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...

Cracking On!

The above video is from our production meeting with Heads of Department prior to the photo shoot where Damien and I talk about the project and our preparations over these past week to create some wonderful imagery to show the film to it's best advantage. I'm not sure we could ever really give an accurate insight into the thought and creativity that Damien and the HoD's put into getting the ideas, designs and physical stuff together for the shoot but it was a good deal of work, more than I've done for some film shoots, so it's certainly been worth all the meetings and discussions and also shows, I think, the dedication of our team members and their belief and love for the project that they are giving so much time and talent into making everything as high calibre as it can possibly be.

And below are the results after the photo shoot put into a rough poster style comp though more exciting news about posters will be coming soon. We were all so proud of what we achieved together on no budget and how well people worked together and, well, the clowns have come to life before our eyes in a very inspiring way. We hope that our backers will be inspired by them and support us in getting the film funded and made. We launch next week. Lots to do before then!



We had a meeting and a wonderful dinner with our costume designer Katerina last night which was a fabulous (and delicious!) way to round off the photo shoot work but while our Heads of Department crack on with their shoot ideas to discuss with Damien (other than the blogs they've promised to write for you all!) Damien and I have been hugely busy getting everything ready for the launch of our Indiegogo fundraising campaign and our website and backer's forum next week. It's all go, I'm writing in code more than I'm writing blogs at the moment but we really want to give our backers something special for their support and friendship. I'm really enjoying all the stuff I've been doing, not something I often say about Producing, but it's been a wonderful challenge so far and I've loved every minute. Here's to the next set of challenges and creating something surpassingly ace out of it! More anon!

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.

Clowning Around

So here I am finally writing a blog after looking at everybody else's blogs so now I can copy what they have written :D, joke aside it was a fantastic day last Thursday, everything went so well and everybody was working so hard on set and I am pleased to see the photo's reflecting that. I am currently editing the behind the scenes footage (looks good so far!!) that will be up on your computer screens hopefully within a few days so stay tuned peeps not long to wait :)

Madman On The Radio While Clowning Around Gathers Pace

After selling out at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington, my one-man adaptation of Gogol's Diary Of A Madman has just been commissioned as a radio play by multi-award-winning station The Wireless Theatre Company - http://www.wirelesstheatrecompany.co.uk/.

Fringe Review gave the show 4 stars out of 5, calling it:

' … hilarious … Matthew Jure is captivating as the doomed Poprishchin … more charming than the Belvoir Street production with Geoffrey Rush … humour beautifully balanced with horror … '

My Madman is to be recorded next month and will be on-air soon afterwards. Tune in while Clowning Around gathers pace!

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Stills from the Pleasance:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150256109786528.374073.600781527&l=1482ac3a51

www.matthewjure.net

Much More Than Just A Laugh

So, not even a week since we shot the stills and promo for Clowning Around and already I've got strangers on Facebook and people I've shown photos to on my phone asking, "What is this film? When's it shooting? Who's the president of Peru?" (although the last question's not quite so common).

When Damien (Cullen, Clowning Around's writer & director) asked me to play mean Mr Fernelli a while back I thought, "A film about clowns? Yeah, why not? Sounds like a laugh". When we talked about the film in more depth, however, and then met with Katerina (costume) and discussed symbolism, themes and motifs - as well as a fully fleshed-out dramatic backstory and planned comic-book offshoots - I was truly most impressed with the vision and scope of this project. And, to return to last week's shoot for a moment, the professionalism of the cast and crew when we all met up at Tower Bridge Studios gave me a huge amount of confidence that Clowning Around will not only get made very soon but that it will also be a very high-quality piece of cinema.

Funnymen, but with secrets...tricks, but not just for kids...jokes, but with life's cruel humour...the first steps of this film's journey have left me feeling intrigued, unsettled and - most of all - exhilarated in the knowledge that Clowning Around is destined to be something much more than just a laugh.

Can. Not. Wait!

The stills shoot...a few days later

I really wanted to post something straight after the stills shoot last Thursday, but felt I needed a couple of days to let it all sink it and digest not only the experience, but also what we learned and the next steps that need to be taken with the film.

First of all, what we did was an immense achievement. The quality of the images we created is fantastic and has a great amount of variety so we can create different artwork throughout the campaign. As well as photos that will form the basis of a variety of posters, we created stuff for the website and video teasers we will feed out during the campaign and a shed load of behind the scenes material which is now being edited by our ‘making of’ producer/cameraman/editor Luqman Ahmed, who has come on board through the help of fellow filmmaker Carlo Ortu.

I have already produced a very rough mockup of the photos (http://momentsoffilm.zenfolio.com/clowningaround) and had fantastic feedback from people who are now excited to see the finished film. I have also met with colourist Orash Rehnema who is going to grade the photos so we can use on the website, so we get the most of the colours and set the right tone for the campaign.

Everyone worked so hard on the shoot, which filled me with great confidence going into the next stage and would feel unfair naming names as everyone played their part in making the final product highly professional , visual and something that will enthuse people about the film, which is the most important thing.

Also important (and another reason we did the shoot) was to see how the process is working and what we take with us into the film and what we leave behind, so will be chatting to all the various departments soon not only to discuss what elements worked and what we feel will need to be different once we get into the nitty, gritty of making the film (as we won’t be working with a black backdrop, but on location so will need to see whether the same things fit together) but also how they feel it is all working as I want everyone to know their input is valid and we are constantly reviewing how the project is progressing so we can all work to our optimum.

This week will be mostly about getting the making of stuff together for everyone to see online, finalising our website and building towards the launch of the IndieGoGo campaign on the 19^th July, when we will be making as much noise as possible about “Clowning Around”!