The Shadows at the End of the Tunnel?

Most of this blog has been written between renders, when the visual effects software is engaged in giving me a preview of how my current scene is looking, and so all I can do is sit and wait for the computer to do its thing.

Not many people see us as we’re busy at work so it would be understandably difficult to know why this film is taking so long to complete.  For me it has become something of an obsession – pretty much every available moment I have I’m working on the visual effects.  Most nights I’m also ‘working’ on it in my sleep.  My dreams have become an incomprehensibly surreal mélange of layering and adjusting parameters and composing realities with my fingertips as I do during my waking hours.

I once had a dream about a scary half naked clown too, but that's a story for another time.

For those of us who don’t know our story till this point, let me give a brief recap.  In 2009 I presented my partner in crime Chris with a script of mine.  We decided at some point that summer that somehow we were going to get this film made.  Because of the nature of the script, and the fact that we had very limited resources, Chris suggested that we shot everything on blue screen.  Late that summer we shot a sample scene to see if this whole thing would be feasible… We judged that it was.

A still from the original Shadows showpiece. Chris has undergone 217 hair colour changes since then.

It wasn’t until the following summer (2010) that we went into full production, shooting most of the film in a dusty barn down a remote fen road.  Post-production started during October of that year, once we’d deconstructed our blue screen studio.  Our first task was to create a rough cut, or a ‘blue edit’, as everything was still against our monochrome background.  It wasn’t until April 2011 that we’d edited the entire film (clocked at over 2 hours long) and the next stage of post-production could begin.

And, nearly two years on, that’s the stage we’re still on now – getting rid of the blue and creating the world that our characters live in.  We always had a good idea that this stage was going to be very intensive and very time consuming.  I guess the one thing we’ve learnt is that no matter how adept you get at creating these visual effects, there are never any easy scenes and there’s no quick way of going about it.

At first, I personally wasn’t hands on in creating the visual effects, but seeing that we were progressing at a slow rate, I decided it was best if Chris trained me up on the techniques so that I could be working on it too and take some of the workload off him.  Fortunately I’d been on hand to see most of what Chris had already created, so I was in the best possible position to take on the job.

The art direction department had an easy job in the blue screen studio.

So that’s how we’ve been operating since June of last year.  We’ve often been asked during the post-production stage how far we are through it, and we may have glossed over that subject in our answers.  I have actually had a very good idea about how many scenes we’ve completed for a little while now.

And how many have you done, hmmmm, Richard? Well... the good news is we’re past half way now, the bad news is we’re not that far past half way.   However, we have been doing the more difficult scenes first.  At the beginning of January Chris and I had a good look at everything there was left to do and shared the scenes out between ourselves.  Based on what we’ve completed so far, we’ve also come up with a realistic timescale for completing the entire thing.  We anticipate we’ll complete the visual effects some time in the summer, and then use the remaining months of the year doing the next edit, sorting out the sound, finalising the soundtrack etc.  Our goal is to have a finished film by Christmas (and yeah I know we said that way back in 2011).

Don’t be surprised if we go over that schedule and complete it in 2014 (as much as I don’t want to), but I can’t see us going very far into 2014 at all if we do.  For now we’re definitely focused on completing this year.

An artist's impression of how the future will look when Shadows of a Stranger is finally completed.

And there we have it.  That’s exactly where we’re at.  Better get back to work now.

The London Olympics Conspiracy

In this blog I'm going to talk about a different kind of film (and no it's not Avatar)... In the weeks leading up to the 2012 London Olympics, I saw a conspiracy video doing the rounds, entitled 100000 to die at the London Olympics?

No, was the short answer to that question.

It showed how subtle messages about terrorist attacks were given before 9/11 and the July 7^th Bombings, warnings such as the magazine cover briefly glimpsed in an episode of The Simpsons which had the World Trade Centre standing proudly like a number 11 next to the price of the magazine which was 9$.

A still from the film Armageddon, three years before the 9/11 attacks.

