We shot last night on the SS GB for the Dockyard shoot.
It all went well, although there were a few minor hickups I'll elaborate on later.
We got in at 1am and I sadly had to take Shane to the airport as his flight left at 6, so I'm a tad on the tired side, but the excitement of shooting again today will keep me rolling as I believe the rest of the crew are feeling too.
Hopefully we'll get some pictures up either this evening or tomorrow.
Speak soon,
Bertie
And here are the Photos.....thanks to Angela as allways. As Sam said, a great day, and the rushes look great
Preparing to set sail, by that we mean "pretend to set sail"
Crew on board, next time we want better roof space!
Around the table playing a game that had no rules.
Land-Ho.....stealing Ryans line.
Shane "the light, the light, so beautifull! must....not...go...near"
Mr. Ivor Potter never listened to the road saftey adds about keeping eyes on the road
A sailer went to sea sea sea to see what he could see see see. but....
Ahh Sunday...a time to relax.
Unless you're part of a crew shooting a 16th Century production.
Instead of relaxing, watching Chelsea play Man Utd, or London Wasps play Leicester (as Dan and myself would have liked respectively!) we were on a boat filming 30+ scenes in only 6 hours.
Because of the sheer amount we had to do, we split into 2 units. Bertie, Gary, George and myself taking one unit; Dan, Jenna, Shane and Karl taking the other, while Angela travelled between both taking a lot of pictures (I'm sure some will be posted soon!)
Bertie also managed to keep track of what had been shot and what we had left to shoot on both units all day!
We arrived at the boat at about 11am, getting all our stuff together and meeting cast and crowd as they arrived. We started shooting at 1.30, and by 3.30 we were behind schedule, but only by 1 scene!
We managed to pick this up however, and both units combined at about 5.00 to shoot the final night scenes. We finished shooting at 7.15, and were off the boat by 7.30, thanks largely to the efforts of the cast and crowd who helped pack up all the equipment except what we were using.
All in all the day went well, though at times it was quite stressfull! When the cast weren't shooting they managed to pass the time in the pub across the road, keeping up to date with the football, and throughout the day we gathered quite a crowd! helped a lot by new cast member Ryan's cries of 'Land Ho!', and enthusiastic ringing of the ships bell!
Everyone involed did a fantastic job on what was one of the most difficult days we've had so far, and I felt it went very well, and found the day an enjoyable, if sometimes tiring experience. Even though I missed the rugby!
And with that done we have only 5 days of shooting left on Roanoke: The Lost Colony!
Sunday would normally be a non-blog day for the most part. But today we are shooting on a 16th Century boat!
Check this space for updates a little later on!
Bertie x
So yesterday and the day before we have been working through a number of scenes for the future shoot days in rehearsals. This week we have been mostly rehearsing crew members (said in the true way of the Fast Show), and then next week we shall be moving onto the colony. It was great to have everyone from the crew side back together and we can't wait for next week for a similar reason. We also introduced Ryan Newberry to the cast, Ryan will be featured mainly on the Golden Hinde and West Stow.
We managed to crack through around 10 -15 scenes over the last two days and everyone managed to have their say from crew - cast. It was great that everyone felt like they could give there input and we didn't have to deal with the whole hierarchy cur-fuf-ll, hopefully it will stay the same (as it has been) through the final shoot days (and possibly the edit too).
One of the most interesting parts of the day happened when lead actress Charlotte Hunter came down to be "cast" (in the most literal sense) for a mask that will be featured in Scene 43b. Although I won't give to much away about its use and why we are doing it, it was very interesting to see it happen, in one hour Beccy with the assistance of Gary managed to produce a fully cast mask, and this is how it happened:
Photos by Angela - I'll now attempt to write a description based on what I think happened, no doubt I’ll be corrected by Gary or Beccy later:
Our sitting duck Charlotte was suddenly sprung upon by Algernate.
She luckily didnt move a muscle during this time.
Wishing to replicate the true expression "blank face"
bandages are added to the outside of the Algernate
Slowly the cast has dried and it is peeled of the face of
Charlotte
The cast is filled with plaster and then the mold removed.
The face in all its glory.
Sam shows his new Weekend face, incredibly it looks
exactly like Charlottes!
