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LOW BUDGET LENSES : WIDE ANGLE ADAPTERS (UPDATED)

5/23/2020

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Making low budget narrative films, I'll often find myself on a location that leaves me with very little room to shoot in terms of physical space. Using a long focal length is great and adds a depth to your image, but if you are shooting in an enclosed location then suddenly that becomes an issue unless you want to shoot entirely in close ups. If you're making low budget movies, the chances are that you are not going to be able to build all your sets and so removing walls, ceilings etc to create more room is not usually an option, which usually means that you have to shoot in pre existing environments and not every film is shot in a spacious warehouse or street, more times than not I find myself having to shoot in very tight locations with very little space.

This is where your wide angle lens becomes especially useful. Most people using an interchangeable lens system have a 'Kit Lens' which will come out to between 14mm-16mm (depending on brand etc) which is a fairly wide. However not always wide enough. Even at the shortest focal length I've sometimes struggled to have a wide enough angle to get my shot. 

I looked into wide angle options, but trying to find a low budget wide angle lens can be tricky and finding one at a cheap price even harder. The fact is, if you are shooting zero budget movies, which most the time I am, then you will find it tough to drop £150 - £1000 on a wide angle lens. I was in that position a few years ago and so I looked to find another solution. 

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SLASHER HOUSE 2 (2017) : WIDE ANGLE ADAPTER

WIDE ANGLE ADAPTER

I picked up a wide angle adapter on ebay for about £15, its a simple screw on adapter that attaches to your filter thread at the front of your lens and just expands your angle that little bit more. I was dubious when I picked it up, just because it was so cheap, but the results were great and really helped me open out the angle enough to get the kind of shots that I was after in those small spaces.
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It comes in fairly handy too when doing tracking and steady cam shots as it just opens the image up a little more and ensures you have something wide enough for full coverage. I used the same adapter for the last 5 years on almost every project I've shot and as a result I never needed to buy a wider lens. When I finally moved to Panasonic cameras last year, the first thing I did was buy a new wide angle adapter for its kit lens. Then later adapted it to a 14mm prime that gives me a great image without having to pick up a wider lens.

When I first look into the adapters I did hear complaints about them distorting images through the glass, but I'm happy to say that I've never had a problem with this at all on shorter focal lengths. I did adapt it to fit a 50mm lens a few years ago and the due to the longer focal length the image become very soft and blurred, but thats about the only issue I've had.  

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SLASHER HOUSE 2 (2017) : MACRO ADAPTER

IT'S ALSO A MACRO ADAPTER!!

Oh yeah, not only does this lens open out your wide shots, but it screws in half to become a macro lens. This means that you get right in close to small objects and get some incredibly close shots.

I have a little signature shot I try and fit into every film. A close up of an eye opening. In the past, with conventional video cameras I would really struggle to get close enough to get the shot in the way that wanted, but with this lens it makes it a breeze.

​Its really good for getting in there and just getting some awesome details, especially when it comes to smaller objects. I even used it to shoot a very 'arty' title sequence for a film last year featuring some small creepy dolls, but more on that later.

TELEPHOTO ADAPTERS

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CLEAVERS : KILLER CLOWNS (2019)
For those who need to go the other way, there are also telephoto adapters that do the opposite and give your existing lens some extra zoom by magnifying the image without you have to use digital zoom and degrade your image. Its not something I've ever had to use up until now, but its just another tool for around the same price that can help add a variety to your existing equipment.

UPDATE 2020 : Since this blog was written I've had a few 2X Telephoto Adapters pass through my kit bag and they really are very useful. Whilst they don't really hold a patch a proper Telephoto lens, I have found myself in the odd occasion where they provide that extra reach in a pinch.

During the shoot for CleaverS : Killer Clowns we took a n=bunch of extras down to the small town where we shot the scene of the Two Sheriffs to get Jody-Anne's POV shots. The wide went well. Shot with the 100mm we had, it was fine and worked well and we got the shot in a couple of takes. 

I'm a narrative filmmaker and usually I'm shooting at a focal length of 85mm at its limit. So we made arrangement to borrow a rather nice 100mm for our shoot at the township to get the aesthetic I wanted. 

​The problem came when we wanted to punch in on the 'Little creepy clown girl' hidden in the shot. Suddenly the 100mm just wasn't cutting it. We couldn't move our position as we were perched on the only bit of road that didn't have constant traffic ad so, out came the 2x Telephoto. 

It punched right in and gave us just enough reach to get the shot without having to reset the camera and leave our extras waiting. 

​Since then, Ive also used it for various close ups during dialogue scenes for when I'm running and gunning and locking in lens variety, Its worth having on in your bag just in case and over the years I've found myself using Telephoto adapters more and more.

