Showreel: January 2020
I thought it was time to cobble together some kind of showreel… this covers various filmed work done since 2016, headed obviously by the current efforts on Birmingham Now. Feedback is welcome!
short film
New Film Project: Triangle
Well, Triangle is the provisional title, at least… maybe we’ll keep it… anyhow, I finished the first draft of the script last night, small extract below. The film, which should run about 20 minutes, is a neo-noir set in Birmingham and we’re gonna do it in glorious black & white!! It’s quite hard-boiled and the ‘second act’ is more than a little Sin City in tone.*
A Deal With Death Script Page
A Deal With Death is a short film that homages the old Amicus anthology flicks. I posted a character sketch for it some months ago.
Here’s a page from the script.
Monsters Unfilmed Inserts
As Vamporama Films starts to gear up for some new projects & activity, I wanted to revisit last year’s creepy short, Monsters.
The finished film is basically a monologue—performed brilliantly by Liam Woon!—but originally we were going to add some filmed inserts. Here we have my storyboards for four of of those inserts.
A Deal With Death
For the new year, Vamporama Films has a new short film project—a hommage to the old Amicus anthology movies of the ’60s/’70s, entitled A Deal With Death. Here’s a prelim poster image and a character study by Yours Truly.
Monsters Premiere
Out short film Monsters, starring Liam Woon, had its public premiere earlier today at the Grindhouse Planet Film Festival. Here’s a snap of the screening, plus Liam and Steve posing with organiser Marc Hamill…
Monsters Colour Grading Tests
So… I’ve been playing with the footage for Monsters, and I’ve done some tests on the colour grading. The raw footage has a very flat colour profile, which allows filmmakers to push the images to suit the mood or preference more comfortably. Below are two graded frame grabs and finally a look at the raw (unmatted) footage for comparison.
Monsters Shoot
Principal photograph for Monsters was completed last night (Sunday)! In a very cold warehouse in deepest Coventry, the six-hour shoot went really well… a couple of annoying technical problems were surmounted without any great drama. (Okay, maybe some drama!!)
Terror At Bell’s End News
See the Bell’s End tag for more! This is our faux grindhouse trailer, homaging Euro Cult and the likes of Lucio Fulci. Of course, if any backers or companies showed an interest, we’d definitely be up for making a full movie!!
Here’s a couple of frame grabs; firstly, from a titles sequence I’ve recently been playing with… secondly, good old Melyza Fay being stalked by THE KILLER…
All Bad Things Poster
As Steve has been busy submitting All Bad Things to various festivals, it was down to me to knock out an official poster. Natch, I went for retro…
All Bad Things: Cast & Crew Screening
Incidentally, today is my birthday. Don’t ask.
Last night, we had our cast & crew screening for All Bad Things, plus the two Club Vamporama shorts “Who Is Bette Noir?” and “Hail Cthulhu!”, plus we screened some early footage for the Terror at Bell’s End trailer.
We drafted in our good friend & talented author/performer, Jasper Bark, to MC the proceedings, which was held at the Victoria, Birmingham city centre. I think overall the night went very well and we had most of the cast & crew from our various projects there.
The evening kicked off with local actor, William Hayes, giving a stirring rendition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
After the screening of “Who Is Bette Noir?”, Jasper interviewed Jude herself, Melyza Fay.
All Bad Things: It’s A Wrap
The final bits of shooting & full editing on All Bad Things has just been completed, and only a shade before midnight, ahead of the cast & crew screening (which is actually later tonight).
Terror At Bell’s End Shoot #2
Followup to this post. Here are a couple of photos from the Friday, October 20th shoot… for both shoots, the interiors were done at the house of Blake Woodham… Blake & Family patiently allowed us to makeover two separate rooms 1986 style—for which we offer profuse thanks & appreciation.
Here’s Melyza Fay with Sham Zaman, in our faux 1980s Psych consultation office…
