Online Premiere

So, we had our online premiere last Sunday and sent the digital download out to backers today. It's that point where it feels like the film is truly finished, and you've shown it to the important people. Of course we hope that it will do well in some festivals next year and that many more people will get to see it but that's the aftercare program once the hard work of taking something from script to screen has been accomplished. It has been a long road, and there have been delays, but all the way we've tried very hard not to compromise on what we set out to do. I have to say that despite a huge amount of collaboration, having one person in the form of Damien directing this project and keeping us all on the same page about what we wanted from teh beginning has been a very unifying way to work. We've had some really lovely feedback so far and everything we've heard has been precious because it all helps us become better at what we do.

Right now, and with the film download gone out, we've delivered most of the digital perks and are working on the physical perks. The comics in particular are taking a bit of time as they are coming from overseas and may not arrive until after the coming holidays but we're looking forward to doing some signing and packaging and posting as soon as we can, but again we don't want to compromise on what we send out to folks and we would like you to love what you receive so we're taking care to get that right.

All in all it's been am incredible process and there's a lot ahead as we aim to get the film screened on every continent. I have some very happy memories from the entire process and I've made some lovely friends along the way. I bump into backers of our project at a lot of events and I keep in touch with many online. The above still from the film is one of my favourites, it's actually not David Schaal in the clip as he had quite bad flu that day and we'd pretty much dunked him in an icy river to boot, so while he went home to recover after his stellar dedication to his craft, Damien put on Bonzo's costume for that tiny part of the film and it works beautifully on screen and is a kind of lovely cameo to know our director is there in the film, even though we can't see or tell it's him. And of course I'm in it too as is Katherine our production manager and a number of other crew, some backers and our awesome cast of course. It feels like a very family film and as the end of 2012 approaches and 2013 begins we hope we'll expand the audience for the film and get it the attention it deserves.

More soon, as further things develop but for now it's enough to say we've reached yet another milestone with the premieres over and look forward to the next, getting the film into it's first festival!

<*:O)

Promo Trailer for Clowning Around!

Clowning Around Promo Trailer.. from summit from nuthin productions on Vimeo.

Our newest promo trailer is now live! Edited again by Lourenço Barsi-Gomes from Granada Filmes, who you will remember did the first promo trailers from our photo shoot, this shows more of the film itself and the plight of our hapless hero Bonzo and his battle with the demon drink and his rival Mr. Fernelli. More news coming soon in September once the clown car gets loaded up again but for now enjoy!

Perkalicious Progress!

Firstly, appologies for the long gap in writing updates. There's that thing that happens after the shooting ends where there are just a director and a producer working through post-production, marketing materials and general juggling of tasks so things can slow down somewhat.

Damien has been working hard to finish the film ready for our BAFTA premiere in what we hope will be September. Olympic fever has taken over London and BAFTA was booked out for the duration by some kind of Olympic company so our plans to have it in July were thwarted. It's given us more time to organise things though and perks are in the making!

Digital perks have gone out via dropbox, those of you owed them should have been sent an invitation but I'll also be emailing the files shortly. In the mix we have the wonderful Clowning Around comic books, behind the scenes stills and film stills, digital poster download, script versions and notes, storyboards, and other summit from nothin films of note for you to download and keep. It's all good stuff and we hope you're enjoying it. There's a PDF book in the making about the whole process and Damien is working away on that, but it will I think be a lovely keepsake and a useful one, and we'll hopefully be adding some more goodies like behind the scenes videos and the poster competition entries in due course plus a couple of extra bits and bobs for you.

The only perk that hasn't really worked is the community forum that we set up, there wasn't really much interest in it and not many people were logging on so with our time to maintain site updates a little stretched right now we're going to admit defeat on that one and keep everyone up to date via Indiegogo, the website, blog and facebook page. It was a nice idea, but like many utopian dreams didn't work so well in practice. Ahh well, Onwards and Upwards as our baker Chris Jones would say!