P.S. Also, I shot some boat shows a while back and without an adapter I wouldn't have been able to get anything close enough to be considered usable footage. 

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You will certainly get better result from spending the extra cash on a decent wide angle or a decent Tele photo lens, but for a low budget solution I have certainly found the results negligible. This works great for me and it is a brilliant cheap option if you can't fork out for an expensive lens. 

As always just remember that a better lens won't make you a better cinematographer in the same way that a cheap lens won't make you a worse one. 

MJ

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THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY BANNISTER PRE-ORDER

5/3/2020

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THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY BANNISTER is finally finding its way to DVD & DIGITAL in the UK on JUNE 30. 

Produced under the working title 'Bannister DollHouse' in spring 2018 the film has been patiently waiting for it time to be unleashed on the world, but now that wait is finally over. 

The film comes to UK shores on June 30, with the US release planned for later in the Summer.

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After the death of their eldest sister the women of the Bannister family begin to feel that something is very wrong, Molly is getting sick, there are strange noises in the night, a constant feeling that they are being watched and what's with that doll, that seems to be everywhere they go? How is it connected to them and how will they survive the nightmare that is the Bannister DollHouse?

THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY BANNISTER is the 7th Feature length film from Mycho Entertainment, featuring Slasher House 2's Molly Bannister, the film explores the origins of her evil Doll, Little Molly. ​
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​ON UK DVD JUNE 20

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CATCH UP WITH MOLLY BANNISTERS PREVIOUS APPEARANCES.
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HOW ACTING CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER DIRECTOR

6/30/2016

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Back in the days of VHS and late night horror on TV, when I was about 15 years old, one of the rare pleasures I had was staying over at my friends house, who had Cable TV and access to a whole host of rarities that would never, ever air on the 4/5 terrestrial channels most of us in the UK had. On one of these nights we watched a film that I had no idea what it was, a slasher horror set in supermarket that was fairly interesting and fun, yet the main thing that baffled me about it and made it stick in my mind was that one of the actors in it was 'Sam Raimi' the DIRECTOR of Evil Dead.

The film I later discovered went by several names, which made actually finding it again pretty tough. I eventually found it under the title Intruder (although it did go by Night Crew : The Final Checkout in the US for a while) and was always confused about why Raimi had turned up, outside of that his actors profile was pretty sparse (mainly reduced to cameos) and it just always stood out to me as odd. Years later the Evil Dead Trilogy finally came to DVD and on it was a very entertaining tit bit of information about 'The Intruder' via its special features. Raimi talked about how he wanted to get more experience as a Director by being on the other side of the camera to put himself in his actors shoes.

It was something that, to me at least, made perfect sense. What better way to understand what it was like to be an actor than to be an actor? I had done some acting for other peoples projects when I was young, simply because I was there and available and, most importantly... Free! Because of this, I knew that it would fairly easy for me to gain some more experience as an actor simply due to the fact that I work around other filmmakers all the time and as a result I ended up with, what I call, an 'Accidental Actors Resume' in order to gain more of an insight into what actors go through on set.
Here are the 3 things that I learned whilst acting in other peoples movies and how they helped me grow as a Director.

1. ACTING IS THE MOST FUN YOU CAN HAVE ON A FILM SET

My love has always been for Directing (or more accurately filmmaking), but that and most other production jobs come with a bucket load of stress. The one job that I always find breaks this rule is being an actor, now thats not to say it doesn't come with its own responsibilities, like Learning lines, hitting marks and, sometimes portraying extreme emotions, as well as it being physically taxing at times. All that aside though, its a good time, in reality you're playing pretend and its great fun to interact with other performers and if you get a really juicy role it can be the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off, unless thats required for the part of course.
On Legacy of Thorn, we had to grab some reshoots and inserts, our stunt performer wasn't available and I got to spend the evening running around as Thorn, due mainly to me being the only crew member there that was over 6ft. It was the most fun I had over the entire shoot, which was a fairly good experience to begin with, but it really was so good and cathartic just to run around dressed as a masked maniac for the afternoon. This really led to me not worrying about my actors when we were on set so much. Every so often I would get people who would complain, but for the most part actors are having a great time and so I learned just to let them get on with that. If people are happy and having a great time they'll give you a much better performance and create a much better atmosphere on set.

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2. HOW MUCH INFORMATION YOU GET INFLUENCES YOUR PERFORMANCE 

This seems fairly obvious, the more information you have about your character and how your director wants you to approach that character the better. This isn't always how it works out though. A few years ago I would cast an actor in a role and then begin to talk about things like character and watch their eyes go vacant, all they really wanted was to go home, pop the credit on their IMDB and move on to the next thing. Of course, I took this for a long while to mean that actors didn't really care about anything that wasn't laid out in black and white on the pages of the script. In actual fact, good actors DO care and if there isn't enough information available they fill in the blanks themselves.

