An impromptu Recce

We had a few hours ineptness some work with Roanoke and Jenna, Dan and I decided to take another impromptu Recce to the Golden Hinde in London. With all the shots and scenes in order it is about time to start the initial birds eye story board (that's a story board looking down, rather than a frozen food style storyboard) of the Winter Shoots.

The Golden Hinde was one of the first locations that got the ball rolling for Roanoke. Without an authetic longboat it would be very hard to recreate any situations that would be presented within the production. Although Harltey Witney and Golden Hinde were the two locations that got us going, it seems only the later will feature within the production due to a re-recce proving Hartley Whitney to be slightly....Well...Not fit for shooting...

As you can see from the image below, the buildings surrounding the Golden Hinde won't be the best scenery for an "out at sea" shot. Luckily thanks to camera trickery and a number of vital angles and equations (along with some clever sound editing) all this shouldn't matter.



The insides are perfect however - enough said.

Sunday see's the start of storyboarding madness, so we'll see how that goes!

SFX Design

Hey everyone,
I thought it was time to say hello again. Very little has been happening in the Art Dept. lately! I have been on other projects, and Karl (Supervising Art Director) has been in Whales, and buying a house in London.

Design wise: There is not much happening. I am getting very exited about one scene where Eleanor sees everyone in masks. It is a very surreal moment, and i have been thinking about it for a while. I spoke with Bert, and told him my idea about getting all the actors in, and making "Death Masks" of them. A death mask is a plaster or wax cast made of a person's face following death

In the scene I wanted to suggest Eleanor is seeing everyone dead. Her vision of her fears being realised.

And thanks to the very lovely and talented Michaela Bott, who will be our very own SFX make-up person, we will be able to do this. She has agreed to help us and create this strange order.

I have included a quick design, but to be honest, we will have to see the amazing pieces delivered by Michaela when they are ready.

Anyway, keep well, and of course, anyone out there interested in the art department, please get in touch.

Keep Well,

Gary
Production Designer

Longer Days, Shorter Days

As the days are creeping in, it seems the weather and shooting window for Roanoke: The Lost Colony is also approaching with speed. Currently I am sorting the 80 odd scenes into a specific order for shooting on the day. This includes transitional shots, CGI shots and specific cutaways that should be counted as a shot on their own instead of a listening to the "storyboard" ideas as it were. I have only the final two days of shooting to go (which comprises of around 30 scenes) and then it will be time to settle down to the camera angels for each scene, making sure to focus on specific stories within the scene and make the shots "interesting".

All this work is set to occur during the "pre-October 5th" work schedule. By the end we should have a large document available with all shots in order, camera angles attached - props, make-up and costumes included for each scene.....

Sadly this means the blog isn't getting the full attention it deserves as it's vital to finish these documents. I do believe Gary (set design) has an interesting blog coming soon in regards to a certain part of Roanoke.

Ohh, on another note, we now have LightScribe technology on the computer, which sounds rather impressive but really relates to a high quality presentation function for DVD's...with this in place I’ll send out the trailer DVD's for all those who requested one.... :-D

Keep Smiling,
Bertie

Update on Extras

I'm currently organising the number of extras we are going to need on the upcoming shooting days. I have to take into account the locations, times and dates, continuity relating to the narrative of the script and then advertise in the relavant places. We already had a number of talented extras on the books who have been shown at various locations where we found from friends and family, websites and local advertising through posters and local newspapers, word of mouth etc. Thank you to those who have taken part, however we may need a completly new set of faces for the next few shoots to fit with the story.

