Monday, October 03, 2005
Black Box Week 3
Monday to Thursday of this week was somewhat anticlimactically spent in UCLES, editing stuff from tapes and CDs into MP3s for the Teaching Resources website. Which amongst other things meant setting up the slowest Mac G4 in the world in a small upstairs meeting room with no windows, and doing all the editing on headphones. The lights in the miniscule meeting room were the energy-saving kind that turn off after a few minutes if they don't detect motion. I spent quite a lot of time in the dark, with headphones on. Like a sensory deprivation chamber. Anyway, the end of the week was just time to do some more Unearthed work and prep call sheets and shot lists for Black Box. The weekend was the third and last section of Black Box. There was some filming in the street for the third weekend in a row, and then we moved into the party house for a scene with some extras. Neill managed to make it for a fair chunk of the day, and light the house before others took over the camera. Jo and Emily's brother, plus other random chums, did some improvised crowd scene stuff for the party background (in which I cunningly disguised the fact I'd already been in the film by wearing a scuba mask). The next day was comparatively light, shooting scenes with the recycling men. The only real complication was trying to get a black box full of jelly to actually set. Last weekend and this one, I had random chums turn up on the Saturday nights between shooting and drink with the crew - David and Cristina were up to see her brother, who's at Cambridge, and joined us at the Empress after the shoot day finished, and Mark Venn was passing as part of a charity treasure hunt, and was coincidentally in the Red cow in town the other Saturday night - as far as I can tell, he was part of a convoy of well-off city types who were trying to ground their sports cars on the uneven fen roads in the name of charity. He seemed to be amused by the whole spectacle, anyway. 
# posted by Carl - 7:22 PM
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Monday, September 26, 2005
Dublin Castle Gig and Black Box Week 2
Fairly busy week, this one. A bit stressfully so, actually. Monday and Thursday I was working at UCLES, editing Japanese exams and stuff. Tuesday and Wednesday I spent in London, rehearsing with the lads for the Subterraneans gig at the Dublin Castle on Wednesday night. (If you look at the Subs site for some reason, for god's sake don't read the message board). Jo came down to see us, and bizarrely, so did enough other people that we actually got paid. Not enough to cover any one person's expenses, mind you, but still. Pics here.  After a bad night's sleep at Jude's, on the not-entirely-orthopedic spare bed, plus all the carrying of equipment, and maximum tinnitus after the gig, I was in an ideal state of mind for the two and a half hour last train home, including bus replacement service round all the arse-end of nowhere villages near Cambridge. Had Jo not taken over the bags, I think I'd have been discovered under the Meldreth railway bridge or something the next morning. Thursday after work, I met up with Emily and Kate to plan stuff for the coming weekend of Black Box. Saturday morning started well, with Neill managing to dive in and help us shoot exterior stuff for the opening montage. Emma, who played Sammy, was the hobbit standing next to Pippin (or Merry, I forget) when he catches the bridal bouqet at the end of Return Of The King. She's from New Zealand, and isn't enormously tall. Very funny, though. Later in the day, we did some stuff in Sammy's garden, and Chris (who played Michael in Into The Darkness) turned up to play Bert's son. I suppose he hasn't seen ITD yet, so... Sunday was interior stuff with Chris in Bert's house, and then (after some more garden faffing to get a jib shot) we moved to another friend of Emily's house for a scene with Sammy and her useless boyfriend Jeb (with the Texan name, Welsh accent... er). Neill did a nice lighting job through the light bricks between the kitchen and living room, and we mostly failed to wreck the place (the owners let us use it while they were on holiday... yeah, I know). Anyway, more Black Box pics uploaded. 