A few years ago I worked on a short film called 'Liam Is...' as an actor, the director gave me a huge insight into my character, his life, his backstory his relationship to the other characters and we worked on how he would be portrayed. Up until this point, I had mostly walked onto a set, said lines and been killed or chased or attacked or whatever and then gone home, hoping I'd done a good job. With Liam Is... however all that information was amazing to have and for the 3 or 4 days I was on set, I found it amazingly easy to slip into that character whenever the cameras started rolling because I had a sense of his past as well as his presence and for the first time I really understood the discipline of being an actor.

Now I make the effort to talk about our characters in as much depth as possible, even the small ones in order to try and make them more rounded. Of course, I still often get the glazed over look from some performers, but for the ones who listen it makes all the difference.

3. YOU SHOULD BE AS LITTLE OF A PROBLEM AS POSSIBLE

This one works backwards from my other points, but being a director and producer on low budget stuff, I was fully aware of how much constant questioning can become a problem. Some actors want to know everything, or just want to create problems for you. From things like "I can't get there for the call time" after they cleared it with you 3 days ago to "I have to work today sorry" after you've covered everyone else's expenses and paid for locations and catering, and these are just a couple of the most common ones. Some actors just want to create more problems and that just adds pressure to the already impossible task of making a movie on next to nothing.

When someone asks me to play a role, I take this on board, fully aware of the stress that it causes myself and my producer Anna, and I work on making myself as flexible as possible. I read the script, learn my lines, check if I need to bring anything (Costume, food for specific dietary requirements), find out what time I need to be there and then apart from that, I simply make contact the day before to confirm the time. That's it. To my shock and amazement, I've found that filmmakers actually like it when people don't cause them extra problems.

I recently work on a short film called 'Night-Man 3' and the director Kieron Johnston contacted me about a week before shooting to ask if I would take a role in it, he'd had an actor drop out and I was fairly local. He was having problems getting in touch with his actors and I could sense that it was a little stressful for him. Of course, the last thing I wanted to do was add more stress to his plate. So I asked him when we were shooting, what I needed to bring and left it at that until the following week, when I checked in to make sure the times were still correct (things like that shift fairly often) and up until I arrived I got the feeling that no one was sure if I'd actually turn up as I had been so relaxed about the whole thing. If you knew me, you'd know I'm on the least relaxed people on earth, so if I didn't make it an issue its not that tough, trust me.

Once there, I also tried to make myself as useful as possible on set in between takes and that went a long way to making the day, way more fun and helped us get done quicker. Going that extra mile aways helps.

Overall its good to stand in someones shoes, it helps you understand them and their craft and as a filmmaker, standing in the actors spot helps you realise what its like to be them and what kind of information you need to be fed so you can apply that to your craft. Not only that, but acting is fun, at least until you have to watch it back and you realise you suck. 

MJ
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THE FILMMAKERS "WAPAH!" LOCATION CHECKLIST

5/27/2016

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So you've found the perfect place to shoot. It has the right aesthetic for your films tone and its functionality matches your script perfectly, but there are some things that you'll want to bear in mind before you start booking your cast and crew.

Once you've found your location, we talked about some ways to do that in a previous blog, you'll need to make sure that it suits your needs and that its a viable venue to set your movie. Not all locations are created equal and there are 5 things that you need to look at to make sure that where you want to shoot works for you. 

I created something called 'THE WAPAH!! CHECK LIST', which are 5 things that you should look at when you are scouting for places to ideally shoot your next film.

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LEGACY OF THORN (2014)

1. water

One of the first things I do is check that there is running water on location. Especially if you are going to spend any length of time there. It seems like something that wouldn't be that important, but if you don't have access to running water, trust me, you notice fast. This could just be a bathroom or kitchen and if you are shooting in a standard suburban house or commercial facility then, chances are, that they'll be water for bathrooms/washing/cleaning up/doing hair and makeup/special effects etc. 

However when you're out shooting in warehouses, old buildings and abandoned places (as well as out in nature) Water starts to become harder to come by. This is where you need to figure out how much water you need to bring yourself,  for people and for functionality. Drinking water should always be brought anyway (don't EVER let your cast and crew drink from taps in abandoned or old buildings), but you should be aware of how much you need and what you need it for.
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On Slasher House and Legacy of Thorn, we shot in old, non functioning government buildings. They had electricity and some running water (only cold), but there was no water flow to the showers in either case. This was a problem when most people returned from shooting each evening covered in dirt and sticky blood. Obviously before we got there we had to figure out a solution to that. Which brings us to...


