Mortus Illumina 3rd Incarnation (AKA How not to make a feature film)

The 1st Incarnation
The 2nd Incarnation

Here below is the presentation I gave at Bettakultcha on Mortus Illumina. I honestly did not mean to swear that much. (those of you reading this on facebook, can see it here)



Watching the video back, there are a couple of points I did mean to mention, but had to drop them because of time (BettaKultcha format 20 slides at 15 seconds a slide - it goes quicker than you think). The first of these, is that if we have even put one tenth of the planning that went into the shoots into post production. Then that would of been a year wiped off the time it has taken.

The second thing is, a project like this does take over and consume your life. I think for sanity reasons, over the last few years I have put some distance between myself and it, but this point leads nicely onto the third carnation of the script.

I mentioned that the second incarnation of the script took us through several shoots,in fact it was the  the bulk of filming. Come June 2002 after the chapel shoot, all we had left to shoot was a studio shoot to get some interiors. These would of included scenes inside the convent and scenes at Mary and Rico's flats. Below is the storyboards for one such sequence.

We had planned it would be a two week shoot and even had scale models made of the sets, ready to go.

The London shoot and Chapel Shoot happened extremely close to each other and part of the London Shoot involved shooting a 1940's Bar scene. In this scene, there is also the longest continual shot in the film ( 4 minute track) and the most expensive shot. I worked it out , taking into condsideration equimpent costs, location costs etc to be £2500 for that shot. But  definitely worth it.


Do  not think it was a luxury shoot as we had the bare minimum of lights and equipment to make this scene work. The photo below, you can just make out the track and literally we had everything in pool of lights around the track. Everything else was in pitch black and the following photo sequence should give you you an idea of the end result.

This shoot wasn't without its fair share of glitches in the run up, the band that were meant to be in there, pulled out at the last moment for starters. But the shoot itself, I think was one of the most succesful bits of shooting in the entire film.

The chapel shoot as well, was a very succesful shoot and it was nice having the two shoots close together. This was acheived by the fact that I was effectively working full time for one client (40 hours) and then working 40 hours for another client at the same time - which you can only do for so long before cracks appear (add on this 30 hours a week prep for the shoots) both personally and in what you are doing. 

I've mentioned more about this in a journal I put together in 2003 which you can read over here. To cut a long story short, financially doing the shoots so close together was a huge financial gamble which did not pay off.  Secondly on a personal level, my father also passed away a few weeks after the chapel shoot.

The next year was extremely tough both mentally and also around that time, the bottom fell out the market and I was no longer able to earn the money I was earning. Where I said about how something like this engulfs your life, from experience it is gut wrenching when other things in your life began to fall apart and then you watch what you have created begin to full apart too. It goes hand in hand as you are so involved. 

This resulted in a year hiatus from Mortus illumina and then an attempt to try and pick up the pieces after that gap.  I think I was only left with one option which was to sink the old MI ship and build a new one. Which is what I did and this is the third incarnation.

Before getting to the third carnation I want to stress this point. I have, and always be entirely greatful for all those who have put their time and effort into Mortus illumina. I was always aware that doing this would always be a one off in the fact of getting so many people to give their time to this project, which has taken far longer than anticipated. I am aware the onus is very much on me to deliver and believe me I will. We are extremely close to that point. The casualty list of unfinished low budget films, I would say out numbers the completed and I am determined that MI won't end up on that scrap heap.

I threw a party roughly 14 months on from the last shoot at the time (which was the chapel shoot) armed with a  polished promo of the film cut so far, with the aim of judging what the enthusiasm was. It was not a success and whilst there was a slim chance of having all and sundry back, I think if we had gone that route. It would have shown on the screen. I have included below "The wrap email" I sent out to everyone at the time.  It's interesting from my point of view,  reading that  back now.  I think at the time, I was quite disheartened and a bit bitter to be honest.  Whilst horribly over schedule, I am quite proud of how the final film has turned out -It is far better than originally intended.

