Costume Fitting - 28.06.2011

So after working with Bill yesterday to look at BONZO's costume, today it was about JERRY THE BARMAN (Alex Walker) and MR FERNELLI (Matthew Jure). Again the costume fitting took place at Katerinas flat and unlike the day before, unfortunately our makeup artist Kirsty couldn't make it. This is just one of those things when you are working around peoples day jobs, so we just had to make sure we got all the info Kirsty needed so she can finalise her designs.

First up was Alex. The thinking behind the costume for JERRY was to show a chequered history and paint him as a bit of a coward and a rogue.

To bring this alive, we had a variety of Hawaiians style shirts that would show a tac

kiness about him, complemented with jeans and trainers. We went for the option of the faded blue to purple (option 2), baggy t-shirt and faded jeans as this seemed to work best, rather than something than made him look too stylish.

We also want a faded tattoo on his lower arm, which Kirsty (our make up artist) is working on and Alex himself has come up with the idea of a gold earring in one ear, which I really like as well as options on a few rings, that he will bring to the photo shoot.

I go slightly side tracked chatting to Alex before Matt turned up as we were discussing the effort and thought that is going into every element of the production. I think everyone involved is impressed with how we are approaching this, opposed to what can be a simpler approach to short film, in that we are covering so much detail to improve our skills for feature film-making, which is the next step for a lot of us. Its always good to hear that the work you are putting in is being recognized and respected by people.

As Matt arrived, Alex left and it is the first time I have spoken to Matt about the role since we

chatted about it originally. There was genuine surprise from him as I told him more about the IndieGoGo campaign, the website, the blogs and interactivity and the back stories we are creating as comic books that will serve to both help us build characters and as unique perks for our community.

We knew that the costume for MR. FERNELLI was going to be the most difficult. As I see him as both a clown and a magician, getting the right level of each part, whilst pitching him as the antagonist whilst not as an 'evil' character is a delicate balance. I don't want to make him unrealistic or pantomime as there is a very real story at the heart of the film and I don't want that to get lost so finding the right balance of colour for him is very tricky.

We tried various jackets and accessories but haven't quite cracked it yet. I like the look very much, the sharp fitting jacket, the bow tie, the waistcoat and the aggressive golden flower, it is just getting some colour onto his out

fit so he is not too cold or just magician from the neck down.

The makeup will obviously play a big part as he will have vibrant red hair and be a full white face clown but I would really like some small detail of colour on him, so Katerina is busy

thinking of how we can do this, whilst still complementing the overall costume palette and not spoiling what is already created.

After the costume fitting, Matt chatted to me about how he now felt about the role. Matt always has a lot to say and is great at articulating his ideas so I decided to film some so everyone else could see what ideas are forming and also what attracted him to the role in the first place, check it out here :-)

http://vimeo.com/25757641

Next is Kiki Kendrick on Thursday, where we also make all final decisions on the costume so Katerina has a week to get all the final things sorted. Although she is filming another short in that time, so will try not to pile too much on her...

Costume Fitting - 27.06.2011

As we gear ourselves up for the stills shoot next week, we have scheduled a number of costume fittings and makeup tests. For this, Katerina, Kirsty and Antonia need to see each actor to fit them for their outfit and try out a few options so all elements complement each other and then make final alterations in time for Thursday 7th and Kirsty needs to experiment with her designs so we know exactly what we want and there we are more prepared on the day. First up on Monday, was Bill Thomas who plays the lead character of BONZO in the film.

The ideas behind this costume have changed dramatically, partly through the list of visual examples Katerina supplied me with when we first started discussing ideas. Originally, we were going to have him dressed more traditionally in the sense he had big over-sized trousers and braces and a jacket that was too short for him. But when Katerina showed me an image of Pierrot clowns really liked the simplicity of it and the elegance and tradition it alluded too. It creates a nice conflict in him looking like he is in a big baby grow and yet a classiness and romanticism which I thought added a lot more to the character. You can see Bill's thoughts on the difference of the costume here http://vimeo.com/25768052

In order to fit the costume, Katerina had created a mock-up with Calico fabric, so what we were seeing wasn’t correct in terms of fabric and colour, but in fit and feel. It was a perfect fit and as Bill stood there, you could already see he was trying to fit the character. To accessorize the look, she added frills and a ruff. Whilst I like this addition, one part I was not sure on that she had suggested was the ruff as it looked a bit too camouflagey so we will now try something with polka dots or just a frill. Now Katerina knows this fits Bill, she can dye the fabric yellow and add the correct details (buttons, trim) once I have had a look at a few other options this Thursday when we do our final fitting.