# posted by Carl - 5:01 PM
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Monday, September 19, 2005
Black Box Week 1
I met Ray, the other main sound chap at UCLES on Monday. Nice bloke, with an interesting selection of films he's done sound on, too. With the shoot for Black Box approaching at the weekend, there was just time to fit another set of auditions in on Monday evening. Tuesday was spent doing more Unearthed revisions, and Wednesday and Thursday were both spent in UCLES editing exams in Panjabi and Urdu respectively. Anyway, the weekend was the start of the Black Box shoot, and we had a test day on Saturday, where we set some stuff up in what was to be Bert's house, tested the GlideCam and FX1 together, and tried to get a couple of exterior shots without actors. Andy from UCLES operated the camera, but texted me early Sunday morning to say he couldn't make the actual shoot - as did the sound guy Emily had got from a Shooting People ad. As I was 1st ADing, these were mostly my headaches to solve, but with enough of the CFN people around we managed OK. It was Chay's first film with us, and he proved really indespensable. Stuart had returned after a long period off with back problems, but despite all this, we missed Neill when it came to lighting and camerawork. We shot all the stuff with Bert this weekend, but will return to do more stuff in that house later in the schedule. I posed for some storyboard shots on the Saturday, and had my lame cameo as a postman on the Sunday - pictures of the weekend here. 
# posted by Carl - 8:03 PM
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Monday, September 12, 2005
Jo's birthday.
My parents were off in Ireland this week, retracing some of the route that my dad and I drove last year... In the mean time I was in UCLES doing sound editing on Monday and Thursday. Conor had mailed to say he was in town this week, and was hoping to meet up. He was giving presentations at a conference at the university. Anand arrived in town - originally for a job interview, though I don't think that happened in the end. And half way through the afternoon, Anita rang to say Conor had mentioned he'd be in Cambridge, and she hadn't seen me for a while, so she was going to take the train up after work and stay a couple of hours, then catch the last train home for work the next day... some sort of carpe diem thing, I think, but I don't know where people get the energy. So I had an odd evening - a pint with Anand until Conor arrived, then another with both of them until the football started, at which point I escaped to All Bar One for 90 minutes of CFN meeting, at the end of which Anita arrived and we walked over to the curry house where Conor and Anand had retired after the match. It was very nice to see them all, though. It was Jo's birthday on Thursday, but we were both at work, and she was preparing for a big presentation on Friday, so though we went out to dinner and had presents, her actual party was on Saturday, where Moose, Nelly and some other chums joined us at the Haymakers.
# posted by Carl - 5:32 PM
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Monday, September 05, 2005
Living Room Screening.
Al and I finished the sound mix for Living Room on Tuesday, using the notes he'd made from our first draft dub. While Aaron was off conforming the soundtrack to the picture edit, I was busy making sure my guitars were insured and learning the old Subterraneans songs again. After lunch with Stuart on Thursday, I took the train to Scar Studios in Camden to rehearse with Jude, Robin and Guy. Friday and Saturday were spent doing revisions on the Unearthed score, based on Craig's notes and the changes in the picture edit. On Sunday, we went to the screening of Living Room in the arts picturehouse. It was definitely cool to see something I'd worked at on the big screen - especially since it meant the sound was turned up louder than you'd do at home... Afterwards, cast, crew and friends declined to Al's house and had a barbecue in the garden. It was a very pleasant afternoon, with a cute baby present for me to play with, though later I think I probably drank more than I normally would while trying to introduce the Al/Aaron/Andy group to the CFN people... They all got on fine, anyway. We vaguely tried to discuss Black Box production issues, but we did it in the beer garden of the Green Dragon, so not a huge amount was achieved. 
# posted by Carl - 5:23 PM
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Monday, August 29, 2005
Full Monty.
A bit if everything this week - on Monday Al and I did a dubbing session for Living Room that he took away to make notes on. Tuesday Kate and I did more editing of Into The Darkness, the release date for which extends into the far future. Thursday was CD editing at UCLES, and on Friday I helped out on Black Box auditions at lunchtime. Then in the evening Jo and I met Kate at the arts cinema for a Future Shorts programme, at the sort-of-invitation of someone from Shooting People - an actor (who had been in the Full Monty) claiming that there were no filmmakers in Cambridge. He'd sent his CV for one of our films, so I'm not sure what the subtext is, there...
# posted by Carl - 4:57 PM
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Monday, August 22, 2005
Filming Burning Love.
