The Rough Cut

Hey all, Daniel here!

Haven't been able to blog in a while, something to do with google and now every has to get a google account to continue blogging, sly arnt they!

But anyways thought i'd inform you all of how the edits going and where we are at with it all. We spent a week forming the rough cut, although Bertie had to finish off the final 10 minutes on his own, and i can safely say its looking quite good. It's still at a really early stage but we think weve cut it together to make the story gripping and exciting to watch. However spending so long working on it makes you loose sight at times and you can no longer see it as the reguler viewer would, but weve tried to get in that frame of mind and thus have picked and picked at it to find faults and fix them, and may possibly re-shoot in places and even create new scenes that could help pace it better in certain places and work with the characters development.

All in all though, im liking it and the visuals are great, and i have faith that you will all enjoy it too and see the effort thats gone into it. Occasionally we sit there in front of the monitors, stop for a moment and say 'this is a student film' and then realise just what an achievement this all is.

Still along way to go however!!!

In The Panto

So i'm sitting in the panto and have 15 mins before it starts so I thought I'd log onto the net on my phone and give you a quick update about the production. Also a big merry xmas to everyone around and thank you for all the christmas greetings that have come through the blog. Today I finished off the final 10 minutes of the production that Dan and I were unable to complete during our edit week. The current length stands at 1 hour 18 mins minus the end credits and a few scenes. I think this will be a great length and hopefully an outside audience will agree that the tempo and interest will be kept up through out the story. We now move into the audio and visual fine edits, plus the addition of CGI.

Well the curtain is about to go up so ill wish you all the best xmas. and ill chat before boxing day is out.

bertie x

The First Editing Update

Last time I blogged I was in the tired state of logging the hours and hours of footage collected over the summer and winter. This time we are nearly half way through the first rough edit, although running by scene numbers we are on 46 / 125 , luckily the scenes get shorter as we go on :-D.

The film is coming together in its own way and it is very interesting to finally see how all the hours and hours of work on various different scenes can be cut down to a couple of minutes, and in some intances cut entierly. Having watched the first few mintues of the production quite a few times now its hard to see it from an outside prospective and therefor the help of the other crew members third eye will become very usefull over the upcoming weeks. The rough edit looks mainly at the video edit which means that although we have begun layering guide music and rough audio over the top, the full emotion and feel for a scene can't fully be grasped as on most occasions there is little if any audable dialogue. Don't fear however, the dialogue has been recorded seperatlly and therefore will be added in due course.

The aim to complete a full rough cut before the new year should be on track, however there will be a lot of touching up and hours and hours more work to be done on the production before it is at a viewable standard.

The acting from everyone, main cast - extras, has been incredible and we have really been let off the hook as we can let scenes run at there natural pase for the most part and still have it work in the sence of the whole production.

We have hit a critical scene within the editing and for this reason instead of editing together, Dan has left the edit suit for the night and I will edit the scene to the style discussed earlier and how the script depicts it and in the morning at around 7am Dan will offer a fresh eye over the work and be able to offer intial reactions based on how the journey of the scene progresses.

Right now however I should get back to the edit and will hopefulaly update with a bit more interesting (more than text) information later.

Hello all, just thought I'd update you with what I've been up to...

While post production continues, I've been arranging time with some of the cast for filming their interviews for the DVD. Some have been on location at West Stow between filming and have turned out well. There's only a few interviews to be done during this festive month and hopefully it will be completed soon.

We will be filming the crew interviews too but not yet as I don't think we're quite ready!



I have yet to put together all the hundreds of photographs and stills I have taken over the summer and winter. I'm looking forward to going through it all as there are some really nice stills that have great potential. At the same time I'll be reminiscing over the long journey we have been on - from the audition phase to recce locations to rehearsals to filming.

We have had a great team on this movie. I'm really glad George joined us in the winter shoot which helped expand our small team by adding an extra pair of hands and feet to the crew and for the cast as our last minute Crusty character.

Even though it feels like it's the end of another journey, I'd like to think it isn't.
It feels more like it's just the beginning of another.



To Bertie & Dan:
Good luck guys with the first rough cut. Hope you get some sleep today :)

Angela x

Very Short, Tired, But Important Update

Hi there,

Well you might have noticed my lack of blogging over the last week. That's not wholey becuase nothing has been happening with Roanoke, infact quite a lot has, towards the end anyway. I took last weekend (not the one just gone) and Mon - Thurs to have a break from Roanoke after finishing the shooting and I caught up on the majority of my UNI work that had been slightly neglected over the last few weeks, laa di daa, no fret tho I have been doing it, and the few days allowed me to fully catch up which was excellent.