The third incarnation  was to fill in all the gaps in shooting with stop motion and puppetary. I must also stress here, that stop motion sequences were always going to be apart of the film, right from the early days of the hammer head incarnation. This was taking it a step further and introducing the puppetary element. To give you an idea of how this works, the storyboard of the scene Imentioned  earlier was meant to take place before this scene below which we had filmed.

So hey presto, missing scene with puppets

I was reading Faust at the time when coming up for the script for the third carnation and what struck me most, was the opening bit where the director is talking about the play "faust" they are about to put on. I got caught up with this idea of having a world within a world and that expanded out to create this entire new "outside" story.

Two new characters were added, The Puppeteer and a character called "Tony" who went from early draft in the scripts from being everything from a Medieval knight to a soldier in the second world war; before finally becoming a guy with a bag full of cash, a gun and a motorcycle tire  - naturally.

Which from then, built up the idea that the original Mortus illumina tale was being told by the Puppeteer to Tony. There were several major chops made to the second incarnation story. The main being that where the book in the second carnation was made central to the storyline, in the third carnation the books message of knowledge is the more central theme.

The puppeteers dialogue is the favourite thing I have every written and there are 100s of hidden references, not only in the dilalogue but also in the visuals.

We filmed these new sequences in 2004 in two shoots, the first here which was at a disused print works in St.Albans(where they also shot Inspector Frost) and then a second shoot in Frome, concentrating on the puppets a few months later.

The third carnation is  the final film that you will see. I know this, as a cut of 86 minutes without credits sits on my harddrive. Here is proof

Those of you who have been following this blog and MI, will also be pleased to hear, That all the VFX has been completed. Which leaves only the sound design and music  to do which is getting underway. I will stress that is the only thing left to complete the film and the people are their to do it, it will be finished.








7th Septmber 2003

Hi all,

I'm calling a wrap on Mortus Illumina, Basically I feel that the project has gone on past its natural life. If things have worked out differently over the last year we would be sitting around with a finish feature. But unfortunately things didn’t work out that way. Whilst there is still life in the old ship , I think now is the time to bow out gracefully.

I think over the three years the project has been running everyone involved myself included has learnt a lot, and to say it’s been one hell of a experience is a understatement. From the Dusty freezing Rainthorpe Hall and the “We don’t like Strangers” locals, to the wind swept beaches of Kings Lynn and the Erie Church at St. Agnes. I hope that everyone is at least walking away with some memories and not a sick bag from the roller coaster that has been MI.

To explain my decision to wrap MI more. I feel that the enthusiasm and support that kicked of MI in the early days over the three years has now gone. With any project whether it be film or not has a natural span, it is only natural that people move on to better and greener pastures and the focus that was once there shifts to these pastures, hell I somehow clocked up two Hollywood credits in the last 6 months and I know a lot of you have been successful in your own fields and continuing to be. Whilst there is still some life in MI , the energy that would be needed in completing the film I feel can be spent starting new projects and moving forward which is what I intend to do.

But its not all doom and gloom, ,as some of you are aware the Promo version has been cut in with the animation. My intention now is to use more Animation along with some puppetry (VERY EVIL PUPPETS)to fill in the gaps.  Basically those of you who are familiar with Faust, Faust starts of with the director and clown talking about the play they are about to put on (faust)  and I'm going to take a new twist on that along with the film becoming more of a character piece.  The story is going to change somewhat (when hasn’t it!) but I am confident that I get a good hour long film out of the footage. In a Blaze of publicity the film will be hosted on a Website on a pay to download basis. With broadband becoming more popular and films already to begin to appear such as This Is Not A Love Song
I believe that this is going to be the best distribution medium for the project, I have a really shit computer game posted on the web somewhere which has had over 7000 downloads, plus the old MI site has had over 13’000 unique hits. So with a bit of publicity especially the story behind the film itself I'm confident of MI reaching a wide audience. Also I'm hoping to take the film to Cannes next year and it will begin to do the festival route next year. So this is not a case of MI disappearing and all your hard work being for nothing. Just more of a different film than when we started out which looking back on the original script is a hell of a lot different anyway.