For makeup, we really liked to se his face behind the makeup, so went with just very simply doing just eyes and mouth. The look for eyes was really good, but Katerina thought we should exaggerate slightly and I agree, so will make them a little bigger and more oval at the top.

We then came across a small problem – Bills beard. Bill has another project lined up and dependant on when they will be shooting may have to keep it. If he has to keep it for the stills we will work around it, although fingers crossed the shoot won’t be for a week after our photos so he can grow again as he will appear in the film without a beard and would be good to see this in the photos. Kirsty and Bill both discuss the look of the makeup and its issues here http://vimeo.com/25762525

It is fantastic to see the ideas take a physical form and the effort everyone is putting in to promote the film so this can be something that really makes its mark.

Next up is Mr. Fernelli (Matthew Jure) and Jerry the Barman (Alex Walker) tomorrow!

Juggling ~ Dropping Balls ~ And Picking Up!

So, I’m back.

It’s been a really crazy couple of weeks where three film projects, two writing projects and a full on workshop converged on me all at once. It happens sometimes despite careful planning when one thing gets postponed and another thing comes up and you’ve committed to things ages ago without knowing it’s all going to happen at once. And when you get in that position you just have to juggle as best you can. In the past couple of weeks I’ve done a massive (and I mean nose bleedingly massive) Guerilla Film Makers Mastercless, Shot my own short film with all the complications that project managed to throw at me last minute, acted pickups and extra scenes in a feature film I am a lead in, the director was over from Australia to get the last bits needed for the edit, and kept up my family commitments, social networking updates (important always, but especially now before the crowd funding campaign) done as much as I could to run and administrate OTTfilms as usual & help other filmmakers and keep up with what’s happening on Clowning Around. I’m a bit tired now.

And what happened with all the juggling I’ve been doing is that I’ve dropped a ball or two on Clowning Around. The one I’m most annoyed at myself for is the textiles. Katerina and I were meant to be going to visit a textiles warehouse on Wednesday and I got delayed with a family emergency. On speaking to Katerina about whether to postpone or not it transpired that they hadn’t really made a proper appointment with her when she called, just said we were welcome to come down and have a look and so it wasn’t clear what the position was for them helping us out with some free textiles or whether the person I’d been emailing with would be there to discuss. I know the offer is there, but with the photo shoot looming Katerina and I decided that because she really needs to get on with making the costumes and we didn’t really know how long this would all take to sort out & re-schedule, that she should purchase the fabrics she needs for that now at the places she knows and any project support from the textiles warehouse will probably have to come later for the film itself. It’s not a big deal and the fabrics needed are inexpensive, but I’m kicking myself all the same.

The other ball I’ve dropped a bit is trying to get around to recording any video diaries. I’m a bit untechnical in that department and I need to sit down and work out exactly how the new tripod I’ve got works. How the camera settings & focus need to work. How the camera goes on the tripod (sound’s simple but I’m puzzled!) and how to get the footage off the camera and onto vimeo. You know, those things that self-shooters can do in a heartbeat and that I have to give myself a few days to puzzle with. But I’ll get there! Be patient! :D

So, picking up with Clowning Around this week, I’ve had a bit of emailing with Perry who’s been hugely good at researching the financial investment side of things and has come up with some interesting information. I’ve had a look over Damien’s script changes, which are wonderful. I’ve talked through where we’re at and what needs to happen over the next week or so and I’ve reviewed the crowd funding perks and page and ordered the first perk I’m going to be sending out to some backers once we begin the crowdfunding, so it’s getting to a very exciting time. We’ve got some other plans in motion too which are very exciting and it’s coming to a really nice point in the project where I’m feeling very exhilarated, hugely proud of the team and what everyone’s doing. With the run up to the photo shoot we'll start seeing our clowns and other main characters take shape and the big kid part of me is hugely grinning in anticipation.