2. amenities

Based on how much access and the type of access we have to water and facilities, I then look at the local amenities to figure out just how far we'll have to travel to do things like shower/use the bathroom/get refreshments. This should, again, give you a good idea of what you need to bring in terms of equipment, food, water and what you can have access to on the day. What shops are available locally? How far is it to get to them?

The distance between your set and your amenities can make a huge difference. If you're working with a small crew and suddenly someone you NEED has to take a 90 minute round trip to pick up food or take an actor to the bathroom or what have you then you are gonna see a lot of downtime when you're not shooting and this is when thing start to overrun and cause problems. Also, if you've every met an actor who can't shower for a couple of days, then you'll understand how important it is to find somewhere for them to wash regularly. 
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On Legacy of Thorn, the school we shot in (and lived in) for 14 days, had electricity and running cold water, but then water only ran in the admin building and not to the showers down in the sports block. We bought solar showers as it was the height of summer, but they were less than successful, luckily we had scoped out the leisure centre before hand, about 20 minutes down the road and told them what we were up to, they agreed to let us use their showers and we scheduled in time in the day for actors (and then crew) to go and get washed if they needed. 


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SLASHER HOUSE (2013)

3. power

Obviously if you are shooting a movie, you are probably gonna need power. Although not in all instances, which is why its actually 3rd on the list (that and it helps me spell WAPAH by being here). After checking our water supply and amenities I look to see how much power (if any we have). How many power points are there? Are the functional? Are they wired safely? How many extensions will we need to set up how many lights? This way I can plan exactly what I need to pack in terms of power/lights and if we need a generator or not.

If we're shooting outdoors, we use rechargeable led lights and scout with that in mind to try and find places with decent natural light already, If we're shooting in the day, this becomes less of an issue obviously and its entirely possible to shoot with natural light and some reflectors. If you're shooting in doors at night you'll probably need power. This is also useful for things like recharging gear, batteries, running footage off the camera and making cups of tea (The most important use of power on a British set). 
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On Slasher House 2, we needed to shoot in a graveyard, but getting power out there was a problem that we found impossible to solve. To try and regain control over lighting, we asked a lovely friend of ours who had helped us out on a previous film, if we could use there expansive garden to build a graveyard and run power from the house. The only problem is that they only had one outlet we could run power from, we thought it would be enough at a push and very quickly we started to find that we would lose power to the 3000 watts worth of lights we were running. This meant having to pause filming every 20 minutes of so in the pitch black on a -1 December evening. Make sure you have enough outlets to run your equipment properly.


4. access

What kind of access you have to your location is important and it will ultimately determine if the location is right for your shoot. Can you only get in to the location at certain times? Can you access it around the clock? Is it a 6 hour drive away from base camp? Is it near any civilisation at all? Can you drive to it or do you have walk on foot? There is a huge list of things that will make getting to a location a problem and you sometimes have to weight up if that location is worth using if its too difficult to get to.

You also want to be aware about how long you have at the location, if you need to work around a business then you will probably be shooting after hours, if you need nightfall then you'll have to check that you have access at night. Its worth checking if you can house your cast and crew there to. The easiest shoots i've had are the ones where we lived on set (or in the same complex) as there wasn't travel to worry about or driving back and forth from location every day. Plus it makes its easier for everyone to bond.
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On Slasher House 2, we had our main location around the clock, which was fine as we needed to shoot at night because of the locations huge factory windows, we just couldn't cover them. This was fine as we could get in anytime we wanted, The only stipulation was that if we didn't leave by 10 when the gates closed, then we had to stay until 5 in the morning when the gates opened. This led to either having to rush through what we were doing as soon as it got dark, or finishing in the small hours in the cold and then having wait to leave. It took us a while to try and swing the right balance, so its important to try and factor these things early on if you can.


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SLASHER HOUSE 2 (2017)

5. HEALTH & SAFETY

After I've checked all the above, I then do a huge sweeping check that I consider the MOST IMPORTANT one of all. Health and Safety. This really goes to looking at most of the previous things over all, Is the power safe? Is there enough water to clean wounds? (Real ones rather than sfx) Where is the nearest hospital? The nearest first aid kit? and then I look at what has to happen in the scenes and looks at where our actors will be and how to keep them out of as much danger as possible. Looking for things like loose flooring, nails, low hanging roofs, doors, wires anything that I think might be a hazard and just look at what I need to stay away from and what I can clean up or make safe again. 

