Bonzo Begins..

There’s nothing that’s more satisfying to a producer than seeing a smiling director and a happy cast & crew. These are the people who’s job it is to breathe life and energy and feeling into a film and if I can make them happy, I’ve done my job well.

Thanks were in order for all the cast & crew who took part in the stills shoot on Thursday. We had lots to get through in a short space of time and consequently put everyone under pressure to achieve. And they over-achieved. The imagery we have is simply stunning and I’ve only seen a small un-edited part of all the stills we got, and it’s simply a credit to the incredible professionals we have aboard this production, who’ve all gotten aboard because they love the script and want to see it fully realised.

There’s video too. Lots of it, both behind the scenes and with the characters, and I’m looking forward to seeing that and to sharing with our backers.

When I look back on what we’ve achieved together I’m feeling confident that the film we can create for the some £4K we’re attempting to raise, will end up looking more like it’s had £40K spent on it. I know that the work is just beginning to make that thought a reality. I also know that with our amazing team pulling together we can do it.

I hope that as I work with Damien and the rest of the departments to create the plans for the shoot I can make life easy enough for everyone for the things we achieve together to be a very enjoyable process. We’re cracking on with the plans for the funding campaign and beginning to think about the shoot & pre-production. Bonzo and our other characters have just begun. Plenty more smiles are top of my list.

Wigging Out

I'm not really wigging out of course, things have been going fairly smoothly in the run up to the photo shoots. But one of the things I've been doing in the last week is helping Make Up artist Kirsty source a second wig for Mr Fernelli's character. Kirsty is making the wig for our lead clown, Bonzo but with her workload didn't have time to make two so the second one for Mr Fernelli needed to be bought.

Now, there's clown wigs everywhere on the internet if you want a cheap party afro clown wig that doesn't fit very well, but if you want something with a specific kind of look then it's not so easy to get one, certainly not at a reasonable price. Proper clown wigs are made from Yak hair and can run into hundreds of pounds, which we don't want to be spending on one wig. The brief for Mr. Fernelli was to have a more angular look than Bonzo, to work with his make-up design, and preferably in red to give him a very vibrant flashy look when compared to Bonzo's old school clown look. Having scoured the planet for the best quality red wigs available in our price range I managed to find my way into the strange and wonderful world of cosplay and have sourced two straight haired red wigs that something interesting can be done with to form Mr. Fernelli's clown hair. The second arrived this morning, they're both good quality and I hope will fit well and work suitably for the task.

There's been a few other things to sort out, another make-up artist to be on set for the shoot, and a last few props that I'm picking up after the meeting tomorrow, I've confirmed everything with the wonderful people at the photo studio, and we're pretty much all set for Thursday's shoot. I'm very much looking forward to seeing our characters fully dressed and made up and hoping that the resulting photos will give everyone a good idea about the kind of project we want to create with the film and the people involved.

Can't wait to show the world and get the fundraising campaign going so we can start rocking on with producing the film proper!