I haven't had much to report on the project for a few weeks, but it's been moving forward. Whilst in America I got some footage of myself on Times Square and under Niagara for what might become a running joke involving Robert. I've extended the script for part one, but I'd like to add more to take it nearer to fifteen minutes (at the moment it's just over ten). I've also authored the dvd for Memory. When I've had it tested on a few different systems and I've designed packaging I'll look into selling it through Lulu, Spinneyworld and local shops such as Magma.
The next step is to match actors to characters. There are four speaking parts in part one- Sarah, Paul, Gareth and Mark. I'd also like to have Mark's fiancee and possibly Vicky appear in a scene, even if they don't say anything. If there are more than six actors interested in the project then we'll put them in the background in the pub and party scenes of part one and bring their characters in later.
Other stuff worth thinking about-
Funding
To do this properly I think we need a sponsor. However, the best way to get a sponsor is to present them with an example of what they'll be paying for. So we should produce the first episode and then start shopping it around, online and off, to see who'll give us money.
Locations
The first episode has scenes in Paul's house, a pub, somewhere where an engagement party is held and Gareth's bedroom. I think I have somewhere for Paul's house, but need to find locations for all the others. It would be nice, with domestic locations in particular, if we can find places we can use again.
Title
We still need a better title than "Short Tales About Love and Sex".
Meeting
I'll arrange a meeting in the next couple of weeks. If you'd like to be kept informed of the plans send me an email or leave a message in the comments.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Memory- the dvd
I've spent the day exporting, converting and compressing the five episodes of Memory and the trailer to get them into a format suitable for use on a dvd. Tomorrow I'll practice with DVDStyler and start thinking about extras to put on it. There are quite a few pictures taken on the various shoots and I could compile the outtakes and create a before and after demonstration of colour correction and sound dubbing.
The dvd will be for cast and crew initially, but once I've got the files in place I'll be able to make more copies and sell them through Spinneyworld.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead, DVD
The dvd will be for cast and crew initially, but once I've got the files in place I'll be able to make more copies and sell them through Spinneyworld.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead, DVD
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Short tales character sketch- Vicky
This character has been cast. These notes are rough and will be tidied up as the character develops within the script and further as an actor fleshes them out.
Early to mid 30s. Vicky works with Paul and has recently moved to Manchester. He's one of the few people in town she knows and she's a potential romantic interest for him.
Vicky was married for a while, leaving her husband after he cheated on her. She's obviously a bit touchy about infidelity. There's a story in there about her going on a date with someone from work only to find out he is married.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Early to mid 30s. Vicky works with Paul and has recently moved to Manchester. He's one of the few people in town she knows and she's a potential romantic interest for him.
Vicky was married for a while, leaving her husband after he cheated on her. She's obviously a bit touchy about infidelity. There's a story in there about her going on a date with someone from work only to find out he is married.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Short Tales- first draft
I'm working on the second draft, but in the mean time, here's the first draft of episode one.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Short tales character sketch- Robert
This character has been cast.
I'm going to be visiting America soon, so I thought it would be neat to get some footage to incorporate into the story. From that idea came the character of Robert.
Mid to late 30s. Robert is Gareth's step brother. He keeps getting phone calls from his little brother, but is rarely in the same city and sometimes not even the same country. I'll try to play him as non-geeky, even though that would be completely against type.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
I'm going to be visiting America soon, so I thought it would be neat to get some footage to incorporate into the story. From that idea came the character of Robert.
Mid to late 30s. Robert is Gareth's step brother. He keeps getting phone calls from his little brother, but is rarely in the same city and sometimes not even the same country. I'll try to play him as non-geeky, even though that would be completely against type.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Friday, September 14, 2007
Short Tales character sketch- Julie
This character is yet to be cast. If you're interested please get in touch. These notes are rough and will be tidied up as the character develops within the script and further as an actor fleshes them out.
Early 30s. Julie is Sarah's sister and Paul's ex. She lives in another city, possibly even another country, and doesn't turn up that often. When she does I'm sure chaos would follow.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Early 30s. Julie is Sarah's sister and Paul's ex. She lives in another city, possibly even another country, and doesn't turn up that often. When she does I'm sure chaos would follow.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Short Tales character sketch- Mark
This character is yet to be cast. If you're interested please get in touch. These notes are rough and will be tidied up as the character develops within the script and further as an actor fleshes them out.
Mid to late 20s. Mark is an ex-boyfriend of Sarah's. Her University relationship, he is the person she's been with longest to date. At the start of the first episode he has just told Sarah (and Paul and others) that he is engaged. He doesn't play a big role in the first episode, but his engagement party is an important part of the story.
This character is open to development and his own storylines. They don't have to be about his relationship with Sarah, in fact it would be better if they weren't.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Mid to late 20s. Mark is an ex-boyfriend of Sarah's. Her University relationship, he is the person she's been with longest to date. At the start of the first episode he has just told Sarah (and Paul and others) that he is engaged. He doesn't play a big role in the first episode, but his engagement party is an important part of the story.
