Mike Peter Reed - words in your shell-like

As of this writing, The Dark Knight has edged out Crooked Features by 0.1 points (TDK: 9.6 vs CF: 9.5), several million dollars and *cough* just over 69,000 votes. Tsk. Good job nobody's keeping score.

(Yeah I know, then three come along at once).

Comping separate elements that first need to be separated from a single plate was always going to be somewhat processor intensive and mind-numbingly boring. However, at least the RedGiant Primatte Keyer plugin is doing its job on my lacklustre greenscreen lighting attempt. Simply amazing that it manages to intelligently key out all those shades of green that I don't want.

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Listening to: kro - punklover (Teddy Bears vs Leona Lewis)

And here it is.

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Listening to: Colourbox - Just Give 'Em Whiskey

So does any of this sound familiar to any other indie Brits?

Having created their movie, British National then had to get it distributed and exhibited, but this proved to be more difficult than making the movie itself. Some commercial screens began showing Turn of the Tide as a second feature, but this was not enough exposure for the company to make a profit.

-snip-

The problems encountered in the distribution of Turn of the Tide were addressed when J. Arthur Rank discovered that the people who controlled the British film industry had ties to the American movie industry and that for all practical purposes he was shut out of his own domestic market. American films occupied 80% of British screen time -snip-

Because the middlemen controlled the distribution pipeline from production to exhibition, he decided to buy a large part of both the distribution and exhibition systems.

So there you have it, as the Rutles have already told you, all you need is cash! And, connections. Learn those Hollywood clichés - they are all true.

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Listening to: The Temptations vs Paul Hardcastle - The ABC Wizard (Supakon Mix)

Every now and then a low budget indie short I worked on does actually get finished! Although not there yet, "My Name Is Sarah Hayward" does at least have a trailer. I wonder who recorded the production sound which features so prominently in the trailer with his Oktava MK012 hyper capsule? You may wonder indeed.

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Listening to: Stab - Owner of a disco heart

And continuing the tone, you can find the life and times of Meedja Ho by clicking this link. If you're starting out, or looking to quit the habit, this is the place to start.

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Listening to: Justice vs John Williams - Imperial Stress (Beloki)

From an actual crew call:

"... a project commissioned by the European commission to make a short 3-minute film ..."

"This is a no payment project, however your expenses will be paid ..."

Dude - I can claim back my expenses when I do my self assessment. The European commission is obviously an ass to commission a project that isn't paying anyone. Is it any wonder the Great British Film Industry is such a dead end with support like this from Europe?!

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Listening to: The Illuminoids - Get It On At Le Disko (T.Rex vs. Shiny Toy Guns)-The Illuminoids

Mike P. Squawk chalks up another PPS credit with Phil Harvey. Starring my curtain rail as a spot effect. Listen out for it!

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Listening to: DJ Matt Hite - Me & You & Yazoo (Extended Mix - DJ Matt Hite Mashup)

Wow, it's nearly half way through June already!!? Just a quick post to give you an example of the kind of stereo image you get with M/S. This snippet is part of Mike Shepherd's OTTfilms short "Goodfellas" and represents about the only line of dialogue in the whole thing. Anyhow, enough words, let's have some sounds!

1. Original M/S recording (crunched to MP3)

2. Mono conversion (crunched to MP3)

The source was recorded with an Audio Technica BP4029 (which you can just about see being held by Olly the boom-op behind the camera) to a Sound Devices 702T. The source 24/96 XY stereo file was compressed and exported using the free LAME encoder for Quicktime.

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Listening to: Major Melon - Melon song

Oh yes, it was absolutely tipping it down on Monday! Not just for the 80 mile drive up there but also during the shoot and for the drive back! Fortunately it transpired that the location was actually hosted by the London Film Academy, and just for added nostalgia the same building hosts Club Panico! So I was rather pleased that when we got into the "Church Attic" that it seemed reasonably well sound-proofed from the rain (although not from the internal cistern, boo) - still, acoustically it was far more isolated than the studio in Hendon although at one point the builders next door started a rather loud generator.

So how did those 42 shots go? Well, it turns out they got whittled down to around 20 and with a conscious decision not to fanny about with the lights too much between camera setups I was amazed that we wrapped at 5pm! There's nothing like getting three hours of time back when I was mentally prepared to stay until 8pm (of course, there's nothing quite like fiercely independent UK moviemaking either).

So all in all, a good experience. I got to record the single line of dialogue and other sync sound using the BP4029 and I'm pretty happy with the results. I'll post later the XY version and a mono version of the same recording to see how well the phase cancellation goes.

Oh - and in other news, seems one Christian Dolan has discovered my ramblings. Be sure to check out his 15 commandments of sound for picture over at sync.sound.cinema! Now I'll have to make sure I don't embarrass myself.

In yet more news Crooked Features (directed by yours truly) is on its way to being on Amazon Unbox via CreateSpace (nee CustomFlix). I got notice that they've received the DVD and turnaround for encoding to Unbox is up to 30 days. Spiffy.

News Flash: there's so much going on right now and to add to it all there is now a concerted effort initiated by Trash Arts from the Victoria Park Arts Lodge to start exploiting the culture, history and landmarks that can be found in and around Portsmouth in local movies. Great! (Considering I did that with Crooked Features in 2004). Now if only we could get buy-in from the frickin local council then perhaps we could have ourselves an eco-system started.

Good times.