Happy to announce we managed to get both films edited, authored onto DVD and finally handed in.
It was a difficult night for myself and Cethan as we pulled an all nighter working on getting these films done, it was the third night of editing and I felt drained from the previous nights and from my IT related full-time job I have. We finished rendering the films by 5 am, had the DVD’s ( a few issues in between ) burnt and then proceeded to watch the flow of flood water in the Lee. Pope’s Quay appears to be unscathed by the floods although Mercy Hospital and the surrounding area further up were badly affected, although I couldn’t get to work the following day I still worked from home for the job, trying my best not to collapse on the company laptop. The accumulated 12 hour sleep session I had afterwards was like a godsend.
Although slightly more complex in the structure than Fishbone, First A Dream was by far the best editing experience I’ve had in a long time, Cethan had already sent me plenty material ( music and art ) to work with, we both sat down worked out a few new ideas and tossed out some old ones suggested from the script, and the film ended up being better than expected. Granted being the natural born pessimists that we are, we tend to carry fairly mediocre expectations of our films into the editing process. I’m not going to go into the detail of the trouble I’ve had with Fishbone but the film will undoubtedly benefit from the Second Edition.
You can watch the showing of these films along with other submissions in the Savoy on the 26th of November as part of the Mutant Space Carbaret, hopefully we’ll see some of you there . The online premier of both films will be scheduled a week after the event in case anyone is put off by the €5 admission fee or bad weather or both.
Well it was day three of the Production Diary yesterday, myself and Cethan sat down and pieced together the film for several hours, we had done some work the night before but not enough to write a blog post about it. The film is at least 70% complete, still requiring some ADR work, picture and sound adjustments, and the closing credits. We’ve watched the first cut and it seems to have turned out pretty well. Now it’s just a matter of time before it gets submitted to Mutantshorts.
Other news, Hayret went ahead with shooting her Mutantshorts entry Fishbone on Tuesday, which another film I have to piece together by tomorrow. ADR will be done hopefully by evening so it’s going to be a tough night. There’s probably going to be more written about that production at a later date but at the moment I have little free time to do so.
Never thought we would get two films done in the space of a week.
The shoot went very well today! Principle photography started today at around 2 PM and finished roughly around half 7. Bar a few small inserts that need to be shot within the next few days the film shoot is more or less completed and well underway in Post Production. With less than a week to go before the Mutant Shorts deadline the schedule is no doubt tight but a lot less so than previous Cethan Leahy films. Editing it should be relatively simple.
I have to say it’s quiet unusual just being in front of the camera for the whole session, since in previous productions I was getting quiet settled to working behind the scenes. You’d think it would be a lot easier to just act rather than managing the shoot but it’s a lot harder than it looks, especially trying to act scared or angry. Strangely enough I have the bad habit of smiling when I’m both.
Big thank you to Fabian Sweeney who was our lighting person for the day.
Pre-production has officially started for Cethan’s new film titled First A Dream as part of Mutant Space’s short film competition: MUTANT SHORTS 2: MUTANT ROOMS . On 3rd of November, myself and Cethan have begun test shoots for our location to decide on the best shooting angles and lighting/colour settings so we don’t need to spend as much time fidgeting during the production. We did something similar for the Cork Christmas Carol last year for a few scenes and it worked out pretty well. This year we hope to use this method of creating a storyboard for the entire film. Below are some of our results.
Just after coming back from the Cork Film Festival Programme Launch, got a free Corona, grabbed some grub, talked to handful of people that I knew from last years festival, graciously accepted the Programme when they started handing them out and then headed home. Unfortunately neither True Love Leaves No Traces or Cork Christmas Carol were accepted for the Made In Cork screenings. Better luck next year I suppose.
A small group of us held a meeting last week to discuss about Storyland 2 . This year the idea revolves around a startup band called Frostbite who try to make it big in Cork’s music scene, it also features a love quadrangle. James Sullivan wrote the script and it seems to be pretty good, although it would be hard to not make it bear some similarities to Flight of the Conchords or Spinal Tap. We have about a week left to get everything submitted, curious to see if we’ll manage it this time round.
Not sure if anyone noticed but I replaced the History page on the top bar with a Films page, which contains a much needed presentation for each film we made since the group formed. It’s a nice little addition to the site, hoping to apply some similar changes to the other pages as well. Also created a new Vimeo channel called “The Gifted Babies Channel”, now it’s much nicer to navigate through our Vimeo library. Here’s the link.
Work on the next film, a Cethan Leahy project, is due to begin early next month. Will provide updates by then.
I’ve went ahead and made some slight changes/improvements to the Milton Murder Mystery. Depending on your attention to detail, some are noticeable and some not. Here are the list of changes you can keep in mind while you watch the film again and relive some of those glorious moments:
A whopping 12 seconds of additional ear gouging Music.
Libavcodec’s Deinterlacer in Blend Mode was used to render the film footage in Progressive Scan. Looks twice as good as Lord of the Rings except with only half the colour.
New closing credits with never before seen outtakes to waste a another 4 minutes of your time ^_^ .
Extended one shot by 2 seconds for personal reasons.
Music is better synchronized to the visuals, it’s now the equivalent to making love.
Other news:
We’ve submitted Cork Christmas Carol and True Love Leaves No Traces to this years Cork Film Festival, still no word from whether or not they’ve been accepted.
Also we’ll be submitting several films to the Cinemagic Young Filmmakers Competition. Glad to see that our age and youthfulness hasn’t become something of a hindrance to us yet.
Finally there seems to be a fair few scripts in the works with a certain air of magic in them, starting off with Hayret who has recently finished writing Witches Brew . Cethan has finished the first drafts for two short films, one that is specifically written for the latest Mutant Space competition called Mutant Rooms where a film has to be shot entirely in one room, in this case it’s the kitchen. The other is called The Christmas Proposal , specifically written for the next Gifted Babies Christmas special. I’m currently working on AKind of Magic ( the first non-Milton film I’ve written in a while ) and Who Watches the Witches ( Milton’s third outing ) which will hopefully be in production early next year.
The trailer for the film formally titled as “A Maybe Mostly Magical Maybe Memorably Magnificent Mischievous Mister Milton M.* Martin Montgomery Murder Mystery of Multiple Mistakingly Misinterpreted Madnesses and Mighty Morphing Malevolent Misinformed Malcontents Mixture of Misogynistic Moles and Melinda “Mittens” Messenger’s Money Making Machine … In Multicultural Menopausal MultiVision. May Make Merry Mindful Malformed Mideastern Minors Monickered Morty Marginally Mistaken for Morose Masticating Monkeys. Monetary Margin: Minimum. Made for Mature Mexican Men. A Mindless Manus Movie. Memo: Minus Many Minutes, My Missing Marbles, Marcus Maybury, Marylin Manson, Miss Muffin ( Mother of Magician Marvin, Married to Muddy Myrtle [ Match Made in Midwest Monaghan ], Mistress of Magnets & Manager for Medieval Musicians; Missing in Malahide) and Midwestern Minestrone Marketing (Mmm Meaty Minestra..) Music: Macarena, Mozart and Mendel’s Melodious Mannequins. Memorial Maxim Magazine in Malls May of Mercantile Matters. “
