VIDEO JUNQUE

I found this 1973 Disneyland brochure amongst some old letters this morning.

Wishing you all an "E ticket" day. 

Just received my badges from the CineFringe Festival... a cool and modern take on the standard flanking palm leaves!  

Audience Awards will be annouced in the near future....but the tell the truth I feel like a winner no matter what. The organisers worked so hard and did a fantastic job. Cinefringe will be always be a festival I support not just because my film was selected but because of the intergrity of the event and it's support of independant filmmmakers.

Watch this space for information about you can support the 2012 Cinefringe. 

WOW

Thanks to the endless suppport (aka putting up with my constant barrage of self-pimpage) of friends and family near, far, hither and yon, CIGAR BOX REVOLUTION has been shortlisted and has made it through to the judging round in the G-Tech Europe Driven Creativity Competition. (See blog post below for info)

[FEELING GRATEFUL] 

 .  

http://vimeo.com/27810862

The Edinburgh CineFringe Festival launched yesterday with great success. John Lynch, the director of CineFringe has been doing a terrific job of promoting the event. There are two weeks of screenings and each film will be shown three times during the two weeks. 

"The CineFringe Film Festival comes to Sweet Grassmarket for a fortnight of one-off events that could well put the 2011 Edinburgh International Film Festival to shame." -Reel Time, Jonathan Melville

So pleased my film Market Town is among the 25 selected. 

Here is a trailer of the films being screened

CineFringe Film Festival is a short film festival dedicated to the Edinburgh Fringe. It is free to enter and this year we have picked 25 films spread across 5 screenings to showcase to fringe goers in August!

Every Day, 4.30pm, Sweet Venues at the Apex City Hotel, Grassmarket, Edinburgh

Screenings £5.00 (£4.50 concs)

I have entered my documentary short 'CIGAR BOX REVOLUTION - Made in the UK' into a fantastic competition sponsored by G-Technology Europe:  

DRIVEN CREATIVITY

The Grand Prize is €5000 and one of THESE (drool) I first saw them in use at the college's TV studio and was so jealous! The runner-up prizes are other G-tech storage devices, the G-RAID and G-DRIVE Slim, great products! I sound like an advert but I've seen them in action and am totally sold. 

It's one thing to discipline yourself to make films and get footage as often as possible: it's the only way to learn your craft and hone your style. But the reality is you need LOTS of mega storage!   

YOU CAN HELP!  Click on the picture below to go to the link and please vote! (star ratings)

Prize money will go to a good home in need of a new camera and finishing funds!

As always, thanks for your support. x

My documentary short Market Town has been selected for the 

2011 Edinburgh Cinefringe Festival. (yippeeee!)

I wonder if I get one of these? 

The VENUE

Sweet Venues @ The Apex City Hotel,

61 Grassmarket, Edinburgh (in the heart of old town)

Schedule and programme listing 

I feel such a sense of accomplishment just seeing two of my films on Virgin's site. There were over 1,000 entries this year and among them were some terrific films. In order to qualify, entries are to be no longer than 2:20. It may sound easy to make a two-minute film,  but it's much harder than you might think!

Market Town

When rumours were being spread about my local market closing and moving to another town 20 miles away, I took my trusty camera along to investigate. The town's market began trading some 800 years ago, and like so many traditions, may soon be disappearing into the globalisation void- which will be a great shame.  After interviewing the stall keepers, I came to realise there's much more that will be missed than just fresh produce, brick-a-brack and granny slippers: it's the town's lively character and soul that will be lost. 

The film was shot over and assortment of week-ends from January through February (determined by the weather forecast: rain and cold temps keeps some of the traders and customers away and the camera is especially sensitive to the elements!) The film's end time-lapse sequence was shot from 6 to 9 am one day and it was freezing. A lovely shopkeeper who was restocking her shelves while I was filming plied me with hots cups of tea. 

TRIVIA

For my fellow film geeks, I shot this on a Canon XHA1, edited in FCP7 and used AE (Twixtor plugin)for speed manipulation.

When I was interviewing one of the market traders for this film, I discovered that 'Lee the Hat Man' (Lee Branson) is 2nd cousin to Virgin's founder, Sir Richard Branson. A small world indeed! 

Have a look - it's two fun minutes - perfect for short attention spans like mine - and please vote for me in September if I get shortlisted!

Click on the link or picture below to watch the film on the Virgin Media Competition site.

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/film/1089/market-town

When I was asked to take over as unit director for a commissioned film project last August, quite a bit of the filming and much of the pre-production work had already been completed: it was necessary to re-shoot some piece-to-camera bits as well as get some new footage and shoot more scripted segments.

The two-day shoot I was involved with took place at a couple of locations: airside at London's Gatwick airport and then inside one of Oxford Aviation Academy's fantastically realistic flight simulators. It's no wonder they each cost millions of pounds. Getting security clearance at Gatwick took hours!  

What followed was a post-production commitment of nearly nine months - which I am happy to report: I survived! The extensive project changed often in post because as more and more industry interest was generated, scripts changed and animated segments were added to satisfy the various needs of the client partners.

Bruce Dickinson, the front man of the long-lived heavy metal band Iron Maiden, kindly agreed to do the presenting for the film. He also happens to be a commercial pilot who is passionate about aviation. Bruce is one of those enviable people who is really good at whatever he does - and is also a really nice down-to-earth bloke with a great sense of humour. When we had edited the film to the point where we were ready to add the voice-over, Bruce came down to the TV Studio in Exeter- and, being the true pro he is, nailed the whole thing in under 30 minutes, and most segments were done in one take.

Iron Maiden started their 2011 world tour a couple of weeks later - with Bruce piloting the tour plane. If you get a chance, check out the documentary about the band called "Iron Maiden: Flight 666" - here's a clip of Bruce-

(click on my hi-vis yellow vest below to take you to the Flight 666 clip!)

SAFETY IN THE BALANCE  is part of a joint initiative by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the UK aviation industry to highlight the importance of safe and accurate aircraft loading. It was commissioned by the Ground Handling Operations Safety Team (GHOST), a CAA/industry group committed to develop strategies to mitigate the safety risks from aircraft ground handling and ground support activities. The group is made up of representatives from UK airlines and airport operators.

Filmed in 2010 at Heathrow, Gatwick and East Midlands airports as well as in one of Oxford Aviation Academy's 757/767 flight simulators.  Filmed by FdA TV Production students and staff at Exeter College in Devon. Presented by Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. Personal thanks to Jason Sandever who pulled it all together, and to Atila Mustafa who kept it together!  And thanks also to John Fitzsimons who got us the gig!  

I was really happy when I was asked to be part of this project and even more pleased to have helped see it through to completion. Of course, no project can be completely free of contoversy or conflict - even under the best of circumstances. What was most surprising to me was that the person most likely to have brought any inflated ego into the mix was one of the people who completely left it at the door. Bruce is a star!

To date the film has racked up an impressive amount of views on You Tube and has been adopted by the airline and cargo industry as an important part of their training programmes - not bad!  

...soooo at long last.....here it is! 

ENJOY!

(click on Bruce's face below to take you to the video or click this link)