The 14 minute long Youtube video suggested that similar warnings were given in TV shows / films about the 2012 Olympics, such as John Cusack randomly holding up a map of the London Underground in the film 2012.  These were subtle hints from the Illuminati that London was going to get bombed on the London Underground during the Summer Olympics and evidently lots of people were going to get killed so the Illuminati could start a new world order.  The original video has now been taken offline last I looked, but just like any celebrity with a sex tape will tell you, once it’s out there, it’s there forever – so there are plenty of ‘copies’ of it on Youtube which you can still see.

A random picture of Rihanna covering one eye that has nothing to do with this blog except to make it a bit prettier? I think not. Or maybe there's a sex tape of her? No, but if anyone has one, please let me know.

There's plenty of propagandist techniques in it – the stark graphics, the sensationalist claims, the Hollywood blockbuster music pumping along throughout.  At the end it said that if enough people were to watch the video then the Illuminati would be put off and stop their attack, so everyone was encouraged to tell their friends about the video and help spread the message, (and no doubt help its Youtube hits – it was well over a million when I saw it).  Who’s the one doing the manipulating now?

So, over a million people having watched 14 minutes of doom-mongering and potentially fearing that the worst act of terrorism in history might occur.  Strange that the video apparently quoted the Illuminati’s own text (or the Rockefeller's, who are allegedly part of the Illuminati), saying that only 13,000 people were going to die, yet the title of the video went with a cool 100,000 – the more that die the sexier, right?

Isn’t it the goal of the terrorist to instil terror in people?  Are conspiracy videos such as these not then doing the work of the terrorists?  Aren’t they publicising the agenda of the Illuminati, which otherwise the general masses are ignorant of, and thus creating the state of fear the Illuminati is trying to achieve themselves?

One Direction, who aren't terrifying at all, performing at the London Olympics closing ceremony... 'one direction' being the central ideology of the new world order. Remember also how music from the band 'New Order' was played extensively at the opening ceremony? (cue 'Adagio For Strings')

I’m no stranger to conspiracy videos– I once spent a lot of time researching the moon landings and was convinced they were faked as I felt a swelling sense of anger and injustice that we’d all been duped.  Conspiracy videos tend to present themselves as ‘the truth’, a moral crusading force fighting the secret powers that the general folk are too dumb to even acknowledge the existence of.  They empower the viewer by enabling them to see the world as it ‘really’ is, giving them a liberating perspective that the masses aren’t intelligent enough to accept, and giving them a sense of purpose in trying to enlighten others by sharing the videos on social media.

And if you don’t want to be dumb, or a conformist, or narrow-minded, it’s best to believe them.  These video makers become the new gospel writers, the invisible Illuminati becomes the new Satan, and a new religion is born.  With their dramatic messages, the role of the messenger is in danger of being overlooked, because these days it’s easy to believe in pessimism and negativity.

Mo Farah creating Illuminati symbolism in front of the world audience, the 'mobot' being a suggestion that we've all been turned into 'robots' within the new world order.

If authority is to be questioned, if the whole reality that we believe in is false, then I hope that the 1million+ that watched this video don’t forget that these videos are not immune from being questioned themselves. 

If you want to free your mind, I don’t think you should believe that some Youtuber did it for you.  Or maybe I’m part of the conspiracy and you shouldn’t listen to a word I’m saying... wink wink...

The one eye of the Illuminati here for no reason but to tell you that I'm part of the enemy.

From Billywood to Hollywood

As a humble, independent filmmaker, it came as something of a... well, rush to get to spend a couple of days on the set of Rush, Ron Howard's film about the rivalry between Formula 1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda.  Myself and fellow co-director Chris were selected to be extras as the production shot scenes at Cadwell Park near Louth.

Ron Howard had previously visited Lincolnshire a few years ago filming scenes for The Da Vinci Code in Lincoln Cathedral.  The two films of his that I regard with the most fondness however are Willow and Splash, two of my favourite childhood films.

