Blood Money - Bell Tower Behind the Scenes Photos

Slur Behind the Scenes Photos

"Back To You" Music Video

Moving On

A long time has passed since our last update, and a lot of stuff has happened. We've finished shooting 'Blood Money' and editing is practically done too. Total time is 1 hour and 25 minutes. You think news like this would come with a lot more fanfare and glitz but as I've already said before, Blood Money was our education in filming. And we outdid our education when we were still in the middle of it. Our technical level grew faster then the film and so differences between scenes that were shot in the beginning and those towards the end are quite drastic.

We are already looking to our next project, the details of which will be revealed in time (not much time as we start production in a week or so!) But it will be our entry into the next opening of the Sundance Film Festival.

We've also completed our very first (of many, I hope) music video. It's for an entry in the XFM Virtual Rockstar competition, for Ann de Gaetano. (She played Yana in BM). I'll post it on here soon. I think it came pretty good, also check out my awesome on-location photography ;)

Later

C+

I can't look at myself on screen.

Imagine watching yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, and your helpless to do anything about it. Now imagine a room full of people watching this with you.

They're not really mistakes though, let me explain.

Have you ever come out of an exam and thought "Damn! I should have done that question this way!" and you go over it endlessly till your pretty sure you flunked the whole exam. And it's obviously to late to go back and change anything cos it's in the editor..err, examiners hands now. Well, that's how I feel after a scene has been shot, except my paper is gonna be shown to as many people as possible. However, they won't see these 'mistakes'. Thankfully, these mistakes are only for me to bear, as my mind plays out all the different things I could have (should have?) done to improve my character.

We are almost at the end of the film.

I don't think anyone will ever know the lesson in expectations this sentence has come to symbolise for us. As a producer I feel tired. Weary. But I smile as I see to the completion of this production I helped create.

As an actor I quickly turn away from it, and try my best to forget it, till the report card comes in.

Neil

oh, hello

Its been a long time since I lasted posted here... Just to bring you up to date: We refilmed the scene at Mdina and it came a lot better than the old one. Today we filmed a talking scene between Adam and Hollie on a boat at Msida. We were cramped in a small place but I think it came good. I'm going to start editing it soon. We really are very close to the end of the film now, which is a relief. I'll post again after I've edited the scene and I'll upload a couple of screenshots.

An Update!

Hey,

Few updates. I went over to Ann's house with Neil to dub her lines from the garden scene. Then we drove to Ian's house and did his. I've put the scene together and it's come quite good. It's our first fully dubbed scene, from voices to background sound, but it came good. In fact, the sound quality is probably the best we've got in the whole film so we're probably going to start doing all scenes like this from now on.

However, dubbing will bring about problems in its own way. The lines must be synchronised with the person's mouth. The tone of the voice must match the actor's expressions. Also it means it will take up more space on my computer... something which we are soon out of.

This coming Sunday we should be going back to Mdina to redo the talking scene with a new and improved script... It's not surprising really, seeing as the previous script was written past midnight the night before after coming back from a meal with friends...

Also I finally heard back from the filter people! My filter should be arriving pretty soon. It's called a Day For Night filter, and basically arranges sunlight to look like moonlight, so soon we can start have night time scenes! Can't wait! Although we don't really need it for Blood Money, but a lot of the sequel is set at night.

Anyway, that's all for now. Keep checking for more updates!

Bit Burnt Out

Hey.

I know it's been a while since I (or any of us for that matter) last posted, so I'm going to fill you all in.

I'm actually feeling pretty burnt out with the film at the moment... But I don't think it's the fact that it's taking so long to finish that gets to me. It's just extremely stressful organising days to meet and tryin to plan out the scenes... I don't expect the actors to have to do that themselves, they're just friends who were asked to be in the film. But if someone wanted to be credited as a creator of the film, then I'd expect that person to dedicate as much effort as I to get this film done soon.

For example, Christmas has come and gone and we have filmed a grand total of 2 times. We had ample chance to film, to meet and plan out all that was left, but we didn't. On a more positive note, we filmed at Ann's grandmother on Wednesday. We had 6 hours to shoot 5 scenes. Luckily Neil and I wrote out a schedule so that we would know how long we have for each scene. It worked quite well. We finished on time anyway.

Unfortunatly it was extremely windy that day. 60kmh wind in Mellieha according to maltaweather. The dialogue in the garden scene has been ruined by the wind and has to be dubbed completely. The rest came okay I suppose. I haven't really edited anything properly yet, haven't been in the mood...

Will post some screenshots of the scene later.

Happy New Year

We'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. May this year be a good year for all.