Shooting Continues...

So tomorrow (Tuesday 1st August) sees the cast and crew reform for another week of shooting. By the end of this week we aim to have shot all the 'ship crew' extra dialogue scenes on Roanoke, all the interior scenes set in England, and all the model boats at sea.

The 1st trailer is also set to be available at 5pm - Sunday August 6th.

It will be at this time the shooting will go on a month break while we review, rough edit and prepare for some even more ambitious shooting from the end of September.

Don't worry about the blog, we have a lot in the pipe line to bring you over the next few weeks when shooting for the Summer has ended, I'll write more on that later.



In terms of stats:

3841 Hits to roanokethemovie.com and roanokethelostcolony.com since June 2006, and just under 500 unique visitors to the blog since it opened last week. We also come up on the first page of google when typing "roanoke the movie" so this should help boost the interest.

As of the end of this week we aim to begin a bit of publicity about the production given that it has had a somewhat promising start, there is still a looooong way to go until we have a reasonable production but we have to start somewhere.

Bertie

p.s - lots of pictures to come this week, which should be nice

Monday, a fine example!

Welcome back to a Monday, a new week for the blog, a new week for everyone to be fair.

Last week we changed locations around, switched shooting days, and generally set out a new shooting schedule for us all. But there's one thing that happened which is the primary reason for this entry, the helping hand everyone has when it comes to shooting an independent film.

Our John White (character name), Andy Sweet, went out and about last week looking for some boats that would be suitable for us to shoot on. Below are some pictures of his adventure.

The thing I love is how everyone on this film seems to be going out there way, doing jobs which aren't their own to help with the production of the film. From Andy going on a day quest to find and chat to owners of 16th Century Vessels, Leander (McNair) doing some internet research on boats close by, to name a few.

Well done everyone so far and hopefully everyone's effort can be turned into a great looking production.

(let's not speak to soon, but...maybe, possibily, who knows)

(image thanks to Andy)

A word from the designer

Well, not much been happening on my side lately, as I have been busy with previous commitments. But it all looks good...

I am getting ready for the model shoot which is coming up soon.

I have supplied a picture of one of the models to be used. I am calling this one the Griffin.

Anyway, it has all been going well so far, so I am happy.

Would love to see a trailer... Hint hint...

Gary

It's Coming...

The trailer is on its way. So far there have been three cuts. The crew cut which was the original teaser but due to copywrite issues could not be made avalible for public viewing, then 2 further cuts, one that was too fast, and one that was too slow.



We're getting there, there is now a good rough assembly of the final idea for the trailer, this will need touching up and then a bit of colouring, exporting, uploading, and we should be there.

Should have some nice news about something else this evening too, so watch out for that.

- Bertie

Roanoke The Lost Colony (Roanoke the Movie)

So with every film, must come the slightly annoying part, the sorting and storage, of sets, props, costumes, food, water.

Below is an image of part of the storage area where some of the equipment is held:



Included:

- Over 50 Costumes for cast and supporting artists: 80% thanks to Bradfield College and Niki Mallony

- Over 60 litres of frozen water for work days (normally will last the cast and crew a day on shoot)

- All props, including, cups, bottles, muskets etc...

- Smaller Set Dressing - WickerStands, Colonists Tools etc...

- Set building tools - Including workbenches, drills, hammers...

- First Aid Kits

And then some...so far we are coping, but we may have to loose some soon, anyone in need of a 16th Century axe?

p.s - the spare bed isn't part of the movie :-D

'Tis a Sign!

Imagine this, you're on your way to a location scout, before any filming or casting has taken place, you're unsure as to the feasbility of the project, wishing and hoping, and then this pops up:

This is what happened to Dan, Jenna and I about three months ago:



We drove behind it for a good few miles...is it a sign? is it a message?

Who knows!

Bertie / Malcolm as Dan now thinks I should be called

Update on Shooting Schedule

So it's been all very confusing with the Hartley Witney days being
cancelled, but great fun when you have to think on your feet to try and re-arrange stuff.

Firstly I'm sorry to all our Fleet extras who were waiting to come on the 3rd, the day will still happen, just somewhere else at a slightly different date.

Currently here's how the strong pencil stands:

Tuesday 1st August: Weald and Downland (back down to pick up two night scenes).
Wednesday 2nd August: Fleet House (to shoot exterior boat shots)
Thursday 3rd August: Fleet Pond (to shoot the crew chatting about where the colonists have gone. And then in the evening any pick ups on the boats.

We have found a few more "boats" to shoot in, and i'll keep you updated with whether or not there a possibility. If you do happen to know of any 16th Century longboats hanging around in your back garden, do let us know.

