Plays & Nuns & Scripts & Shorts

Strangely enough, a bunch of stuff has happened at exactly the same time. Odd how that happens..

Not content with my family/dad duties and getting NWG off the ground, and filming the Chocolate short I mentioned in my last post, I've also now been accepted as a director for Short & Sweet, which means I need to choose a play, cast & rehearse it ready for a week run at the Newtown Theatre 13-18th January 2008! I'd forgotten about that one....

OK I'm actually a little along the way already.

I've shot Chocolate - I cannot believe that after all my time filming here I could go out into the middle of a field for two days under the Australian sun and forget:

1. Sunscreen
2. A hat
3. A pen!

What a plonker... Though I did have all the above for the second day, I put sunscreen on everywhere except the back of my neck and it's taken the best part of a week to recover! That was one burnt bit of skin....

On the plus the short is pretty amusing, it's come together nicely. Rob Queree did an excellent job as Farmer Jim.

I've also already chosen the play I'm directing from the first 50 accepted scripts of Short & Sweet. It's called 'Lovely Bits' by Mark Andrew, and I've cast the key leads with the very talented Lisa Fineberg and the equally talented Matthew Thomson. First rehearsal this sunday!

The NWG first draft is also getting there slowly - I've set a target of the end of the year and I hope it will be done by then, but I did always factor in a few weeks delay from the Chocolate Short and didn't factor anything in for S&S!

I have put together 500 and 1000 word synopses over the last week which gives a good insight into the project and even better, my good friend Simon Ralph has some up with an excellent new logo for the project during these pre-production times. I've already used it to redesign the holding page while a proper website is built. Go check it out.

So things are looking good - hold on, I need to touch some wood now....

And there's more! (I have been a while between posts) - The first rough cut of Rock Chikz NBQ was shown to me last weekend! Of course there's a thousand things to change but it's great that Alison the editor has moved it forwards. Looking forward to a constructive session on sunday morning.

Laters. Oh yeah, I like to post a video each time, here's something amusing I found the other day!


That Explains It from Derek Doublin on Vimeo.

More news! Obama elected!!

Work is progressing well on the 'Nuns With Guns' First Draft Script. More news on that when we finish it. I've also been scouting locations for a Tropfest entry this year, a bit of a last-minute decision but the script was hanging around and really it's not that complicated a project, once I track down the ute, a herd of cows and a large bull! Planning to shoot at the end of the month, gotta be ready for the beginning of Jan.

Finally, I have at last sorted a trailer for the Rock Chikz episode. It's taking forever for the editor to get round to editing it so in the meantime I put this together over a couple of evenings last week. The cast and crew like it A LOT!

http://www.vimeo.com/2169903


Rock Chikz Episode 3 Teaser from LostSheep Productions on Vimeo.

Nuns, Farmers & The US Election

Here's some funny clips:






And on the subject of a flip of the coin -A complete loss of team cohesion!

Latest News - Production Listings Now Up

Nuns With Guns has now been listed on IF Magazine and Encore as 'In Planning/In PreProduction'! :-)

So much to do but the plan is good and I'm sticking to it! However I may change the priority for the nuns movie website - it looks a bit daggy and it would appear a few people are already looking at it.

Anyway! Onwards!!

Other notes, I've been working on a few composited clips for Rock Chikz that I will supply to Alison, the editor, once she's ready to start on the episode. She may or may not use them but it's good to be using After Effects again after a bit of a break. Surprising how much you forget though, in just a few months..

Oh and the PMW EX1 has just been given a firmware upgrade and power board replacement - it's in top fiddle state now, great stuff. I'm fighting the urge to film something in the latter part of this year as the priority is NWG above all else, but that said, I may not be able to resist another little weekend production. More when I've made a decision... :-)

Laters.. PJ

Hello Hello

Been a while between posts, anyway here I am with a couple of random entries.

