We were on Leeds Indie Radio this week talking about filmmaking, Twilight, monstrous celebrity children, poo poo, computer games in urinals and other scorching topics. We had such a fun time recording it and we hope you enjoy listening to our verbal diarrhea. Squelch.
Thanks to Steve Shooter 
One & Other York published our guide to short filmmaking today, beautifully illustrated by John Chamberlain to tie in with the Aesthetica Short Film Festival.
© John Chamberlain 2011
That’s a lot of links, but they’re all well worth checking out. Have a gander.
Here is our new showreel containing clips from things you’ve seen and some things you haven’t yet.
Among our features CrimeFighters and Amber, moments from our short films Bob The Great, Gallery and some concept work, you’ll find clips from our short fight film Leaf and our anime-style apocalypse short Journey’s End… with a soupçon of our technicolour noir A Simple Investigation.
If you look carefully you’ll also spot tiny cameos from Tony and I, and some truly artful camera, lighting and effects work from our esteemed filmmaking colleagues including Paul Richardson, Jenni Suitiala, Tom Dunne, Tom Kirby, Rich Bennett and Alasdair Beckett-King.
Hope you enjoy. We’ll be back soon with exciting things and stuff.
Here’s an article touching on what we’re up to lately, including a tiny bit more about our new feature.
One & Other is a new website and soon-to-be-magazine highlighting the best of the York culture scene and is well worth checking out.
York, this morning.
These guys have taken it upon themselves to champion art, music, film, food and creative culture that is flourishing in York, and by… gum, we need them, so show your support and join them on Facebook & Twitter with all deliberate speed.
They’re going to be a big part of what we do in the future, oh yes…
You may be interested in this fun collection of all our Tweeted Instagram snaps from films like the recent Zomblog and Amber shoots, as well as some glimpses at what a bunch of boring goons we are. Enjoy.
We’re officially excited, although this isn’t an official press release . Yet.
What we can say is that the film is a very British black comedy co-written by Zomblogalypse‘s Hannah Bungard, Tony Hipwell and myself, with local writer-producer Sam Robinson. We’re aiming to shoot in April 2012, mostly in York and using York crew, although we will be casting far and wide to find our leads and supporting actors.
For the next few months we will be working on the script, finding locations, planning the shooting schedule and designing the production.
That’s about it for now, although I will say that this film is set to be a considerable step up from CrimeFighters in terms of how it will be developed, made and launched on a deeply suspecting public. Expect announcements, photos and the usual filmmaking drivel in the coming weeks.
And start to get excited! Because we are… that was Good News Part 2 of 3, by the way…
Last night we had a launch party for the new series of Zomblogalypse called Zomblog Zero. Thanks to 1331, the girls of Weird o’ Wonderful Lectures and all these lovely people in the dark:
Our very own Black Squadron
It was a great night and made us realise that people still support and care about the show. And now you can too! Check out the first new episode online, with the other 5 in the new series following daily.
What was lovely was meeting a mix of fans old and new. Newbies who’d never seen Zomblog before said they love the new series and will now watch the ‘following’ seasons 1-3, while the hardcore fans of the show enjoyed the sense of prequelness and in-jokes from past… future? episodes.
Thanks one and all, hope you enjoy the new series, please spread the word to your friends who may not have seen the show yet as Zomblog Zero is a good way of getting hooked.
VIVA ZOMBLOG!
The most excellent Sir Steve Shooter interviewed me recently for his Fixated On Podcast.
Click the link to hear us shoot the shit about the new Zomblog series, the York filmmaking scene, web series, Adam & Joe, musical ignorance and namedropping famous musicians we like/are related to. And a whole load of other shash.
Yes, our zombie-blog-apocalypse (oh so THAT’s what it means!) show is returning this summer, and a bunch of you have been interested/kind enough to ask us a whole bunch of questions already, so here are your answers…
…and some questions we made up to make it sound like more people are interested.
Q: So there are scripts this time?
A: Yeah, but only so we have something to bastardise and change and generally spill things on and wipe our bottoms with.
Q:Why are you making more Zomblog?
A: Because we love it. Because Hannah’s back in June. Because we miss Season 1 Hannah. Because making the first season was the most fun we ever had making anything. Because it’s cheap to make. Because we’re cheap. Because we’re whores.
A lot of fans have said over the years since Season 1 that they wanted to see more of that era of Zomblog. And we couldn’t do it because Hannah went away. But now she’s back! For a month, anyway.
Q: HOW are you making more Zomblog?
A: There’s one certainty in life, and it’s that we’re all going to die. Painfully. At the hands (and mouths) of zombies, most probably. But we may as well enjoy ourselves despite this certainty that yes, one day we will all die of zombies.
What we’re saying is, we’re all going to die. In the series as in life. But Zomblog lives forever! Or at least as long as the Internet lives.
Q: Why is the Internet still working in an apocalypse?
