JOURNEY-er PRODUCTIONS

interesting

2010-06-17T19:21:00.001+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0veKAVvnU8

2010-04-24T10:54:00.000+08:00

Hello friends and visitors alike. I admit that I have been a bad little director and not kept you entirely up to date. ALOT has transpired between my last and current post. so I will try and key point the happenings for you.

* An actor dropped out three days before the production was scheduled to shoot. The film was delayed a week while a replacement was scouted.

* A spectacular addition to the crew was found in Blake Waldock. This man is the brohemian love story of my life, a real doer on the set and provider of magical gifts and equipment.

* Shoot began swimingly in my back yard studio. I literally built a frame that extended my two car garage by three meters length ways then industrial wrapped the shit out of it like was Dexter. Day to night achieved!

* Horrendously underestimated the immense shot list, three days in the studio became five. I stuck to my guns and made it happen as such.

* Awesome stunt performed by the magical Kaitlin-Mary Hall went of without a hitch and provided probably the coolest shot of the film.

* Location shoot began in the Pines. A wonderful winding road through the trees was scouted there and provided some truly magical scenery in camera.

* three days later we again realised that we had horrendously under-scheduled the shoot. I made a last minute decision to dodge a potential drop in moral and put the production on a break. This allowed the crew time to work and do other 'real life' things. I myself took a little time off to spend with the lovely lady.

* I acquired a full time job to raise money again for the coming shoot. An action I compare to blood letting in penance.

* A date was discussed amongst the crew and a production meeting was held. The green light was given and our personal targets set. The final three days of production are scheduled to begin on the 21st of May.

* Stay tuned.

Here's a trailer to get your saliva going...

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1423899635261&oid=120801627934396

Stay tuned for more updates...

Lots of love and money

Nicholas Phillips

Have Soundy - Can Make Picture

2010-03-07T17:41:00.000+08:00

Hello lady and Gents

Time to to catch you up on what has transpired since my last rather melancholy post. Allot has happened since those dark ages.

I was introduced to a most wonderful FX Artist extraordinare, Freena Hamilton and her partner and assistant Mat who together are like the Bat Man and Robin of effects artists. Freena had a peek at my script and her eye's glazed over such lines as "It's fangs are long and razor sharp", "He tears away her mouth but she takes flesh with her" and "The skin on one side of her face has been ground away to bone" She gave me a call and in it was on donkey Kong.

Every now and again at a production meeting Freena shows me some of her work in progress and I cant help but get warm feelings inside. The calibre of the work is far superior to anything I could have done myself. I am most thankful for her presence on the production.

Production meetings started showing a healthy attendance around a week ago and since then crew and cast members have been walking in and out my front door almost daily. Loren Kenrick my head of Production Design has been going above and beyond the call of duty sometimes acting like a co-producer, introducing me to potential crew and attending casting sessions. A big thank you will be owed to her when all is shot and wrapped.

My actors have been selected with Daniel Tenni to play the role of Michael and Adam Dear to play Paul. Freena was also kind enough to introduce me to the woman that now holds the gory mantle of Clair, the great menace of the story. A beautiful actress who loves wearing practical effects about as much as Freena loves applying them. With all three of these actors I am confident that the story will find life on screen.

On another note. My Gaffer sent word via a medium that he would not be able to meet the availability of the shoot that has now stretched out to a whopping nine days of shooting to accommodate the massive amount's of shots, one hundred and twenty nine to be precise (not including cut-away's). And so, around five days from the start of production I was ringing around old friends and brief acquaintances trying to find someone to take up the mantle. But there was an even bigger worry on the horizon.

Not only had I not yet secured any sound equipment, but I hadn't even found a competent operator. to put things in perspective, the pool of film makers in Perth is vast, they populate the water like tiny minnows if not sometimes blind to each other and the opportunities that float past them. Soundy's tho are like a rare albino of albino minnows. They are few and very far between, to know one is to have opportunity in reach for without sound you cannot have a picture, to know one who has his own equipment and will work for you for little to nothing is a blessing but very few of these little albino albinos ever get to reach that stage of maturity and few who do posses a giving and compassionate state of mind. Many of them are bittered by experience or blinded by there own rarity and uniqueness. It is imperative that a Director if not knowing a friendly old albino, knows how to beg. Because in this game of cards, the albinos hold all the aces.

After much searching, and I do believe I rung and emailed to the furthest reaches of my tiny web I found myself on the screen west film directory going through names of sound recordists. It seemed every one had a list of experience that towered far above my tiny back yard film and that invoked the sounds of falling dollar coins in my ears. I was loosing hope and then suddenly I saw a name I recognised and old fellow TAFE student from my studies years prior. I gave Simon a ring and told him of my plight, he listened and agreed to have a look at some of the dates and then later that afternoon sent me an email with a green light on it. Have soundy... can make picture. I rang another old TAFE'y who had some sound equipment agreed to hire it from him at a greatly reduced price and walla! Problem solved.