For me the highlight of the shooting of Mortus Illumina has to be the Bar shoot followed very closely by the chapel shoot, the main thing has been working and meeting everyone of you. I can’t express my thanks enough, In total there have been over 20 days shooting on this film and I feel honoured that so many of you have dedicated so much time to the film. I would like to stress this again  I hope that everyone has got something out of Mortus Illumina, even if it’s just Jason walking into the Matt box or chasing a bit of Polly board on the beach you cant but that sort of entertainment. Also Zoe’s Singing Nun will always have a special place in my heart.

I would like to take this opportunity again to thank everyone for their efforts over the years and to wish everyone the best of luck in the future. This is not the end of 5YLAC films either, a couple of projects which I'm kicking in to pre-production are “The Stranger” a short which I will be filming later this year, and I'm on the look out for a short to direct as well. Pre-production on the feature length Version of Deadlights is going to kick off mainly because I can get my hands on lots of guns and explosions oh and a helicopter too.

I’ve attached the script’s For anyone interested in getting involved to run a bit more about them,

The Stranger (set in two locations a record by my standards) is about a worried bunch of Ye Yokels whose children and livestock are going missing,. So they hire guns from a Stranger to deal with the person who they think is responsible and theirs a wee bit of a twist at the end.  Basically I'm doing this as more of a atmos piece , whilst there is a script I'm looking more to create an environment and improvisation piece.  The feature length version of Deadlights Is in its second draft at the moment and I'm looking for a script writer to collaborate with to complete the next draft.  In case your wondering no it probably doesn’t make the short make any more sense ;-) a couple of other projects in the pipeline involve a pretty much blue screen film and I am going to be collaborating on other peoples projects in the immediate future.

If you are interested in getting involved with Stranger’s then please let us know asap,  I am going to be shutting down the smartgroups (never liked it  ) in the next two weeks,  before I do please make sure your contact details are correct , nearer to completion on MI I will have some paperwork which will need to be signed off. basically a “release” and more importantly if the film is successful on the web then you are all entitled to a share of the profits and there will be some paperwork for that too. I will send another e-mail about any outstanding expenses shortly so watch this space.

Once again a big thankyou to everyone who has been involved, when the film is ready  next year  You will each receive your copy so another reason to make sure those details are correct!

Salutations et All

Rob


PS, Wimples going spare

Plugin for Wordpress - A Better Tag Cloud

I've just come across a plug in for wordpress called "A Better Tag Cloud" and it does exactly what it says on the side of the tin. It offers you a fair bit of customization on the Tag cloud front. I've updated my my Smokeback and The Dead Adventurers Club sites with it, so you can see it in action.

I also have this post here, which includes a few more useful wordpress plugins that I use

Page 247 of the Memoirs of Martin Hardy

...and he was left standing there. Naked as the day god put him on this good earth with his plug tail swaying in the wind. The old Jack Ketch, like the crowd was in a fit of stitches. There was noway in Riley he could on gone on with the Hanging after that.

That was just one of the many wonderful characters from those months I've spent at the Newgate. Whilst I've been called a criminal many a time by a Judge, I would call myself a criminal now, if I was not to mention Madame Nicol in this memoir. For it was her that taught me everything I knew about business. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't even got as far as the Thames Estuary let alone the other side of the bleedin world.

She was a most heavenly creature to look at, but stone me when she opened that mouth of hers. Most Cantish toungue In the East end. Some even said she had the toungue of Lucifer himself, but she was a lovely sort.

She had a Buttocking shop right next to the payroll office of the East India Company. Sailors who would just be back from after six months at sea would go in and collect their wages and walk the twenty steps to her door and be claret broke by morning, ready to sign up for the first ship out of there.