A: This question, and less, will be addressed in Season 1.5.
Q: WHEN are you making more Zomblog?
A: We’re filming in June and releasing 6 minisodes from July.
Q: Will Season 1.5 be more epic?
A: In a word, no, no it really won’t be more epic, no. It’ll be less epic, in a word. We’re going back in time, to a time less epic.
Q: Will you be using DSLR cameras like you use for your feature films so that it looks all fancy schmancy?
A: No, we’re going the other way. Zomblog is a blog show after all, that has been described (mostly by Tony) as one ugly-ass show (but with pretty ladies), and the fun comes from the fact that we are all idiots with shitty cameras.
So we are filming Season 1.5 entirely on iPhones, iMacs, an iPad… basically rimming Steve Jobs’ entire back catalogue. It’s called a Jobs-rim.
(They’re not shitty cameras actually, they’re well good. But we’ll try our best to make the images look well shitty, we promise).
Q: Will Season 1.5 mess with Season 1 and 2 continuity a la Star Trek?
A: No. It’s set in the period between Adam dying in the episode ‘Ground Z-Ro’ and Hannah making her blog in the episode ‘Shopping’. Lots of other stuff happened to us in those few months, you know.
Like… our first zombie kill, exploring the other parts of the Zomblog mansion, lots of knitting, arguing, shopping, smoking, drinking tea, and the usual stupid banter from the three of us.
It’ll fit perfectly into the space just before Season 1, and of course there will be lots of forward-referencing in-jokes for the fans. But we don’t want to ‘do a George Lucas’ and ruin the original by smallifying the Zomblog universe or selling out the concept.
Q: Will there be hundreds of zombies in it?
A: Not unless an actual zombie apocalypse takes place while we’re filming, no. This is small-scale Season 1 stuff, and although there are a few zombies, and some creepy ones at that, this little mini-season is about three idiots dealing with the End of the World, because we always felt we never got to do enough of that stuff.
Of course, we did kill off one of the main characters, so we make our own problems.
Q: Will Charlotte be in it?
A: If we find her. Out there. Somewhere. But Tony still doesn’t meet her until Season 3. Unless he meets her then receives an enormous blow to the head. Or elsewhere.
Enormous blow.
Q: Is there going to be a Zomblogalypse movie?
A: The next year or so has a lot of exciting things happening for us, and if they all come off, in the right order and properly, a Zomblog movie is on the cards.
Q: Will THAT totally sell out the concept of the show?
A: Yes.
I mean no. But it won’t be filmed on iPhones, that’s for damned sure as mustard.
Q: Do you need any more fans/money?
A: Always, and yes please. We’ll be selling downloads of Season 3 very soon when we work out the best way of doing it, and blogging and tweeting in the run-up to Season 1.5.
There’ll also be a special publicity event in York in June, to which all fans and their mums will be invited. SEE YOU THEN! In the meantime, please SPREAD THE VIRUS!
Here are the last set (for now) of behind the scenes shots from Amber. These pictures were all snapped from Cam A (the Canon 7D we shot the film with) as we were setting up lights/shots/larking around.
Debs fixes Adam's hair before we roll.
They're supposed to hate each other. I'm unconvinced...
Amber: bathroom sink drama.
Uhhhhh... so remind me why you guys are all in my bedroom?
It's a tough job, actoring.
Cast got the clap.
Easily entertained...
Go on girl, get the boom, go on girl, good girl!
We nicknamed this part of the house 'The Temple of Doom'.
Emma throws shapes/acts. They're similar disciplines.
Jenni considers an alternative escape route.
This is suddenly going a bit 'The Shining'...
Oooh, traffic light lens flare...
Making its third or so appearance in our films.
Hmm. Things may have been deteriorating at this point. Or getting better. You decide.
Tom Kirby, filmmaker extraordinaire, checks the lens for dust.
Tony demonstrates the single hardest thing about filmmaking: getting out of the bed.
And now, THE BEST OF ALIZ. Aliz Tennant has worked with us a few times recently while studying film at York St. John University. On Amber she served as trainee Spark, assisting Jenni with lights and electrics, and shone (pardon the pun) in her role.
Aliz, like many of the students we work with, is an example of mutually beneficial partnerships we firmly believe in when making our films. We get a keen crew, the students get experience working on films. Everyone’s happy. And we were very happy with ALL the students who worked on Amber.
Aliz assisted Jenni partly by standing in for actors while the lights were being set up. Here are some of Aliz’s best stand-in moments:
Mean and moody in the bathroom.
More mean and moody at 'sunset'.
Slightly less sunsetty sunset.
Daytime scene. The whole film takes place in a bathroom, incidentally. Maybe.
Hmm, something's missing...
Ah yes, another stand-in. Tony obliges.
Eee! Eee! Eee! Eee!
Thanks to Aliz and again to everyone who made the film. Next thing I’m working on is the edit… and a trailer!
