About Me

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Bristol, United Kingdom
Chronicle of an aspiring amateur filmmaker taking on the world!

Saturday 29 December 2012

Further Progress

Hi World,

Hope you all had a superb Christmas.  My holiday period was pretty tiring as the missus has been unwell again, so I've been on childcare duty a lot!

However, I've made a bit more progress with the music video - having finished with the live performance footage, this evening I returned to the screen screen footage shot back in August.  I had two takes of the

Monday 24 December 2012

Xmas News

Hey Everyone,

Okay, so I'd hoped to get the music video all done and dusted by Christmas, alas, hit a big technical problem - as you'll have noticed if you'd watched it, the previous posting showed the performance element of the video, and it turned out the audio and video had gone out of sync.  Initially I thought it was purely in the uploading to YouTube, but it turns out it was an issue in the way I was rendering the file - strangely, this

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Music Video - Shoot No.2

Finally!

At long last, I'm very pleased to report that I have concluded the filming for the music video project I've been working on with my good friends, Alien Stash Tin.  Its crazy, but it has been just a fraction under three

Sunday 11 November 2012

Progress...At Last

Its been a hectic, troublesome few weeks - but things are finally getting back on track

Thursday 11 October 2012

More Updates

Evening

Sorry for being so slack with posts recently, lots of stuff happening, sadly none of it film related!  The whole family have been up to our noses in colds and flu, so if I've not been playing nursemaid to the sick masses,

Monday 1 October 2012

The Podcast Has a New Home!

Greetings World

As previously mentioned, the Crash & Burn Movie Podcast has totally outgrown this humble blog, its striking out on its own and its got its own place now.

And here it is, please check it out;

The Crash & Burn Movie Podcast

www.crashandburnmoviepodcast.co.uk

Rest assured, this blog will continue and be much more focused solely on the filmmaking, although I'll make sure I regularly link through to podcast blog to let everyone know the latest.

Thursday 27 September 2012

Progress and Developments

Evening Universe!

Podcast Update

Episode 4 of The Crash and Burn Movie Podcast has become the most popular in terms of downloads within a week of going live, which is pleasant and quite surprising.  Just to keep reality in check, we are still only talking about 50 odd downloads in total, and it will be interesting to see if the trend continues with the next episode, but myself and Jon are starting to really get to grips with what the show is about and how we can deliver it better each time.  We're really confident episode 5 is going to continue in the upward arc, so its an exciting time.

It is because of this increase in demand for the podcast that I have decided to give the show its own space, it will be getting its own dedicated website.  We think its grown up enough to justify it, and this will allow me to return the focus of this blog back to my filmmaking - although the two will be forever linked.  I'm expecting to launch the new site publicly to coincide with the release of episode 5 - the site design is almost done, just a bit of fine-tuning required, so I'd estimate the first weekend in October will see the launch.  Stay tuned.

Filming

Still no firm progress with organising the next filming shoot, the remaining members of Alien Stash Tin are proving to be hard to pin down.  Still optimistic that I can get hold of the bassist and lead guitarist in early October, then the drummer in either late October or early November.  Once those scenes are shot I can assemble a working edit of the video.  There is a bit of extra optional filming the band would like to do to add a couple of specific shots to the video, but if push comes to shove we could edit the video without them.  We'll just have to see, I'd be happy if i just had the bare minimum I need to start editing properly.

Have not had any chance to work on the short film I wrote in the spring, Living in Denial.  There is a scene in it that I'm not sure if I can make them work with the technology I've got - but I'm thinking of trying out a short test to see if its possible.  All being well, I might be able to try it this weekend.  If it works out I'll post the edited footage on here next week - its about time I posted some footage, I must be the least active filmmaker in history!

Saturday 22 September 2012

The Crash & Burn Movie Podcast Episode 4 aka Insanity in a World of Rapping Leprechauns and Giant, Mutant Bunny Rabbits

The Crash & Burn Movie Podcast Episode 4

Here it is, people, episode 4 is available and ready to crash land into your life and consciousness, and what a whopper of an episode it is - coming it at 2 hours 10 mins, its the biggest so far, but do we ever cover the ground!  This episode we have our 'craziness' themed selection, movies covering everything from mild mental illness to complete crack ups and meltdowns, we have two legends in our So Bad, Its Great section, we have the addition of audio movie trailers for dramatic effect - and don't forget to check out our commercial interludes...

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Time Between Stuff Happening!

Hello World

Been somewhat snowed under with the trappings of real life this past week and a half, so thought I'd better do a quick update just to assure you stuff is still happening;

Thursday 6 September 2012

New Podcast Episode coming Soon

Hello,

Not much action to report recently, but thought I'd stick a post on just keep things up to date.

Saturday 1 September 2012

Archive Latest

Afternoon


Podcast Archive is Live

I've set up the archive page, you can get to it here - plus I've popped a little icon link for it in the right hand panel, near the bottom where all the various subscription links for the podcast live.

Friday 31 August 2012

Podcast Episode 2 - All Sorted Now!