Now the bigger news is that for me this weekend has yet to have a seperation. Since Friday at 2pm I have been working towards Logging and Capturing all the footage from every shoot date of Roanoke. When I say since Friday I actually mean it as I have yet to properly go to bed (and it is now Sunday at 19:30 and i'll have to go through the final few days still.

On the editing system I have created 125 folders (representing the number of scenes) and then as the Tape Deck plays the Rushes into the computer the program (as in instructed by I) logs the timecode for each scene, shot and take and then begins to digitze the footage into a format the computers can read for an edit. Now although the computer should really take the credit (so far, touch wood) for the heavy duty process of recording the data, it has to be manually programed and then the computer looks back over the programing and encodes the footage.

In turn it usually goes for work for an hour and a half, rest for an hour, so I have been having a very interesting sleeping pattern through the night and day where I no longer care whether the sun shines but just wait for the hour where the computer goes at it so I can take a few seconds rest.

In the past this process has usually taken around 10 days to do the number of hours, however I have been trying to work at a quicker pass, through the nights, and obviously for alot longer hours in order to make sure I can complete it by 6am this Monday Morning. At around 6am Dan is coming round and on this final week before Christmas we are going to be compiling the first rough cut of the movie. There is pretty much (apart from the 5 days mentioned earlier) no down time betweeen finishing shooting and editing the movie together. Dan is going to be staying with me at the edit sweet so the hours can be increased. ohhh as we speak baby Alfie (Virginia Dare) is just having his first ever feature film debut imported by the computer.

Well now we are off our break, and back full in action, expect updates this week about the rough cut, and then before xmas and into the new year about the Music and CGI and the fine edits.

All very entertaining, but currently this has taken about 20 minutes out of my sleep time, so I should go grab a quick one before I move onto the next set of rushes.....it's very fun tho, and so far (touching the same piece of wood) very promising.

Love,
Bertie

p.s - this time you can excuse the grammer and spelling as i'll blame it on the tierdness, wohay i love the excusess.

p.p.s - due to this sudden surge in work the blog updates have been delayed, i've been updating the full credit list as well.

Looking On....

Hi Everybody,

Thought as now the shooting days have come to an end I would reminisce on the brilliant time I have had over the last few months, for instance I'll never forget the cast singing the monkeys in the water at fleet pond (you can still watch the clip on the later posts), Jack falling asleep against a building at the Weald and Downland Museum and George and I driving up and down the M3 trying to find the Saxon Village.

The shooting was stressful, but fun and I'm definitely going to miss it.... Bertie taking us to all different locations and saying "wonderful", Sam and I recording the sound and singing to each other in between takes, Angela milling around taking photos, Dan getting annoyed by the steady-cam, and Gary arranging and then rearranging the props on set; and then later on George joining us and trying to learn the part of Crusty in less than a day, he did a good job as well (I know I forgot someone, but they'll let me know).

So what now...

For me I am the 'third eye' in the editing system, which basically means that Dan and Bertie sit for hours in front of the computer and after they have seen the same clips over and over I come in and tell them if it makes any sense. I will also be organising the marketing of the film, so will hopefully be able to gain lots of publicity for the film, will keep you involved and show the designs for billboards and so forth, you never know!

All I Want Is A Ship Somewhere

Here are some photos of the Dining Hall in Roanoke for you to see.

Look at all that food...

The Death Mask Scene

While I continue to work behind the scenes on the Upgrade to the blog and an idea Post Production Status Centre, here are some pictures (by Angela) of the first and only studio shoot we did - The Death Mask Scene. This scene is rather surreal but works really well in the context of the film and the rushes look brilliant.

Post Production will start the Saturday and hopefully I'll have something for everyone to keep up to date with (along with the blog).

But for now here are the photos:

Fraser Knight and Charlotte Hunter rehearse part of the scene

Although the setting looks rather modern, when the lights go out it all changes

Charlotte Hunter is confronted by the camera during the scene.

The real death mask, in all its glory.

From Mask to real, its quite eerie when close up!

New Design Coming

Please allow a few more days for it all to be complete, sadly the upgrade is taking a little longer than predicted so if you notice changes happening through this week don't be scared, we'll still keep updating whicever design is around.

all the best,

Bertie

West Stow In Action

So as i'm still a student, sadly I still have deadline days and the last two days i've been frantically trying to complete one of those, which I managed in the last few hours. Living with Jenna (2nd AD) we both had the pleasure of this last minute dash (which wasn't helped by the shooting of Roanoke) although I need to to check Dan and George (who are the other two on the course) are alive, this is one of the small reason our updates will start now.
So with two shooting locations to cover, let's start with the most exciting location of the two, West Stow.

