Friday, September 16, 2011

The Addicted...shooting now.

It's been a little while since my last post... i've been tied up shooting my second feature, 'The Addicted'. We're about halfway through the shoot now and we've taken a day off so that me and Jon can fly to Berlin to do a show with Kim Wilde. I'm sitting in my hotel room right now. I haven't slept since wednesday night and i'm feeling the strain... but, the shoot is going really well and popping over here to do a gig is kind of a nice break, in a working kind of way. I could actually do with a week of nothing but sleeping and eating nice food...but it ain't gonna happen. Tomorrow we fly back to London and then straight to the set to carry on filming. Hardcore...

So how's it been second time around? Well, it's been very different. I've been actually directing this time, as opposed to reigning in chaos. We found a fantastic new DoP called Amy Wilson and we've struck up a great working relationship. She's really quick to learn and has a natural ability with the camera.  Ian Holmes, our gaffer/special FX guy/rigger/props locator and general all round life safer has been working hard to make the location look amazing all the props work as planned. We've been blowing things up, dragging people around on the floor and filming them being tortured in the most nasty way... it's really quite scary just watching the rushes.

I've got to mention the make-up team of Natalie Burchell-Cherrett and Ange Watson. They've had a tough time of it getting the ghost to look like a ghost and making the 'addicted' look suitably nasty. They've also been adding all the various scrapes, bruises and bloody wounds that the cast pick up. That's all on top of doing the general make-up routine of hair styling and skin de-shining.  We'd be stuffed without them.

The camera package of the Sony FS100 and the Atomos Ninja has been fantastic. Running it in 422 mode has given us some truly jaw-dropping footage. The only issue i've had is the strobing effect of some of the fluorescent  lights in shot. But... clever Ian has sync'ed the generator to the shutter speed to get rid of it... result.  The daily routine of backing up the footage using the Ninja dock and a 2TB external drive has meant it's a perfect time to show the crew what we shot each day. So far, we're all really happy.

What's been tricky? Well, the long hours working through the night is very tough...but you sort of get used to it. Living on ready meals isn't great...  much respect to the whole cast and crew for putting up with the food. It's not cheap or easy to feed that many people on set for this long...  oh, and the battery charger that came with the FS100 stopped working...less than a week old. It cost us a few hours in lost shooting. Luckily i had spare Sony chargers...shame we didn't notice is wasn't charging though.

Jon's been finding the sound recording a little bit of challenge with regards to mic placement, but the lavs have been working great and he's got some really high quality dialogue recorded without a single cable being in view. The Pro Tools rig has been solid as a rock. As ever.

Huge thanks as ever to all the people involved... you're all vital and i wouldn't be able to do this without you. So... Jon, Jenny, Amy, Thea, Dan, Ian, Nat, Ang, Coops all the others who i'm too tired to recall... thank you.

Another special mention to the great Tim Parker who is playing a great part in the film...he's also been on-set taking stills for us... some of them are here:

Me trying to use the force...Amy wondering what i'm on about.

Me looking to see what Amy has got in the shot.

Jos getting ready to die.

Brooke dies impaled on some conduit...

Ian scares the crap out of the kids...then we kill them.

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