The final thing I’m getting done this week is getting some sort of web presence up for the film. We’ve been speaking to various web people and either they haven’t been quite right for us, or they’ve been too expensive for the project budget. We’d had a look, in the beginning, at some websites we liked and I managed to find something similar that might make a nice wordpress based site so I’ve got a basic site up and customised and am adding pages so we'll have something if we need it and in the meantime we have something to show prospective web builders exactly the sort of thing we'd like and what works or doesn't work with the new site. I've imported the blog there so this is my first post on it and it's looking alright, if I do say so myself!

So that’s me. It’s Friday night and I’m cracking on with the site build in between tweet breaks and tea breaks. I’m marginally more techy with webby things than I am with cameras so I think it will be okay for a start. And Damien has a meeting with a web designer on Sunday who may be able to help us with the whole site integration and ensuring it all runs smoothly across platforms etc. Either on the current set-up or by building a new one. We'll see.

For now, everything is smiley! *:O)

Leilani

Writers block

The script process for "Clowning Around" has been pretty epic so far. Starting off with an idea two friends of mine had in 2004, I wrote a script in 2007 about two clowns having a slapstick face off. I then put in the OTT Filmmakers Forum (www.ottfilms.co.uk) in 2008 to get feedback and also worked with producer Heather Brunt (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2770092/) in order to submit fro funding the same year. The script went through about 10 rewrites in 2009 and has had minor tweaks here and there and is constantly getting feedback due to the collaborative process we are undertaking.

Throughout this, one thing that I felt never really grabbed the audience in the way we wanted was the opening, so have been trying to rewrite it over the past month.

Due to various other commitments and getting the other parts of "Clowning Around" sorted, this has not been possible. But yesterday morning I cleared my brain of everything else and sat down to do it. The elements I was trying to bring in were some way of seeing some interplay between our two clowns in which Mr.Fernelli manipulates Bonzo in someway and we start to see what could have sent Bonzo on his downward spiral, whilst still making it visually interesting and not spoon-feeding the audience with dialogue.

But I couldn't think of anything. Every option I thought of was clunky. As morning turned into afternoon and afternoon into evening I was starting to get a little frustrated with a wasted day, so called Leilani to get her input and after that just wrote something down so I felt I had an opening which was better than the current one. I sent this to Leilani, our 1st Assistant Director Greer and another producer Perry to see their thoughts. And then I left it alone for the evening, even though I wasn't totally happy that it worked fully.

And then it happened. At roughly 7.30am this morning. I had the idea! I woke up and read through some thoughts Lani, Greer and Perry had sent through and something clicked. It is a strange sensation that after 8 hours of trying and finding nothing, you can suddenly get it in 30 seconds and the words just flow onto the page! So I have rewritten the opening in a way I am much happier with, which conveys everything above but is done in a simple and effective way with no dialogue, which is what I was after.

What I have learnt from this is the ideas will come, don't fret or get over frustrated and keep things simple! Oh and a good nights kip does wonders for clearing your head :-)

Costume and Makeup meeting...

I had arranged to meet with costume designer Katerina Dipla and our new make up designer Kirsty Phillips in Cafe Des Amis in Covent Garden today, but my usual habit of picking cafe's that are not open again prevailed and we ended up going to the Machiaveli Cafe on Long Acre, just down the road. This is the third time this has happened to me in a row, I really should pick places I definitely know will be open!

The purpose of the meeting was to marry up our thoughts about costume and the overall colour pallette with Kirsty's ideas for makeup, with a view to the stills shoot in early July. I had sent Kirsty some images as a guide and she had (despite her two day jobs) brought some ideas with her so that we could pin it down and start buying items for the costume fittings and makeup tests, which will be done across three days next week.