If you are interested or know anyone that might be please don't hesitate to contact Jenna at: extras4film@yahoo.co.uk

Weekend Work

So after the lovelly arival of Virginia Dare, and it must be the youngest person ever to be cast in a role, i've been working my way through the long list (that will be finished by October 5th) of jobs in order to be ready for shooting. Currently the list complete stands as:


IN DETAIL

TO DO: 20/9/2006
Þ FINISH CONFIRMING ALL ACTORS
Þ SWAP FINAL DATE FOR WEST STOW.
Þ FINISH CONFIRM FOLLOWING LOCATION:
FLEET POND
WEST WITERING
LONDON DOCK
GOLDEN HINDE
LSBU STUDIO
SS GB, Bristol
West Stow
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO DO: 21/9/2006

Þ COSTUMES - sort all new costumes needed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO DO: 22/9/2006

Þ PROPS
Þ EQUIPMENT
Þ Send out Location permission
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

TO DO: 23/9/2006

Þ EXTRAS CHECK
Þ MAKE-UP ORDER


Pretty much all the lists refer to sorting through the scenes left to shoot and finding the particular subject noted down and making lists...then tomorow (Monday) we'll sort all the scenes needed to shoot in order of shooting on the day and include the above items to them.......nice and simple...

Angela actually made an 11 page document documenting all the secenes with shot and every actors costume continuity, fantastic stuff! Sams been sending over alot of documents too which have also been fantastic.....which is fantastic.

Birth Of A Cast Member

By Daniel

At 1:30am on Thursday morning a little baby was born. The baby that should ultimately become Virginia Dare in Roanoke: The Lost Colony. Note: Baby Alfie (as hes been named) minus the baby part, is a boy and he will be playing a girl, but it should be fine, however embarassing it could ending up for him in later life.

Just to add he is my sisters baby i.e my nephew as i dont think i mentioned that previously and could have led you into believing he'd been stolen or somthing.

Planning the Plan

So yesterday it was rather like a Vicar of Dibley moment on Roanoke The Lost Colony. Instead of actually planning work, I wrote a plan to plan work. Which in turn meant that I plan to have finishing all the planning by October 5th. There are a number of things I need to take into consideration before we go anywhere near shooting on the last few days of October - through December. New costumes, props, difficult makeup, camera positions, which scenes to shoot in order now we have them shot on the same day.

Either way, we now have a complete list of all these items, set out in order from now until 5/10/2006. It will be a very busy few days, and at the same time very scary how on earth we have managed to get to October this year already!

Today's Job: Double checking all actors availability, Swapping two dates over that conflict with actors and writing 8 letters of confirmation to various location in regards to permission.

It should be a fantastic few days, mainly because it's going to be very busy! I also plan to release at least one more desktop wallpaper for people to enjoy.

ohh, and the documents are now up below...

Producing

Well I’ve had a weekend back where all the web page editing systems rest and I’ve been able to update the InfoZone and what not. I’ve been writing a number of letters to a few locations to clear up a few terms and conditions in regards to shooting. Everything seems to be in order however its good to read through all the fine print as some actions we may want to perform could incur an extra cost, and although we have yet to be caught out, I’d prefer it stayed that way.

You can see below I’ve added a desktop wallpaper. Hopefully we’ll be getting a few of these, some colour, some black and white, over the next week so if your looking to personalize that laptop/desktop of yours you can. If you can think of anything else that might be fun to have, let me know.

With the dates confirmed, scenes set out, a number of the crew are working towards preparation for the winter shoots. As hinted at before, we are beginning to cast for a few smaller, but still important roles, for the winter shoot. I’ve had a number of e-mails from people requesting to audition for these roles. Although it’s wonderful to hear from you, unfortunately for the sake of time I can only process applications from sites where the casting call is posted. Mandy.com and StarNow.co.uk will be displaying the call over the next few days. I’m sorry this sounds a tad dictatorship’y however applications from these sites go into one database and if e-mails come in to different areas I’m bound to miss a few out which means we won’t be able to see you!

I have posted a few documents below that list the Provisional Dates for shooting, extras needed for each date and location and the casting call that will be appearing on the sites. This may be of interest to some who would like to follow the timeline of Roanoke: The Lost Colony a bit more closely or if your looking to how we are going about arranging our data!