A film trailer is in the making and after a few tweaks by Damien and our promo maker Lourenco we'll have that to share! The film is looking really great so we're excited to show you the trailer so you can see for yourself that the production money we raised all went onto the screen. We owe so much to our amazing cast and crew and of course the backers who made this all possible. This is your project and we hope you will love it.

The film itself has gone off to some festivals and will be headed to more very shortly! Those of you with the festival choice perk should expect an email from Damien shortly.

Physical perks are arriving gradually as we get them sorted out. Damien has arranged all the mastering (in between travelling to Poland and Brazil with his day job! I don't know how he does it!) and the poster prints (pictured above) have arrived and are currently awaiting signing by cast and crew for our backers. Postcards are currently being designed and we're a bit like Santa and his chief elf right now with lists of stuff that needs sorting out! We'll be posting things all together hopefully so bear with us while we get it all sorted out.

In the meantime, we'll be using August for catching up and some much needed holiday time off to clown around in the summer sunshine! We hope you'll enjoy your summer too and look forward to telling you more very soon.

Keep smiling! *:O)

Pickup Shots.

On sunny Sunday mornings I usually prefer to sit in bed, preferably in a patch of sunlight and read the film news over tea and toast. Today however I was up and about early to meet Damien and Azul so we could shoot some pick up shots for Clowning Around.

It took forever to get the coin to roll in the right way and land where the camera needed it to be, but when it did we all smiled together, knowing how it would make the film work better. Other shots had their bugbears too, in a busy supermarket who wanted their checkout back our Jack-in-the-box wouldn't work properly, and to find a spare bit of pub floor to film on when there's a Tottenham/Arsenal match on and you're in Islington is just ridiculous. We got there though. And those shots will give us what we need to stimulate the rest and make it work easily.

Here's a couple of videos from before and after the shots from Damien and Myself just explaining what we were doing..

A "Clowning Around" Family

Preparing some of the perks for backers I'm reminded of how many people worked for so long to bring this film to fruition. It's been a truly collaborative effort over a long period of time to get this far and so many people have helped along the way, excited to be part of the ongoing team we've accrued around "Clowning Around."

One of the themes of the film is that it's easy to do something for a day, but it's much harder to keep up good work when you're alone. Having our backers, supporters, and all the people who have worked on the project, given up their time and talent to it and just been there throughout has made the process to date a very warm experience. People have put huge pieces of their own hearts into the work we all wanted to do and we all adopted Damien's initial project as our own and joined his vision for what the film could be. I couldn't be more proud of our "Clowning Around" family or more grateful to be part of it. Looking at a rough cut of the first few minutes of film I'm acutely aware of how effortless it seems despite the effort that went into bringing it all about. Happy days and busy days with wonderful people.

Post production always seems like a quiet time where there's much less to speak about on a project and a lot of the team have moved on to do other work and aren't so much around, especially for me without the production team meeting every week I have missed the bustle of regular face to face meetings, but the wheels have kept turning and so much is ticking along that it's exciting to think of the things we still have planned. Right now it's about looking after our family of supporters and sending some of the digital goodies like the online comic book out! That has been a real labour of love by Damien and Phoenix Ryte and I truly hope everyone will love them as much as the guys have enjoyed creating them. There are two comic books in one double edition, sharing extra stories about our clowns for our backers to enjoy!

More funs soon!

Day Three of the Shoot..

Day three took us into a very early start at 7am in Islington where we shot scenes in the very accommodating supermarket who had arranged for a security guard to open up early for us to film there before the store opened. Filling the place with lights and crew and actors we made an empty store into a bright and busy one.

After filming the hilarious checkout scene with David Schall and Meddy Ford, the team moved onto the alcohol section of the shop where some funny but poignant points were filmed to show the battle Bonzo has with his addiction. This is one of my favourite bits of the screenplay however, as it was being filmed production was moving to our second location of the day and as it was a match day alternative parking and a new production base had to be found and vehicles moved, including the equipment van.