Ron Howard on the set of Rush.

On our first day at Cadwell park, which started at 6am, we were dressed in authentic 1970s clothing, put into make up where I was adorned with a rather expensive wig that gave me the healthiest locks of hair since my university days, and then ushered to set.  We were on the first unit, and although it appeared that the main cast had finished shooting their scenes, the big guy himself was still around, coordinating the shooting with Oscar winning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire). 

Our mission as extras was to stand by the side of the track in our groovy outfits as we cheered on the Formula 3 racing cars. It was something of a role reversal for Chris and I, especially as our last filming work on Shadows of a Stranger had been to film extras.  This time round we could look at things from the opposite perspective.  Their resources were much more extensive than those of Billywood studio: the mass of trailers and trucks in the car parking area, the vast stocks of props and costumes, the massive crane sitting on the back of a truck.  Ron even had a helicopter at the ready to film some aerial shots. 

The one similarity I noticed between our productions was that we both had very similar caravans on set - ours was the only amenity we had besides the rural, dusty barn where we'd built our blue screen studio (and a butt of many jokes)... theirs was a throwaway background prop to help with the 1970s setting.  Of course this didn't stop me pointing out this caravan to Chris and saying "See!  Even on the Hollywood shoots they have these types of caravans."  I think I've been vindicated.

The Billywood caravan which continued its career in the entertainment industry when it was sold to a recording artist.

So it was a very exciting two days for the both of us.  I found it fascinating watching the process of high budget filmmaking unfurl first hand, and it was a humbling experience being on set with one of the biggest directors around.  On a tea break between shots, Ron wandered through the crowd of extras huddled in the woodland, trudging through the mud to get himself a coffee (and then another), mucking in like everyone else.  As one of my fellow extras also remarked, it's strangely one of my overriding memories at Cadwell, a small detail that impresses alongside all the great films he's made.

Oh yes, and right at the end of our time there Willow himself turned up (Warwick Davis) to see his old friend - the cherry on top of an amazing two days.

When Is This Film Going To Be Finished?

Along with ‘How far through it are you now?’, this is the question that Chris and I hear most often.  If you’re to do a Google search and type in ‘Shadows of a Stranger’, one of Google’s auto-completing suggestions is ‘Shadows of a Stranger release date’, which seems to imply that a lot of people are doing searches on this one in the hope that the answer is secretly hanging out there somewhere.

The truth is we don’t actually have a definite answer to this question.  We do not have a specific date when we will be releasing this film.  We are aiming for the end of this year, and we sincerely hope that it will be finished by then.  When we feel we’ve broken its back (or broken our own backs) then we will be in a position to comfortably announce a completion date, but we’re not there yet.

The reason it’s taking so long is that the film was shot entirely on blue screen, and for nearly every single frame of film, the blue has to be replaced with a background generated in After Effects.  We are a small team so it’s an enormous workload.  Next time you watch a special fx laden film, have a look at the long list of credits at the end and you’ll see how these feature films are put out there a lot quicker than ours will be.

This film has taken so long look at the state of us!  Relax, this is just a frame showing our recent fx renderings (Barnaby Edwards as Jacob Marley).

The other issue working against us is that the script was a bit of a long one, so we’re talking about a film that’ll be at least a couple of hours in length.  That’ll teach me not to write such long scripts in the future!

Anyway, we are looking into us increasing our productivity soon, so we’ll hopefully be knocking out rendered scenes at a faster rate.  See?  We really are trying to get this thing out by Christmas. 

A Catch Up On Our Autumn Activities

Well I planned to have this uploaded weeks ago but things have just carried on filling up our schedules.  But here we are, with a more detailed catch up on what’s been occurring, in a few more than 140 characters.

A whole year after the commencement of post production on a feature film and you’d quite possibly expect the film to be completed (or at least soon to be).  For us in Shadowsland we still don’t have the end in sight, and this past September / October has seen even more filming taking place.

