DVD Printing

These websites might be of use to anyone making a DVD. They print an image onto a CD then post it to you to burn. Looks better than one being printed off a printer.

www.DuplicationCentre.co.uk

www.mediacopy.co.uk

ps: £70 for 50 DVD's from duplication centre.......

Chasing the Sun

Having thought about filming after two hours staring at the sun on Thursday, i got down to outside the playhouse only for it to start raining. I turned round to see the biggest rain cloud behind me. I wasn't do the same today so when i awoke to sunshine coming through my window i quickly ran round to outside the Playhouse, Broadway and Pitcher& Piano to film some stuff outside in the sunshine. About an hour after getting home it started to rain. April showers, eh ?

Look at the sun.......

They might even have to be taken down in brightness!

Flat

At present my DVD is feeling and looking very flat. It's pretty linear at the moment of magic, interview, ident. Just feels a bit boring to me. So have a camera for this weekend and, weather permitting, i shall be filming some footage in and around my locations to try and add a little more dimention. I've got a lot of ideas floating round of what to do, i just need some sunshine!!

ps: the more and more i look at this edit, the less and less happy i am with it. It goes nowhere and really needs sproosing up. I'm thinking about re-editing it in location by location with a nice little location ident before each section.

New Trailer & End of Filming

This post should mark the end of my filming schedule. I have stuck to it and probably for the first time in my life have kept on top of a schedule i set myself. I am happy with the footage (i should do there is a LOT of it). Seven different nights. Four different locations. Some unusable footage. Some absolute gold (like spending 20 minutes on Wednesday evening trying to hit the lens with a card..... it does look the bollocks though). Now it's my job to go through all of it and find the best stuff. Hopefully, should have a rough edit of the final version by Monday, leaving next week for possible pick up shots of anything i feel is missing. I have a few ideas in mind but want to see after the rough edit just what might be needed......

In my hours today spent searching through the footage i thought it would be nice to make this little trailer. There was one point i thought i'd lost the whole thing. Which would have been rather upsetting. But as you can see now, i did not. So here it is.....

Enjoy !!

Pitcher & Piano and Broadway Shoots

Yesterday i filmed in the Pitcher & Piano and The Broadway. Got some good footage. There were a few problems, Like the lighting in both locations being so strong the boom pole shadow is visable a few times. Is this a problem do you think ? it doesn't look too good but then again, this is street magic and it is quite 'raw'. Am i right ? is anybody listening ? no ? didn't think so......



Other than that, pretty good day's work. I feel sorry for Tom and Ridgely watching the same tripe over the over..... Filming in the library for moody ident shots tomorrow and have decided to want some footage from outside the locations for the masking intros.

Three weeks left.

Shit laugh.

On the plus side, maybe not this take, but this is the trick i am going to open the DVD with.....

Rough Edit

So tonight i put together the first rough edit of illusions of grandeur and i hit twenty minutes easily. I watched each set (five in total) and jotted down each trick i done and scored myself with a percentage. A few got 100% and are without a doubt going to be on the final edit. This was 20 minutes without the majority of the interview (maybe people would rather me shut up and just carry on with the magic !) or the ident shots. So for the first time i'm really thinking about the length of the main piece. I can always stick extra footage i don't want to bin on the special features i suppose. But pace is going to be very important in the edit and i'm just wondering if i should just edit the footage in the loose order i do them live.

If i could have two more nights like The Playhouse in The Malt Cross and Pitcher Piano i will be laughing......

Ident Shots

Also, Danny suggested using this place, Bromley House Library, for my ident shots. Which i think would work really well...... Don't know how it would look with the interview location but i could always film the interview again.

Playhouse. Success !

So with two trips to Muse and one to Broadway and no footage i was happy using in the final piece we hit the Playhouse last night. I was starting to panic that the film wasn't turning out how i'd pictured it but i'm ecstatic to say last night was a rip roaring success ! Brilliantly lit, great camera work, great people out enjoying themselves on a Saturday night. I think i got five strong 15 minute scenes from last night. Stills of which are below, the first two scenes can be tweeked in Apple Colour later on, and maybe take some of the harsh light from the three men scene but it looks good. Infact, it looks better than good. Roll on the rough edit......

The only problem is my barnet is out of control.......