The late morning and early afternoon shots were comprised of action sequences both outside the store and in a nearby area with a convenient slope to send Bonzo on an out of control journey and ramp up the excitement of the film! We were joined by stunt team Dominic Kinnaird who was stunt co-ordinating and Tom Cheshire, our stunt double standing in for David for a few of the shots. 360 degree and wide shots meant that most of the crew needed to stay out of the way while the stunt and camera team did their work and Damien and the actors concentrated on getting the very best out of the set-ups. I have to say, that during the preparation for the stunts even though they weren't especially dangerous the care and consideration taken for everyone's safety and comfort was thoroughly thought through and prepared for and so the afternoon went speedilly. Damien briefed everyone before we ran through the shots so that everyone was clear as to how it was happening and could be prepared.

For the production team it was quite a busy day with a lot of little things to organise that both came up that day during the course of shooting and that needed to be planned for the following day. And with Production Manager Katherine also having a cameo in the film it was all hands on deck and a very busy day for her, which you'd never have known from her serene performance. All went to plan and we finished with everyone collecting in the production office (a nearby upstairs room in a pub) where a cooling drink was had before heading home for a good rest before the long day we had planned for Monday.

Day one of the shoot!

Day one of the Clowning Around shoot found us at two seperate locations.

The first involved a school full of primary aged children for the opening scene of the film and was my Producer’s cameo in the production. I’m an actor by profession rather than a producer so it felt comfortable to be in front of the camera, not so comfortable to be in front of the very good but exceedingly loud children as they screamed for ‘Bonzo’ and Mr. Fernelli. It was actually a little bit terrifying and my appreciation for the teaching profession has increased considerably! All kudos to the children of Pelham Primary who were an absolute credit to their school and patiently did all that was asked of them by Damien. Our crew in turn were able to entertain the children and explain to them how film and TV gets made, explaining the steadicam and how reverse shots get made. They I think entertained us as much as we did them and though there were a lot of shots to get in a relatively short period of time the director and team worked very hard to achieve all they needed.

Following on from that we moved to a local house location to film some more scenes with Bonzo. David Schaal was just incredible as Bonzo and I think for the first day of filming, we all felt very secure in the work he did. And our Associate Producer Markus Meedt standing in as Mr. Fernelli for a few shots proved extremely popular too!

Here's a few photos of the day. More on our facebook page.

Director as camera..
David Schaal with costume assistant Nelli.He's got his clown make-up on here for the first time.

Bonzo entertains the children of Pelham Primary

Damien going through the shots led the team through the movement so that they could work swiftly once the children were in place. Matt Allsop joined the production with his steadicam for just this one day and came all the way from Worcester.

Associate Producer Markus Meedt tries to keep up with the questions..

One of the more poignant moments of the film.. Bonzo the outcast.

Framing up Kiki Kendrick with the steadicam..as we meet Mrs. Jenkins.

Promo Trailers!

At our photo shoot, as well as photographs of the characters some promo footage was recorded so that character teasers could be made. Lourenço Barsi-Gomes from Granada Filmes has now edited the pieces together for us to make some dramatic and evocative trailers that we hope will give you an up close feel for our clowns and their tense rivalry. Enjoy!

the best sketch of all time?

Last night, Damien and I sat down with Lourenço Barsi-Gomes, who is currently creating some Clowning Around promos for us. We started talking clowns and comedy in general, as I recounted my bizarre bus ride to meet them, which included a bag of roast chicken, some very long sports socks and a threat to knock someone's head off (I would like to point out I was an observer rather than actually being involved).

On the way home I began thinking of the great comic sketches. And for me, this Abbott and Costello standard wins every time. What do people think?

Locations in New Malden

I met production manager Katherine so we could start looking at locations today in New Malden, which is in south west London, a ten minute train ride from Wimbledon. After we spoke at last weeks production meeting, she mentioned that there was a pub, park and car park in close proximity to where she lives so had arranged to meet there on Sunday at 1pm to have a look.
Unfortunately (for reasons best known to themselves) I thought we were to meet at midday, so turned up over an hour early. As well as make me look rather stupid, it did give me an opportunity to wander round the streets near Berr
ylands station and see exactly the kinds of streets and houses that I would like to show the film, quiet suburban streets with quaint three bedroom terraced and semi-detached housing.