Situated just by Bury, St Edmonds West Stow is a true to life Anglo Saxon Village which although seems odly the wrong time period, is in actual fact a perfect setting for the colony of Roanoke. The true to life colony was incredibly small and although called Fort Raleigh was in no way a "Fort" as one would imagine.

Ignoring the actors, extras and crew for a split second I think the most incredible thing about the three days was the weather. We shot the continuity shots to these three days back in the Summer on the hottest days of the year, and it was hot. However for December 4th,5th and 6th we managed to have bright blue skies and sun piercing the air (such description). Although the temperature was rather cold compared to the Summer, through the camera, which is really all that matters to us, the light and colour was perfect, so thank you to the Weather Man:

- "you've done us proud" - As someone could say without bringing grammer into the equation.

It has been a truley wonderful and amazing experiance for me due to the incredible comitment and talent of our actors, actress, and extras. For our cast, there is really no faulting anyone and it would be impossible to replace any as they travel mile after mile put in hour after hour for the production and all I can see is a level of professialism that would be expected on a multi million pound production but has been offered to our production from some incredibly talented, amazingly comtted and just wonderfull people that make up our main cast. In reality i'm lost for words for everyone but had to put something down that has only touched the surface of how strongly i feel about our cast.

As for the near 100 extras that have comitted themselves to our prodction over the course of the summer it has been amazing how they have suffered the cold, heat and long hours for us, thank you, and I can't wait to meet up again at the Premiere.

We had three days one West Stow, the first involved the main cast for the most part on their own, although we did have three extras help us on our way, the second day saw the colonist extras and cast and then the third was the ship crew. As Sam explanied below we had alot of scenes to battle through and the worst problem was the light. Light faded inside the buildings by 3pm so it was an extreme push to make sure we made got through all the inside material by then along with all the outside scenes by 4pm . By the end of each day it felt like 10pm due to the light although in a turn from the norm we were generally at our varying acomadation for the night by 6pm, we still had to be up and back by 6:30am.

I'll stop rambling at let you see some of the pictures Angela took on the day:

Cameraman Dan looks through the viewfinder as the brightly coloured crew stand by


Baby Alfie makes his debut with acting mother for the day Charlotte standing by


Leander Pittis (MacNair) stands by the colony looking on.


The feast was moved indoors due ot the wind and everyone gets ready to tuck in.


Charlotte (Eleanor) and Fraser (Ananias) prepare for an indoor scene

The Final Days of Shooting

Hi!
I thought I should say something about the last three days we spent at West Stow, as its been overshadowed by the fact that we've finished completely!

If you've looked at the blog recently you'll know that Dan, Angela, Gary and I all stayed at Bertie and Jenna's flat in London on Sunday night, ready to leave bright and early Monday morning! We were up at 4am to pack up the cars, including George's when he arrived at about 4.30, them we left at 5, travelling in convoy! Though as Angela and I were at the back in my car, we were left at a red traffic light and had to make our own way there (Thank you TomTom!)

We arrived at West Stow at 7, and started unpacking the cars and sorting out what costumes we would need for the day, until we were allowed into the village itself.
During the first day we shot scenes with Eleanor and Ananias (Charlotte Hunter and Fraser Knight) and the debut of Alfie Bullard as Virginia Dare! Later in the day we shot scenes with John White (Andy Courtney) and the ships crew. Tuesday was a very different day, in that we had less scenes to shoot, but they were much longer and bigger because we had lots of extras, being the colonists!
Wednesday had a real 'end of term' feel to it, and we had cakes and balloons! We also enjoyed a sing-a-long of 'the final countdown' at lunch! Oh, and we shot some scenes with the ships crew as well!

I would also like to add my congratulations and thanks to the entire cast and crew who made this a fantastic production to work on!
All that remains now is Post production!

We Did It

Everysingle person on the full credit list plus the many more that need to be added have helped in the creation of this production, and finally it has been shot. It has truley been a group effort where every single person on set and behind the scenes have made it possible.

There is a long journey (that we will continue to update as per normal on this blog) to go in regards to finishing the production, however for now please allow us a nice nights rest before we bring you photos and accounts from the last three days (plus the Death Mask day).

121 scenes have been shot and well over 50 hours of audio and video footage together in order to create this feature, and now we move into piecing it all together with music, special effects etc right up until March.

Your support and following of our updates have made it worthwhile, and we hope you will stay with us until we might be able to meet at the premiere.

From a very tired but happy,
Bertie

At Home with the Colonists:

Hello all you happy people,

Gary Production Designer here...

Well, The art dept. Has finally come to the end of the line on the production, and I would like to say a big thank you to everyone involved...
A lot of people helped out with making Roanoke look as good as it did. And ofcourse a big thank you to the big kahoona, Bert for everything.