We went through each character individually, and came up with the ideas that Bonzo should not be a full whiteface clown as he should come across as a bit more simplistic and child like with curved outline just around the eyes and mouth and also so we could see more of his humanity without being totally covered in makeup. As a contrast, Mr. Fernelli will be completely whiteface with angular makeup with more vibrancy in the colour, in union with his more magician like appearance and to highlight the difference. Another thing we are cementing is that for the stills shoot (rather than the film) Bonzo needs to be more 'at his best' and be presented as a worthy adversary to Mr. Fernelli, rather than appearing more ragged and unkempt, as he will do in the short. After discussing this for an hour or so, we all felt we were going the same way and it is now up to Katerina and Kirsty to source all the items required. We have a textiles factory and makeup distributor who are hopefully supplying us with some free stuff, so hopefully we can limit the budget somewhat!

It will be great to start with items being purchased this week and the ideas becoming a reality. It was also pretty cool to get Kirsty on board as well, as she is someone who always turns up enthusiastic and full of ideas and an awareness of the parameters of how we are working.

As we continue to build our team, it was cool to hear a comment from Katerina, who said the reason she is so enthused about the project is not just because she gets to make outfits for clowns but that every single one of the people involved are not only very talented but also productive, enthusiastic and forthright with their opinions to get the best result for the film. I always like to be at the centre of this kind of team, we don't have to be the best of friends, but there has to a respect and willingness to get it all done the best we can, so its nice to hear!

After the meeting, Katerina showed me a few items she had in mind in some shops on Charing Cross Road, including a stunning orange number which I took a photo of, but will save for showing until we have the costume fitting with Kiki next week!

Serious clowning...

In writing and making “ Clowning Around” we have been trying to make contact with clowns, clown agencies and institutions who would like to collaborate with us to make the clowning within the film as authentic and interesting as possible but unfortunately we have mostly drawn a blank. Most didn’t like the idea of either an alcoholic clown, a manipulative clown, two clowns fighting or just felt generally this was an image of clowns they didn't support. Whilst kind of understanding the protection of a tradition that has been popular and practised for thousands of years (the most ancient clowns have been found in the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt, around 2400 BCE) and can be treated with disdain or ridicule by people, I felt and still feel that the film will not be disrespectful to them but be entertaining and delve into the psyche of this kind of live performance, where you are putting on a happy face and going out to make people laugh.

So, feeling like no clown in the world wanted anything to do with us (slightly over dramatic maybe), I was very happy when a fellow filmmaker Elsa O’Toole (www.elsaotoole.com) recommended a friend of hers who was willing to help us out with getting clown contacts or an insight into this kind of performance.

The ‘helper’ in question is a lady called Natasha Mcghie (right), a regular street performer in London’s Covent Garden (THE place for street performing if you've never been there) who agreed to meet up for a chat shortly before she heads off to Glastonbury for a show next week . Having spoken to her briefly on the phone, she was enthusiastic about the project, loved the visual elements we were bringing and most importantly understood the subtext of what we were looking to portray.

I met her shortly after she had finished her show yesterday (check out her website http://www.felicityfootloose.com/index.html) and went for a quick pint to let her know what I was looking for help with and if she could help us (as she is not strictly a clown) or if not, would recommend anyone. After managing to find her (I have a habit of meeting complete strangers in very crowded places in London!) what immediately struck me was how ridiculously nice and friendly she was. She is one of those people who is instantly likeable, open and honest and we ended sharing two rather than just the one pint as we discussed everything from the film, to the art of clowning, to the psyche of a performer.

Where I was looking for her help was in three ways…firstly, the opening scene (which I am re-writing) in which BONZO and MR. FERNELLI are a double act and perform at a school for some children, a scene that will ultimately end up with FERNELLI usurping BONZO as the main clown in town. In order to get genuine reactions from the kids and also to establish with our audience that these are real clowns, I wanted some pointers on a simple routine we could work with the actors to achieve this.

Secondly, the big fight scene in which BONZO defeats MR.FERNELLI is very simple and the routines are ones everyone knows, so wanted some ideas from her as to if there was a way we could do this more ambitiously or whether it was best to keep it as is.