First of all we looked at a park nearby. I liked the fact it was slightly overgrown, quiet and had benches scattered around, but what we are looking for also is a pond that Bonzo can jump into after seeing Fernellis reflection.

Myself and Katherine wandered along the river which runs through the park, stopping at various points to see if it would work for Bonzo to be contemplating his scenario, to have the teenagers nearby and to jump into the water.

Obviously you can shoot the same scene in more than one location and 'cheat' it slightly

, but I always like to keep it as realistic as possible. As well as testing how and when we could see a reflection, we also found a few really nice bridges, which I thought would may be nicer, rather than to have Bonzo walking past the pond, he stops to reflect and sees the shadow of Fernelli stood next to him, which prompts him to attack.

We then stopped at the pub "Woodies" Freehouse (http://www.woodiesfreehouse.co.uk/) which is a nice, country esque locals pub which would be perfect for the end confrontation between the two clowns.

Unfortunately, the owner was too busy in the kitchen so Katherine will call her this week to see if they are interested in being a location for the film.

After that, me and Katherine had a chat about we can achieve within the budget and also backups for our backups as it is important that we aim high and are highly ambitious but at the same time have plans that do not compromise the film, should our original ideas not be possible.

We also had a look at an alternative to a supermarket in a 'Poundland'. If we do not make it a supermarket (as this is always tricky) then the only problem is why would there be a shopping trolley outside the shop? It could be discarded, but would still be weird to me so we chatted about other possible modes of transport as he exits the shop.

So watch out Bill, we may have you on a skateboard or a childs pushbike! :-)

poster competition launches

It's Friday and the day we launch our Clowning Around poster competition. Leilani and Damien have been beavering away with uploading images and creating copy to produce the wonderful poster you see above. The rest of us - thanks to a little guidance from Blair - have been informing all our graphically minded friends to get involved - the whole point of our campaign after all - and pass it on.

So if you'd like to became part of the Clowning Around team by creating our poster drop Leilani a line and get creating. Alternatively have a read, pass it on, blog, facebook and tweet about it at will.

2nd pre-production meeting

My opening pleasantry before any production meeting is “Thanks for coming”, which is always a good way to thank people for making the effort to attend in their own free time.

However yesterday there was genuine appreciation and awe for our producer Leilani, assistant producer Juliet, 1st AD Greer, 3rd AD Blair and production manager Katherine, who all made their way from various parts of London for our second pre-production meeting in Vauxhall last night. Granted, Vauxhall has not been one of the places which has been attacked by the morons so far, but nearby areas Clapham, Balham and Elephant & Castle had and the general opinion is that you never know where will be next, so I am very grateful for their commitment in doing so, as everyone around me seemed to be leaving work early and head home to avoid possible trouble.

The meeting was to catchup after last weeks initial get together when a lot of things were discussed and new members brought up to speed, so I felt we needed to sit down and work out who would be doing what and a few deadlines on when they needed to be achieved by. We went through a plan for locations and set a deadline for end of August to find them, discussed the logistics of the poster competition) which goes live on Friday and how to start to co-ordinate recces, camera tests and rehearsals as well as any further ideas on how to bring attention to our campaign.

I did question whether to have the meeting with such turmoil and fear around and it may have been more sensible to not as I am not jeopardizing my own safety but also four others but I trusted them all (and they were certainly under no pressure to attend) to make the right call for the journey they needed to take or make arrangements so they would not be in the eye of the storm. I deliberated all the way to getting the tube from Wembley Park whether to go ahead, rather than postpone until things calmed down as I certainly don’t think this film is more important than peoples safety.

However, one thing that kept hanging in my mind is that I didn’t want to let the idiots who are smashing shops and setting fires turn me into a hermit, afraid to continue with my normal life and as I got to Vauxhall that feeling was justified as everyone was like us, cracking on with their evening and we managed to get a little further down the road for “Clowning Around”.

