I managed to see my second comic book adaptation of the week with Hellboy 2 last night and this I really enjoyed. It was the right movie for a wet Friday evening after a long hard week - bloody good fun. A lot of this is personal taste of course, as it ultimately is with all films. I guess I just like my action movies to have that fun factor with a healthy dollup of humour and a pinch of tongue in cheek and Hellboy fits that bill very well. Particularly liked the tooth fairies - you wouldn’t want one of these in your house at any time let alone in the middle of the night. And Red’s gun, the one with bullets the size of beer cans.

And talking of guns I wait with trepidation for the fallout from the recent prosecution of Grant Wilkinson, the guy who re-engineered dozens of replica weapons into the real thing. He bought them saying there were for a James Bond film and it would not surprise me in the least if legislation was introduced to make it even more difficult to buy and own replica firearms and by implication more difficult for low budget film makers like us. I watched a prime time interview with someone from the anti gun lobby calling for a total ban on anything that looks like a gun, from water pistols up, seemingly oblivious to the fact that no amount of engineering will enable a Super Soaker to fire live rounds.

The attitude seemed to be that there is no need for anyone to own anything that remotely resembles a gun let alone the real thing. Really? I think farmers, clay pigeon shooters, paintballers, the toffs who shoot pheasants and film makers would beg to differ. Reading that back I think I should clarify that I don’t think there are toffs out there who shoot film makers for sport. I just want to be clear on that.

But the real issue here seems to be that the police did next to nothing to stop Wilkinson. Paying cash for so many guns (circa £80,000 I think) raised red flags with the suppliers and they took covert photos of him which they passed on to the police but they did very little to find him. What is needed, if anything is needed at all, are better vetting procedures by the suppliers so that replicas are only sold to those whose identity can be properly verified but it would not surprise me to see a knee jerk reaction resulted in further legislation to make it yet more difficult to buy and own replicas.

Note that the rules that we currently have in place are not shared with the rest of europe so you can find replicas of all sorts openly on sale across the channel. On a recent trip to France I saw everything from revolvers to AK47s on open display in a shop window. I assume they were replicas. The point is that no matter what rules are introduced here they can easily be circumvented by a day trip to France so what is the point?

But I’m jumping the, er,  gun here. The government have not made any response to this case as yet so let’s hope it stays that way,

Chris

So I have finally got to see The Dark Knight. I was expecting a lot after all the hype and Huw endlessly telling me how good it is. Am I the only person on the planet to think it’s a pompous, overblown mess? I don’t think Christian Bale makes a particularly convincing Batman or even Bruce Wayne. And what’s with the voice? He sounds like a Miller Lite advert - I split my sides the first time he used it.

Heath Ledger was good I have to admit, but I don’t think it’s worthy of an Oscar (though time will tell on that score). I actually though Gary Oldman gave one of the best performances and Michael Caine was as reliable as ever. As was MorganFreeman. Actually Morgan Freeman was in my favourite scene, where he explains to a junior accountant that “this is one of the richest and most powerful people in the land who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands and you want to blackmail him?”

So would I watch it again? I would rather sit through two back to back screenings of Schrodinger’s Girl than sit through the Dark Knight again (two screenings of SG being about the length of one DK), though I guess (a) I could say that about a lot of films and (b) I might be bias there.

Chris

Working on more screens today - boy howdy, what a lot of screens there are. But when they work, wow, they really tie a scene together.

Here’s some snaps of our new office, taken with my new camera. Oh yeah, we’ve got the serious toys.

Hello hello. Sorry about the lack of posts lately; been hip-deep in post. It’s coming down to crunch time now and there’s an awful lot of fairly intricate detail-work to be done. But the good news is that scenes 136 and 138 are finalled! They have about 15-20 effects shots each, so a fairly significant accomplishment. Just another thirty or so screen-replacement shots left and all the screens in the film will be done. Then I shall move on to the matte paintings and the walking through walls. Oh, yeah, it’s my birthday today too. Go me.

We successfully completed our office move today. Oh my god that damn dentist’s chair nearly killed us. Anyway, our new digs are in the Bilton Industrial Estate in Coventry, which, oddly enough, was also one of our locations for the film. It’s going to be a bit strange coming out of the edit suite and stepping into the scene we’ve just been working on…

Ahh, quantum physics! It’s really weird, isn’t it? You can just make stuff up, and hey, the Universe is weird, so who says it isn’t true?Well, actually, quantum mechanics is really well understood. It’s the basis of the computer you’re reading this on now. It’s the basis of the entire semiconductor and microelectronics industry. It’s the way that the world actually, measurably behaves. But still, people manage to get it hilariously wrong - see this excellent post by Ben Goldacre for an example. I love the detail in his example - the old-school parallel ports are a really nice touch. Very sciencey.  We tried really hard in Schrödinger’s Girl not to make a total mockery out of quantum physics. Of course, we failed, because we’re trying to tell a rousing action story, not a science textbook. If one person gets interested in quantum theory as a result, and goes and finds out the weird and wonderful truth, then that would make me a happy man. But, as I say, I am not trying to represent my movie as being anything analogous to truth. It’s a film. It’s entertaining fiction - a pleasant tall tale that we both know is untrue. But these people, with their ‘quantum devices’ that will heal all your ills - they are snake oil salesmen. The difference between me and them is like the difference between a stage magician and a stage medium. We all do tricks, but I want you to know it’s a trick. I’d like you to appreciate the artistry of the trick, the elegance of its construction. They, the mediums and the fakers, want you to think that they truly have supernatural powers. Don’t believe them. There’s only one path to the truth about the world, and it has nothing to do with spirit voices, and it has nothing at all to do with lies.

Time to go to London for some. One of Paul’s previous films, “Bunny’s Job” has been selected for screening at Kaleidoshorts 3, part of the Italian Nights festival, though I’m not sure how a film about imaginary friends shot in Birmingham (as part of Brummiewood, now sadly discontinued) fits into an “Italian Nights” theme. Still Paul, Huw and Emily will be there, flying the midlands flag.

Whilst down there Huw will spend some time taking photos of buildings and cityscapes for use in the matte paintings we need to create for “Schrodinger’s Girl”.

It is also time to go at The Unit  - the office we have been sub-letting as production office and edit suite. The lease holder has sold the lease to another company so we have to move out in a week’s time. So if anyone reading this knows of an office going cheap in Leamington or Warwick then please get in touch.

In many ways this could not have happened at a worse time since we really need to focus on completing the movie now that we are submitting it to festivals. And it’s more than just the movie. We need to be preparing the EPK (electronic press kit) and other promotional stuff that will accompany the film rather than scouring Warwickshire for a new office and the attendant hassle of moving all the crap we have accumulated (computers, props, costumes etc.) from one location to another. Well, I’m sure we will sort something out. We will rise to the challenge!

Chris

Thought I would share this video I found with you lovely people. It’s a series of time lapse sequences by a guy called Till Credner and was shot using a DSLR and some very wide lenses. Check it out,

Chris

We have been mighty pleased with the results we obtained from our humble Panasonic HVX 200, shooting DVC ProHD 720p but at IBC this year there will be demos of Super Hi Vision which is apparently 7680 by 4320. Those who have seen it say it is so sharp it makes your eyes bleed! This is way beyond the prototype stage as the demo theatre in Amsterdam will be showing live feeds from a Super-H camera operated by the BBC in London and RAI will be feeding content from Torino, Italy. The data is fed over a 600Mb/s ultra broadband fibre optic cable.

It’s insane that technology is moving so fast that the generation beyond HD is so far advanced when HD is itself still in its infancy in terms of rollout and broadcast,

Chris