Documents
PLEASE NOTE ALL ACTORS AND CREW SHOULD FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AS GIVEN BY PRODUCER AS DATES ARE SUBJECT TO HAVE CHANGED SINCE THE PUBLISHING OF THESE DOCUMENTS

- Provisional Filming Dates - Download
- Extras Needed Per Date - Download
- Casting Call - Download - Download

Info Zone Updates

I don't usually post on a Sunday, feel I should have the odd day off, but as I missed a day during the week I think it's only fair:

I've made a few updates to the whole Info Zone section we have.


1. On Set Photos - As we like to post photos but not add them to the album you can now keep up to date with all the blog entries with photos via the photo page, clever.

2. Behind the Scenes - Similar to the above, the behind the scene section not only has the making of but a list of all the media from the beginning that can be seen (excluding photos). So whether you want to catch up on the Cast Music video or the making of the trailer, this provides the direct links.

3. Publicity - I've added the recent newspaper articles to the list, supposedly we have a few more on the way.

4. Wallpaper



You can now download the first background wallpaper for your computer, should you wish too. Others to follow!

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

You can see these changes by clicking the links above or by accessing the InfoZone on the right! Right then, lets work on these documents I've promised.

Still on Film

Thought you might like to see some of my black and white, film, stills, taken on the set of Roanoke the Lost Colony in Fleet and at the Weald and Downland Museum. Finally managed to develop them and will send them to anyone who wants them, they are also available larger on matt or glossy photographic paper as I now have my darkroom up and running.

Jenna

(click on the image to enlarge).











Update: Becuase of Jennas picturess post, i'll update the shooting info tomorow!

History Buff??

For those who are interested about the historical story of Roanoke: The Lost Colony, a simple google search could provide many of the answers, however there are a few good links below from Wikipedia about some of the characters and events.

Please Note: The links give an historical (or what is known) account of the first colony of America, to fit this into one hour and a half would be impossible, the movie, Roanoke: The Lost Colony sticks closely to history in many respects but does veer off in places in order to make a story that can be watched by an audience...

its' just a bit of research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Dare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananias_Dare

http://www.nationalcenter.org/ColonyofRoanoke.html

In other news I've completed all the extra documents, cast needed etc and I'll put some online tomorrow as promised.

Silly Hours

I've been working on set on another production for the last two days and they have very silly hours, well normal hours for the film industry, but when your trying to plan another film at the same time, it really doesn't help! Any way i'll have lots of news to announce over the weekend, as i'm back at the main computer system will put some things online and have all the documents (that i can release) avalible for people who are interested to see how its all working.

What i can say now is there are 10 dates scheduled for the winter, the actors are currently checking them for any innacurasies in my calculations, and overall once everything is confirmed in regards to that, its all aboard back to buying and editing extras clothing, Jenna getting in touch with over 100 extras, prop buying, set visiting (with the production designer), and buying the odd tape stock for shooting!

For the Weald and Downland shoot we had everything sorted about 4 weeks before, we now have around 4 - 6 weeks (depending on which date your thinking of) to make sure everything goes to plan! I can tell you that the most heavily penned dates are the first and last which go from October 25th 2006 - December 5th 2006....with most of the shoot days happening from November 20th - 30th 2006.

Other than confirming dates and what not there its been a slightly slow week for Roanoke, sadly nothing can move on until it is all confirmed so we just have to wait for that!

I'll update tomorow (Friday) with some more info about this, but look out for Saturday when i'll be able to fill you in exactly!

Bertie

18 - 22 mm

I've always wanted a DSLR. The quality, clarity and creative control you get from the many photographs I have seen are amazing. I thought it was time to own one and I think this movie would benefit from better stills.
So over a week ago I bought myself a DSLR camera at the London Camera Exchange on the Strand. It's a great little shop and the staff there are all photographers who know the craft very well. It's a big step from the compact IXUS 500 I normally use.
I haven't had a chancce to take any on-set filming photos as we have yet to find out our confirmed shooting dates. When we do we'll post the photos on the blog.

