (with a few pick-ups, and some ADR to be done too)
I'm getting a good feeling about his film
Finished shooting today at 5:30, we had arranged to meet at 9:30, and start shooting.
I got the final scene (which is also the first scene) wrapped, and also some dialog shots in a corridor, and a the scene where both main characters arrive at the BCCTU headquarters.
Looking forward to tomorrow...
I arrived back in North Wales yesterday, after a 5 hour coach ride.
We went down to London with uni as part of an industry visit, talking to post-production houses, and other places.
I visited BBC TV Center on the Tuesday, and stood on the roof, I got an amazing skyline shot I'll be using for my 'Spider' film, I also found out that there is a hell of a lot of creative freedom when working for the BBC, it's not like 'do this, no, no, thats wrong', its more like 'we want this type of thing, but if you have an idea, go for it'.
Also visited some post companies which do a lot of work for Sky, Channel 4, BBC etc... also do a lot of TV ads too.
On the Wednesday, we were suppoed to be going to 3 Mills Studios, but they pulled out at the last minute, due to a client demanding absolute privacy, so my group went into the heart of London, armed with our cameras (most of us are in the uni's photography society).
I got some amazing shots, I tried to approach my photography not from the stereotypical touristy shots, but more from a personal point of view, how London works, and the people who live there.
I've bee thinking yet again about how I could make my film stand out even more...and I think I have yet another brilliant idea.
Radio Articles!
I need to find someone who has a really good voice for a radio broadcast which I will be using in my film. I'm also going to use the radio segment in the brand new trailer/viral that I'm making for my film too.
I've been having conversations for the last few months about getting access to the Boiler room at the Regent St site of NEWI, to shoot a scene for my film, 'Spider'
Up to now, there's been no objections to going down there, especially seeing as how other students and film crews have used the same location in the past, however, the official line from the Estates department, and the head of H+S is a resounding 'NO'. - Even though no-one from the H+S dept has even bothered to get off their lazy ass, and come down to have a look. Just sitting in their cozy offices, saying 'NO'.
This is really throwing a spanner in the works, as this location is paramount to my film, I've been scouting locations all over the place, and this location has the best feel and look, not to mention being perfectly geared up for the scene.
What this whole thing says to me is this: 'Fuck you boy-o, I'm fine' - as to say, 'I'm comfy here in my office, I cant be bothered to get up off my lazy ass and walk the 5 mins it takes to go and have a look, and I'm prepared to screw around with a student's final year film'.
I was thinking that this situation reflects the state of H+S laws at the moment, as they seem to be growing out of all control, (They'll be banning thumb tacks on notice boards soon) but then I realised that this stinks of NEWI's attitude towards art students (this includes animation, film, photography etc...) It's always the creative students that get screwed around, hell, we dont even have appropriate software on the computers here.
I've been thinking about why I like long exposures in photography. I came to a conclusion in bed the other night. Its the fact that with a long exposure, you can capture up to 30 seconds or longer in a single image, a single frame. Its almost as if you can film something for 30 seconds or so, then compress everything into a split-second of photography.
This comes to my mind, as I am a filmaker, to which photography goes hand in hand.
I'll be doing more experimental photography with longer exposures very soon, especially in the winter with the long nights