We became great friends and I think what sealed are friendship was a rather amusing incident involving a Merchant by the name of Guy Brooker. He was one of your typical gentlemen at the time. Shares in several boats and owned a couple of warehouse's down Bow way with a nice house on the other side of town. Honest, respectable during the day light hours, but could be found with the rest of the low life and politicians - pardon my french, round the back of Commercial street at night. Which is where in those days, we liked to keep that sort. Away from the salt and earth.

One Tuesday evening he decides to pop in to Madame Nichols. Now, remember Mr.Grover back in chapter 12 ? I had been working for him that day and had just come into a nice bit of kelter and thought I would treat myself. One of Madame Nichols romps was an Exotic Oriental, and let me tell she was a right article with her red hair and towering statue. She emptied my purse quite a few times, let me tell you. I had just finished wetting my whistle and went down to the bar to wet me other when in walks Brooker. Now what you need to understand, is how Madame Nichols ran her girls. When a customer ...

This was done for a Leeds Savage Club task entitled 'Page 247 of a Biography''

Leeds Savage Club in the Yorkshire Evening Post and....

A bit, well a whole page actually on the Leeds savage Club. Thats me on the left in the picture btw. You can read the online version here

Also, a blog post of interest by a fellow member Ivor Tymchak over here.

 

A bit of a waffle on Animation

I've always liked the idea of animation, but I have to confess I don't have the patience to pull it off successfully. But digging through my old harddrive and the old chance1234.com site, I thought I would stick this post up to show my efforts.

I think one of the things, that have always put me off, is I've never found a comfortable workflow for executing my ideas. The main thing I used was macromedia flash and also tried toon boon studio.

The first "breakthrough" came when I worked out how to use motion paths in flash and this was my first effort. Frank the Robot Bin - To Binly go, where we all like to go

Click Here to play

Next up, to learn  rotation in flash, I pretty much copied a Terry Gillingham animation from The Mony Python days, adding my own bit at the end.  I bow in his greatness, as he did his version by hand and  it took me all of a weekend for my effort.  

Click Here to Play

Next up, and probably my most popular (especially with 3-5 years old so I am told) is The Gallery. I do have some further ideas for this character, but the way I created it in flash, it would involve starting to build the character from scratch again, which I have struggled to do. Lesson Learnt from this about, creating characters separate from the main timeline.

Click Here to Play

Next up,  not the most original idea, but an animation very loosely inspired by Emily Dickinson poem She went as softly as the dew. I had a very clear idea on doing the water droplet to star idea, but it took quite a few attempts to get it right technically. I didn't enjoy the process at all, and I think this is one of the reason's why I say I don't have the patience.

Click Here to Play

Next up, is the kind of animation I would like to do.  When I was a kid, I really liked the pink panther cartoon show (couldn't stand  that ant eater thing though) . I think what I liked most was the style of the backgrounds. They would be this scratchy ink style with block shading and strong contrasts.  I also used to like the pyschedelic shaking from the Rhubarb and custard cartoons.  I did the backgrounds on this, with a really shite cheap non pressure graphic pen and the character, ship and sea monster with a mouse. So technically not perfect by a long shot, but stylewise I am happy with it.  The song is "Pour Un Flirt Avec Moi" Michel Delpech. I have no idea what he is singing about, but it sounds right for the cartoon.  

 

Click Here to Play 

Finally, this is unfinished and when it gets to the corridor scene. Nothing else will happen, except the music playing. For this animation, I bought a fancy wacom tablet and tried out a few new concepts, such as having the characters turn and having objects in front of the action. This was also going to be the longest piece, with several locations and a good old fashion Mummy Chase.  The timing is off in the below, and things such as shadows are missing, and feet occasionally vanish (also the edges arent masked). But it should give you an idea.  The plan was to extend the corridor scene, introducing two new characters; The museum curator and a belly dancer  who would join in the chase, before turning the action back outside,  and giving a suitable "Deus Ex Machina" ending.