We had the last few days of shoot recently, with some fantastic results. We shot a very memorable dining scene where our cardboard box table laterally collapsed from the weigh of the food... Well, it was only cardboard!

We also had a few interesting props creep up, like my home-made paintbrush, carved from the best wood, and never made it on screen... But never mind... Not to mention more fantastic rum mixtures, which consisted of diet orange squash, cola and water(this was one of many variations which included cold tea, coffee, fruit juice and watered down cola). Poor Andy had to (try to) drink this wonderful stuff.

I am really looking forward to seeing the final piece now, as I am sure it is going to be mind blowing!

I am sure photos will be available on here soon, I will endeavor to add as many of my own... But they never look as good as Angelas!

Anyway all, got to go now... Watchin' my all time inspiration film, Pirates of the Caribbean again.

Here we go, for the final time!

It's the home straight,

and just like the first three days of shooting back June 9th everyone is coming over to prepare and leave super-duper early for the final three days. I'm going to try and set up my phone so I can mobile blog a message during the day (if there is a smigin of time), but until then as the crew arrive I'm going to have them write a message (how lovely and corny), so as I'm here, I'll write one a lot later on but first......Here is Dan:

Hello all, Daniel here, I've arrived at Bertie's Camberwell Second floor Mansion... flat. All ready for the shoot. Don't know quite how all the crew + equipment+props+costumes are going to fit into this place but we'll try. 3 DAYS TO GO!!!!!! Then we re-shoot everything coz its not good enough!!! hmmm....maybe not.

Hello! Sam here as well! I too have just arrived at Bertie's, but half an hour later than Dan! I have just unpacked all the stuff I had in my car from Bristol, and we are just about to load it up again with stuff for tomorrow! Then we have to go to sleep because were getting up at 5 for the journey to West Stow, and I will be listening to 'Blackadder' on the journey because my ipod battery has run out! Now Angela has something to say:

Hello fellow RTLC readers, Angela here. I've just helped Bertie pack and sort out the costumes for the final three days of filming. I'm looking forward to the final three days, it's going to be hectic but we will manage! We've got equipment slowly pilling up in here so I better leave you now and let Jenna tell you more:

Indeed Jenna will tell you...something. It is so packed in here we can barely breathe and you have to step over something to move. Have no idea how we have accumulated so much stuff. It's exciting being the last few days, but kinda sad as well. What will I do with myself once it's all over, ah yes I know post-production. It's still sad though as we have had some fun days and it's been such a laugh getting to know the cast, and some of the crew I didn't know before we started and not forgetting the extras. Everyone has been so lovely! Don't really know how we did it, but we managed to get the nicest group of people together for this film! Anyway I'm tired and have to be up in about 4 hours to start the West Stow shoot, yey!

Ok, it's 11:02pm... Gary here... well, i am looking forward to the next few days. it shall be fun... i hope! In the last few days we have been doing some great shots, one involving a death mask of our lovely Charlotte. Becky Amassi did an amazing job of doing a head on a stick. well, sam is reading over my sholder now... so i must leave... to kill him... slowly!
Not really...
k... who's next???

Oh and it's Bertie here, just thought i'd say hello. It's now 11:07 and i'm writing the final message, George isn't coming tonight, so he won't say hello. It's all very nervous-wracking (new word) and we're ready to shoot the final few scenes. We found Andy's costume (that we lost earlier) so we should be good.

Sam again! just thought I should let everyone know that Gary hasn't killed me, and I'm ok! This does mean that Bertie's message was not the final message, so he lied to you all! Well, goodnight, we're going to get some sleep!

A long night and a long day

Over the 29th and 30th we shot two very different scenes. Currently we are all very busy preparing for the final three days shooting of Roanoke The Lost Colony which takes place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I can't believe it, apart from the odd re-shoot on the odd scene it is incredible to think this project (in the shooting stage) is nearing an end. There is a lot of work to be done from here however so we won't be going anywhere anytime soon! Even from the start of this blog and reading through the archives its amazing to think how much we have all acheived, let alone looking back to the very begining where Shane and I discussed the plot basics on the way to see V for Vendetta on a train and having food in Nandos.

But hey, let's not get to sentimental, the next three shooting days cover a large amount of scenes and are incredibly importnant, time to focus on that first!

Today I have to deliver back the 16th Century Musket we hired, and then make sure all call times and scenes are prepared for.

In the meantime here are two pictures from the 29th, thanks to Angela for these, and thanks to everyone who turned up and helped create a visually stunning piece of filmaking.

as allways click to englarge.


Dan prepares the camera angle for the next shot.


Actors and Extras run through their actions.