Clifton's a machine!

Three weeks after shooting 'How to make an Australian Feature Film', Clifton has already finished the rough cut and is ready to complete the project. The music has been selected, now we're just waiting on Mak to do the voice over and it's ready to lock off and be colour-graded.

If that weren't enough, we also shot a film on Saturday and it is entirely edited and finished. The man is a legend!

Movember

Baz is getting his mo on for Movember. If you would like to donate to his team 'Ranga & Baz', go to the link below and donate to Brian. Cheers.

http://au.movember.com/mospace/1106292/

Some pics from Australian Feature Film shoot

30 Days of Night: Dark Days

After going to the DVD store to get one movie, I invariably fell for the four for $15.00 special; one of which was the sequel to 30 Days of Night. I quite enjoyed the original but, truth to be told, I wouldn't have hired this on its own for $5.95. Throw it in as part of a bargain though, and I thought it was worth it. I read the blurb of the back cover, which sounded like an okay story, but all the pictures were close ups with few people in the scenes which screamed low budget. Suffice to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

For a start, the film had some good actors in it, two of which came from one of my favourite shows - 24 (Mia Kirshner and Rhys Coiro). They had a reasonable sized budget which, whilst still low, they did a lot with. It also had a fairly solid storyline. Sure there were moments where the plot was dictated to by the budget, like when they get trapped in a nest of vampires and pretty much can just walk out of there, but it was still a very good story. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised.

So if you like Vampires, real ones not gay ones that sparkle in sunlight, check out 30 Days of Night: Dark Days.

Another short film idea added to the pile

I've been collating my ideas for short films in a file this year and this morning I had 35 in total. Have to say, I'm pretty happy with that number. I don't force it, I just let the ideas come naturally and then jot them down. If I'm really taken with an idea though, I'll immediately write it into a script.

As of this afternoon I now have 36 ideas. Clifton and I were catching up and talking film and he said he wanted to shoot an action sequence soon to work on that style of shooting. We both agreed that we should somehow turn that shoot idea into a film, and what do you know, within less than a minute a new script idea was born.

Stay tuned for 'A Fatal Mistake'; we'll no doubt shoot it within a few months.

Updated schedule for 2011

Here is our schedule for next year. We've given away the paintball idea, it's been done before. Our aim is to shoot shorter films at the start of the year to enter into the Rocky Fringe Fest and do some longer ones in the second half. We're also going to do more horror in 2011, which is a good thing. Added to this we plan on doing some test shoots which we will no doubt turn into films as well.

So, it's set to be a big one.

Jan – The Returned Serviceman (comedy) & an Australian Horror Legend (horror/comedy)

Mar – The Exorcism of Jeremy Roads (horror/comedy) & Adopted (comedy)

May – Hunted (horror)

July – The Chardonnay Film Festival (comedy)

Sept – Death of a projectionist (comedy/thriller)

Nov – Held Hostage (action/comedy)

Next shoot

We're shooting on Saturday 6th November. The film is 'The Gay Australian' and stars Dean, Raymond and Ian from the previous film, as well as newcomer Donald from Gladdy.

We aim to submit this film into the Hey Hey it's Saturday John West short film competition. The grand prize is $10,000. Although we don't expect to win, you've got to be in it to win it.

Film shoot over

We had a great shoot on the weekend.

We filmed most of the scenes on Saturday and even got two more slated for Sunday in the can. Thanks to Gladstone Motorworld, the Outlook Cafe and Hot FM for letting us shoot on location.

Sunday morning was awesome, we got to film in the foyer of Gladstone cinemas. We were unsure how they'd react, but they were really supportive and gave us the run of the place. A big thanks to them as well.

All in all everyone we worked with was excellent. Outback was a great DOP and all the actors who came down from Rocky were real troopers. Let's not forget the Gladdy cast and crew, they rocked as well. Only one of the crew was unhappy with the catering on the shoot, but that guy really could do with skipping a meal or two. ;)

Once the rough cut is done we will start to score the music. We have a digeridoo player lined up for the movie scene ha ha.

We are going to sit down later this week and decide which film is next in the line up. We ended up with a few dollars left over so we might be able to shoot sooner rather than later.

Our schedule

At present we're planning out our schedule for 2010-2011. So far it looks like this:

October - How to make an Australian Feature Film.

December - The Returned Serviceman, The Gay Australian and An Australian Horror Legend.

February - The Exorcism of Jeremy Roads.

April - A Nightmare on Ass Street.

June - Held Hostage and Adopted.

2nd half of year - 20 minute Paintball movie.

We hope to have four films in the competition part of the Rocky Fringe Festival and four in the open film screening. We aim to submit The Ring as well, but we all know it's way ahead of its time.

More actors on board

Two more actors are now involved:

John Aide
Brett Fairbairn

Cool.

Where for art thou Yobbo?

The actor we had slated to play the yob in 'How to make an Australian Feature Film' is unavailable that weekend.

What a dilemma!

Where are we going to find a beer drinking yob in Central Queensland?

Other film crews would probably give up at this point, but not CQ Films. We shall persevere!

Shoot dates locked in

We're locked in to shoot 'How to make an Australian Feature Film' on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th October.

At this point actors involved are:

Tamara Wickham
Cameron Downing
Ashley Black
Jesse Warren
Ian Westley
Daniel Bonner
Matt Wilson
Amy Shelford

At present we're awaiting confirmation from a few others, but so far so good.

Tropfest 2011

Last year we entered 'The Ring' into Tropfest. While not expecting to get anywhere, it's always heartbreaking to see a lot of the finalist films either not make sense or be an old joke or suck, or worse; not make sense, be an old joke and suck. That said, last years winner 'Shock' was absolutely awesome and it definitely deserved to win.

Next year entries close on Thursday 6th January and the TSI is 'Key'. Clifton and I discussed not entering again, but getting into 'Best of the Rest' is a challenge I don't think we can resist.

Besides, if all else fails, we can always make another brown eye film.

CQ Films next project

Our next short film is 'How to make an Australian Feature Film'. It is a comedy written by Baz.

At present we are in the pre-production stage and will be setting a shoot date for October, 2010. It will be our largest project to date, with a cast of over 20 people. We aim to shoot the entire film over the course of one weekend in October.

We have also just secured the services of Glenn Adamus for our DOP. Glenn is an experienced professional cameraman having worked for Southern Cross Ten for a number of years. This is great news as it frees Clifton up to focus on directing and Baz to work on continuity and producing.

The Rocky Fringe Film Festival 2010

So we entered 'Awkward First Contact' into the Rockhampton Fringe Film Festival. It was our first competition and we were pretty excited. Although we didn't win, here is what the judge had to say about our film:

"This film goes where angels (and chooks) fear to tread. Aliens who have taken 10,000 years to get to Earth to share technology and learn from humans think the better of it moments after landing and back away back into their spacecraft, away from what they find... It actually is a good script, and some good writing has also gone into the edit. A lot of work has gone into design too - the space craft, costumes, the character voices. The filmmaker has a great future, but I'm not sure where. Sketch comedy on TV would be a good place to start. That or prison. Don't try doing corporate promotional videos for the Queensland Poultry Association. You Tube."