My gaffer situation is without solution but to mainly a fault of my own, that being that I don't think that I necessarily need one any more. between myself and my DOP Garth Austin I believe the job is very much catered for and in safe hands. And so I now claim the title of Gaffer on the production also. Whether or not I choose to credit myself as such is still undecided.

Speaking of catering. My unit I now firmly believe will be the greatest ever known to a film production, because its being managed by the greatest cook ever to hold a knife and spatula, my Nanna Margaret Weaver. I visited her yesterday for a unit meeting and the recipes she so casually waved about in front of my face made me so hungry I almost took a bite out of her pine wood table. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the look on the crews faces when dinner is presented this Wednesday. All animal friendly of coarse but I will be happy to point any complainers towards the local shopping centre. No money out of my pocket.

And so the shoot begins this Wednesday (the 10th) and then breaks abruptly afterwards before continuing again before repeat... all in all, the final day of production will take place on the 28th of this month (March) so where in for a long ride. But to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Peace
Nicholas Phillips

My Chariot of Snails

2010-02-18T01:35:00.000+08:00

My Chariot of Snails

An image from the Pre-visual shoot Day to Night conversion

I'm travelin atop a chariot pulled by a team of snails. This is not a metaphor for my crew but just a general observation of the production so far. With every sluggish tug a little more of my by-polar depressive other self bubbles to the surface. My draining bank account has become my ticking clock and its ticking like it needs a few less batteries.

But I have come to accept this most brutal truth. I am a nobody in this industry. I dived in the deep end thinking to make friends with cats chasing each other around the pool, but instead I received the awkward glances and cold shoulders of those who don't understand how a grown man can wear speedos at a public venue. i was out of my depth and out of my understanding. I've been in the fast track class of wizening since the first days of announcing the production and here is where I now stand.

Almost three weeks since project commencement I am only just filling the final positions on the crew. I am still without a Soundy and minor assisting roles like Best Boy and Boom Swinger. My first AD has just disappeared to South Australia for a week and a half, my Gaffer for two. My DOP is yet to give me any rough storyboards and so I continue to sketch them myself and my first round of auditions for the roles of Michael, Paul and Un-dead Claire proved to be unfruitful.

But I re-eco the words of the great Calvin Coolidge 'Persistence and determination'

So long as I continue to strive onwards I will continue onwards, and so long as I continue onwards this film will come to fruition.

This is my test, and I will not fail.

Stay tuned readers and read-ets

Nicholas

The Potency of Success

2010-02-02T23:46:00.000+08:00

Dearest readers.
The %100 percent New Zealand competition did not bare the fruits I had deeply hoped for yet I bowed humbly to the five most worthy selections of the resulting One thousand and eighty film makers who submitted entries. but in every failure there is new opportunity and if I may quote a portion of the words once spoken by an old US President (Calvin Coolidge):

"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

You cannot fail if you never give up, and so I continue to strive forward, with this motto in mind.

There is a new project in the works, something I began before, but placed on the back burner during my work on the Peter Jackson submission. Now I'm reviving it (quite literally) and it has arisen even more glorious than before.

Lady and Gents, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you my new Film and first project of 2010

Life Under Shadow

There is not much I can tell you about this project just yet as it is only in the first week of Pre-production, but I will leave you with some pre-development tasties to keep you in the area until the oven really starts cooking and I can begin to slip you larger pieces of the production pie.

Synopsis -

Life Under Shadow is a film about growing up. Two friends Michael and Paul are driving home late a night from a friends wedding in the countryside. The wedding has been a ‘slap in the face’ to both men who are beginning to realise that their days of careless youth are soon to leave them. They quickly find themselves in contention with each other over their different desires for the future of their own lives. Little do they know their night will take them on an adventure, an adventure they might not live through at all.

AND

These are some mock story boards in the fashion of a comic strip, that I have been scribbling for my Director of Pornography Garth Austin, look at them close enough and you'll find a nice little give away or two as too what has imperilled our two heroes:

Keep checking in as I inscribe you through the production process.