The UCLES recording on Thursday morning went fine - it was just a two camera setup in the studio which I had to mic and mix from the control room. All adults doing mock Asset Italian oral exams. I had to rush out to get Kate and film me driving my car around a bit immediately after, as it was the only free sunny day we'd have for Into the Darkness pickups, so we went out to the Gog Magog hills and I annoyed other motorists by doing little circuits of a country road. After that, I helped out on Emily's auditions for Black Box by reading in some lines for the actors while we filmed them. There were a couple of good ones, and though I missed the following day's auditions, I think it's coming together. I spent Friday installing new hard drives to cope with the Darkness editing. Jo headed off to Leeds to spend the weekend with college friends in their old hall of residence, and periodically reported on the ensuing chaos. In the evening we collected Burning Love's two actors (Sammy and Chris), Shery, Dave and Kate and had a meeting, drink and pizza at Emily's house. Emily had managed to get a cold, though, so by Saturday morning, I got a call forty minutes before my alarm was due to go off, and went and collected Sammy and Chris to take them to Dave's place in St Ives where we were filming. The whole shoot was pretty easy-going, as Dave had storyboarded everything, actually written a schedule that worked, and it wasn't too complicated. I did sound, Shery and Jude joined us again for make-up and continuity, and the usual gang did everything else. Barry, who'd been grip on TV Dinner, did the same job this time. It was nice to see him again as he's very laconic and dryly amusing. Dave had organised nice food, and we spent two days filming in the kitchen, excepting a few shots in the sunny garden at the end. The toaster's performance was nicely understated, too. The only unfortunate incident went unnoticed for a while - a crack appeared in the double glazing where we'd been shining a light through the kitchen window, and it wasn't until it got worse on the chillier Sunday morning that we realised the light was expanding the air between the two panes more quickly than the glass could expand... I don't think any of us had done physics past GCSE, and there's proof that you do need your science and maths subjects. Still, that was the only problem all weekend, so it wasn't bad. Stuart popped in between house-moving trips to watch us using all his lights and stuff, but should be working again by the next film, as his back pain is improving. After we'd wrapped, it was time to do the last bits of shooting for Darkness - really the last ones this time - recording Neill being the voice of god, and some exteriors for the library. Anyway, I've put some pics from the weekend here. 
# posted by Carl - 11:31 AM
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Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Slightly more relaxed.
After the flurry of activity at the end of the last week, and a pint with Al and Aaron on Sunday night to relax, I was back at UCLES for more work on Monday. My only break on Sunday had been popping to the Portland Arms at lunchtime while some Unearthed video was rendering, to see Shery, who did make-up on Shadows and Into the Daftness. Emily had got her a gig making up people for a band's album cover photoshoot, so Emily, Kate and I turned up as groupies for a quick coffee. Apart from that I didn't get a break until Monday afternoon, after an early start to film a Japanese conference at Downing College with Andy, Amy and freelancer Daniel from UCLES. We used four camcorders and some mics to record Japanese teachers of English giving assessed mock lessons to their peers. One exercise involved guessing the male/female percentage split for jobs like doctor, nurse, fireman or secretary, and they interestingly offered justifications for the sexism implied by the results, like "doctors have to work long hours, so it's more suitable for men". As my only big cultural experience of Japanese people is karate enthusiasts and teachers, and (come to think of it) they've all been blokes, I was surprised that most of these rather old-fashioned ideas were being voiced by the female half of the group. Jo's been killing the garden recently (I joined in for the violence against slabs bit) and now it's time to rebuild what she laid waste to. So her parents came over to help, and bought some garden furniture and pots, and now the garden looks nice and has a wooden table and chairs with an very festive pink Hawaiian unbrella in it. We actually ate out there (as did the midges) and yesterday as Jo and Caroline got back from Coventry early and started drinking in the late afternoon, Al and I joined them as a break from the sound mix for Living Room, which we're currently working on. The cast and crew screening is on the 3rd of Sept, so I'd better get on with that - though there's more UCLES work tomorrow morning, and auditions for Emily's next film in the evening and Friday, and I need to help on the Into the Darkness edit, and we're filming Dave's short Burning Love at the weekend (Fatal Attraction with a toaster). By the way, Neill's finally given me some pics from Dave's short I did sound on last year, where I met the two of them. It's called TV Dinner. Hopefully he won't mind my putting a few on my photo gallery. 
