Bunny and Clive was screened at the BFI SouthBank as part of the London Film Festival on 13th October 2016 and again on 14th October, at the Hackney PictureHouse. The LFF is an incredible festival with an awesome selection of films and events. Definitely worth a few or more days off to attend…Free Fire, Lion, Arrival, Manchester by the Sea, Nocturnal Animals…the first few pages of the 114-page festival guide.
It was great to see it play to a packed NFT1 – their biggest screen (with the volume turned right up) – in front of fellow film makers, members of our cast and crew, contributors to the KickStarter campaign and festival goers.
Just to say it again – the film looked amazing and the audience reaction was brilliant. It’s a great experience to watch the film with so many people.
Bunny and Clive will have its premiere screening at the London Film Festival on 13th October at BFI SouthBank, more info, tickets etc. at their site here. It will screen as part of the BFI London Calling showcase of 8 short films selected from the 20 funded.
Those involved with those 20 short films were invited to a collective screening at BFI last week. I’ve been to some great festivals before but the all day screening was one of the best and most enjoyable collections I’ve seen. If you’re just into your films or about to apply for next year’s London Calling I seriously recommend you catch either of the two BFI screenings on 13th or 14th of October.
SouthBank is buzzing – it’s a brilliant place for a festival, a short walk from either Waterloo station or Embankment tube/Charing Cross Station/Trafalgar Square. Best of all, if you don’t mind RnB turned up to 11 and the rumble of trains above, there’s possibly the best burger in town.
Producing the soundtrack for BnC has probably been the biggest undertaking I’ve done musically. Ideas had been sketched out before filming based on temp-track ideas that ranged from the Utopia and Punch Drunk Love soundtracks to Aphex Twin’s Penty Harmonium.
By the time the first edit came through I thought I had it all in the bag for the 11 cues. A month later the BnC album on my iTunes has 113 tracks/edits. There were a lot of other Logic Projects that didn’t make it that far. On the bonus the tracks surplus to requirements will definitely be used for other projects.
Post production was handled at Technicolor London. The suite was incredible. Definitely a Ferris Bueller settling his eyes on a Ferrari 250GT moment. Awesome to see the film digitally projected onto an 18 foot (guess) screen and to see a pro colorist, Alex Gascoigne, at work.
DJI Phantom 3
The image from the Alexa Mini and Kowa lenses looked stunning. Another jaw dropping moment was to see the Phantom 3 Pro footage. It hadn’t let us down. The Phantom footage was 4k – 3840 x 2160, 24p, log color/ProlostFlat settings, using PolarPro ND’s to keep the shutter speed under control. It was almost too good. Alex added a subtle vignette and blur to ‘roughen’ the image up a touch. The Phantom’s codec was also robust enough to survive the grade and match the Alexa.
It’s a wrap on the short film Bunny and Clive. The final day of scheduled shooting coincided with a last of hurrah of spring wind and rain in contrast to the weekend’s glorious sunshine. We managed a few interior car shots but there was no way the drone was going to get airborne. A day of pickups is planned for a weekend in June, travelling/drone/interior car shots etc. All footage has been shifted to our editor, Edel McDonnell .
Around forty tracks have been composed for the film over the last couple of months based on the director’s mix tape and other film references. A look at the sizzle real and you know we’re in PT Anderson, Coen brothers territory. The chosen few that make the cut will be edited and remixed to picture. A massive shout-out goes to Boscomac whose Reaktor instruments are the best I’ve come across and have made producing the soundtrack a whole load’a fun.
Thanks to the Saab Owners Club UK, and Brian, the problem of the hero car was sorted out. The retro Volvo estate didn’t have the boot the script required. The Saab 900 is a beauty of a car with big, near ND free windows, a light beige interior finish, massive boot and a matt coat of faded red paint courtesy of time and Mother Nature. I’d like one. It’s design echoes another favourite, the Citroen DS.
The Bunny and Clive Kick Starter campaign is up and running and already extending its goal to £7,500 for the following:
* Attracting better crew by having greater day rates
* Adding a sound assistant to our team so that our sound recordist doesn’t have to boom swing between actors, whilst recording and mixing at the same time.
* Paying for camera truck van hire from London to Sussex and back
* Paying for a further recce with first AD and heads of department
* Paying for costume hire from a leading London Costume house
* Paying for a MOVI camera op so that we can get excellent developing shots
* Paying for a professional focus puller to get the most from our limited shooting time
* Improving our locations budget to make crew and actors more comfortable on set
* Paying our still photographer to be on set for an extra day
* Expanding our EPK (making of) team and time with us
Contributions of any size would be gratefully received.