Firstly, a cool little film made with a Canon 5D SLR, called Reverie by Vincent Laforet. The way these Digital 'still' cameras are going into the world of 'movement' is very interesting! I think there could be some great new tools for storytellers very soon. Anyway enjoy, this is very pretty:



Secondly, I fixed my Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard to work with Windows Mobile 6 (wm6). The driver development from igo ended with wm5. There's a problem with a bluetooth stack called Dakar.

This sounds very geeky and it is, but I use this keyboard to write when I'm travelling and it's the best travel keyboard I've ever used - I will be doing plenty more script writing with it in the next few months :-)

Anyway to make it work, you just have to use the standard bluetooth system in WM6. Once it finds the Stowaway keyboard, to connect enter the passcode 1234, then while it's searching, type 1234 and enter on the keyboard. Voila, they're paired.

The special shortcuts will not work, but it will function as a full keyboard if you're just typing...

OK, my next post will be about film projects, I promise!

PJ

Rock Chikz Filming Aftermath

Well well well! What a week. 6 days, 14 hours a day, an average of 20 people on set each day, many many locations, a ridiculous 4-6 scenes a day turnaround, 690 takes, 90.5Gb of footage and it's done. At least the production bit.

I used the PMW EX1 shot it at 720P 25 - all went well, and only a few moments where I thought I'd lost half a day's footage. But they turned out to just be white-hair-forming moments without any real need for immediate international departure. The Sony software/firmware is still a bit flaky though hopefully the firmware upgrade I've scheduled for next week will go some way to solving the issues.

It was also a chance to see how I coped with the experience of full-on production and try to imagine this for 6 weeks next year doing NWG. Well first off, the intensity of this production was ridiculous and could not have been continued beyond 6 days. Based on the scene turnover we just did, it would have meant a 90 film could have been filmed in 18 days! I agree with the wise words of Rolf De Heer - 'Shoot twice as long with half the crew'.

The footage looks great. The camera is tops. There's probably a few over-exposed moments but that doesn't surprise me at all. This was simply too intense. We didn't even manage to set up the monitor once all week! (Admitedly we could have but it was a crappy SD monitor and I can frame perfectly well in the viewfinder of this fine camera). Sometimes you just have to get the thing in the can and move on - not a preferred option but time and money were on my back all week long.

Overall, would I do this again?? HELL YEAH!!

Rock Chikz - Sexy Band Photo Shoot

Spent a very pleasant saturday photographing the actresses playing the Cindy Low Band in the upcoming episode of Rock Chikz I'm directing in a couple of weeks. Here's a few favourites.





More can be found here.

I get all the tough gigs!

The Original Weekend Trailer

Well this is the weekend project that's started the whole process. I made it for a meeting of Kino Sydney, as a bit of fun. Which it was and still is. So expect pretty basic production values, dodgy acting, editing, etc, but it still has something about it... What I'm working on now is radically better but still rooted in this ozploitation/nunsploitation genre headspace. And yes, Sister Sandy will be in the upcoming project. Think Batman crossed with Mother Theresa :-)

Get ready!! Nuns With Guns - The Original Trailer

And So It Begins..

My new blog, that is. It also coincides with the formation of BoomTime Productions and what is clearly the next step in my film and storytelling development.

For the sake of continuity, all the previous posts on the PJ Collins Film Blog can be found here:

http://www.sheepdiaries.com/diaries/view_diary.asp?DiaryID=257&UserID=32

So technically it's more of a 'continues' than a 'begins'... Anyway I'm being pedantic.

'Nuns With Guns' (NWG) is well and truly in the development stage now. The treament's pretty much nailed and the script is taking shape, with a shoot timetable planned for March/April/May 2009. I'll be using this blog for a few purposes:

1. To track all the significant NWG events
2. To track my planned RTA Motorcycle Safety Video Series (if the funding comes through!)
   
3. To track the filming of the 30 minute 'Natural Beauty Queen' episode of Rock Chikz, to be directed and DOP'ed by me from 15-20th September in Sydney, and finally,
4. To post any amusing web videos I come across or make for a laugh.

There. 4 core purposes. Let the games begin!
And to kick it all off (in this Olympic Month) let's go back to the basics.... back to Sesame Street. :-)