This character is open to development and his own storylines. They don't have to be about his relationship with Sarah, in fact it would be better if they weren't.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Short Tales character sketch- Gareth
This character has been cast. These notes are rough and will be tidied up as the character develops within the script and further as an actor fleshes them out.
Mid 20s. Gareth is a bit like a younger version of Paul, they worked together for a while and became friends. Gareth is actually quite happy in his current job, though he does feel bad that he seems to be the only one of his group of friends who has job satisfaction.
Paul sometimes wonders if Gareth and Sarah would be suited for each other, and wavers between playing matchmaker and leaving well enough alone. Gareth, if he absolutely couldn't avoid the subject, would admit that he thinks he's far too geeky for a girl as hot as Sarah and she'd never think of him that way.
So obviously they're going to sleep together.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Mid 20s. Gareth is a bit like a younger version of Paul, they worked together for a while and became friends. Gareth is actually quite happy in his current job, though he does feel bad that he seems to be the only one of his group of friends who has job satisfaction.
Paul sometimes wonders if Gareth and Sarah would be suited for each other, and wavers between playing matchmaker and leaving well enough alone. Gareth, if he absolutely couldn't avoid the subject, would admit that he thinks he's far too geeky for a girl as hot as Sarah and she'd never think of him that way.
So obviously they're going to sleep together.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Short Tales character sketch- Sarah
This character is yet to be cast. If you're interested please get in touch. These notes are rough and will be tidied up as the character develops within the script and further as an actor fleshes them out.
Early to mid 20s. Sarah is the younger sister of one of Paul's exes, Julie. They got on well when he was seeing her sister and stayed in touch, on and off, until Sarah came to Manchester to study. Secretly (she won't even admit it to herself) Sarah would like Paul and Julie to get back together because she's afraid their friendship might slowly die otherwise.
Sarah has a history of picking the wrong men, often because she has an aversion to taking advice. She has just started her first job and is discovering how dull employment can be.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Early to mid 20s. Sarah is the younger sister of one of Paul's exes, Julie. They got on well when he was seeing her sister and stayed in touch, on and off, until Sarah came to Manchester to study. Secretly (she won't even admit it to herself) Sarah would like Paul and Julie to get back together because she's afraid their friendship might slowly die otherwise.
Sarah has a history of picking the wrong men, often because she has an aversion to taking advice. She has just started her first job and is discovering how dull employment can be.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Short Tales character sketch- Paul
This character is yet to be cast. If you're interested please get in touch. These notes are rough and will be tidied up as the character develops within the script and further as an actor fleshes them out.
Early to mid 30s. Paul works in IT and embodies some of the geek cliches. His house is a mess, but it does hold a large collection of consumer electronics. He's stagnating in his current job, but has yet to do anything about moving on.
Good natured but directionless, Paul always tries to do/say the right thing but feels he's not as wise as he wishes he were. Keeps insisting that his relationship with Sarah is just so she can introduce him to her hot friends, though it's obvious there's a lot of (platonic) love in it.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Early to mid 30s. Paul works in IT and embodies some of the geek cliches. His house is a mess, but it does hold a large collection of consumer electronics. He's stagnating in his current job, but has yet to do anything about moving on.
Good natured but directionless, Paul always tries to do/say the right thing but feels he's not as wise as he wishes he were. Keeps insisting that his relationship with Sarah is just so she can introduce him to her hot friends, though it's obvious there's a lot of (platonic) love in it.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Short Tales- format and names
I'm going to make production of Spinneyhead's next project as interactive as possible. Until I set up forums and stuff the interactivity will be handled through this blog. I'm going to set up an overall label for Short Tales and secondary labels for character sketches, writing, production issues and any other areas that crop up. Please leave suggestions and start conversations in the comments of the relevant post. There will still be a fair amount of work done by email and by getting together. Please don't leave your emails in the comment thread, but get in touch with me and I'll add you in to messages.
This first production post is to raise two important issues- format of episodes and the little matter of a name.
For internet episodes the big constraint is file size. Based upon the experience of compressing for Memory, I think I could produce ten minute episodes and still have them at a suitable quality whilst staying small enough to fit under Revver's maximum size limit (100mb). However, I also remember reading that the average length of a YouTube video is in the region of two and a half minutes, suggesting that aiming at shorter attention spans works better.
Another, offline, factor I've been considering is the lengths of tv shows. I'm not looking at producing half hour episodes, but fifteen minutes would slot easily into many stations schedules. I'm thinking of marketing the first episode as a pilot, showing a local station like Channel M what we can do with nothing and seeing if they'll fund us to give them something for the late evening.
So I'm writing a fifteen minute script. The first draft is a mere nine pages, which roughly equates to nine minutes, but I wrote it before I started thinking of fifteen minute episodes. However, fifteen minutes is a bit long to compress well for the internet. So I'm thinking of splitting one fifteen minute episode into three five minute acts which each serve as webisodes.
Naming is a big deal. This project is currently called "Short Tales About Love and Sex". It's a working title and really, really needs changing before broadcast. Single word titles are popular- Coupling, Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld (though the last two were named for their central character and we can't do that with this project as it's going to involve an ever changing group of characters). I don't think anything longer than three words is going to work, and if we do go for a phrase rather than a word, it has to sum up some key theme of the series- Men Behaving Badly is the best example I can think of for this.