The reason, it is unfinished, is I switched from a PC to a mac, an no longer have macromedia studio and my wacom broke. If anyone wants to ahve a go at finishing it off, then please give us a shout, I will gladly send the files over. 

Click Here to Play

I am not turning my back on animation per se, more giving up on flash animation. I emailed today infact an idea to a fellow Leeds Savage Club member, about doing a very short, live action /animation short entitled "Space Cheese". I would also, like at a later date, have a go at producing some cartoon shorts, in the style that I would like to achieve.

More Fridayflash Statistics, Writing and a New Tale From Tiberius...

It's been a few weeks, since I have done a fridayflash. Mainly down to my work in getting the Leeds Savage Club up and running, plus there has been a lot going on around my film Mortus Illumina. I 've also got quite a few longer pieces in progress, including an early transatlantic crossing attempt, an archeologist and a whole load of dead Romans and a return to Break Creek

My Novella progress monitor hasn't moved since December, mainly because as mentioned here, It would always be the first thing to go on the backburner - which it has.

But, A new tale From Tiberius O'Donnell this week, entitled "The Right Rollicking Race" set around the university town of Oxford, and a penny farthing race.  You can also get the first six Tiberius O'Donnell stories for your Kindle here and they will be appearing in the reading room soon(maybe even today).

I also notice, I am up to 22 stories on the DAC (not including Mount Norfolk) and when I did the first 10, I posted some statistics which you can see here, so I thought I would do the same, with the next ten stories.

This Period is December 11th 2009 to February 18th 2010, covering the ten stories posted in that time.
There were a total of 809 Visits (up 52 from last time) from 29 countries (14 last time) with the bulk of my traffic coming from United Kingdom, United States and Canada (Germany knocked down to 6th spot)

The most popular story was "The Nth Page of Henry Lamberton's Journal " with a 138 visits. In the last ten, it was "The Backstreet Berlin Brawl" with 114 visits

The most commented story was "A Northern Swan Song" with 26 comments, compared to "E Tu Brute" which had 22 comments

and the story with the highest comment to post ratio was The Sabotaging Swede with 24% compared to 36%, which was "E Tu Brute" in the last period.

On average, I got 86.5 reads per a story (up 10.5 from last time ) and I can expect 1 in 6 people to leave a comment (down from 1 in 5)
.
The least read story was  Queen of Sheba with just 45 views,  which was just one above The Most Blasted Blizzard  from last time.  This was also the lowest commented with 8 comments, compared to the Blasted Blizzard which only had 4.

Titles	Visits	Comments	Perc
The Nth Page of Henry Lamberton’s Journal	138	19	13%
A Northern Swan Song	112	26	23%
Wisdom From the Chorus Line	102	19	18%
The Complexing Conundrum	99	16	16%
The Foreign Looking Fellow	97	16	16%
The Sabotaging Swede	77	19	24%
At the Village Doctors	71	10	14%
A Letter Home To Mammy	66	13	19%
Speranza	58	11	18%
Queen of Sheba	45	8	17%

Finally, The Top Five stories all time from my fridayflash contibutions are;

The Backstreet Berlin Brawl
Day 8
The Nth Page of Henry Lambertons Journal
Georgie
The Last Page of Henry Lambertons Journal

Of course, what post on statistics would be complete without a good picture of a dangle. Pictured is Brit Ekland and you can find more photos on this unappreciated pose at Film Noir Photos

The Prophet

This is a book, I pick up every three to four years. It is a very short, but satisfying read. Before jumping to the main bulk of this review, a quick bit about the edition I was reading.

Its the Pan Macmillan edition 1991, with a green cover and some font, which looks like it should be saying Lords of the Ring. For some reason, the text inside is double lined and the illustrations are not reproduced that well. I bought it, as I fancied rereading it there and then, and the only other two versions in the shop was a Penguin Classic version at £8 and a hardback illustrated version at £20. This cost me £5, which is a bit steep for the quality - there are not even the chapter headings. 