I've been lucky enough to be given constructive feedback by Murray Close who has seen the first three [shooting] days of stills. He is a professional still/set photographer who has been in the industry for many years and is currently working on the fifth installment of a well known boy wizard. His advice has spurred me on to improve my skills.

What goes on in my mind when I take photos?
There's a lot actually! You look at your surroundings, lighting conditions, what you want to cover, where your subjects are, what speed they are moving and then go about composing your shot and adjust the many settings: aperture/f numbers (depth of field), shutter speed (exposure), wide or telephoto, focus, white balance, ISO speed etc on the camera. Eveything should be done manually as this gives you total creative control. There are presets and full auto too incase there isn't enough time. There's a lot of thinking involved to get the right photo and I like that.

I now have a date...

Some may call it sad refering calender shooting dates to the illustrious guise of going on a date, but wait until the dates for Roanoke: The Lost Colony are confirmed, then i'll be in a relationship with the date, then it'll be sad. hey, you gotta have your fun somewhere huh.

Actually the last bit above is a lie, i'm having lots of fun, and what increased the fun meter yesterday is the kindness of West Stow to allow us to film there. It seems we'll have to film a bit after our intended desire to finish shooting, however for the location that West Stow provides (our recce can be seen below) it'd be worth waiting a loooooong while.

As it stands it looks like we'll be shooting over the following shooting windows:

October: 26th - 27th
November: 1st - 3rd
November: 20th - 30th
December: 4th - 6th

Now we're not going to be shooting on all those dates, but that is the window. I'm not waiting on some dates i'll be getting on Wednesday to see which days we'll be shooting. It is still true as I said earlier that we'll have from 8 - 12 days of shooting within these windows, the October and December dates look pretty set in stone (touch wood...or stone)

Well until i'm in a full blown relationship with them, i'll let them be, we really should get on to casting a few of the needed cast members!

How hard is it to get a date?

If Mr. A can make one day but needs to be around when Mrs. G can only do evening and weekends then we need to make sure the weather is fine for Mr. B and Mr. C to accompany Mr. F at a certain location while it is day......If Mr. A can make Tuesdays, how many sausages does it take to make a Toad in the Hole?

It may sound as likely as your average GCSE question (although these are obviously getting easier hehe, so maybe A-Level) but its the sort of fun I'm having with the winter shoot. It's great to see the principle cast all out and working and I guess it gives me a bit of a job to do. Currently I'm sorting out the exact dates for winter, now I know the amount of pages, scenes and locations. In order to do so I must sort out the cast needed per day, length at location, time at location, day/night shoot, weather conditions and extras. To go with that some of the cast can't make certain days and they overlap etc....It's a lot of fun, or will be when it's solved....Who said you don't use what you learnt at school when your older!

Currently on the very brief outlook we are going to have three sessions for the Winter filming of Roanoke The Lost Colony, from the end of October, mid November and end of November!

On a seperate note, if you already haven't, you can check out a video of our location recce last week below. I'm thinking of doing another on Monday and possibly Tuesday morning too...wohayy

Recce - in pictures

A mini photoblog of West Stow location:

Roanoke Recce

By Dan 1st AD

So today we visited the wonderful West Stow Anglo-Saxon village in Bury St. Edmunds, somewhere in England (well it was far away and i wasnt reading road signs).

As promised we recorded the day and produced a video blog to show you guys, the main purpose being that you can see a possible shooting location.

Note to remember: As this would be the setting for the fort in Roanoke, they wouldn't have had the building facilities to create structures of the time i.e. 16th Century, so would have built more simple structures with simple tools, thus the reasonin that the 'potential' shooting location is an 'anglo saxon' setting.