The support of strangers...an online community

I thought I would share my thoughts after our first week of funding via our IndieGoGo campaign. I think it is important to say first off that I have never really understood the concept of an ‘online community’.

Sure, I am on Facebook, but only really talk to friends who I know and meet up with and let people who know me what’s going on in my everyday life so people know I still exist and never use it for professional purposes really and rarely make friends with people I haven’t met. However, even just this small time we have been campaigning for “Clowning Around” I am starting to see what Leilani was referring to when she spoke of the strength and support of it.

When we first discussed promoting “Clowning Around” via IndieGoGo I knew this would be a big challenge as it is dependent on getting yourself and your project out there for all sundry to see and networking has never been my forte, in fact at most networking events I usually shrink into the corner and wait for people to come and talk to me (hardly the best tactic...).

But as I am so keen to make this film in the right way and the idea of collaborating with more likeminded people really appealed to me, thought this was the best thing to do and over the past 2 months have been making video and writing blogs for people to see as much as they can about the ongoing process of making a low budget short. I am learning as I go and (I hope) as you see more videos they will be a lot more polished and engaging.

I have been watching the campaign like a hawk since it started on the 19^th July, doing my best to thank our backers, post about our campaign, add video as well as see what works and doesn’t. On our first day we got a great start of $346 and the following day another $300, with the last two days of the week heralding $200 and $646 respectively to take us into the weekend on a fantastic total of $1292. As I go back to full-time work (I am started a new job at FA TV for Endemol Sport yesterday and had some time off before) my time will not be as free, but I am determined whenever I can to continue to engage and interact with people to keep the campaign running to this high standard.

I have been genuinely overhelmed not just with the support of our backers, but also people on Twitter who have been talking about the project and encouraging others to support, which has resulted in filmmakers Chris Jones, Joe James Barrett, Daniel Florencio, Stephen Hanks, Greg Wakeman, Andy Carslaw, Graham Inman, Jason Fairley, Alan Campbell, Meddy Ford,, Ben Jacobsen, , Peter Spencer, Susan Williamson, Elsa O’Toole, screenwriters Jared Kelly, Alistair Canlin and Guy McDouall, actors Robin Forbes and Andrew Elias contributing to our campaign. I feel the need to say particular thanks to @CharmedLifeFilm @robertshutter @ThreeTuxedos @JellyMash Films @RumbleGum @remiepurtil and @pitchandroll who have been retweeting and promoting the campaign all week as well.

The three most significant contributions were from Spencer Hickson, a musician from Manchester and friend of actor Matthew Jure, Sharon Guest, who is the Head of Production at North One Television and contributed everyone’s leaving present as I departed there this week and filmmaker Mike Baxter who had been following the project since our script redrafts on www.ottfilmsco.uk. Both Spencer and Sharon are now Associate Producers on the project, with Mike as producer and getting the email showing me their contributions gave me such a lift about how much we can get and reward the hard work everyone involved is putting into it.

As I embark further on my career as a filmmaker, one thing that occurs to me is how consistently surprised I am by the support you get from strangers. You kind of expect the instant support of your friends and family. I know you shouldn’t and should try hard to convince them to part with their cash as you should do any other, but you do. But this unexpected support from the community around the world left me truly overwhelmed.

Sometimes its the tiniest things that make my day and make it all worth while and forgetting the amount of money backers have put in and emotional ties I have to people have supported us, my highlight of the week came from a complete stranger in 18 year old Filmmaker Joe James Barrett (@joejamesbarrett) who runs the Screen Stockport festival who after I replied to thank him for his initial Tweet in publiciizing the film, responded “Don’t you worry, I will make sure we get this film made”.

Thankyou mate, you really made my day.

The thoughts of Katerina, our costume designer

As the costume designer on Clowning Around, I am really looking forward to starting working on the film

I can't wait to see the characters, on set, alive in their costumes in motion

I'm about to go on my summer holidays, but I am really impressed by the progress of the whole project, made possible by the hard work and effort that all the members of the team have put in so far.

