Its a difficult life

I would like to take this moment to say that although I have not blogged much this week, i do apologise.


As it turns out it is ok to have a great idea. However having the equipment, time and determination to get it done is the hard part.


I like to think of myself as someone with an overactive imagination, which as a fledgling writer should set me in good stead, however whilst I can write down my idea and formulate them into a story that I can then devise into a script, which could then become a shooting script and lead to storyboards, funding and eventually filming, editing and presenting to the world, I lack a valuable commodity - Time.


Whilst also working 40 hours a week, trying to fit any of the above steps in is getting increasingly harder. So at press the most creative proactive activity I have done in the last week is to save money towards my equipment. It isn't an impressive feat and I do not deserve any kind of applause for doing so.


This little gripe about time brings me neatly onto Christopher Nolan - a man whom I admire. This man has worked his fingers off in the film biz for the last x ammount of years and rarely fails to bring something visionary. I wonder if he ever jobbed along in a job he found meaningless whilst trying to get his break, a quick 'Google Search' has revealed that he was making films at the age of 7 with his fathers 'Super 8' camera.


This simple search means that at the age of 26, I have got a hell of a lot of catching up to do.


And so without further ado I now present to you fine readers (if anyone is reading at all) my gameplan:


"It is important to note that these steps do not come in chronological order, it is just a list of what I see that I need to do. Some of these steps will even overlap into others."

1. Write short film scripts. (it is great that I am formulating feature films in my mind and writing the ideas down but I need to get back into my University ideal and make shorts first, somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes in length each).
2. Save enough money to afford to live as well as buy myself A) Sony NEX-VG10E B) A Tripod C) An SD Card with lots of memory D) A Laptop powerful enough to run Video Editing software E) A Clapper Board etc etc etc
3. Make short videos, upload to social networks and video network sites I.E. Youtube, Radar Music Videos etc
4. Bid for music video commissions via Radar Music Videos.
5. Write feature scripts, edit them and then edit them again.
6. Keep doing it and pray that someone sat in a seat of unthinkable power will give me a ring and ask me kindly to direct their film.
7. Keep doing it until it doesn't feel much like fun anymore or until the moment when the life in me ceases to be.

So there you have it, seven steps to my ever lasting happiness.

Now all I need to do is to stop procrastinating and make it happen.

Bear

Slow and Unproductive

Well, here I am again. Literally forcing myself to write something in an effort to take my mind off 3 things 1. work, 2. boredom and 3. an ill advised piece of male grooming (A shave of my face before your mind ventures haphazardly towards the gutter).


So far this week i have worked 3 shifts at 6am to 2pm, encountered 4 gym session, visited friends and on Monday night (possibly the most exciting part) attempted to film an idea.


Now I say attempted because, well it didn't pay off. There were a few issues that I will get into later on, perhaps the most important issue of all was that I was flying solo after trying and failing to obtain either a camera man or someone who would hold a camera and film for me no one was available.


The fact that no one was available was ok by me, it was a spur of the moment thing and cant expect people to drop their lives for something I cannot afford to pay them for.


The Idea was one that I briefly mentioned in my previous blog - The Bypass between Cudworth and Darfield. The lighting is absolutely perfect in certain areas of this stretch of road. I'll do my best to explain, there are lots of factories and warehouses situated very close to this stretch of road, I have noticed that at night the street and factory lights as well as the lights from the villages the road connect, not only catch the wing mirror perfectly but also reflect in the side of my car and create a beautiful effect that I wanted to capture.


Now in theory this all sounds fine, but a combination of the light leaving closer to 9pm that 6pm, sleep deprivation followed by an hour training session at the gym, no camera and to add to that no camera man meant that I couldn't follow through with my plan.


The camera I was/am to use is my digital 6mp one, whilst capable of film it isn't great and an actual film camera is required as soon as possible, but until then I may have to make do. The reason I didn't get the footage is due to the fact that because I was alone I deemed it too dangerous to even attempt to film whilst driving. Then when my next tactic to take some preliminary photo's from the various stopping places also back fired I gave up and went home.


So all in all it was a bit of a wasted trip, but I now realise that a camera is needed asap and that I need someone to either take hold of the camera whilst I drive or someone with a sliver car to drive me!


This post I doubt will have been in any way as interesting as the first 2 but what do you expect from a slow week.


Right off to try and find something stupid to do.


See thi

Not owning a camera sucks!!!

So last night as I was driving home from John Macs with the fire in my belly that allowed me to produce my first blog I stumbled upon a near perfect idea for a shot, that could in turn be developed into a full video. It would possibly benefit more towards a music video (ideally something between 3-5 minutes long).


The idea came whilst driving down a deserted bypass between Cudworth and Darfield at midnight, I looked into the passenger side wing mirror after doing checks using the rear view and driver side wing mirror. The difference was that on the passenger side  there were quite a few factories and warehouses and the lights of which were reflected in the clean silver of the side of my car.


It captured my attention so much that every few seconds I kept looking back into the wing mirror to admire the lights dancing off the paintwork and lo the idea was born.


Initially what I want to do is drive the route with a camera focussed directly on the wing mirror for the whole journey. Once that is done do the journey in reverse with the same shot focus, then the same double journey several times with different focal points i.e. camera focussed on the road, speedometer or even the whole of the dials the driver sees.


So now all I need to do is save up enough pennies in order to purchase myself the Sony NEX-VG10E camcorder and i'll be in business.


Although I am not adverse to receiving charity, so if any millionaire out there would like to take pity on me and give me £3000 then I would be eternally grateful.


Anyway, seeing as it is the 03/04/11, that means it is officially Mothers Day and being a dutiful son, I have my mother to spoil.


Take it easy and i'll blog you soon.


Bear

Hello World

Its quite important I feel that as my first blog appears to the world, I should honor the first transmission that was delivered using the Internet. Hence the title of my first foray into blogging is 'Hello World'.


Now I've lead off with an title that will have you thinking that I am now going to talk about the internet and how it was conceived etc and blah blah blah, but I am not. In a cruel twist of fate I am now going to talk about making movies, or rather my dream of doing so and why I think it'll eventually happen. Don't worry you are not going mad, this is just how my mind works. Flitting from one subject and then straight onto another, sometimes without any kind of bridge to lead you in gently.  


The idea of my blogging is a way of me setting my stall out, so to speak. As it says at the top of the page I am a prospective film director and I am deadly serious that this is the route I want my life to go in. For me, the idea of making a movie is such a pleasurable notion. I have always had an active imagination, a knack for delivering stories and a moral compass that lets me feel how the world should be, not as the world is.


This is the way that I write, if I get an idea I will write that idea down and plot an arc that will take that idea to a crescendo. My main inspiration for this is in Back to the Future, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale wrote a script and directed a movie that delivers family entertainment for an hour and a half. It has always been one of my favorite films and in the last few years my appreciation of it has grown tenfold, not simply because it entertains but the thinking that these two guys were the architects of a universe in which time travel was possible. Rob and Bob must have sat down and hashed out the little bits such as 'the Flux Capacitor', 'the photo of Marty and his siblings erasing', 'the disruption of the space time continuum' and these little bits must have given these guys massive headaches but for the love of what they were doing they pushed on through and delivered a film that has got my (at the very least) infinite appreciation of. 


So maybe I will make it and in 5 years time be directing films that will be adored the world over, maybe i'll become another statistic left by the wayside with a once good idea. All I can say for certain is that Back to the Future is the reason I want this so badly, and come what may I am in it for the long haul!


Right I am off to think some more about a great idea I had for some footage earlier on....


Bear Out.......