So why are we still filming this thing?  Well, certain things we didn’t have time to film last summer, or some things we’ve reviewed and wanted to change the direction of them, and sometimes new ideas have come to us.  These are the reasons why we set up the blue screen again to film more material. 

The beauty of shooting a film this way is that re-filming elements later on is a much easier process.  Sets don’t have to be rebuilt and not all actors from the scenes have to be called back.  This is quite handy if certain actors have changed their hair colour or added facial piercings to themselves (see Chris).

As you’ll have no doubt seen in our social network updates, we were really thrilled to welcome two more actors to the production who have appeared in Doctor Who.  After tweeting Barnaby Edwards, chief dalek operator in the new series, we then asked him if he would be interested in coming up to Sleaford to film a couple of important scenes.  Ian Cullen (who appeared in some Doctor Who episodes with original Doctor William Hartnell, and who also once worked with James Aubrey) had actually written to us when we were filming last year.  I suddenly remembered his email when we were talking to Barnaby and then it hit both Chris and I what a great pairing they would make for these particular scenes.

Instead of setting up in the garage again, this time we gave ourselves a bit more room to move about as we were kindly allowed to set up at the Live Lounge in Sleaford.  It was a fantastic day working with two fantastic actors, and they even helped us pack up the studio again afterwards. What more could you ask for?

The day before this we began work on our soundtrack by recording a 30 piece choir in a local village church.  This was a dream come true for us, quite literally, as the idea started as one of those seemingly farfetched thoughts “Oh wouldn’t it be great if we had a choir singing old Christmas carols on the soundtrack?”  We didn’t know if this was ever going to be realistic, of course, but sometimes you just need the vision and the belief and the universe will make it so.  “Build it and they will come” as the famous line goes.

We were really fortunate to meet a great choirmaster in Eric Wayman who arranged the particular tunes we wanted and made some great suggestions for other carols to record.  The actual choir, Cantemus, produced a sublime sound and it was great meeting the individual choir members.

So what else have we been filming?  Well, we brought back to life our main character (played by Ian Mude) for a couple of brief pick up shots.  It was just like old times when, seconds before calling action, a nearby lawnmower started up and destroyed the sound.  It brought back wonderful memories of us all standing around on the Billywood blue screen in suspension as we waited for the many planes to clear the sky. 

And the other thing to report on is our visit from Sarah Barzyk-Aubrey, the Parisian daughter of our departed friend James Aubrey.  If you didn’t know already, Jimmy worked with us on the casting of the film and was set to play the main role.  I first met his daughter Sarah at his funeral, and earlier this year Sarah contacted me and asked if she could do anything as a tribute to her father.  So, in early October, Sarah travelled back to England and while she was over here, we filmed a cameo with her, along with an old friend of ours, Oliver Fabian.  Oliver had acted with Jimmy in a film we’d worked on (unfortunately unreleased) and so it felt apt to work with Oliver again by pairing him alongside Sarah.  

 

It’s been a long journey making this film, but bringing Sarah to the film has given our story extra poignancy.  We’ll be talking more about Jimmy in the not too distant future…

So, as you can see, it’s been a busy time for us.  We’re now getting re-focused on the visual effects as we knuckle down at the computer for the winter.

We have just one more filming day of Shadows left, when we’ll be having one final extras day.  And then there’s the matter of making the final casting in the Shadows of a Stranger film, as we look to record a voice role.

Oh yes, and Chris has also been working on a music video for Sarah Jane Honeywell, which has only just been released.  This was shot in our beloved Billywood at the end of principal filming last year.  It’s a bit of a hard hitting video but the pre-warning says it all.  You can see it here. And yes that’s me on the keyboard.

Back to Blue and Teasers

So here it finally is, what we’ve been talking about for the past few weeks (or has it been months?), the first Shadows of a Stranger teaser trailer!

