Filmmaking in my experience is all about collaboration. Depending on the budget it usually involves a group of people, large or small, coming together to wrestle, beat and coerce the many varied aspects that go together in making the ‘finished beast’ into some sort of (hopefully) entertaining format.

Short film making is no different and relies heavily on the blood sweat and tears of many people working tirelessly for often little or no financial gain.

My film has been no different.  I have had the pleasure of collaborating with a large bunch of very talented people in the UK, Hungary, Italy and Sweden (to name a few). Who have been kind enough to lend me their skills to help me produce something that will hopefully at the very least entertain and at the most, get them some proper paid work in the future!

I have added some more names to my previous collaborators post but I wanted to highlight and promote a couple of people in this particular post.  I will find the time to cover more people in future posts but here is the first list and links to their respective inter-webs.

Zack Cain –

Zack is a long-term friend of mine and has been kind enough to lend his acting chops to the film and put up with an endless amount of trawling around London, Budapest and elsewhere to help me get the shots I need.  And..handsome as hell – ladies.

Jo Price –

I auditioned a lot of actors for the role of Valentine, as soon as I auditioned Jo I immediately – and probably quite unprofessionally told her on the spot she had ‘nailed it’.

Jo is an excellent actress, model, yoga teacher  and gave me a perfect ‘Valentine’.  She can be found here:  http://joprice.com/  and at her spotlight profile [here]

Natalia Ryumina –

Natalia is another great actor in the role of ‘Samantha’ – Valentines faithful assistant.  She can be found here:  http://nataliaryumina.com/

Sonu Louis –

Sonu brought the perfect amount of bad-assery to the role of ‘Valentines Bodyguard’

He can be found here: http://www.castingcallpro.com/uk/view.php?uid=46930

All of the above were ‘made up’ on our shooting days by the very talented make-up artist  Elaine Pearcy.  A link to her personal site is here:  http://www.elainepearceymakeup.com/

Thanks to you all.  More posts, updates and thankyou’s to follow in the near future.

T

The film industry is full of glamour. It is also full of shit.  I have worked in many roles in the film industry over my fifteen or so years and have done my fair share of painful, laborious jobs.

As I have found when making a short film with zero budget, you have to take on as many roles as you can. So far on this particular project I have assumed the roles of writer, director, producer, cameraman, VFX artist and compositor and probably some other roles I am not aware of yet.  My current job of the week is – rotoscoping.

For anyone unaware of this frequently thankless task in the world of VFX – this involves going through the footage, frame by frame and cutting out digitally – any unwanted areas film that you want to fill in the future with  CG/VFX shots or compositions.

Usually this is quite successfully achieved to some level of automation with a greenscreen but in most cases there is a certain amount of fine tuning involved in this wonderful task.  At 24fps and a meager ten minutes of footage  this equates to approximately 14,400 frames of footage to hand draw a matte over (see before and after below).

I am not complaining. I knew when I decided to have an epic backdrop to the main scene in my film that it would involve a lot of work, I am merely drawing attention to one of the commonly overlooked jobs in the film industry used on any movie involving VFX of any kind.

Just so you know, if anyone ever tells you they rotoscope on movies for a living – give them a big hug…