And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, to work with the actors on the physicality of their characters, as I want them to come across as clowns, not actors in costume, so if there was anything she could add that would enhance this, which we could also create video content for and post online. That is not to say our actors (as we have two very talented and experienced guys in Bill Thomas and Matthew Jure) won’t take this into consideration, but having someone who has lived this, would provide a valuable insight.

Natasha said she would happily provide ideas for routines and chat to/work with the actors, and would also talk to a few jobbing clowns she knew to see if they would help us too. We also started talking about the psychology of a performer who deals with live events and interaction, the highs and lows, the nerves, the thrill, the ‘I just need the money’ jobs and what motivates someone to do so. Not only was this interesting for me (as someone who is a complete coward and ill at the very thought of performing in a street full of passer bys or to a room of unruly kids) but it got me thinking of how we can incorporate this into the characters into the film and the narrative itself, perhaps giving some reason as to how MR.FERNELLI managed to bring BONZO’s initial downfall.

So, lots to think about, lots more ideas and another dimension being added to what is becoming an epic production. Each time we meet someone new, an element improves and it was great to meet Natasha and know that she is happy to help us where she can, and beyond that nice to know that there are performers out there willing to help us :-)

The 'lomo' look

Since our meeting last Tuesday regarding the stills shoot, a lot of discussion has been had regarding the overall look of the film so we can all head in the right direction. I will come right out and say that this is not something I particularly focus on as a director or that stands out to me, I see the composition, the action, the emotion with the characters and how the narrative is strung together so the story can engage an audience so when it comes down to a colour palette or setting an overall visual style, to be honest I’m clueless.

But this was precisely what was needed. Due to the very visual and partly surreal nature of the film, all departments really needed an image or images that they could look at and focus their direction towards so everything pulled together. I googled images, colours, associated emotions but wasn’t really getting very far and starting to worry that I was holding everyone back.

Luckily, our production designer Bianca Turner is not only a damn talented lady, but very proactive and went and sourced a number of images she felt would work based on what I had said at the meeting, which was that I wanted to emphasise these surreal characters in their normal environment and that whilst the central colours would be vibrant, we were still telling a bittersweet narrative. At the meeting itself, she showed me some photos on her Iphone that had very saturated colours, vignettes with heavily tinted colours and blown out highlights. They were indeed striking images but needed to see a few more before being convinced.

She emailed me a few days ago with a colour palette (above) and both sample images of this look (which I was reliably informed was the ‘lomo’ look in reference to the Russian camera where the style was first developed) and how a normal image can be manipulated to look more so.

The cinematographer (who is a photographer also) Azul Serra then sent me some more images he had taken and treated in this way. One of these photographs (left) was the closest I have seen to how I would like the film to be, vibrant detail yet with a high contrast and an element of darkness to it.

Whilst I still feel some parts of the look may make it too stylised and we have to be careful that it doesn’t suffocate the narrative by distracting from it, I think this is definitely the base of how we want to go with the look, to create something distinctive and visually appealing which will engage our audience further.

I am also thankful to have dedicated members of the team who are really putting so much into the project. I have said from the off that this is not ‘my’ film, but a collaborative effort and this goes to show why and how much influence the other departments have in this film. Not just Azul and Bianca, but also costume designer Katerina Diplas experience and knowledge is giving this film so much more than if I just stood at the top dictating everything, and is breathing fresh life into it with each new idea.

I am looking forward to learning more about the lomo look and what ideas we will play with to create a stunning short film, starting with the photographs on July 7th.

Putting one Foot in Front of the Other!

So, having set the board for some things, I've had to turn a lot of my attention away from Clowning Around this week. I'm first and foremost an actor (believe it or not!) and I have filming on an indie feature this week where I am resuming a lead role for pickups and a new scene. Plus I've had to re-organise the second half of my shoot for short film 'Butterflies' that was postponed a couple of weeks ago.