Taking with me the photos of the two clowns in their costumes, my research, mood boards and thoughts, lying under the sun next to the beach, I close my eyes and dream..

Yellow and orange

Dark and blue

Treads and thrills

Polka dolts & stripes in a fight

A touch of whipped cream

A dress in a shape of a cake

An apron wrapped around

Small and big flowers in a dance

A yard full of children as a background

A pile of rubbish as a clown's hat

Tattoos and smells

A strong smell of alcohol indeeed!

But above all

One question

Who wins

In that world of c est la vie


to be continued...

Indiegogo Go!

It's been just over a week since I last blogged and it seems like an age. We had a lot to do in order to be ready to kick off the Indiegogo.com fundraising campaign last Tuesday, including getting a website up as the one being built for us wasn't quite ready and in addition to that, creating the online community site for our backers and putting content on there ready for them to enjoy when they logged in. This is something we wanted all our backers to have, a space to engage with the project and network with us and each other. It's a hub where people can also ask us questions about what we're doing so if they want to see something specific

We also needed to finalise the Indiegogo.com pitch video and so Luqman, Damien and myself were looking over clips and footage to get the right tone and pace and make sure it would be appealing, informative and also show a bit about Damien and his personality. I was really pleased with the result which I think shows the true atmosphere on Damien's sets of seriousness of filmmaking craft from exceptional crew members mixed with relaxed fun and efficiency.

We launched the campaign on time and it felt like a rollercoaster week as we went through the process of putting word out there and waiting to see if we'd made the project appealing enough for people to want to become a backer of the work and which would prove to be the popular perks.

In the first three days we raised $1,412. It's been an amazing start thanks to some really stellar support from our backers who have gotten behind the project with gusto! We can't thank people enough as every dollar will make a difference to the film and our cast & crew who are working so hard on this project to give everyone the very best quality of film we can. We've got a long way to go, and nothing quite prepares you for the highs of seeing the figure rise and the anticipation of quiet days like today when nothing happens at all. However it's been spectacular so far and I have confidence we've got a project happening that people will be hugely proud they got behind. In fact it's my job to make sure of that and I intend to do so. *:O)

As well as the funding support we've also had some great support in getting word out about the project. Filmmaker and author of the Guerilla Film Maker's Handbook, Chris Jones is a backer and invited me to do a guest blog on his site to talk about crowd funding the project and the things we've been doing around the project to make it special and make the experience a good one for everyone involved. Also Mubi.com have invited us to add some video about our work in thier production journals and they've been speaking to me about documenting more of our behind the scenes work on their site in the near future. More about that when it's up and going.

Today, as I mentioned, has been quiet so far on the funding front but lots is going on still with more behind the scenes footage being edited by Luqman which I've been providing notes for and plans getting underway for the next production meeting as our thoughts turn towards the pre-production of the actual film. We want to begin early to allow for holidays etc. and gather our Clowning Around HoD's to plan ahead and begin thinking more solidly about locations etc. Since the photo shoot I think the whole team has been energised by how well we worked together and how great it's been to create something from nothing, before we'd done any fundraising at all. The funds Indiegogo.com provides will help us to expand that into the greater amounts of costumes, make-up, logistics, transport, equipment, travel, feeding people etc. we need for the film production proper and we're a good step in the right direction to getting the funds to get that happening but there's still a long way to go. I feel rather like a salmon swimming upstream at the moment but when we get to the top we get to create something amazing and that is worth the work. And you know what.. the water feels great! Jump in with us!

Bonzo the clown confronts Murdoch on first day of Indiegogo campaign...

If only this were true, it seems some other clown has stormed the select committee and custard-pied Mr Murdoch. I still think it's a PR stunt by Mr Cullen - Damien please stand up if I'm right...

1 day to launch...

So this time tomorrow our Indiegogo campaign will officially be live. Once it starts, all the other pieces will begin to fall into place. Damien and I are sitting down tomorrow to plan the big what's next on the Clowning Around agenda. This will include location scouting, rehearsals, set design, locating lots of child extras for the school and party scenes, and generally making sure that by the time we turn over in September he feels confident and non-stressed about the whole set up.