Its most important of all to keep you cast and crew safe. If they are going to be crawling around of the floor then I'll make sure its swept and that any sharp objects are removed and just generally try and make it as comfortable as possible without ruining the aesthetic. If there are any stunts, I look at how we are going to do them safely and securely and wether we'll need mats or not. A lot of it is really just common sense, like "don't touch that live wire", "Don't hold that 1000 watt light with your hands" or "don't kick this pile of asbestos boards thinking they are plaster" (That one was me on my first shoot). 
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Also and this is a BIG ONE : Make sure you have Insurance, even if you are just making a little no budget movie, make sure that have insurance that covers you in case of any accidents to your actors and the public, you'll save yourself a load of problems should the worst happen. In all honesty there have been very few accidents on our sets, Thats probably down to a mixture of luck and planning, things do just happen, especially when people are in the heat of the moment during a performance and all you can do is do your best to try and account for what could go wrong. Just be careful and ask your actors and crew to do the same, but try and stay safe.


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NIGHT SHOOTING : FILMING ON LOCATION AT NIGHT

5/24/2016

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Shooting at night is probably one of the toughest things you can attempt as a low budget filmmaker. This is because, no matter what you are shooting on, your camera needs a decent amount of light to capture a good quality image. Shooting at night reduces your light sources drastically. If you are shooting in urban areas, if you are shooting in the woods, the middle of country side or even somewhere that isn't usually accessed after dark it becomes even trickier business to get that light onto your cameras sensor.

One work around is to shoot 'Day for Night', which involves shooting the scene in sunlight (works best shooting on  cloudy/overcast day) and then grading in post to make the image look a little like twilight. I tried this early on when I started making films and really hated the results, I've always found it better to shoot in darkness and bring in whatever light I can. The result is always a far better image.

Having a budget usually solves this problem by hiring huge spotlights and generators to help make up for the lack of good light, but this is expensive and something that is usually saved for large budget productions. If you, like us, are usually make stuff on spit and buttons, then you'll need to come up with more creative solutions to work around your lack of light.

Here are 3 tips to help you get the most out of shooting at night and how to take that into account when you are looking for your location.

1. pick your location wisely

The easiest way you can start to combat shooting at night is by picking your location wisely. A few years ago, when we were working on preproduction for Creepsville, I would wonder around at night looking for the best lit streets, alleys, carparks, you name it and once there I would look at how much light is already there from street lamps, security lights. Then I would look at what other extraneous light sources there were like shops signs, obviously the more light the better. This means less light I have to bring along with me, which in turns means less disturbing people and less drawing attention to yourself.
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On Legacy of Thorn, when it came time to shoot the infamous 'bridge scene', I spent months looking for a bridge that we could shoot on without being disturbed that would also give us enough light to cover the action. The first one we tried, we scoped during the day, took note that it had street lights above it and figured it would give us enough light. On returning in the evening, not only did we find that most of the street lights were broken, but it was also a well known hangout for crackheads who made themselves a problem very quickly.

We eventually found something closer to home that fit perfectly and although it had some street lighting, we still had to make up the difference with our own portable flood lights.
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Legacy of Thorn (2014) aka Thorn
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2. portable led lights

Chances are, if you are out shooting in the woods, on the street or in an abandoned factory at night, you're not going to have access to power. This always something I try to avoid, simply to make life easier for us and give us more freedom in lighting. However, if its not possible, we bring out the portable, rechargeable LED'S. These are bright flood lights that charge on the mains and give around 3 Hours + of continuous use and weigh next to nothing. They are fairly harsh, but used correctly (with gels or diffusion) are a great way to light dim sets when there is no good natural light. They cost around £45 each when I bought them in 2013, there are now better cheaper options out there too.

On shooting Cleaver : Rise of The Killer Clown, we were shooting a scene in a car, in the middle of the night, in a residential area. The last thing we wanted to do was pull a generator out there, or we certainly want to run cables across the road. The street lamps gave us some coverage, but nowhere near enough once our actress was in the vehicle. In stead we matched the street light colour on LED's with gels and just used whoever was free as light stands. It matched the natural light, but it gave us the extra light we needed to make the scene more visible.
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These lights are great in place of having to drag a noisy generator down and even then it takes an expensive generator to run even our low wattage work lights, never mind our red heads or spotlights. Using these also means that should we need to, we can use a smaller generator to run other low power things like charging stations and smoke machines.

P.S. Before I could afford my own portable LED'S I made some for about £5/$7 each, find out how HERE.
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CLEAVER : RISE OF THE KILLER CLOWN (2016)

3. fast lenses

One the best weapons to combat low light situations is using a fast lens on your camera. This is something that wasn't even really a choice when I started out filmmaking, if your camera's fixed lens sucked in low light (which they all did) then that was that. Now even the most inexpensive DSLR'S can capture great low light images with the right lens attached,  If you're shooting on an interchange lens system camera, you should try and have at least one fast lens that opens to at least f/1.8. This will help you get more light into your camera and make picking up a usable image just that little bit easier. Its best not rely on this, but it can give you that extra boost once you've done the above. There are also cameras like the Sony A7S/A7S2/A6300 that can shoot in incredibly low light with out damaging your image, but I still advise taking location and lighting into account even with miracle cameras like that available.