With three different projects converging on me in the same two weeks, I've taken a pause and in some ways it's been easier to get an overview. We've achieved quite a lot in terms of planning. Things are in place and lots of discussions are happening among the varied skills of everyone involved, so the building blocks are all here. Now it's just a case of putting them together and that's really just putting one foot forward and keeping moving, step by step to act on those key discussions to put the very interesting plans into action. I'm out of the loop for a very little while but from the emails I've been coppied in on it seems that the project is really benefitting from the sheer mixture of skills everyone has brought to the table.

As long as we keep the forward momentum we will begin to see tangible results from our plans very soon. I ordered the first little perk for our crowd funding backers this week and that was a cool moment that put a smile on my face.

Decisions, decisions...

Taking on a project this size (in that we are doing the campaign as well as the film) is starting to test my decision making skills to the maximum. I have always been a fan of exhausting a few avenues (unless I have an instinctive feel for something) and being open to being proved wrong, so I and others can provide options and not feel stifled creatively, especially in short film where they are usually working to experiment, rather than for the pay check.

However, being across so many different areas, not taking firm decisions is not going to be helping anyone. We have been discussing the costume for the photo shoot for the past few weeks and so many ideas have been put forward, to be honest I have gotten a bit lost and there came a point talking to Katerina this evening that I couldn't see the wood through the trees and was confusing her and myself! The ideas became muddled and unclear as we were trying to incorporate so much of what we had discussed that we were now using so many styles and colours that the overall affect was becoming messy.

However, one thing I am getting rather good at is not panicking and taking a moment to pause and think "right, how do we solve this" without becoming frustrated. In this case, I took a moment to go back to the very basic idea and I drew, rather slowly, how I saw the two main clowns appearing and tried to disregard anything else (see above). I wrote down in bullet point form the main things and directions I liked and the colours I instinctively saw, and that seemed to help both me and Katerina to see just the things we needed to accomplish and focus on that. I tend to overcomplicate things and so have to remind myself...if in doubt, keep things simple!

After today, I think our costume designs are now in the advanced stage and we are ready to start sourcing material from the textiles place Leilani found. I will be confirming our studio shoot date with Tower Bridge Studios (http://www.towerbridgestudios.com/) who have kindly lent us their studio space and then arranging meetings with costume and makeup so we can start trying stuff on our actors! Also in the mix is setting up a bank account for the film, meeting a clown who will act as consultant for the film and getting the website further down the line.

I have to admit I am feeling a little swamped at the moment, but am reminding myself to keep myself and my responses to things simple, succinct and to the point in order to get things done :-)

Production Meeting with Key Crew, 7th June.

So. Last night's production meeting was a follow up from the previous production meeting. It was where the key crew had taken all the ideas Damien had talked about and gone away and come up with more ideas for the key elements of the film's look. Decisions can now be made for costume and makeup for the photo shoot, the colour pallet etc. And then those ideas will be adapted for the shoot where the setting will be slightly different so the costume colours etc. may need to be different but for a dynamic photo shoot things are coming together really well.

Right now we're operating on a tiny budget because we haven't crowd funded yet so it's invaluable to have good key crew who are resourceful and in addition to the crew, people at companies who've helped out with free makeup & the photo studio have been ace.

I've also heard back from a clothing textiles company I approached, who specialise in fabrics for the film & tv industry are probably able to help Katerina out with some free fabrics. Not sure how much yet, but it's all extremely useful support.

Anyway, a great meeting, it's so nice to see how things start to come together and how our clowns will look and get ideas for the photography. I piped up with an idea for marketing (and any press I can get) that a cool photo of Damien with the clowns will be good and came up with a fun suggestion! The costume assistant liked it so much she guffawed and spat her guiness all over me! A novel way to appreciate my humour but I guess I shouldn't complain that someone actually finds me funny. It's a rare occurence, as fortunately is being spat all over! Ahh the joys of producing! *:oD

We had a lot of exicting descriptions and imagery going on! I finally remembered to get Greer, the 1st AD to take a photo of me too!

And I'm back...

I have finally completed my work on the VELUX 5 Oceans media team! This most recent job took me to France, South Africa, New Zealand, Uruguay and the US of A and whilst being a great experience and meeting some cool people, I am looking forward to getting things back to normal and getting "Clowning Around" made. I still have my day job at North One TV to do, but being in the same country is very helpful for getting people on board and getting things done!

