It’s been a long and tough and great and frustrating and amazing year, and like so many people, we’re taking stock of it all.
We learned a few lessons, made another feature film, an ambitiously handsome short film, relaunched our web series, played with CGI and green screen, were hired to make another feature and made significant steps in developing the indie filmmaking scene in York for the future.
Which means 2012 is going to be even more amazing.
Here’s 2011 in twelve glorious pictures, followed by a retrospective of the stuff we put out there this year.
Our third, somewhat experimental feature, Amber
Celeste Wong looking stunning in our short film Gallery, directed by Paul Richardson
60s icon Emma Keaveney taking a break during Amber
Green screen fun with Tony's anime-style fight film Journey's End
Striking final composite shot in Journey's End
More Zomblog tomfoolery with Hannah back in Blighty
The wonderful cast & crew of Amber
Jonny Dobbs, this season's resident zombie in Zomblogalypse
Indiana Will, sound man extraordinaire, on the Amber set
Filming near Clifford's Tower for Tony's short film A Simple Investigation
Doing our latest movie deal with Sam Robinson (case full of money for comedy effect)
More zombie fun with the Zomblog Olympics
And here’s the stuff we put online this year:
5 more demented episodes at ZOMBLOGALYPSE.COM
The Sorry Kisses have been busy too: DESERT MINE MUSIC
Amber will be coming early in the New Year, as will our fight films Leaf and Journey’s End, our ‘anti-romantic comedy’ Gallery and Tony’s short proof of concept film A Simple Investigation.
If this doesn’t happen first:
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS AND ALL WHO’VE WORKED WITH US.
Here’s the latest music video we made.
From start to finish, I loved making this, and for several reasons:
1. It’s a kick-ass song, perhaps my favourite so far by The Sorry Kisses. Making videos for them over the past few years has been a way for me to practice different styles of shooting and editing.
You can spot Hayley and Sam very briefly in the video, but blink and you’ll miss ‘em!
2. Working with Tom Dunne and Rich Bennett, who operated two of the cameras, is always a pleasure and I’ve learned so much from them.
Incidentally, my favourite shot is at 00:45-00:46 where a young lady called ‘Nuclear Miss-ile’ spins round, poses and moves off. I think it’s one of Rich’s. Love the framing, form and movement.
3. The Hot Wheel Roller Derby girls are cool, cool, cool, very talented (see video) and very nice.
4. I love this:
…and this:
…which is why I made Emma Keaveney do this in that thing:
…and why Charlotte’s character in Amber wears these sexy beasts:
I think that despite the desire with each film to create more beautifully lit images, we’ll always be drawn to the grubby, scratchy, trashy aesthetic of Grindhouse.
So, hope you enjoy the song and the video, and hey, why not sign up for roller derby! Ah go on, you’ll fall in love with it.
After months of watching other people operating our Canon 7D, I finally went out on my own and shot some footage with it. Great practice for opping an entire feature in a week – lots of crash zooms, focus pulling and following the action – and a way of lowering myself into the hot steaming world of DSLR cameras.
My favourite picture from last night’s Hot Wheel Roller Derby shoot for The Sorry Kisses next music video is this one, taken by Hayley from the edge of the sports hall. I love the scratchy blurriness of it.
That pretty much sums up how I feel right now. Surrounded by skating girls in hot pants. No, I mean Eye of the Storm.
Third feature, here we come…
It’s so nice to be able to unveil our first piece of work for 2011!
Back in October we started shooting a music video for The Sorry Kisses’ new song ‘Sunstorms’. We were scuppered by the snow and ice for the best part of two months but we finally got to finish shooting and editing it this week.
The concept for the ‘rolling man’ was the brainchild of Ryan de Koning and Mario Gregoriou, with whom we’d previously worked making the series of Hum-drum short films. It’s been a while since then, but now they’re back with this little gem of a video, shot by ‘The Toms’, Dunne and Kirby, as well as our very own Tony Hipwell and cut together by moi.
MAKE SURE YOU WATCH IN FULL HD!
Major kudos to our heroic roller Chris Smith. Count how many times he rolled for us in this film, and if it doesn’t give you a headache you ain’t human. Well done to all concerned – thanks to Jonny Ashdown for use of his dolly – and what a cracking song. It’s from the SK’s third album ‘Keep Smiling’ which you can buy here very soon.
We’ll be making another music video for them in February, featuring a different kind of rolling. Let’s just say we had quite a few cameramen volunteering for that one…