When shooting the infamous 'Bridge Scene' on Legacy of Thorn, even with choosing the best location for light and having the portables there, I still ended up shooting almost every shot on my Canon 50mm f/1.8 to get a better image. The downside of this is that the depth of the image was very shallow, but the upside was that I got a better image and because we were shooting in a wide open space it meant that the close focal length didn't impact what I wanted to get too much.

These days if we're shooting outdoors I try to plan my shots around the widest opening lenses that I have. Its not always possible, but its worth thinking about.
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SLASHER HOUSE 2 (2017)
MJ

IF YOU FIND THIS BLOG USEFUL. PLEASE SHARE. You can keep up to date with our filming goings on at our FACEBOOK PAGE :)
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FINDING LOCATIONS : 3 Easy Ways to Find Your Next Film Set

5/10/2016

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As we've talked about before, finding the right location can make or break your movie. Shooting your film in the right place adds so much production in terms of style, look and value that to over look it is setting yourself off on the wrong foot.

In big budget movies, it not uncommon for sets to be built on a sound stage wherever possible, this is usually due to the amount of control the creative team needs over the set, i.e being able to remove walls, lighting, shooting around the clock. If you're shooting on a budget its unlikely (although not impossible) that you can build your 'Church Interior' or 'Canadian wilderness' from scratch as a set on a sound stage. This usually means that you have to find something the preexists in the world.

This is both a blessing and a curse. Finding a pre-existing location means that you have less control over things like weather, power, access, angles, food establishments and the list varies drastically from place to place, meaning a lot of prep and compromise most of the time. The upside however, is that you get something real, something that you can't build, something raw and lived in and that is really what adds the value to your films.

FINDING YOUR LOCATION

Following are 3 ways of sourcing locations when you are working on a limited budget, These 'suggestions' are by no means the best , or the only, ways of finding the right location for your film, but hopefully they'll help you think creatively about what you need and help you look at where you shoot in more productive way.

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1. unique circumstances

Finding locations can be tough going. Especially if you need anything outside of student flat or family home, things start getting difficult pretty quickly. This is when you need to employ some of your unique circumstances to finding what you need. By 'Unique Circumstances' I mean this, Everyone has access to something unique that no body else has access to, in terms of locations.

This is basically looking at what you have access to personally. Can you make a film out that creepy looking shack your dad built at the bottom on the garden? Does your Aunt work at a High School after hours? Does your mate have the keys to the warehouse on a weekend? All these are great starting points to finding a great location to shoot in that isn't 'Mark's Studio Apartment' and also a brilliant way of getting the creative juices flowing. There a few things than coming up with a  scene or even an entire film based around an amazing location. 

I always 'try' to write locations based on something I know we have or can get access too, even if that means taking a pause from writing for a moment and throwing it out there to people I know with a "Does anyone have access to..." and usually I receive a "No, But I have access to...", sometimes this will dictate where the film is set and sometimes the direction a film will go.  You have to be creative and compromise when it comes to low budget filmmaking. 

For Example, I originally wrote Slasher House to take place in an old run down mansion, when we were offered an abandoned prison, it was too good to pass up and we adapted and it worked out for the better, both visually and thematically. It also meant we had to adapt one scene to be set in a 'Gallows' which was a pretty awesome, if not terrifying, experience and also added another dimension to the film

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2. your network

After you've spent your first couple of movies exhausting and exhausted your family and friends locations, you should have begun to develop a 'network' of people to work with, to show your work to and who also make movies. This is your community and these are the people you can turn to for help. 

Other filmmakers are a great conduit for resources, this is because, just like you, they spend their time making movies and, believe or not, have come up against most the same problems you have when it comes to getting locations and come out the other side. Its a great way to to find creative solutions to problems, by talking to people who have already solved those problems and getting their advice.

The biggest advantage of this, is that it gives you a new perspective and helps you think outside the box. One of the biggest mistakes I see people making in terms of locations is that they need something so they look for "INSERT LOCATION HERE" and that alone, when one of the key ways to solve the problem is finding something that can do the same job, but provides earlier access. Other filmmakers will have been through this and will be able to help advise you and what can substitute your needed set. 

What I mean is, for example, on Legacy of Thorn we needed a hospital, but getting one that looked operational was tougher than we could have imagined. Instead we found a section of our old college that looked very similar to a hospital corridor (along with first aid room) and dressed it up to stand in for it. Throwing in some posters, a couple of extras in long white coats and nurses uniforms and we had a what we wanted but without the red tape of shooting a real hospital. 