Let the games begin...

Comic Books!

After our first production meeting with the crew, DOP Azul Serra brought up the idea of perhaps showing the characters previous history through comic books that we could show as part of our campaign. This was as the film has a certain comic book elements, both in the narrative and how these surreal characters exist in a very real world.

So after that meeting, I started touting around for an illustrator who would be willing to collaborate with us. After posting on a few forums and sending to a few colleges and universities, I got a very positive response from a comic book artist from Cleveland College of Art and Design (http://www.ccad.ac.uk/) who is known online as Phoenix Ryte. He sent me a link to some of his material (http://phenixryte23.deviantart.com/) and from there we started thinking of ideas and styles that would fit the film and comic book.

The back story idea we came up with was that Bonzo appeared at Mr. Fernelli's school, and the young magician was not too taken with the obvious and as he saw, dated humour of the clown and attempts to embarrass him. The after leaving school and setting on his own path as a magician, can't find any work so if forced to form a duo with Bonzo, the straight man to the clown. We then see a third scenario in which the ambitious Fernelli starts to plot Bonzos downfall.

It was interesting putting this together, as I hadn't given much thought to their back stories as I liked the ambiguity of it, but what doing this has done has given us a firm rooting of the characters, knowing a bit more about their motivations and where they have come from and to, and will be interesting to flesh this out not only with the unique comic books we are creating for our IndieGoGo backers but also in the audition process with the actors.

As you can see from the designs, we have used the colour pallette and designs based on our stills shoot, but the characters are not exactly the same. Bonzo's hair is more red than orange (to show thats where Fernelli gets his idea from) and Fernelli is also more the traditional magician, before he takes on the aspect of clownishness into his act and starts to take Bonzo's audience.

Having finalised the character designs we are now working on having the comics finished in the next few weeks.

Post shoot...

I really wanted to do this last night, but after a long and productive shoot at the very wonderful Tower Bridge Studios, I sat down in front of my computer and fell asleep. So here we are today instead. In a very short time we got an astounding amount covered, so thought you might want to have a quick peek at what we achieved. Here's my faves.

Kirsty working her magic...




Katerina fleeing the clowns



The crew watching as Azul shoots the soon-to-be-seen film trails...



Damien and Azul pow wow



Bill lets out his inner clown...



Matt under the spotlight

Time for your close up...

So today is a big day. We are shooting the photos we want to use as publicity for "Clowning Around" to entice investors and also show people the tone and visual nature of the film.

The idea of this came about from an image actress Kiki Kendrick sent me from her website (left). It just seemed like a more visual and interesting way to show the project with the actors as the characters they play, and rather than as I usually do, making the stills and poster an after thought after the film is shot, to use it partly for us to test out costumes and makeup, partly to raise funding and partly for the cast and crew to start working with each other so that there would be more understanding when it came to shooting the film.

The reason its such a big day is that the initial idea for this film was in 2004, the first script I wrote for it was in 2007, the first auditions in 2009 and now we are finally getting something past all the discussion and feels like we will be ready to start the campaign after this.

What we are trying to get out of the shoot are a number of things. Firstly, we want artwork we can use for our poster. Secondly, individual profile shots of the four actors. We then want 3 individual videos to work as teaser/promo material for the campaign, making of videos for makeup and the overall shoot plus some action custard pie shots (you have to with clowns don't you!) to really sell the film. I also have to do a presentation vid for IndieGoGo, so need to get my thoughts right for that as well.

So, a lot to do. The call-sheets have gone out and am in the middle of replying to a flury of "Yes, we got it" texts from cast and crew, our gaffer was secured at approximately 11pm last night and Leilani and Bianca have picked up all remaining props, I just need to remember the props and make-up I have to bring, meet Kirsty at 12.30 to pickup the wigs, head to Sainsburys to get some food for crew and then head to Katerinas to pick up costume and go to the studio for 4pm...

Wish us luck :-)