Madness and Method.

Yes, my post-shoot blog post was a little bleak and Yes, I have cheered up since then! I was just wiped-out, perhaps a little emotional and a bit disappointed in not getting everything done in the week. I think in the entire week of shooting I slept all of 30 hours, out of 168! And then came off that straight into broken nightmare sleeps... so no, probably was in the best frame of mind. Still, it was how I was feeling at the time and as this blog has the word Journey in the title I have to tell it as is goes.

Bag-O-Tricks

I've since settled back into normal life and have caught up on sleep (as much as my soon-to-be two year-old daughter lets me! - but I guess that is normal now!) and I was talking with DOP John Lawlor yesterday about a fun idea for a new project!!! It's a sort of sequel to Derelict, but it's a comedy. I think I need to do a comedy after these last few years! It's all been very dark indeed.

I've been logging all the footage (no editing yet) and I must say it looks good, I'm very happy with how it's turned out. I need to finish logging and labeling and start choosing and syncing and then start the edit. I had hoped to have had it started by now but, well, life pokes it's head in and reminds you of the other things you put off while making the film - like finishing the bathroom and bringing the ever increasing pile of recycling to the centre and the contents of the attic to the charity shop! Not that I've actually done any of that mind you... Procrastination!

We're going back in two weeks to shoot pick-ups for a day and then the week after for two days, and that will everything, I hope, should be. I'm looking forward to getting it done. I know it has to be sooner rather then later for risk of it not being completed. I'd rather do it when it's fresh in our minds. And it deserves it of course, both for the film and for the work everyone's put in.

The scenes we're going back to get are really the most important in the film, at least the most important for those characters. One is the scene that changes everything for all the characters and leads to the eventual outcome, and it's just a simple conversation between two characters. The other, the same, a conversation between two characters, that is really theme of the whole film and the emotional center of the piece. So they're important to get.

I was sad we had to drop them in the main shoot, but now I'm glad in a way. Given their importance I'm glad we can take our time with them, settle in to them, spend a day on them rather than a rushed two hours.

In saying that though I don't feel the shoot was rushed... OK, it was a bit, and more in some places than others - But, I think it leant itself to the scenes themselves. For example, when we were shooting the opening scene of the film, where everyone arrives, we really had time constraints on that one, we flew through it, didn't stop for anything, and people got testy and edgy and probably felt rushed - but that was what the scene was about, the characters being on edge, testy, rushed.

This happened again and again, we ended up in similar situations to those being portrayed, which, was my point in doing it this way from the start (see old posts) - being in a situation as close to the real one as possible so we could feed off the energy in the room... albeit a very dark, oppressive and negative energy! But again, we weren't making a romantic comedy here! I always felt like the energy was right, which was probably why I wasn't running around panicking. I was getting what I set out to get - So you see, there was some method to my madness!


Hopefully some more images soon, not too many thought, I don't want to give anything away. Maybe a trailer... probably not for a while though and maybe some outtakes, there are some funny ones I have to say! If I say the words Tone and Jesus, I know some people will already be laughing. More info too on the edit, and pick-ups as they come.

Meantime Thomas and I are back writing on Iscariot. Trying to get a new draft done by the end of November to go looking for money. Will be interesting to see how that goes. So I have one feature to edit and one to write in the next six weeks! Should be fun!!!