Sometimes its worth talking to other filmmakers about how they made it appear that they shot in a location.

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3. just ask

Possibly the simplest approach to finding the right location is to find the location you are after and just ask. It seems like there might be more to it, but its really as easy as that. Sometimes if we need a specific location we just find the place we want and then ask. Sometimes we're successful and sometimes not, but no one has ever done anything worse than say 'No'. Usually people just want you to cover electric or a small charge to use it, sometimes they might even just let you have it for free as long as it doesn't conflict with business hours etc.

The real issue with this approach is that it can become a numbers game and thats a lot of ground work, but if you're willing to put that work in, you'll almost certainly find the location that you're after. Just find the type of location you're looking for and make a list of suitable candidates, from here your kind of politely cold calling and explaining your project and what you want to do. Some people won't care, some will be interested, but won't be able to help you and you'll come across those who will do whatever they can to accommodate what you're doing. Its pretty much that simple.

For Slasher House 2, we needed a government facility (or something that could pass for one). We actually live in the town that has the government facility that solved the Enigma Code (now a tourist attraction), but they were a flat out 'NO' out of the gate. We decided that we would have to found something that could work instead of and figured a 'Lazer Quest' could work. We emailed every Lazer Quest in a 100 miles radius and out of 25 we got a response from 2, we met with one. It didn't work out due to the times we needed, but we had the location should we want it. 

We eventually went in a different direction that worked out better for us, but I'll talk about that in a future blog. 

I should point out, that its important to be honest and up front here, telling them you're shooting a family drama when really you're shooting a gore soaked torture porn is counter productive when you turn up on the day and start spraying the place down with food colouring and syrup and if they think they've been fooled, chances of them signing a release form are slim and even if they do and then find out they've been lied to they'll just flat out refuse the next filmmaker that come knocking and its your job to make sure that you pave the way for whoever comes next. 

Just like any aspect of filmmaking, employing creative thinking is your friend and if you think about what you need in front of the camera creatively you might even surprise yourself in what you come up with what you think of outside the box or sometimes its as simple as just asking. 

MJ

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HOW TO COME UP WITH IDEAS FOR MOVIES

1/6/2014

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READ THIS : Before we go any further, Please bare in mind this is simply my approach and everyone has thier own way of going about this. This is personal to me, but as with anything in creative industries the trick comes being able to apply it back to yourself and your own approach. Also some of this may seem obvious to some of you, If so, good on you, you are more advanced than step one of filmmaking. Still its always nice to have a refresher. 

I think its safe to say that if you want to make movies, you first of all have to have an idea of the movie you want to make. (This is not exclusive however, as I have seen films that have been finished and they still don't really know what they were about). That aside the key to successful film is a GOOD idea. 

Good ideas are completely subjective of course, as everyone has an opinion. What tickles someones one metaphorical film boat won't necessarily grab someone else by the scrotum of cinema, All that matters is that you believe in your idea enough to bring it to fruition.

So people often ask how I come up with ideas for films, and to be honest it has and will continue to happen in a variety of different ways. Here are some of the most common.
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1. COME UP WITH SOMETHING CONVENIENT

One of the best ways to come up with ideas for movies in look at what you have available. Creepsville was born of a title, but its substance was based on stuff we knew we had access to. I often joke that If you look out the back window of my old university building from the top floor you can see every location that we used in the film. That is absolutely true.

Even whilst casting we held an open auditions and had people come down and do their own prepared thing and adapted the script for the people we liked. We worked with what we knew we had and it really limited the amount of things that could go wrong*, because we knew our locations and props etc very well before we even started.

*Loads of stuff still went wrong. 
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2. COME UP WITH A CHARACTER
Sometimes I look around at characters I've designed, which is quite common as I do a fair amount of graphic design and comic book work. Every so often I look through these sketches and doodles and scribblings and find a character that grabs my attention. Usually something I've sketch from subconsuiness or boredom and I start to give them a story and then sometimes, that story becomes a movie, or at very least the idea for one.

Thorn and the feature Legacy Of Thorn came from using this approach. I had been sketching the skull faced brute for about a decade before I finally decided to try and flesh out a back story for him in 2007. Eventually I fleshed it out a bit more for Slasher House and then even more for his solo movie Legacy. The approach all came from designing a character and then telling his story.

Slasher House was born from creating Red, I knew I wanted to create a very specific kind of character that could exist in a world of Slasher Villains. I knew I wanted to do something interesting with the 'Final girl' archetype that appears in that kind of movie, after that It was coming up with a scenario to place her in. That scenario became Slasher House.
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3. COME UP WITH A TITLE
This is quite common for me, I have an idea for a title, then I sit down and brainstorm what that film would be about. Creepsville started out as a title, then I sat down with another writer and came up with the story that I felt fit the title and tone that I wanted the film to have. 'Blood On Santa's Claws' was the same, an idea for a title that then left me with the difficult task of figuring out what that movie would be about.

