Chris Jones Blog

Guerilla Film Maker in Vancouver

I flew into Vancouver, BC, Canada a few days ago, with a dual remit. First off, I am running my two day Guerilla Film Makers Masterclass here at a film makers conference called FTX West. Second, I am location scouting for Rocketboy and plan to spend a week looking for amazing places to shoot the movie – as well as getting the lowdown on the Canadian film industry.

First off, the course. I am running this one as a hybrid, building a large new section in from Gone Fishing, and what I learned making the film. This is in part a semi dressed rehearsal for the UK course I will be running in January. And I am really looking forward to it. I met with film maker and FTX Organiser, Rob Nielson, last night for dinner and we discussed the course and the state of the Vancouver film business. Vancouver is being hit hard by the writers strike with huge shows closing down completely in the next few weeks. Rob made the point that he understands why there is a strike, but often, those who are striking don’t really understand how far reaching and devastating it can be for other people involved in the film process and business.

FTX is also carrying some other seminars, including Genevieve and Andrews Guerilla Film Makers Documentary Masterclass which I hosted for them last year in Ealing, (where it was an amazing success). I am also looking forward to the FTX convention where all the cool new hardware will be on show. I will report back on anything particularly cool that I find.

Right… got to go and collect Genevieve and Andrew from the airport!

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Pickup shoot is 100% success!

Saturday morning, the day after the pickup shoot, and I am looking out of my window in amazement at the weather. According to the BBC it should be bright sun, and it’s grey and miserable. Yesterday on the other hand, the day we shot, WAS AMAZING SUNSHINE! We could not have been luckier with the weather.
So the shoot went very well. We had a very small crew, running without sound, and now ticking over like a well oiled machine. We cranked through loads of simple cutaway shots, like the one here of the gnarled shark hook the killer pike chews up in the story.

By lunch time we had about ten shots in the can, all with amazing backlit sunshine. What was great is I could feel the edit of the film coming together, as I knew just how these new shots would slot in perfectly and plug little problems.

After lunch came the moment of truth with our large, rubber ‘Bruce’ like pike, built by Jenny Cochrane. It was operated by a couple of very nice divers, Steve Reid and Dave O’Dell, who came along for the fun of it. I don’t quite know what they made of Goliath when they finally saw him, but they were game, so they got into the water and we all attempted to make movie magic! Sadly, for most of the time, Goliath performed just like a big rubber pike would. BUT… after lots of takes, we could all see that we got short glimpses of real genius, where Goliath looked terrifying and enormous and completely real. I can’t wait to see the footage. So 100% success!

We also did a few shots of photos that we had to drop during the main shoot as the actual props were not ready (as we had only just filmed the cast in costume – this is always a scheduling nightmare as actors need to be in costume etc., and it’s rarely done before the main shoot). We did these shots in the main building at Bury Hill Fisheries, overlooking the lake, which is a bizarre place to do such shots.

We should get a tape of the rushes from the labs on Tuesday and have it all cut in by Tuesday night. I hope to have a locked picture by Thursday and a final test screening on Friday, making tweaks over the weekend if needed. Then it’s all about the final picture conform at 2k res, getting the digital effects right, and a track lay and Dolby Digital Mix. The very talented guys at Videosonics have already offered their help so I know the movie will sound a million dollars!

FANTASTIC!

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

Pickup shoot moved for weather

Gone Fishing looks absolutely amazing. In large part this is down to Vernon’s photography and his insistence that we wait on the sun. We were very lucky in the main shoot and managed to shot mostly in bright sunshine, which Vernon then filled the harsh shadows with a whopping great 15k light and bounce boards.

We were supposed to be shooting pickup shots today but we moved the dates on Monday as the BBC weather site predicted cloud and rain. Now it’s looking like Friday or Saturday will be the pickup days. I now begin each day with the ritual of logging onto the BBC weather site and checking out the five day forecast for Dorking, the location where we are shooting. It’s important that we get the sun otherwise it will be hard to get shots to match.

You can view a clip here from Gone Fishing, the first one is without the sun, the second is with the sun (there were clouds when filming - This clip is ungraded and low contrast as it has come straight from the 35mm neg). You can see just how much difference it makes. Amazing really.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

Bury Hill - Main Location

I spent the most of yesterday wandering around our main location for the shoot – Bury Hill Fisheries, near Dorking.

This venue has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. First off disadvantages - it just isn’t as spectacular as we wanted. Second, there could be a lot of fishermen on the days we shoot, though we are planned to shoot on their quiet days and it’s a slow time of year (so I suspect we can get around that). Creatively, I have therefore chosen to take the epic quality to the small end of the scale and focus more on quintessential English beauty, and the stunning unique look of an English landscape. Bull rushes at dawn, moss on 300 year old tree stumps, water reflecting through the rushes…

So the advantages of the location are many – it’s close, controllable, shallow where we shoot, the fishery guys can even catch a live 30lb pike for us to film, it’s very pretty, has parking, loos, canteen etc. So it wasn’t much of a difficult choice. I also think we may be able to comp in some distant non specific mountains in the wide shots too.

Less than two weeks to shooting now and so much still feels up in the air!

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com 

Location Moves To Scotland

Today has been a big day – the final prep meeting before we officially move into pre production, lock down and head out. Some big choices have needed to be made.

Producer Ivan Clemments and I, sat around a table and worked through the script, budget and schedule. Passions ran high – after all, I as the Director should be the accelerator, and Ivan the Producer, should be the brakes – it’s a recipe for conflict!

First up, we are definitely shooting the first week of September. Second, and this is the biggie, we are shooting entirely on location in Scotland – we are looking now at just North of Glasgow. We came to this decision after much soul searching, but fundamentally because the locations, both interior and exterior, will be so much better than down in or around London. It was a tough choice and has budget implications, but we need to ‘aim high’ if we are going to ‘close high’.

Essentially, this leaves us needing a further £5k in cash. So the slog to find that now begins in earnest too. We will see how this game plays out.

In the next couple of days we hope to nail down ALL of the equipment for free. Much is already arranged for free already, but there are a few areas such as lights and grips not covered, not to mention on the ground catering, transport, walkies etc. In then next few days I will be posting a ‘shopping list’ of stuff we need, so please, ask around if anyone can help.

Tomorrow I start work on storyboards with artist Gabriel Schucan, so I will look forward to reporting on progress.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com