Monday 29 July 2013

This Message Will Self Destruct

THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF DESTRUCT was created for Newcastle Video Makers one minute competition. The D.O.P. for the shoot was the ever helpful Mark Owens. The day we shot this was really hot ( as you can see by the highly exposed footage). Mark and I worked on this film for around 5 hours and I copped the worst sunburn! We tried to mix our shot selections up a bit and we used a dolly and a crane where we could to create movement. Carolyn Starr plays a lawyer in the short final scene. I have played the film quite a bit and mostly get no reaction to the Occupational Health & Safety joke at the end.

Tuesday 9 July 2013

A Slither of Snakes

I shot A Slither Of Snakes in my friend Greg Lenaghan's shed! Greg lives quite close to the swamp and these 5 big carpet pythons come and stay in the rafters of his shed each year for around 6 weeks - and Greg thinks they are there to mate. The roller doors don't get used (which is a good thing because you'd have some confused and cranky snakes when the door gets rolled up...) Once again I was so lucky to get this footage - it was very exciting but a real pleasure too. I chose 'ARCADIA' by Kevin Macleod for the film. This tune has a'wonder' feel to it . I didn't want to put creepy music to the visuals. I feel that snakes aren't creepy or evil - they are just living their lives. I entered this film in my club's one minute competition and later on I did a show and tell - I'd brought along a green shopping bag with a 10ft long snake skin which the snake in the roller door had shed. Then I asked for a volunteer from the audience(to help me roll out this skin but the audience didn't know what I had in the bag and you could feel the tension starting to rise. It was very funny...) I've never been in the company of so many snakes before. They were mainly placid but they just wanted to be left alone - and that will do me.