I arrived back late last night so have been trying to get my head around the backlog of emails and correspondence. I have been very lucky in that even when I have not been able to do anything, the team we have so far (in particular Leilani and Greer) have been keeping things moving and we now have use of a free studio and lights and a production meeting set-up for tomorrow with the core crew for the stills shoot. They have also been sending me numerous ideas about various locations and ideas for the film shoot.

I have also located a possible comic book artist as we want to create small downloadable pdfs of the characters back story as a visual aid for the crew in terms of style and also for people to have as a perk on our IndieGoGo site. We also have two more producers possibly on board, but will wait until they confirm before outing them!

We have had some downs as well as our ups too...our make-up designer Elena Scafidi can no longer commit to the project so we are on the lookout for another designer and have sent out emails to do to see if we can find someone. Also got an email from ARRI who aren't interested in giving us a discount on their ALEXA camera in exchange for publicizing their product. We are also still looking for someone to create video content of us along our journey, so I guess that'll still be me for the moment!

Anyway, I need to crack on, its now 2pm and still yet to unpack! After that, its down to more lists and going through what we need from the production meeting tomorrow night before the OTT Meeting, where we will not only get our plans for the stills shoot finalised, but also meet producer Perry Norton for the first time to discuss finance and OTT member Meddy Ford who has some thoughts on location.

Studio Space!

Tower Bridge Studios is a beautiful photographic facility in Wapping, not far from Tower Bridge, with five photographic and video studios with a free car park and just outside the London congestion charging zone.

The studios are purpose built with different characteristics such as photographic coves and frosted daylight windows and make up areas. All the studios are furnished with designer lounge furniture, lunch tables, a stocked fridge and tea and coffee facilities and free wi-fi! With a choice of fabulous shooting locations such as St. Katharine's Dock, Tower Bridge and the quiet cobbled streets of Wapping, Tower Bridge Studios is an ideal production base for photography and film shoots.

And they've been kind enough to give us access to a studio space for our Clowning Around photo shoot in a few weeks time, so we can get some great imagery to show the calibre of project we will create with the film. It's so good of them and very supportive to us at this pre-fundraising time of the project when we really don't have any budget for space. It's an incredibly nice gesture and one that we fully appreciate, not only for it's usefulness but because people who don't know us are interested in the project and are prepared to back it with their help.

Walking along the Thames taking in the morning sun and taking a few of my own photos afterwards I was thinking of the famous Tennessee Williams line from Streetcar Named Desire about depending on the kindness of strangers. Which actually can sometimes be a doubly rewarding thing to do.

I'm very much looking forward to our production meeting next week where a lot of the remaining details for the photo shoot costume, make up and colour pallette will be finalised so that departments heads can get the ball rolling on preparations. It's such a nice process seeing the characters take shape. I'm very much looking forward to standing in one of those fab studios and seeing our clowns and their companions come to life.

A couple of other nice clown films. To get us in the mood.

Skype Chats

One thing I've never really used that much in filmmaking is skype but I'm finding we're using it fairly regularly for Clowning Around because it's a great way to have almost face to face meetings with Damien while he's travelling all over the world filming the Velux 5 Oceans. Even in the UK it's just handier a lot of the time to chat on skype and not have to travel or wait for a meet up.

And actually, just speaking just clarifies a whole lot of things when you're buried in emails and you're trying to type thoughts and ideas about a lot of things into various messages and get what you mean across clearly. It's so much easier to just be able to say 'huh?' and have an explanation if you don't understand something or ask a quick question and most importantly when you speak to someone rather than writing an email to them, it's much easier to get a decision made.

So, after a bit of a chat today I'm feeling less buried in information, I've found out a few bits of good news from things everyone has been working on that have started to pay off and I'm liking that everything is on track for the photo shoot and getting something up webwise as soon as possible so that we may begin to share things in a more efficient way.

So, yes. It's all looking shiny! Smiling. *:o)