Onto the book itself, it is one of my favorite things I have ever read.

The Prophet has lived in a city called Orphalese for twelve years, awaiting for a ship to take him back to his land of birth. He has come to love the city and is sad to be leaving. As he makes his way to the ship, the people of Orphalese come out to meet him. They love him, as much as he loves the city, and the priestess asks him to speak to them all, which he does. He answers their questions on such things as Love, Death, Good and Evil, Time and Religion.

Whilst there are many a good saying in the book, its not actually the philosophy side that is my attraction. I like my philosophy a bit more Stoic, and recently, I'm enjoying getting confused by dualism. However, what I do like, is the land that is created in The Prophet. I can visualise it very very clearly, and as The Prophet answers the questions from the people, the place of Orphalese becomes very real.

It is also, very beautifully written. Kahlil Gibran considered this to be his greatest achievement. He said: "I think I've never been without The Prophet since I first conceived the book back in Mount Lebanon. It seems to have been a part of me... I kept the manuscript four years before I delivered it over to my publisher because I wanted to be sure, I wanted to be very sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer."

It has an almost biblical type meter (I know there is a posh word for this, but it escapes me) but a lot more musical in its delivery, which makes reading this effortless, and a pleasure.

The hard line Dawkinist out there, might be put off from reading this, as the word God is mentioned a few times. There will also be a few who will be put off, as it sounds a bit Dirty Filthy Hippy - I was originally. I would, however highly recomend reading this, no matter what your beliefs are. It is very universal in its appeal.


The Prophet - Amazon Link
Online Version(Text only)
Online Version(With the original illustrations)

The Men Who Literally Dance The Night Away

In the middle of the Bolivian jungle, is an island surrounded by the sea, where the giant pygmies live. It is there, they literally prance the twilight away.

A highly literate tribe, the Tiki Waki’s who rely on oral tradition, have for as long as anyone can remember, performed the Bola Bola Ritual. Eight nights a week, five hamsters a month without fail, regardless whether it has been raining or not.

The ritual begins when it gets dark and ends when it gets light - not that you, the reader needed that explanation. I am sure you could of gathered that information from the title, though I did once get a letter from a reader in Shropshire, who complained I did not use enough full stops.

It is performed by the eldest members of the youngers of the tribe, who gather on a platform made of  toads and small logs, it is there they then proceed to wave their arms, legs and other bits and pieces till sunrise - not necessarily their own I might add.

Normally, the chief of the tribe JoK O’ Ta, plays the elephant, accompanied by the women of the tribe, who join in by blowing millipedes. You might thing, that the noise would be somewhat basey and clunky, but I found it to be of a most uplifting nature, reminiscent of the gospel song Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho.
The whole ceremony is of course performed naked. Except for Tjoik, who has a phallic birth mark on his back. Some of the elders feel, that this takes away from the seriousness of the ritual, so instead he is allowed to wear live wombats.

The other males of the tribe, sleep whilst this is going on, otherwise no one would be awake in the day and who would do the stuff that the tribe needed to be done in the day time.

You may think the tribe, perform this ritual,  because they believe that they can control the time between days, but you are wrong. They do it because, they worship the Wiggalloo Bigalloo  a violent gekko like god, who the tribe believe is the creator, of all things, not made by Loric Ghorri.  A pleasant lama type creature, they don't worship, because he is to polite for such praise.