Nicholas x

%1000 New Zealand

2010-01-18T13:18:00.001+08:00

So it appears that I have disappeared off the face of the film world, but it is not true for I have been busily working away behind closed doors and shut curtains! I have been working on a script for a world wide competition designed as tourism marketing for our neighbour New Zealand. The company went by the name %100 percent New Zealand.

http://www.your-big-break.com

The premise of the competition was this. Write a three minute screenplay and submit with a sixty second video pitch explaining your piece, then wait. Of the resulting (One thousand and eighty) submissions five will be selected, four by a panel of judges and one by a public vote. Those lucky five will be flown to Queenstown in the south island of New Zealand, whereby they will meet their producer Barrie Osborne of Lord of the Rings fame, given a budget of One hundred thousand dollars, a small crew and two days of shooting at any location around Queenstown, then afterwards access to Peter Jackson's own post production facilities. At the end when all is cut and edited, Peter Jackson himself will judge the resulting five and select a single winner who he will then give as reward, the key to the fucking universe!

As you can understand the ramifications of winning said competition would be unbelievable. Something similar to inserting a rocket in your bum, lighting it and pointing yourself at the gates of Hollywood.

And so I started to work... then I reworked, worked again... deleted and started over... reworked, lost my mind, regained my composure and reworked... then finally I had an early draft of my current script.

With this early draft I began to pull in a little outside help. Starting with the most brilliant, the most fan fucking-tastic, Jeffrey Phillips!

Jeffrey is a graphic artist as his neat little business card so proclaims. I met him briefly at the networking function a month or so back (see older post) and had heard of him through his work with the well known Wade K Savage. If one is to visit his web-site one will see that this kids got talent. Through contact with him via email I told him of my plight, my inability to draw above sub par and he agreed to do some storyboard images for me.

A few days later Jeffrey emailed me the work and payment was agreed upon. All said and done I never even saw him face to face. The wonders of modern communication mediums!

The second wild card I drew was an old friend turned successful son of a gun John Sullivan! We studied together back in film prison where he developed a nack for editing systems and I developed.. well not much at all. He now works for the Television Program Fishing WA as camera man, soundy and editor. With his help and Jeffrey's work I was able to construct a most superior video pitch to sell my story.

The work completed I submitted my script and pitch on the buzzer. A submission I am truly proud of regardless of the outcome. But it would not have been possible without the help of those mentioned above. Great work guys...

Follow the link below to see the submission in its natural habitat:

http://www.your-big-break.com/entry/13019

One of Jeffrey's storyboard images that didn't make it into the final submission due to a fundamental change I made in the script. here it shall live forever as the alternative ending.

More of Jeff's work here : www.jeffreyphillips.com.au

We've Come A Long Way Since King Kong

2009-12-22T01:05:00.002+08:00

A few days ago I had a life changing experience and no I am not being dramatic. I watched James Cameron's, Avatar in 3D.

Years ago I remember reading in Peter Jackson's autobiography about the effect the experience of watching King Kong had on him. He realised in that movie the amazing potential of cinema to create the unreal. He spent his following years until his success with bigger pictures like Lord of the Rings trying to replicate the stop motion animation pioneered by Willis O'Brien in that film. That movie helped him decide his path in life as a film maker.

I was born in an age of cinema lacking in the same novelty glamour that previous generations enjoyed. Cinema is now such a common part of our culture that even ground breaking special effects and hyper real non fiction is only able to capture our attention for as long as it takes for another film to distract us. Common story formats have been done to death, typical filmic styles have been utilised so many times there is little that ever makes one film stand out from another. Our interest as an audience has been waning and waiting for something fresh to come along and sweep us away in its fantasy.

When I saw Jason Sully for the first time, attached to a seat amongst other space traveller's all travelling within the long cylindrical tube of their vessel I truly felt I was watching a world through a plane of clear glass, that beyond the barrier of the cinema projection screen there truly was a world just waiting to be stepped into.

Avatar was my first ever novel cinema experience and it has inspired me to pick my own path, one that I hope will one day lead to my own 3D work.

I will say little about the film other then it was amazing. Pandora is a world deserving of a directors special extended DVD edition. This film was true genius at work.

Four and a half stars **** 1/2

Central TAFE's FTI Advanced Diploma Screening Night - A Quick Mention of a Few Goodies

2009-12-17T12:04:00.001+08:00

Last night I had the pleasure to view the work of this years Advanced Diploma TAFE students. They held a second screening down at the FTI cinema. It was good student work all round. I will make quick mention of the two that I enjoyed the most.

The first and the opening short of the night was Boxed In, Directed by Bart Orlicki and Produced by Matt Mitchell and Pamela Wong.

Bart is a very meticulous creator and his films always hold a little of the smooth edges and clean results of his production style, and this one was no different. Boxed in was a duplicity type short about an accountant and an office college who conspire to steal a million dollars from there boss. The cinematography was good and fitting to the office atmosphere and monotonous life of the main character. The sets where believable without a whiff of a back drop. The Acting was focused and believable. All in all this was my favourite of the nights films. A great film that should do well on the festival circuit.

