Teacher & My New Project

Tomorrow I start shooting for my new short film so I thought it was about time that I finally released my last short film Teacher on the Internet for all you lovely people to watch. I had written about this short that I was making in a couple of production posts earlier this year so if you want to check them out before viewing you can read them here and here. After you have watched the short you can find out about my new project below.

On to my next project now, which I am very excited to film tomorrow! Now this project is quite different in tone and I have taken a lot of influence from the films of Richard Linklater and Kevin Smith whilst producing this one. This is a solo project that started off unrelated to my film course until I saw how I could tie it into my philosophy module. I have written the script and will be directing and editing it as well. The film follows two 'slacker' esque characters who are smoking a cigarette against a wall. They are both strangers but spark up conversation after one of them has just witnessed a suicide. The film looks at the contradiction of morality and the two opposing views of the characters on the suicide and taking a life in general. I've always loved 'Generation X' films from American independent cinema in the 90's and have tried to incorporate this into the pre-production process as well as trying to modernise it for present day England. I haven't really got anything to show you guys just yet but when I got in touch with my brilliant casting director Ashton Snow I sent her a mood board of the piece so she could help find my two awesome actors. So I thought I could show you that to give you a kind of idea of where I'm going with this short.

There will be more updates to come on this film but this is all I've got so far! Anyway I hope this has caught your interest so make sure you keep updated with my blog and twitter for all the latest news on this project.

So what do you think of Teacher and my new project? Let me know in the comments below.

DSS Music Video & Teacher Update

So you may or may not have seen me posting a new video I made onto Twitter recently. The video is a live music session/band promo for Dismillium Sound Systum. I wanted to use this blog post to talk about my work on it and the give you an update on my short film Teacher. So let's get going!

If you haven't seen it already here is the video I made for Dismillium Sound Systum:




I was asked to do the video by my flatmate and member of the band Alistair Wilson. I was asked to film the band playing live in order to give people following them online a taste of their music. As this was their first music video I thought that it would be a good idea to add an interview with them in order to promote their music and there debut performance at the Falapalooza music festival. If you are in the area come check them out on the 25th-26th May!

I filmed the video using a Canon 5D Mark 2. I have been wanting to use one of these cameras for so long now and I am very happy that this opportunity gave me the excuse to do so. Whilst filming them practice I put the 5D on a glidecam and then used a tripod for the interview and live song. I would have liked to have had more cameras whilst filming the live performance instead of one static shot but I was unable to book out more than one 5D.

Hopefully this video will result in me doing more work for the band and creating an actual music video for one of their songs.

If you did like what you heard you can check out Dismilluim Sound Systum:
On Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/dismilliumss?directed_target_id=0
Twitter; https://twitter.com/DismilliumSS
and on their website; http://dismilliumss.wix.com/dismillium-ss

Now for the update on Teacher. We have recently just finished our last edit of the footage. As this is a
university project we had to finish by a certain date which was yesterday. However we may still continue to work on the edit in time for when we submit to festivals. Our festival strategy is being arranged as we speak and after a successful Kickstarter we will be submitting very soon and then after that our short will make it's way online. We look forward to showing you all!

Thanks for reading!

Teacher - Production Post #1

Myself on the left with Aaron OToole on the right.

So I wanted to write this post about some of the film work I have been up to as I am very excited about my current projects. You may or may not know that I am currently studying a Film course at Falmouth University where each semester we are given a new film project to work on. This time round we were pitched ideas from other students in our course and then we had to develop these ideas and make a 5 minute short film out of them. I had the privilege of taking on the directing role in my film group and what we have produced so far makes me very happy!

Chloe Maliphant

My group, which consists of three other people, went with an idea that looked at a teacher's point of view when permanently excluding a child from education. We have since developed that idea and have a done a lot of work on it. Faith Stoddard wrote an amazing script whilst producer and DOP Laura Whittington got everything in place for us to film some amazing footage that wrapped up nicely last week, the footage is now left to our editor and sound designer Aaron OToole who no doubt will have made something brilliant out of what we have, in time for when we meet up again after the Easter break.

Jono Blythe

The two actors taking the lead roles in our film are Chloe Maliphant and Jono Blythe. The two truly have some amazing talent which I believe will come across very well when the film will be released and entered into festivals later this year.

I am very excited for this short and I hope that you might be too but if my word isn't enough then please take a look at this amazing poster helped realised by Rita Kazakevica and designed by Faith Nelson:

If you are still on board and think this is something you are interested in then please support us by liking our Facebook page and following the short film's Twitter account.

Most of the crew are on Twitter apart from our editor, feel free to follow them also. Myself/Director @SuperAlexMan, Producer and DOP @UkuleleLaura, Producer and Screenwriter @FaithhS.

Please blog about us and share our short film with your friends. We have been getting a lot of positive support and the whole crew would love for this film to be shown to as many people as possible once completed.

If you want to know more detail or would just like to get in contact then either contact my email; alex-moppy@hotmail.com or the film's email: teachershortfilm@hotmail.com.

Thank you very much for reading! Over the Easter I have another exciting project I am working on which if you follow my Twitter I will hopefully be able to spill the beans on soon and I also have another round of Quick Reviews planned.