Of course, it'll be hard to name the series until you know a bit more about it. At the moment I know the most about what I want to do with it and the themes I want to explore, and I can't think of a name. So I'm not expecting miracles from you. I'll post the first draft script and some character sketches and you might begin to get some ideas.
Here's to working together.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
This first production post is to raise two important issues- format of episodes and the little matter of a name.
For internet episodes the big constraint is file size. Based upon the experience of compressing for Memory, I think I could produce ten minute episodes and still have them at a suitable quality whilst staying small enough to fit under Revver's maximum size limit (100mb). However, I also remember reading that the average length of a YouTube video is in the region of two and a half minutes, suggesting that aiming at shorter attention spans works better.
Another, offline, factor I've been considering is the lengths of tv shows. I'm not looking at producing half hour episodes, but fifteen minutes would slot easily into many stations schedules. I'm thinking of marketing the first episode as a pilot, showing a local station like Channel M what we can do with nothing and seeing if they'll fund us to give them something for the late evening.
So I'm writing a fifteen minute script. The first draft is a mere nine pages, which roughly equates to nine minutes, but I wrote it before I started thinking of fifteen minute episodes. However, fifteen minutes is a bit long to compress well for the internet. So I'm thinking of splitting one fifteen minute episode into three five minute acts which each serve as webisodes.
Naming is a big deal. This project is currently called "Short Tales About Love and Sex". It's a working title and really, really needs changing before broadcast. Single word titles are popular- Coupling, Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld (though the last two were named for their central character and we can't do that with this project as it's going to involve an ever changing group of characters). I don't think anything longer than three words is going to work, and if we do go for a phrase rather than a word, it has to sum up some key theme of the series- Men Behaving Badly is the best example I can think of for this.
Of course, it'll be hard to name the series until you know a bit more about it. At the moment I know the most about what I want to do with it and the themes I want to explore, and I can't think of a name. So I'm not expecting miracles from you. I'll post the first draft script and some character sketches and you might begin to get some ideas.
Here's to working together.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Backyard FX - Stunt fighting
Indymogul does a regular vidcast on low budget film making. This week- stunt fighting.
Where did I put my nunchuks?
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Where did I put my nunchuks?
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Saturday, September 01, 2007
FROM SMILERS TO GUTBUSTERS – SCRIPTING FOR COMEDY
FROM SMILERS TO GUTBUSTERS – SCRIPTING FOR COMEDY
A 10wk course beginning 2 October 2007
Beginning with the question ‘What is humour?’ this course will cover the techniques and skills for crafting comedy material for broadcast, performance and publication. We will also look at industry requirements and finding markets for your comedy writing.
o The nature of comedy, what makes people laugh and why
o Comedy writing techniques
o One-liners and sketches for radio, TV and performance
o Stand-up material
o Sourcing markets for comedy material
For more information contact:
Courses for the Public, Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL
Tel: 0161-275 3275
e-mail: cce.reception@manchester.ac.uk
Web: www.manchester.ac.uk/coursespublic
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
One week film challenge
Toshiba have offered to give me a laptop to review for a week or two. The details haven't been finalised yet, but I hope to get it later this month. They've said I can test it in any non-destructive way I can think of, so I'm going to see how good it is for making movies.
The challenge is to plan, shoot, edit and release a short film in a week, with as much work as possible done on the laptop. We'll start by batting around a few ideas now so I can put together a rough script or treatment for the start of the week. Work on the script over an evening, shoot stuff the next couple of days and then edit it all together.
I don't know when I'll be getting the laptop, and it may turn up at short notice, so I can't say when I'll be doing this. If you're interested, would like to be involved and/or can seed the project with ideas of what you'd like to shoot, please get in touch.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
The challenge is to plan, shoot, edit and release a short film in a week, with as much work as possible done on the laptop. We'll start by batting around a few ideas now so I can put together a rough script or treatment for the start of the week. Work on the script over an evening, shoot stuff the next couple of days and then edit it all together.
I don't know when I'll be getting the laptop, and it may turn up at short notice, so I can't say when I'll be doing this. If you're interested, would like to be involved and/or can seed the project with ideas of what you'd like to shoot, please get in touch.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Bluescreen
Today, I noticed some YouTube videos on Chromakey (Blue / Green Screen)
The tutorial can be found Here
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
The tutorial can be found Here
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Saturday, July 28, 2007
"Without you I'm only me."
Screenwriter Ken Levine breaks down the modern romantic comedy formula.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Be sure to include five block comedy scenes. Zany sequences that generally involve destruction, humiliation, emasculation, dogs, and toilets. If they were making SOME LIKE IT HOT today Joe E. Brown would be giving Jack Lemmon a bikini wax. THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH would be Ben-Gay in Marilyn Monroe's panties.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Friday, July 27, 2007
Memory - Part 5
The finale. Hannah learns the truth about her father's death, and is faced with a terrible choice.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
Monday, July 23, 2007
Memory - Part 4
Delayed due to my being away from the relevant pc over the weekend. Episode 4 of Memory.
Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead
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