The second and the short to close the night was Bootleg, Written and Directed by Johnny Ma and Produced by Tase Jaycobs Stekov.

Johnny is a tenacious director with much experience in off slate productions and he really brings allot of that experience into this film which stands out allot from the others with its individual style. Bootleg is a very visually dynamic production, especially the opening! It is the story of man haunted by the unsolved death of his daughter and caught in a strange twilight zone of candy bar animations, a relentless amateur documentarist and his daughters murderer who seems to never be far from reach. This is a very individual film that whiffs a little of surrealism and is enjoyable to watch even if it does leave you with more questions than it answers. Again another to watch out for on the festival circuit.

It was a great night and much drinking was enjoyed afterwards.

Beowulf - Truth in the Poem

2009-12-15T13:24:00.001+08:00

Last night at around one o-clock in the morning, suffering from a little insomnia I decided to sit myself down on the couch and settle my mind with a film I hadn't yet seen, but had been curious about for some time. That film was Beowulf by director Robert Zemeckis.

As soon as the movie began I found myself slightly recoiling. The computerised images of the characters like king Hrothgar and the dinner scene in the great mead hall of the Danes was something likened to a Playstation movie, and a step backwards from an old favourite of mine Final Fantasy which was made quite a many years before. But then maybe like all movies, they seemed better 'then' when you first watched them upon when revisiting them years later you start noticing all the outlines on the special effects jobs. The problem with Beowulf is you notice all the outlines first time around and that is always enough to make me cringe.

But then the crudity began. The king arrived on the scene two parts cut with his clothes falling off. There where rude gestures and many sexual implications and suddenly I realised I wasn't watching a children's movie. Then Grendel the great man-daemon abomination arrived and started pulling people apart quite graphically and I was suddenly pleased. Zemeckis had spared nothing in his rendition of the original story which was quite true to the Poem.

The story took hold of me and suddenly the terrible platforms and stagnant character expressions became bearable and somewhat different and enjoyable. I even began to notice that some elements of the animation where greater than others and I began to appreciate that aspect a little more. But I very quickly began to realise how fast Beowulf was nakedly punching his way through the original story and I began to suspect an impending deviation from the Poem.

Now I don't usually like deviations from original work, especially original work I have come to appreciate but I a was compelled to make an exception after what I saw in Beowulf. Zemeckis by rights did not deviate above minor details from the Poem, instead he treated the original text as it was, a boast of a deed past and not necessarily the truth. From the boast Zemeckis developed his own truth as to the story of Beowulf and that then became the heart of the film. As grim as this new story was I found myself enjoying it and what's more I could only applaud the way that Zemeckis skilfully pulled it off without tearing the original text to bits and pissing on it in the process.

This is a film worth the watch, even if you do have to cringe at the monsters once or twice. The Zemeckis Daemon mother is an improvement if anything on the the rather unflattering Poem's explanation of her. She is an enjoyable sight.

Three stars * * *

2009-12-11T10:45:00.000+08:00

Picture from the Perth Film Network Function at the Flying Scotsman:

On the left is Shane Mcmullan an actor of the highest order who I met on a community television program about a year back and on the right is yours truly.

Find more images from the night here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=180118&id=106481359407&ref=mf

Cutting the Ice with the Perth Film Network

2009-12-10T11:37:00.008+08:00

Thank you for visiting.

Last Tuesday on the 8th of December I visited the Flying Scotsman for a Film Network Function ran by the lovely people over at Wizard Corporation Productions. If you are a someone in the industry or aspiring to be, like myself and you haven't heard about these functions do yourself a favour and request an invitation. At the least you'll meet some beautiful actors who attend the night in copious numbers. Link below:

http://www.wizardcorpproductions.com.au/networking_function.html

It was a great night and I soon found myself reuniting with old friends and meeting some lovely new ones, some with business cards. This was the second major step in my evil plan to re-inject myself into the Perth film scene and repair the damage done by my sudden departure over nine months ago in a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to circumnavigate the continent using just my thumb. Read my travel diary for more information on that story, the first chapter is linked below, a warning though, you should have a minor interest in my travels if you are to attempt what lies on those pages. There's enough words there to drown the mere mortal:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/nicholas-phillips/23nd-april-09-the-incredible-journey-of-no-one-in-particular-chapter-one/89262061702

My first major step was to complete a short film script that I could cut my teeth on in production. I managed to complete the first draft of twenty pages on Monday and so on to step three. The second draft! And so this is what you've all been waiting for, all two and a half of you. The introduction of my first and upcoming production. It's alias name:

THE NIGHTLYISH

Stay with me and watch how this sight develops.

NsP