Its not an uncommon approach and I find that this is a great approach to forcing yourself to be creative, by limiting what you allow yourself to input, to a degree it allows you to be more creative with the small amount of information that you've given yourself. This is by far my favourite foundation to start with. I also sometime give myself extra limits or things that I force myself to include to spark my creativity just that little bit more. 

My favourite title I ever came up with was a movie we have in pre production currently which was I'VE GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO TONIGHT THAN DIE (A line spoken in the Animated Transformers movie). That sent my brain crazy and within a few days I had an immensely complex plot for an extremely unique rape/revenge movie.
BONUS ROUND :
STUMBLE ACROSS THAT LUCK SYRUM FROM RED DWARF
I wanted to limit it to the 3 most common ways that I come with and begin to develop ideas. However, there is one other that I think is fair to mention.

On a clear night, when the moon is at its largest size, and the stars move into alignment with Jupiter and Uranus (lol) you may, from absolutely nowhere, come up with an idea so radical and fully formed that it will surprise even you. It will be instantly ready to go down on paper and you will for a brief moment trick yourself into the belief that you may actually be a screenwriting genius. 

Don't worry this attack of ego will only last till you begin work on your next script and realise that you somehow managed to fluke an amazing story from thin air. Its rare as a Pie at a Sumo Wrestling contest, but it does happen.

I have come across this amazing occurance only once in my life in which the film simply fell from my brain onto paper, but that is is a story for another time. Its safe to say that the first 3 approaches work great and if you get stuck, just rip off some blockbuster thats coming out next year its works for our friends at the Asylum. You can check out thier latest release 'Android Cop' at http://the asylum.cc (I'm joking btw).


Coming up with ideas is the most exciting part of filmmaking for me. It's the part when you are at your most creative, but it's also the easy part. Bringing them into fully formed stories is something else and turning them into fully fledged scripts is another all together. But we'll talk about that next time.

MJ

IF YOU FIND THIS BLOG USEFUL. PLEASE SHARE. You can keep up to date with our filming goings on at our FACEBOOK PAGE :)
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PRE-PRODUCTION IN 2 EASY STEPS

8/24/2012

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Ok so Down to business I guess. It's hard for me to think of anything but sound design at this moment in time as that all I've been doing for the last month for my second feature Slasher House. But I figured it makes very little sense to jump to something about post so early on, So I used the last few days to reflect on what I was mixing sound for and realized that probably the first thing anyone want to know about how I make movies is how I start out, Here I'm going to break down Pre-Production into 2 very easy steps.

Once you have a script or story (I know there are some people who just like to make these things up on the spot) then there are two steps you need to take in order to be ready to film.

1. GET HOLD OF EVERYTHING YOU NEED BEHIND THE CAMERA.

2. GET HOLD OF  EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA.


Thats it.
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Honestly thats all you need to do. Obviously there is a little more to it than that, But I find that looking at it like this makes what is quite a huge task, feel smaller and much more manageable.

Now at this point you should have a list of

1. People who need to be in front of the camera (actors)
2. Items that these people need to interact with (Props)
3. A place for these Items and people to be placed in (Location)

Then you should look at getting a couple of people behind the camera

1. Someone to Shoot it for you (You)
2. Someone to Direct the shoot (You)
3. Someone to Record sound (Sound guy)
4. Someone to help out (Sound guy)

I always tend to have a couple of people (P.A's) running around, but even then these are usually made up of people who don't have a job or anything better to do or my close friends and more often than not my girlfriend.

It's quite simple when you start looking at it like this and it makes the daunting task that is pre production a lot easier, just make a list of things you need and get it together.

Trust me, enjoy pre production, because quite honestly on a no budget production, Pre Production is the last chance you'll have to enjoy making your film until you're finished in the editing suite.

I know I've skimmed over a lot here, but it's good to figure out your own way of doing each thing, Of course I'll go into every step here in more detail of the coming weeks.

But so far this approach has worked on 3 short films, 2 features (albeit with a couple more specific crew) and countless music videos.

Of course it's hard, it's a challenge, but lets be honest, if you don't like challenge's, The last thing you want be doing is making no budget movies.

MJ
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    Author

    MJ DIXON is Writer of "Cult Classic" Titles such as SLASHER HOUSE, HOLLOWER, CLEAVER : KILLER CLOWN and MASK OF THORN. 

    He resides in the South of England leaping from life to life and hoping that his next leap will be the leap home. 

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