Great news to hear that the short film ‘Bunny and Clive’ has been awarded funding from Film London. To get through the process of pitching to finally being awarded funding is a major achievement in itself. More hard work to follow.
Rob Ford and John Hollingworth at Film London
Tagline: ‘News of a new girlfriend disrupts a mother and son duo’
‘Bunny and Clive‘ is written and to be directed by Rob Ford and produced by John Hollingworth. Pre-production is in full swing.
Luckily even a ‘de-icer v plane’ collision couldn’t stop me from getting to Derry and getting a taster of the Foyle Film Festival. Unfortunately it did prevent me from seeing the other ‘Light in Motion Awards’ programmes on the Saturday.
It was worth the cold, the trains, planes and automobiles to get there…
– to see ‘The Fundamentals’ on the big screen. I was nervous and I needn’t have been. It looked amazing. The Sony FS7 stood its ground in the company of Reds and Alexas used on the other shorts.
– to see the other 5 short films in the programme. More regrets about missing the other programmes. This film festival can programme. When you leave a festival saying ‘next year I’ll come for a week’ you know it’s been a good one.
– to meet some of the other film makers. It’s great to talk shop, get feedback, and maybe hook up for future projects. Great to have a motivational boost and a ‘creative-juices’ winter power up. The only official networking event I could see was the day before.
– to affirm that a short film can be made that competes with others with official funding, bigger budgets, more toys and bigger crews.
– to see a bit of Belfast and Derry, the amazing countryside inbetween, hear about the next three seasons of Game of Thrones being filmed with Barry’s neighbours as extras, and hear yarns about U2 and Van Morrison turning up at the pub. The locals are great!
Great to hear that The Fundamentals has been selected as part of the Light in Motion Awards section of the Foyle Film Festival. Very excited to be attending the festival with Oscar®, BAFTA and BIFA affiliation for the first time and looking forwarding to networking in the pub afterwards.
The opening track from the film can be heard here
Screening at the Nerve Centre on 4.45pm Saturday 21st November 2015 – part of 3 short film programmes that afternoon. Amazing value at £3 a ticket/programme.
An evolving account of shooting ‘The Fundamentals’, a short film about a young woman trying to move on after being assaulted, starring Sonya Cassidy and Nicola Sloane.
Kit: Sony FS7 and three E mount Samyang lenses 24mm, 35mm, 85mm.
Shooting premise: handheld, minimal lighting/natural light.
Location: Trellic tower, London.
FS7
Sony FS7 with extra shoulder mount, adjustable display and arm attachment.
Which camera to choose? The usual suspects Red, Sony A7s, Canon 100/300, Panasonic GH4 made the short list but in the end the Sony FS7 was chosen for its 4k ability, slow motion and ‘most bang for the $’ hire cost. Once again, having 12 hours to get to know a camera, film a short test, figure out the (bad) FS7 menu system, Matrix options and a post workflow on someone else’s Mac Pro wasn’t ideal (note to self – build a mobile editing suite). Glad to say the footage I managed to see after the shoot looked a whole lot better than the test shots. The Samyang lenses were again the best budget option for hire. I could have shot all day with the 35mm. It’s a beauty.
Out of the flight case the FS7 feels very light. Add a battery, a decent sized lens and a shoulder mount you definitely know you have a camera on your shoulder, not Red or EX3 weight but enough to get the back creaking. The Sony FS7 does have a small shoulder pad but the extra shoulder mount felt more secure and gave me more handling and shooting options.
The adjustable control arm, with rec start/stop and menu joystick, was permanently attached. The built in ND filters and spirit level indicator (on the display) were invaluable.
2 x XLR mic inputs (with phantom power), earphone socket, adjustable display (not the best resolution on focus assist – assigned to a button on the arm attachment). The sound guy plugged straight into the camera from his mixer.
Make up room
THE OS
It’s been said before – the menu system is a dog’s dinner. Assignable buttons – great – but telling the crew I need a couple of minutes to change frame rate and shutter speed was amusing. You can scroll through the menus using the control arm but more often I used the body nav buttons even though the scroll wheel was random in its accuracy.
raw frame grab from footage showing a definite love for blue.
The setup menus and sub menus go on and on. In the end I was a little hesitant to change anything apart from the rec mode, shutter speed, Matrix and color profiles. Having also read that the ‘manual white balance’ could send things wrong I left it on auto.
Colour profile/Matrix: Standard and cine. Without extensive camera and grading tests the standard/cine combo felt like it would be the sensible option. I’d recommend extensive camera tests and a post-workflow trial before switching to the S-log settings.
Details of the post workflow and screen shots to follow.
LEROY ILLANOIS 