Evening 

Okay, yesterdays posting was a bit all over the place, you'll be pleased to know I've resolved a lot of the technical problems with how you can actually get your hands on the podcast, now and going forwards.  I'm very pleased to announce that once again all options are restored;

Thursday 30 August 2012

Podcast Episode 2!

Greetings world

I've been on a short family break away in beautiful Brighton, and I did not have chance to upload Episode 2 of the Podcast last week.  However, its officially uploaded now, but now without a few issues, I'll explain below.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Post Filming Comedown!

Evening People

Follow Up on My First Day of Shooting

Big thanks to the kind people on the various filmmaking forums I've joined recently who have had pretty positive things to say about the bit of test footage I posted previously.  Still on a massive high about how the filming went, the results have pretty much exceeded my expectations, can't wait for the next shooting
session.  Alas, not sure exactly when thats going to happen, its really frustrating to be honest as I really need the footage of each member of the band to be able to move forward and start to pull the whole video together. 

Sunday 19 August 2012

Yay! I've finally filmed something!

Greetings People

I'm so pleased, after a dozen blog posts I can finally confirm that this post will be dominated by the subject that it was created for in the first place.  The waiting is over, I've finally gone out and done some film shooting and have some stills, and a little bit of conceptual test footage to share with you, as well as a bit of write up as to how it went.

Friday 17 August 2012

Check this out!

Hi Everyone

Quick post today;

First off, filming is all go, will be heading over to Alien Stash tin's rehearsal room around midday, hopefully some early results will be posted on Sunday.

And secondly, check this incredible short film out, its called Vessel, directed by Clark Baker.  I stumbled upon it this evening, reckon this guy will go far;

Tuesday 14 August 2012

The Tension is Unbearable...

Evening Universe! 

Filming! This Saturday! 

As I'm sure you can tell by my careless and gratuitous overuse of exclamation marks, I'm pretty stoked about the first day of shooting for the video.  Rather less exciting is the prospect of all the gear that myself and Jon, the singer from the band, will have to lug to the rehearsal room on a bus.

Saturday 11 August 2012

Crash & Burn Movie Podcast Episode 1. 11.08.2012 - Racing Cars, Odd Shaped Balls, Superbikes & Bears!

Good afternoon World!


Fantastic news, episode 1 of the Crash and Burn Movie Podcast is now uploaded and available, you can download or stream it from the media below, or if you're very clever (and you can get it to work) you can point your podcatcher at our feed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/crashandburnmoviepodcast . I've made it work on my Android phone using Podkicker, although I've had one report that it doesn't seem to work with Zune

Without further ado - here it is;

Thursday 9 August 2012

Podcasting Test Post

Podcasting Test!

Awesome news everyone, have now set up all my feed connections for the forthcoming podcast.  As you'll see below, each episode we record will get its post and within that there will be a direct stream and download link from Soundcloud. 

Friday 3 August 2012

Developments...

Hello there

A few bits and pieces of news to share with you, some exciting developments are coming up.

Tuesday 31 July 2012

The time in between...

Evening People,

I feel for comfortable describing readers of this blog as 'people' today because I've had a look at my visitor stats and I can officially declare that some 'people' - not an enormous amount, but some, have viewed it over the last few days!

Monday 30 July 2012

Set Your Controls for the Heart of the Sun!

Hey,

Not much to feedback today, but as you've probably guessed from the title of this post, I have conducted my test on my new 500W light.  I'm pleased to say that despite a few technical issues, the test was a success.  I thought I was heading for a loser when I opened the packaging and found that the bulb, still in its little box, had shaken loose from the housing of the bulb where its supposed to sit snug and safe until fitting.  And then to add further problems, when I open said little box the whole bulb slipped straight out and fell about two foot onto the living room carpet.  Still, it appears that these little muckers are more resilient than I gave them credit for, and here is the video evidence;

Sunday 29 July 2012

Green Screens, Virtual Newsrooms And Other Stuff...

Hello again, third post in quick succession.  I think that after this one things will settle into a normal routine where I post something new as it occurs, currently though I'm still filling in on the background info!

Gettin' it all Together!

Hello again.  Welcome to post number 2 in my film making blog.

Before I get started properly, please note that I have now added my (very short) filmography to the blog.  As I complete each project I'll put in a link to either where it can be viewed or where you can find more info about the project, and I'll keep projects in progress up to date so you can see where I am with stuff.  Also, I've added a useful links box, I'll put in here any useful forums, communities or sites that I come across that assist with my filmmaking adventures!

And so, we begin...

Hey everyone (my first post, so I'd guess everyone equates to about zero right now!)

Anyway, I'm Jim and I'm presently embarking on an amateur adventure in the murky realm of extremely low budget, DIY filmmaking.  I don't have much of a web presence, never really felt the need for one, but I've decided to keep a document of how it goes, so if you keep reading this you might see me become a roaring success or crash and burn in failure.  The law of averages suggests that it will be somewhere in between, so lets hope its at least entertaining!