To the western observer, The world of Jok O Ta Tiki Waki’s, with their Wiggalloo Bigallo, Loric Ghorri and Bola Bola’s might seem an alien culture, but having had the pleasure of  helping Tjoik put on his wombats and witnessing these magnificent people. I couldn’t help but feel I was apart of the Quo Vadis


Lengthy explanation behind this one, this was done for a Leeds Savage Club task entitled 'How to Write a blackwood article '

Blackwood’s was a well established literary magazine that ran from 1817 to 1980 (link below).
Blackwood's Magazine

It had contributions from a number of famous writers and was seen by many as an influential standard of literary quality that was unmatched by other publications. It was also, however, seen by some as being overly conservative and somewhat obsessed with certain issues. Edgar Allen Poe once satirized the magazine in the short story ‘How to Write a BlackWood Article’ (link below).
How to Write a BlackWood Article

Inspired by this story, this week’s task is to write an article that the editor of Blackwood’s would consider publishing. Based on the alleged values of the magazine, we have summarized the three editorial guidelines that your article should abide to:

---

1. If you mean 'bread and butter', do not by any means say it outright. You may say anything and everything leading up to and around it. But, If 'bread and butter' be your real meaning, be cautious, and never say it.

2. Every article must include a misquoted French, Latin or Greek saying, such as the use of 'cul - de - sac' in the article 'The Spanish Fly who Never Stopped Dancing' : "I put down my good dancing ability, due to being born with a certain cul-de-sac...."

3. The article must be, objectively and positively, absolute nonsense!

Mortus illumina 2nd Incarnation

Read about the first incarnation here

I've mentioned in the first incarnation, that not much changed in the script, from its initial conception to the first shoot, and at last nights Bettakulcha (video going online in the coming week) - which was a fantastic night, get yourself down to the next one. I mentioned that the first and second shoots were mainly driven by enthusiasm. Which is great, but no substitute for planning.  In hindsight, if we had spent, even just an extra three months before shooting, on rewriting and rewriting the script. That would of probably saved about a year in post production. As it was, there were several rewrites as we went along.

The 2nd Major incarnation of the script came immediately after the first shoot. We had spent nine days at a Country house in Norfolk, filming the hammer horror incarnation. So we had plenty of footage of nuns - doing erm nunning things, and some really weak scenes, down to a poor script.

There were, however some good scenes in there, and one of the major reasons for a shift in direction was down to the fifth night of filming on that shoot.

The fifth night, was the filming of the car scene. Which you can see a quick snippet of, in the original trailer.  To bring you up to speed, we had lost our original planned location for this shoot, very near the shoot date itself. We had less than a week to find another location, which we did, but it threw our original shooting schedule out the window.

We lost a day on location, due to having to familiarise ourselves with the surroundings, which put a huge damper on morale. Also, facilities weren't great - we ended up smuggling  several crew and cast into nearby Norwich university to use the showers. Catering wasn't great and the first few days of shooting were something of a slog.

Due to the low budget nature of the film, as most of our shoots were inside, we only hired internal lights (far cheaper) but we had a few external shoots to do, one of which was the car scene.

Now the differences between external and internal film lights, is effectively down to the grounding and insulation, also to note, we are not running on domestic voltage here.  We are running from a 120 amp feed.

You can use the lights outside, not a problem - as long as it doesn't rain...

It rained.

Now, we had set up the lights, late afternoon and the car (a 1920's Jaguar) arrived on set around 6pm and was due to be on set for four hours. We were waiting for it to get dark and everything was in place, so we could move quick.

Before it turned dark, the first spout of rain came down. It was only drizzle and the crew went around putting black bags over the lights. Then it began to pour and all the lights were bought inside.

Then it stopped

and the lights went back out

Then it rained

and the lights went back in

It was now dark and fast approaching the time, when the car should of been returning. The guys who lent us the car were happy to wait a bit longer and we kept them entertain with tales and food around the fireplace, in fact all the cast and crew were around the fireplace as there was nothing else we could do.

By about ten o'clock, there was a break in the clouds and we got all the equimpent back outside; camera in place , cast in make up and costume  and we were about to turn over. ... When the heavens opened. Once again it was the mad dash to take the lights in and every availiable hairddryer was aquired and put into use.

