Sunday 31 January 2010

Its Over!

Hey bloggers!!

I have finally finished doing the tax for the week woohoo!! I am relieved and excited but...just when I thought it was over, another tax letter came through the post...when will it all get better?!!!!!

Phew back to the grinding mill....

Friday 29 January 2010

A Pre-Production Week

It has been a busy week. Rushing about and talking with a lot of potential partners on my latest film venture. Unlike Jay and Kay Save the World, I want to expand the scope of this new film. I do not know exactly what will happen, but I am looking for external sources of funding. More importantly, I am putting together a complete plan from these initial stages right through to the distribution technique. That is the big thing, distribution. But the plan is coming together, slowly...

Monday 25 January 2010

Cash for YOUR Chav Gold!

Pawn shops are nothing new. As old as humanity itself, there has always been a need to trade personal valuables for short/long term cash. What is new in the UK is the rise in 'Cash for Gold' merchants. These businesses advertise on satellite TV during daytime soap operas claiming to solve all your money worries (what's new?) by giving you cash for your gold.



Of course with gold at an all time high, we at Caution Wet Paint are proud to announce our newest partner! If you have tatty gold lying about in your home, then send it to cash_for_your_gold.co.uk and they will give you money! Yey!

Cash for YOUR Chav Gold!

Sunday 24 January 2010

Hello,

La Producer here, it has been a busy week, with April coming up, we need to sort out the finances, not so great when Christmas was only well a month ago! All the frenzied shopping has left the bank account in the ahem, red...

Oh well, looking forward to a more productive year ahead for 2010!

xx

Thursday 21 January 2010

January Business

Today was a business day. Meeting with people and sorting out taxes and bank accounts, for the company. Yes, not exactly the glamorous world. But, that is the official needs of a film company...

Monday 18 January 2010

Taxes...

Apologies for the lack of comic strip this week, but Her Majesty's Customs and Revenue are the priority for now!



To be honest, the form is not so bad. It is just the natural instinct, the fear of the taxman that gets to me. Plus the guys at the tax office are bloody patient. I'm ringing them every five minutes about this number or that error message. I suppose I am not the only one!

Thursday 14 January 2010

Film CV

I am not sure how to do this. I suppose it is a little bit different from my 'biography' which reads like this:

Charles Michel Duke was born in London in 1980. He read Archaeology at the University of London and graduated in 2003. As a self taught film maker, Charles has used London as his backdrop, creating films as diverse as the city he shoots in.

In 2006 his first short, 'The Fight' was broadcast on Canada's 'Bite TV' and the UK's 'Propeller TV'. Since then he has grown and in 2007, the first inception of the 'Caution Wet Paint' series, 'The Bus Stop' was premiered at the inaugural Canary Wharf film festival. Now shooting in HD, in 2009 he has released two short films and aims to begin work on a feature length version of 'Caution Wet Paint' in 2010.

In addition to film making, Charles is also a regular columnist for the citizen journalist website 'Ohmynews International' as well as a radio presenter on London's 'Nusound Radio 92FM' where he presents the weekly 'movies and music' show every Sunday.

Filmography:

'The Fight' (5 mins - 2006)

'Two Glasses' (5 mins - 2007)

'Caution Wet Paint: The Bus Stop' (6 mins - 2007)

'The Railway Tracks' (HD: 3 mins - 2009)

'Caution Wet Paint: Jay and Kay Save the World' (HD: 10 mins - 2009)



After all, my film 'career' is not of the conventional type. However, it is something that I have to figure out sooner or later. I'll get back to you on how I do on this particular task. And then I will tell you why I am doing a CV...

Monday 11 January 2010

Storyboarding...

Ah, the storyboards. Sometimes I draw them (stick men, at best) but often I will photograph the actors/actresses in a dress rehearsal. It is surprising how close to reality these boards are. They are also ludicrously fun sessions when you can really muck about during rehearsals and flesh out the story itself.



Most of the storyboards I did for Save the World were from the fight scene between Jay & Kay and the milk bottles. This was practical. To put it simply, this was going to be the difficult scene, an action scene, and so the planning needed to be good. Also mixing animation and live action into the same scene was going to be tough and I needed to know exactly where the actors were going to be before I shot the animation sequences.

The only was way to do this was during a photographic storyboard so I knew where the actors were going to be in relation of the rest of the set.

Enjoy, the logistical nightmare that is the shooing of 'Caution Wet Paint!'

Storyboarding

Sunday 10 January 2010

A quickie

hello bloggers,

bit busy today, was whizzing around buying a car todat, got a very family sized car.....

Film front, please join our new social network on Ning - its called Indepedent Filmmakers

la producer xx

Friday 8 January 2010

Geek Time (1)

My camera does not use tape or disks but records directly onto solid state media.

Now, this is convenient in many ways. Mainly in that transfer of footage from camera/memory stick to computer is quick and easy. The way that these sticks are designed is that the codec used to compress the HD footage does not compromise on picture quality, and that the sound is DAT quality. Very important for filming, as digital cameras usually suck on sound.

However, they cost a fortune. A 16GB stick (which holds approx 55mins of Hi-Def PAL footage (25fps/35Mbs, 1920x1080) costs over GBP400.

That meant that all I could afford at the time of purchase was one memory stick for my camera in addition to the 'free' one that was included with the initial purchase. In total I had approx 1hr and 25mins worth of recording time.

Now that was fine when filming in my own place. During the breaks, I could head to the computer and upload the footage while everyone else was eating. It was not an elegant solution, but it was a workable solution. However, it did cut back on the amount of shooting time available, as I had simply run out of space on my camera's memory sticks.

So now in pre-prdocution this year for two new films and these are not going to be shot inside the house. I will have to go on location. Even with very careful planing, effectively limiting the amount of footage I can capture in a shooting day to 80 minutes is not feasible. But nor was paying GBP400+ for a measly hour of filming time a good answer either.

Thank goodness for the MxR adapter.

Essentially, with this little adapter, you can put a normal 16GB SD card into the camera and voila! You have exactly the same memory capacity as buying the fully branded Memory Stick from the manufacturer.

And it is a lot cheaper. The MxR adapter with a 16GB SD card cost me GBP136 on the high street (Tottenham Court Road). Three times cheaper or to put it another way, for what I was prepared to spend on one card, I can now spend on three and be ready for whatever this year's filming throws at me...

Monday 4 January 2010

Ning!



We are now on Ning as independent film makers. We are looking forward to a milk filled 2010, so join us online and feel the love...

Ning

Sunday 3 January 2010

A New Year Message

Happy New Year may 2010 bring all our readers much joy, prosperity love, happiness and good health!