So you can play the video below, WOHOOO!!!!

Few Stats to Go By

So i've finished the sorting of the winter shoot for Roanoke The Lost Colony, in all fairness i really didn't have that much to go i'm just a teror to myself and like to stop before finishing the final hurdle. It's pretty much as expected and i've come up with a through stats below, some of which i'll go into more detail after the list:

Total Length: 86 pages (word version)
Length to Go: 47 pages and 1/8: aprox: 54%
Scenes: 78
Settings: 16
Locations: 8 - 12
Charecters to cast: 25
Extras Needed: 100+

Generally scripts are devided into their pages by 1/8th's, this helps producers colour code different areas that are needed for hair make up etc. A small scene is 1/8th long and generally (for roanoke anyway) constitutes 1 shot, and for 2/8 and 3/8 likewise. This is not a set rule however. As expected we have 50% of the script to and alot of 1/8 scenes that make up the 78. The charecters to cast are very small and may be extra extras on the day, but larger importance charecters such as Older John Smith etc will be cast within the next few weeks.

With shooting still a month or so away things seem to be picking up now as we begin to scout out the locations (rece tomorow), find the props (meeting yesterday) and search for the cast.....

more later

ece ece RECCE

So we're back to recc-e-ing locations for Roanoke. This week we're going to look at a primitave settlement set in the East-Side of England, well not that East, but enough to give us a good 4 hour round trip. We'll be documenting the day on both camera and video so you should have a good idea of what we got up to on the blog by the next day. The aim is to edit the footage on the drive home so we'll have it by the evening of or next day.

If all goes well (and by the pictures we have already it could very well) it should finish all but one locations that we need to find before the winter shooting. The other location is a very basic Dock. The West Country may come in usefull for this (I say that becuase I can think of a few that might exist from past visits).

The stats are still coming, i know i promised today, but it looks like it will be tomorow, don't want to go publishing mistakes now!

speak soon,
bertie

Cutting and Pasting

A lot of paper has been cut up that used to be a nice clean script of Roanoke The Lost Colony, and a lot of glue extracted from rather helpful pritsticks. Actually if anyone can find a shop that sells pritstick these days I'd be very interested. WH Smiths, local supermarkets, garages, local corner shop....all failed in my bidding, finally the shop that resides about 10 meters from my house proved to be the key (why I didn't start there I have no idea).

Either way we now have a new folder (making 5) that has a compilation of Winter scenes to be shot, along with scene numbers, actors needed, size of scene, etc... Hopefully I'll get it online by a bit later on tonight or tomorrow morning so anyone interested can take a peak. I'm meeting up with Gary (sets, props and what nots) in order to discuss the future shooting set designs and props (suppressions). Next week I also aim to scout a few locations that I have in mind and would be perfect but permission could be a challenge.

In the mean time here are a few unseen pictures (thanks to Angela): as allays click to enlarge.


Andy Sweet (white) and I try to work out where the sea is :-D


Andy and James do their pre-scene prep


Bernadette (make-up) prepares Charlotte for action


Extras begin to arrive on set, Sam tries to count them but can only get up to five.



Dan overlooks shoot


preparing the next shot two days later, Sam is still trying to count the extras.

Our Youngest cast takes the stage...

Another news article for Roanoke: The Lost Colony, this time in the Newbery Weekly News. Myself and Jack Juniper (young John Smith) who is from the area, gave an interview last week to the paper and they have included a lovely article for the film on page 5. Jack has done a fantastic job on set for the first set of shooting and we look forward to shooting him later on....filming that is before anyone gets worried...

As i'm away until Sunday evening, I can't update the Publicity page but below are two images from the paper. I'll make sure this and the Fleet news are online (text versions) by the end of the week.





In other news we should have finished the paper work section of pre-production by Sunday night, leaving a few location scouts and negotiations to be done before we're in place to shoot again. Shooting is scheduled to be finished by December 1st 2006.