# posted by Carl - 11:50 AM
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Sunday, August 14, 2005
Finishing Unearthed.
Last Sunday's CFN meeting seemed to turn into a bit of a night out. Jo and I both felt a bit blurry the next morning... Which was a work day for both of us. I was off to Bloxham near Banbury for two days for some more UCLES work. Andy (cameraman on Al's film, and for UCLES) drove me and the equipment down in the van, while the Luke, the second cameraman and two people on the exam side went in a hire car. We set everything up on Monday in the posh school, creating a studio in one classroom and a control room for sound mixing and the video monitor in another. That evening we went to a cracking Thai restaurant and had a quiet pint at the pub afterwards. Another couple of teachers had come down the night before to run through the exam and choose kids to be filmed, so they joined us. The conversation was slightly odd having us three blokes and one teacher in the 25-35 range, and the others forties onwards. Andy trying not to swear so much was especially good value. We were staying in a guest house near the school, which had a motel-like extension at the back. You know how most B&Bs have little leaflets for the local attractions at reception. I have this place's offering in front of me. "Banker Sloan's A-B-C Guide to Banbury's Industrial Estates". That should give you the general idea. Tuesday started a bit early, but once we got to the school and tested everything, we started getting through the filming quickly. The examinees were European or Oriental kids of around ten, learning English. Interestingly, the European kids were mostly sulky and rubbish, with one or two exceptions, and the Chinese kids were adorable and brilliant. So it just goes to show that a bit of social oppression is good for kids, but you knew that, really. We packed up after a very nice pub lunch and drove back to Cambridge at a fairly normal office end-of-day time. The rest of the week, and the weekend, were mostly spent finishing the music for Unearthed. Which I completed by Sunday. So I've scored a feature film now, which I'm quite satisfied with, as it was a big and complex job. 
# posted by Carl - 10:37 PM
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Sunday, August 07, 2005
Honest Day's Work.
On Monday I actually did some paid sound recording work at UCLES. I was recording some voiceover for a computer-based exam that's part of the scheme Jo's launching, so actually I think my services just cost her budget some money. I earned it, though - 6 hours of very solid work, plus an hour beforehand to use a Mac for the first time since the early 90s, and learn ProTools from scratch. It was no problem, anyway, because I am so very, very clever. And also Macs appear to be designed for short-sighted, hamfisted infants. I'm doing another UCLES job tomorrow and Tuesday - location recording, this time, in Bloxham near Oxford. It's all money, though, innit. On Tuesday I recorded some voice stuff for Al's film, and he and I had a go at the dialogue too, just for some extra different voices. He's off editing again now, and we'll have to start the sound mix soon as he's already booked the cast screening at the Arts Cinema. Spent much of this week working on Unearthed music, and I'm coming to the expensive realisation that I need a shitload more hard drive space, preferably on a network drive (as in a 1TB NAS drive or something) and to upgrade to the latest versions of ACID and Vegas to cope with the big ACID projects and High Def video. So, a big hard drive and some software upgrades, and that'll be about a grand for no real new toys. Depressing. Kate and I had a crack at some Into The Darkness editing on Thursday, and though we got some very cool-looking bleach-bypass looking stuff for the flashbacks, we didn't actually do much on the trailer. It was a bit optimistic, though, as we had to capture loads. I think we'll sort the process at last tonight and try again next week (amid my last week Unearthed crisis - I'm now just over 4/5ths there... about another 20 mins of music to do). Emily's been working on her script, and Jo's been consulting as much as Kate and I - the money from the council is confirmed, so we have the CFN's first funded film. We'll all find out more at tonight's meeting, I suppose...
# posted by Carl - 2:45 PM
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