So for those who are a bit confused as to where we stand, we are back on track, just with a few different scenes being shot instead. (I'm looking into the possibility of shooting the interior cabin shots too, ohhh)

Nickname For Bertie

Following on from my post regarding nicknames, i've come up with my first.....for the director himself.


Bertie will now be more commonly known as......MALCOLM

Because.....

In Bertie's time in the states he was commonly known as Bird. The spine-tailed Swift is the fastest Bird in the world. Swift is a model of motor car designed by Suzuki. Suzuki is a Japanese company. Toyota is one of its Japanese competitors. In 96 they made the Toyota Mega Cruiser. The QM2 is a 'Mega Cruiser' being the largest cruise ship in the world. QM stands for Queen Mary. Queen Mary the 1st was known as Mary Tudor. Tudor relates to the period in British History between 1485 and 1603. in 1603 the Plague was at its worst. The plague was more commonly known as the black death. Which leads to the death of the most famous Black nationalist leader, Malcolm X.

And that's why Bertie's 'NEW' nickname is 'MALCOLM'


Daniel
1st AD

Nicknames

So for a little bit of fun i thought i could try coming up with nicknames for everybody involved in the project. And i don't just mean abbreviating their current name or using a term of appearance like 'curly'. I mean full on 'how the hell did you come up with that' kind of nicknames.

So look out for your nickname and lets see if any of them stick.

p.s i've come up with a million nicknames for people before but none have EVER stuck


Daniel
1st AD

View Through A Lense

Hello all! Just finished (yesterday afternoon) building on an extra part to what we're keeping on hold till we are ready to reveal all...

The Behind The Scenes clip was inspired by the teaser clip that has been floating around for the cast and crew.
I thought it would be nice to do a small clip using what footage and stills I had and presenting it online. Looking at it, it has turned out quite brilliantly. I hope you like it too.



This beloved clapperboard for used for the first time starting at Sc. 124 on our first day of shooting.
We thought we would give it an alias or nickname/codename not that anyone would want to take away our growing asset ;)
If it was that serious we would hire security but we can't afford it.



Jack (above) I think was the only member of the cast and crew who got to have the most sleep out of all of us! Bless him :)
I went outside for some air and found an abandoned shirt on the grass which then lead me to find him relaxed on a seat still with this his silk shorts on, (there's some yellow daisies next to him which I took macro stills of).

I think I may have a 'wondeful' clip of Bertie floating around. I'll dig up some video vocals and see if anything is viewable!

Tuesday...All change on Roanoke

Soo......
This may come as a surprise for a few of the crew along with most of the cast, and anyone outside. But the dates are all changing due to the location scout yesterday.

Unfortunately it has been decided that Hartley Witney (the location that started the ball rolling) will no longer feature in the production. Below is a picture I took and tried to blog (via mobile) while on the scout yesterday....sadly the location and the mobile blog failed us:



Although this location may look "good" in this picture, the constraints of Hi-Def mean that infact all the roads and houses in the very distance can now be seen. I can't quite work it out, however i'm positive when i visited here a month ago "something" was hiding them. If we were on a bigger budget we could run a large plastic tube along the back of the set, put holes in it, and then pipe smoke through the tubing and in turn it would hide all the background (something i learnt from Childeren of Men).

Anyway, as it stands we will now be moving a few things around so over the next week and a half we will be shooting the following scenes:

- Model Boats
- Interior Cabin
- Woods (with Extras)

Despite us loosing the exterior of the fort scene, we have added the interioir of the cabin, and possibly the other studio shoots that occur within the script.

We currently have two locations lined up to replace the fort scene, but I can't say to much about that presently....wonderful

Bertie - the 'wonderful' director

I just watched the behind the scenes footage (it's very good angela!) but i noticed one part of bertie's directing that was left out.

The amount of times he says 'wonderful' on set (when all is going well!)

Basically, the end of a take will go like this - 'Wonderful, ok we'll do 1 more take! well five more. ok lets go!'
and the better a day is going, the more things become wonderful! for example, on the first three days, it went well, so even when we told him the time, that was wonderful!

On the other side of this though, when we had some bad days last week, we didn't hear wonderful once!

Unfortunately, i don't have any video evidence of this, but maybe angela does! :-)

Behind the Scenes - Video

Below are some blog entries of media that have video links or media that can be viewed online regarding Roanoke The Movie:

Online Media

Roanoke Recce - Daniel Shirley - Video of WestStow Recce

Preparing the Trailer - Angela - A behind the scens of the trailer

Roanoke Trailer - Bertie Stephens - The first Official Trailer

On Set Antics - Bertie Stephens - The Cast doing a little sing stong

Watch a short Behind the Scenes Video
(click image below)

(p.s - you may have to wait a few minutes for it to download fully)

We're back to a Monday

So I took the weekend off from most things Roanoke (apart from blogging alot of entries), and we're back on the preparation for possibly the biggest shoot of them all...August 2nd, 3rd.