It seems it was a little while back when Chris met up with Colin again to record this voiceover.  Although we’ve had the voice and the visuals ready for some time, we’ve just had a bit of a challenge on our hands getting together some suitable music.  Not being a major Hollywood studio, we can’t just pinch some music from a previously released film, so this particular track we have here is something we created especially for the teaser.  As for the actual soundtrack to the film we do have things in motion, and next time I write I should have another exciting announcement. 

So, like we’ve been saying, this Colin Baker narrated teaser is going to be the first of three teasers, with the second teaser narration set to be recorded soon.  Perhaps around September time we’ll be ready to release the next one, and then the last one by Christmas, small vignettes for you of the world we're creating. 

We’ve tried to avoid being too contrived with these trailers, going our own way with it rather than making something that’s just like everything else out there.  Which has been our ethos all along in case y’all hadn’t noticed.  Editing trailers can become a bit like painting by numbers – the same old dramatic thuds leading to a crescendo of people screaming and people running.  So yeah, we decided to avoid all that.  Remember these are just teasers at this stage; they’re not the full trailer – this will come at a later date (when we have a lot more completed material).  We’re making them to give a taste of the mood and themes of the film and hopefully build anticipation.  So yes, they are a bit ‘cryptic’ as teaser trailers are supposed to be.

Recently we’ve also had the camera rolling again as we began our pick ups.  We've been gathering more supporting artists so that we can populate our environments with lots of different people.  The beauty of filming this way is that we’ve been able to get the main actors’ performances down on their own without having to coordinate a set full of extras at the same time.  Some of our shots will have people filmed in different years.

Here's me on the mini blue screen with one of our extras, Aicha.  We were listening to a band that hasn't even been filmed yet.

The other beauty of making a film this way is that as people have got to hear about us, we have been able to add to our cast of characters this long after principal filming.  And on that subject I should have some very exciting news to tell you about next time… So stay tuned.

Aren’t I such a tease?

A Year In The Life

May 22^nd 2011 marks a year to the day that the cameras started rolling on Shadows of a Stranger.  On this day last year we were somewhat nervously shooting what is part of the opening sequence to the film with the two Craigs.  Quite fittingly, a year on and that is the scene that we’ve just been working on with the visual effects.

It’s probably unusual for films to have such a long post production period, although for the first six or seven months we were essentially just laying the groundwork by editing the rough cut.  It is only now, as we create the dimensions of the Meridian environment, that the scenes are truly coming to life.

Although we can’t wait to get this film out there into the world, I think that all this time we’re spending on it is helping to define the sort of film this is going to be, one that has been meticulously planned and refined ever since I sat at the computer writing it all those years ago.  Every decision we make with this project is done with plenty of careful consideration.  I hope that this time spent will ultimately give us a film of substance rather than something that was just pulled out of the air and hastily thrown together.  I think the attitudes and spirit in which you make a film somehow shine through on the final product, no matter what the film is about.  Hopefully people will perceive Shadows as a film that means something.

Of course, the slow rate of progress is also down to the fact that there is only a small amount of people working on it.  This has its obvious downsides, but with the upsides it gives us total control over every aspect and gives for a more coordinated production.  Whilst we have moved on to visual effects, we do have other aspects of post production that we’re juggling: calling actors back for ADR, taking photographs, scheduling pick ups.  We also want to film more extras so that we can populate our scenes better.  Some of these things we could easily overlook or feel we don’t have the stamina for, but our goal has still not changed, to make the best possible film we can.

So while I continue to post these blogs and we deliver our little Facebook updates and Tweets, all we can essentially say to people is "This is definitely going to be a good film, honest!"  We’re still at the stage where we have little to show people to keep their interest sustained.  Even though we’ve still got a long way to go, hopefully, however, next time I’m blogging I will have something exciting to reveal.  And no, I’m not talking about the Susan Boyle sex tape.

The one question I’m asked most of all, the big question, is how long will it be before it’s finished?  Well, it is a difficult one to gauge still.  I don’t think we’re going to make our initial goal to release it for Christmas 2011, but I hope it won't be too far into 2012 when you’ll get to see it.  Certainly by this day next year eh?