Come midnight, and amazingly the car hire guys were still happy to wait and myself, the DOP and lighting director and the production manager had a emergency meeting. It would be possible to turn the lights on in the rain, but once they were on, they would have to stay on. We would effectively be creating a live circuit. It was a huge risk (if a bulb went, there would be no way to replace it there and then ) but manageable. The call was made. The crew then jumped into action and starting putting up the lights and insulating cables as best they could. The
production crew, went into health and safety overlords as safe paths were marked off , risk assesments done and lines of death drawn.

The moment we started shooting, we would have to shoot continuously, which involved the crew and cast being out in the rain for several hours. Everyone, and I mean everyone went above and beyond the call of duty that night to look after each other and make the shoot happen. A continued supply of hot drinks were rushed to the front line, Chocolates and sweets distributed and warm jackets at the ready, for those few breaks that were taken.The cast did a great job both in front and behind the camera.  For those hours we shot, until the sun came up, battling against the elements, there was a fantastic feeling of camaraderie - one of my favourite times on a film shoot.

After this shoot, I felt that the script was not doing justice to the effort that had been put into it.  I went straight into changing the script. There were about four or five drafts to the second incarnation and below are some of the major changes.

• The introduction of the character doga (pictured right). Originally , Veil and the beach scenes would just be himself and the character Rico.
• Mary's and Rico's back story was expanded.
• The whole universe and the book Mortus illumina was made central to the storyline. Mainly through Doga.
• A shift away from the Hammer head horror, to a more supernatural tale of horror.  

This incarnation of the script, lasted between 2001 and 2002 and was used as the basis of the:

2nd shoot (Beach/Deadlight scenes)

3rd shooot (London shoots)

4th Shoot (Chapel Shoots)

This trailer was cut, shortly after the 4th shoot and should give you a feel for how the second incarnation would of looked.



In part 3, I'll explain the reason for the shift to the third and final incarnation, but below is a  storyboard sequence, from the second incarnation that was never filmed. It was going to be the opening of the film.

Finally, to end, if you click on the read more, there are some emails from cast and crew at various stages, talking about the shoots.

Hard Hats, Not Feathers -The Leeds Savage Club

LS-TW-024
Originally uploaded by Chance1234.com

February was a hectic month. You would be surprised at how much work it takes to resurrect a late turn of the century organisation. So much so, after signing and agreeing the constitution this Saturday gone. I am taking a well deserved break and will lazy copy and paste to a couple of other articles. Actually , I am very hectic getting the LeedsSavage.com site up and running ( we are missing a web officer at moment), but I will pretend, I am being lazy and enjoying that break.

From the Culture Vulture Site

A portion of Leeds’ Victorian history was brought to life this weekend at privately owned Temple Works in Holbeck, when the newly reformed Leeds Savage Club signed their constitution in the building. The enormous former flax mill built, by John Marshall in 1836, is in the early stages of repair for re-use as a major cultural venue, acting as a much-needed destination for the regeneration area that is Holbeck. During this period it is opening its doors to a wide variety of arts organisations who want to help build up the project. Though repaired, its raw state will be maintained as such – a perfect context for the “noble savage”.

Continue reading here 

and from Temple Work Site


On Saturday afternoon about a dozen people gathered in the boardroom of Temple Works to resurrect a roguish Victorian writer’s and artists’ group, The Leeds Savage Club. I can’t pretend it was the most incendiary meeting I’ve ever attended. How can you make poring over every sentence of a constitution and discussing every jot and tittle of a necessarily dry document exciting? Article 2, Paragraph 5, Clause 2 did cause some mild controversy, however, but not the heated debate I was hoping for. The boardroom was freezing. We were there for three hours, feeling the temperature slump by the minute. In the end people were wearing gloves, wrapping scarves around their ears, and hugging hot cups of strong tea. One guy even kept his hat on, though I suspect that’s some sort of Bohemian affectation. The constitution was ratified and rubber stamped though, and the Leeds Savage Club is raring to go and recruiting once more. Here’s more information from The Chief;

Continue Reading Here