We're recreating the colony on these dates, so everything must be all in order to look a bit 16th Century.

Things to do today:

1. Cut the Roanoke Teaser Trailer
There has been a rough trailer for the cast and crew swinging around, but nothing that really, really really, shows the hard work that everyone has put in. Hopefully over today, and the next day (unless we finish today) we will have a proper trailer for everyone to see.

2. Organise times and dates for Hartley Witney
It's just under a week and a half away from the Hartley Witney shoot and things need to be prepared. Hopefully we'll sort the exact setting (the area is large), the toilet arrangements (will Ellior Loo be back?), food, drink, and all...

3. Contact all the actors about their dates
The Studio shoots for this Thursday and Friday have been posponed so we can concentrate on Hartley Witney, so if your a Roanoke Actor, expect a call from me today!

4. Give back the Walki-Talkis
It's always sad to see them leave, but they'll be back for another outing for the 2nd, 3rd. Jenna has kindly taken the honour of taking them back to the man that is Giles at Amhurst (sp?).

5. Test out the Mobile Blogggerism!
Supposedly I can blog straight from my mobile phone! We'll test it out today when we go to Hartley Witney, so keep a look out!

The Team Photo / What We Wear

So we've been working flat out on the first 6 days of the shoot, so let's put a face to the name of the crew (sadly all wern't at the picture taking procedure event)


T: L>R - Sam Weeden, Daniel Shirley, Bertie Stephens, Jenna Street
On the bottom: Angela Keocharoen

as always click the image to see it a bit bigger

And below...Angela and I do a quick spot of modeling

Another One Bites The Cameraman!

(sorry Dan, i couldnt find an angry "man" face - maybe this is Jenna looking angry)

I would just like to make clear my disgust at being mauled over my entire body by bites. I tried counting and i believe i have an impressive 27 all gained on Friday 21st shoot (or was it thursday nights 1am pool party). Either way i'm covered in the little buggers.

And just to add i'm as red as a london bus too thanks to the great british sunshine. Whats going on? We were all in the same place, why am i the only one scarred from a 3 day shoot in Fleet.

Also i have a few cuts on my right foot where i volleyed a rather hard apple. Hmmm, maybe i should be more careful!!!

Spiritual Encounter...with a spanish radio host?

Shoot Date: 11th July 2006 - Weald and Downland Museum
So we were shooting in one of the many authentic 16th century buildings in the weald and downland museum on day 2 and a rather bizarre incident occured.

Jenna Boom and Sam Sound (as i like to call them) were recording audio for a scene when Jenna Boom who i believe was actually on the sound camera while Sam Sound was booming, (maybe they got bored and switched roles) heard a bizarre noise through the headphones. It was the sound of a Spanish man. Now considering there were no spanish men in the room (unless you include Simon Fernandez) this was rather peculiar and it became even more so when the sound of music was heard. Just to clarify i mean music in general not the Julie Andrews Musical, although in this case perhaps the hills were alive and we could hear them.

click here for a look at the scene where the incident happened

Well anyway, we presumed we must have been picking up a radio signal, but how? We were using directional mics connected to a camera so the sound picked up should only be what is directly in front, and even more bizarrely sound levels didn't appear.


Then just to add to our dismay, Nick, the sites caretaker tells me that the building is hauted by a little chinese man. So......i guess there is a little chinese fella with a dodgy spanish accent whose come back from the dead to fulfil his 'unfinished business', to be a radio broadcaster. Maybe we've fulfilled his goals and sent him on his way to a new life up in heaven.......or maybe somehow we managed to pick up the radio.

Anyone know of any Spanish Radio Stations in Chichester?

A few stills

I've roughly graded and put together a few stills from the shots so far. These shots may not appear in the final cut of the film, but it's just to give you an idea of how it's coming together, the mood of the piece etc.

On Set Antics

So i had to go and collect a folder from the carpark which is about a 10 minute return trip from the set in question....


(you will need real player for this) - you can download it free here

oh good times....

Stats Update

It's always interesting to have some stats about filming, so here are the current updates:

Total Shooting Time: aprox. 45 hours
Total Recorded Stock: 8 hours video / 8 hours audio
Total time of final cut recorded: aprox. 40 mins - 60 mins

Below is a table listing the scenes shot, and those that have not been. This table includes the scheduled scenes over the next two weeks, incl. ext. colony, models and woods. According to this schedule we are 9 scenes behind being on track.


-------------------------------

Budget Check: On Budget
Cast Members (incl. extras): 47

if i can think of any more stats to add, i'll update it over the next few days

Call for Extras

Do you live near Fleet, Hartley Witney, Camberley, Windsor....or that sort of area? Are you free on August 3rd? Do you want to have a day in the sun being an extra on Roanoke? We'd love to have you with us for the day, and I hope you will want to come and join in the fun.