Yesterday went really well but after a morning of being cold and battered by the wind the cast and crew were exhausted. These two weeks are extremly busy, Today and Tomorrow are set for rehersals with the the ship crew and then on Sunday we shoot the Golden Hine, next Monday and Tuesday we have rehersals for the colony, then on Wednesday we shoot the SS GB scene and on Thursday the studio. After that it's a bit of waiting around before we head up to West Stow and film the final three days shooting.
For that reason I am extremly sorry if I have yet to get round to replying to an e-mail as I really just haven't been able to sit down for longer than 2 minutes at a computer that didn't involve Pre-Production or Blogging. I will soon tho!
In the meantime I cut together a really rough edit of some of the shots to see if it would work, and here is how two frames looked.
as allways click to englarge. 
We're a bit short on energy, after being very cold and up in the...very cold since 5am. The shoot went well, and here are some of Angelas photos that describe a bit...
Rehersing the scene
and then playing with Pikes
Flagging....the flag?
And with quite a crowd gathering!
and then Shane arrived (L>R Dan, Shane, Bertie, Andy)
So two jobs were spread over the course of the day, one a very easy job, the other alot more challenging.
We started with the more challenging job which was to make sure that all the scenes had been checked over for costume continuity, which, isn't as easy as it sounds. As films are generally (99.9%) shot in a random order and adjacent scenes months apart, it is important that when you come to shoot a scene that continues from a scene shot 6 months ago all the characters are wearing the same costume.
For Roanoke, with over 120 scenes we have to make sure each scene lines up with the last and next and some scenes that correspond with others that have been shot and are 50 pages in the script ahead are noted....long winded I know but true. For instance on Tuesday we will not only be shooting a "continuity scene" but we will be shooting the same scene as we shot on July 10th at 4am but from a different angle. So not only do the actors actions have to be similar, but their costumes and facial hair have to be the same too...
The one advantage we do have is that we tend to shoot the whole scene in one day, thus for each scene it is hard to have costume continuity errors, however props and set arrangements must be counted too.
We (Angela and I) managed to produce a lovely 4 page document with all the scenes listed and their corresponding continuity jargon.....
On another note and the second job, I decided to see how well our film was doing in the search engines. Quite by surprise we now rank at #1 search for a variety of different areas, such as "Roanoke Film" "Roanoke Movie" and others that people may search for on the internet.
Tomorrow I must sort all the costumes out for Tuesday!
It's that week again, the time when it all goes quiet before the storm of the shoot. Despite the quietness on the blog the amount of paper work I’ve been getting through is extreme, and not to mention the amazing help Sam and our lead actress Charlotte have been offering and completing (a lot faster than I manage sometimes)!
I have now revamped the initial Winter folders with new fresh paper work, up to date and ready for action. We are slowly moving in to the final 7 days. It used to be 6 days however I have decided to add an extra day to West Stow in order to allow a lot more time (8 hours to be exact) for the actors and crew to make sure we have the perfect shot.
Although there is still a lot of hard work to be done during the shoot, Dan and I started today on the basic stages of post-production. We aim to release Trailer 2 in time for Christmas, and with that we are currently initiating the first stages with music composers and CGI artists. So far we have had a number of applicants and are looking forward to working with some over the next few months.
As far as the schedule goes, we will be shooting up until December 6th, creating the 2nd trailer and first rough edit of the production before Christmas. Then during January we will be sending the rough edit over to the composer(s) for the production of the music, whilst allowing the CGI artist to work on the various Computer Generated Images we will need for our production.
At the beginning of February we aim to have a tightened version of the film with music and CGI available to us, and then from there we do the audio edit and colour grade the production....by March 1st we should have the first finished version of Roanoke, ready for test screening and the opinions of others!
That's how it should line up in terms of schedule, and while I must plan ahead to make sure all that is set in place, I must not look to far, for at the moment we have a shoot day coming up on the 21st on the bank of the river Thames , and then we hit our big 4:
The Golden Hinde
SS GB - Bristol
London Studio
West Stow
So that is what is on our minds currently, and expect a lot of pictures and updates over the following weeks.
We have numerous amounts of rehearsals over the next fortnight as well, so we will make sure we take some of that time to let the actors have their voice on the pod cast!
Ok, lets try again!
Here are the pictures from Saturday's recce that wouldn't appear when I tried to post them before!
Some of the buildings at West Stow
More cabins, all to be used as the colony on Roanoke
The interior of one of the cabins, a meeting hall for the colonists
ahh, Aunti Pam's Sweet shop...need i say more!
Once again, Jenna falls asleep in the car!