If your slightly/very interested or would just like to find out more about the day please contact our 2nd A.D - Jenna - on: extras4film[at]yahoo.co.uk. (swap the [at] for the @ symbol, it's just to help us stop getting loads of spam e-mail :-D )

Just let her know you've read about the add, and ask her for some more information and I'm sure she'll be in touch soon.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Red Arrows on Roanoke

A few posts ago i spoke of the one thing to avoid when making a period drama, the biggest airshow in the world...after logging some rushes we were lucky enough to only find 4 seconds where the show interupted our video footage, and here it is.

as always click to enlarge the image

Concept Art - Karl Power

This needs some special recognition, as in my eyes, and everyone I've shown, its "bloody brilliant". Karl has been a great help on the set so far, along with Gary and Sarah, but this art work helped us light and get an idea.

I'm sure you'll agree: please click on the image for a larger version.

Production Update

So after 6 days of full on shooting, we have just under half the film shot. This may seem rather quick compared to most films, but it has been due to the excellent work from all the crew members and actors that we have been able to pull it off, and a wonderfull script! Everyone has worked sooooo hard, stupidly hard for equity illegal hours, and all in all we seem to have a team that has every element within them.

There is alot more to do, and a large edit coming up when it hits post production, but things are going along just dandy as things stand, we seem to be on budget, and the aim to create an expensive looking movie on a very inexpensive budget looks a bit more real, but I would hate to speak to soon!

Who knows!

p.s - Teaser Trailer coming soon :-D

Sets & Props

Art-Attack
Some images of the art departmants great work. These shots were taken during the filming in Chitchister.

How to shoot successfully….

just a quick one here....

so as below, the Farnborough Air Show managed to get us all hot under the collar, along with the soaring temperatures.

Luckily we were very near my house, so we all went back for a swim to cool off and then went back to the set to see if we could have any more luck.

I think we were all too relaxed after the tight schedule of the Weald and Downland museum.

Tip to filmmakers: Keep a tight schedule and you'll work allot better even if you're a bit more stressed, a relaxed atmosphere sounds nice, but doesn't work....well that's my opinion anyway.

Design

Well, all seems to be going well on the art department side. Big Thanks to Supervising Art Director Karl for that. Here are shots of some of the costumes used in the film.

These have been used by permission from some of the students from the Wimbledon School of Art.

Charlie Billson gets to don this lovelly dress - bertie

Andy gets to play around in this! lucky man - bertie

Never film during the Farnborough Air Show

...unless of coarse your doing a war movie (which given the extent of planes above our heads on fleet pond sounds like a good plan for two years time)

So it was bad planning on my behalf (being the producer and scheduling dates). Sadly the Farnborough air show decided to arrange their dates at the exact time we had arranged to shoot on Fleet Pond, or it could have been the other way around.

The quote "don't worry we'll fix it in the edit" was one used alot over the last three days shoot. The Red Arrows preformed their display literary feet over our heads, the noise was constant, the sky filled with vapour trails, many shots ruined.

Sadly for a 16th Century Period Drama the roar of a jet engine doesn't go down well on set that represents "the new world". None the less filming continued and below are some shots from that day of everyone at work.

A big thank you to all the extras who made it possible! - Hopefully we'll see you all on the 3rd!

And a huuuge thank you to mum who provided all the food, and did lots of running around, without it, the day would not have run smoothly

p. s - (don't worry everyone, I’ve looked over the rushes and despite some noise pollution, the shots are brilliant and it will add a week to sound editing, but it will all be fine :-D )





- photos thanks to Karl

The Portaloo (or Elliot Loo to be more exact)

How interesting can a toilet be, very interesting if it costs more than the location to film in and provides everyone with the possibility of a private...well...toileting experiance...

Any way, here was our portaloo, in its full glory.

How does this relate to the movie you ask? Without it the Fleet Pond shoot could have been very, uncomfortable, oh how wonderful it was.

In fact it gave quite a scare before hand as the company said a 11 foot lorry would be coming down a 6ft road. It seems they need to get out their 30 CM rulers again, as it was only just wider than a normal car!

We also had the problem of thinking vandals could wreck the toilet, but then again it was Fleet, and all was well!

The First Shoot

We started shooting on July 9th - 12th and here are a few snap shots, photos, digital imagery in still form: Thanks to Angela for these photos (and everyone else for theres, however these were at hand to upload). Things to notice:

1. The setting, its 16th Century, which helps, baring in mind the setting of the production.

2. The fluorescent jackets, very 21st Century (even though we do have some lovely public liability insurance)

3. The crew t-shirts, of which special recognition goes to Ms. Angela for those!

4. The extras, all of which were brilliant!