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Director of moving picture entertainment pieces.

My blog

The Idea

Sunday, Jan 11, 2009 1:01AM / Standard Entry

Hi Everyone,

People have been asking me to do another blog (they know who they are) so here it is.

I thought I would write about where I got the idea for the film and what kind of a film I set out to make.

I remember specifically when I got the idea for the story. I had just come out of the cinema after watching Mission Impossible 3. I thought the film was ok but the famous shot in the film of the explosion blowing Tom Cruise into the car really caught my attention.

I remember thinking that it was a really cool moment and I wondered how I could ever find myself in that kind of situation. Since I'm not a secret agent or even a cop its unlikely criminal masterminds would ever try to blow me up.

I was in my hometown of Dublin at the time and the idea of the shot merged with an idea of having to run through the city while be chased. The idea suddenly struck me that the only thing in my life I would fight life and limb for was my girlfriend who I had been seeing for a few months at the time.

At the time I was a big fan of the film 'Shaun of the Dead'. What I liked the most about the film was how it manged to be both a 'send up' of zombie movies and a genuine zombie movie at the same time. I really loved how they put characters you wouldn't normally see in those kind of movies in it and gave them the chance to turn into action heroes.

I had all my influences in place and I knew I specifically didn't want there to be a standard 'action' plot (drug deal, terrorist attack etc.) and wanted the motivations for the action be completely personal between the main characters. With this in mind I hit on the idea of the villain and good guy being in love with the same girl and the plot of the film came very quickly after that.

I hope to have the chance to do a feature length version of the film some day as I feel very close to the story as a lot of the feeling in it is very personal to me. The short version I am currently editing (its going well thanks for asking) is what you would call a distillation of the idea. Due to the time restraints of a short film some aspects of the story are very different to my original ideas. I am very happy with the film as I am editing it and in making it I feel I have learned a lot about the characters and the tone of the story I want to achieve.
Ultimately I hope that people can identify with the characters in the film and that there is something for everyone in the film (romance for the girls and action for the boys!).

I will be doing further blogs about the film in the near future as soon as I have an edit of the film I am happy with.

In the meantime there is now a website for the film, although there is nothing of much interest on it at the moment. I am currently planning on having the finished film available for download from the site (yes for free) but I can't be certain at the moment so I will keep you posted.

http://www.somebodytolovemovie.com/

All the best,
Seamus

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Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 4:23PM / Standard Entry

I thought I'd add an entry to wish anyone who drops by a Merry Christmas. A particular shout out to my crew for 'Somebody to Love' who made this year so memorable. Thanks also to anyone and everyone who signed up as a fan of mine on AnD, I can't thank you enough and I'll try to live up to your kindness.

Anyways in the spirit of the season I thought I'd share some of my favorite Christmas songs with you, courtesy of youtube.

This is the most popular Christmas song in my home country (Ireland). I'm not sure how known it is outside of Ireland/UK but its sung by an Irish group called The Pogues with guest vocals by a woman named Kirsty McColl (now sadly deceased) its called Fairytale of New York. My mother always says she feels like its Christmas when she hears this song for the first time.

Video: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff3aoSyYOVs

This next one is my favorite 'happy' Christmas song, though its a close run thing. Its by Roy Wood and Wizzard.

Video: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=VvjWrdt4jlY

This next one is my Dads favorite Christmas song. He's recovering from having his appendix removed so this is dedicated to him (not that he reads this or anything)

Video: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=EOe18JcatZo

Thats it for now. To anyone reading I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

All the best,
Seamus

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Other stuff

Friday, Dec 19, 2008 11:06AM / Standard Entry

After my last rather dry (read boring) entry, I thought I'd put up a video of something I did as a younger man.

This video is the final fight sequence from a short film I did called 'Scangers In Red' if you don't know what a' Scanger' is, its the name given to a specific kind of person in Ireland. The equivalent would be 'chavs' in England and the nearest relation elsewhere would be 'white trash' in America. I've yet to see any equivalent in Asia.....

Don't worry if the title still mystifies you, it's not meant to make any sense.

For this fight I did all the choreography and the fighters were various friends of mine. The only guy who had any martial arts experience is the guy in the priest outfit. Keep in mind that this was made for no money (and I mean no money) and its SUPPOSED to be funny (I swear). The clip has some bad language, comedy violence and ham acting of the worst kind (thats me in the grey top)

Now without further ado:

Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2313754261304185762

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RED Camera

Wednesday, Dec 17, 2008 12:21PM / Standard Entry

Hello again,

Been a while since I wrote so thought I'd check in. I've decided not to go into too much detail with regards to what happened on the shoot until I've at least got a good rough cut of the film done. This is so I'll have a chance to go over ALL the footage so I can better jog my memory and try to figure out what happened between my initial plans for shots etc and how things actually turned out while filming. I expect this will be quite a useful thing for me to do as a learning experience and perhaps it will be interesting for anyone planning to direct themselves.

In the meantime I've decided to write about things that seem to be a point of interest to people about the film as they are the questions I get asked most frequently.

My first blog along these lines is about the new RED camera that a lot of people seem very interested in. I'm afraid if you want to know things like: what's the difference between the Luma Histogram and the Mono Histogram? etc these kinds of questions will not be answered here. This is just a general outline for people who want to know what its like to shoot on RED not having done so before which is the position I found myself in.

Enjoy!

For those who don't know the RED camera is a (fairly) new digital camera that has created a lot of buzz in the film industry. I won't go into too much technical detail but it has around 4 times the resolution of most other digital cameras and so its resolution is equivalent to that of film.

I used it for my film and was fortunate that Henry Chung my DP already has a great deal of experience with this camera. I used it because I figured I would have to spend a lot of money on the film anyway so why not go for the best format possible? The RED camera wasn't my first choice when I initially had the idea for the project but more on that in a later blog.

There is a lot of talk about cameras like the RED replacing film in the next few years. Having worked with the RED I find this quite likely. The camera records the footage onto a hard drive or cards depending on your preference so there is no processing costs like there are with film. The quality of the image you get from RED is generally on a par with film. You can shoot slow motion on the camera ( you lose resolution but can shoot up to 120fps) which was previously a sticking point with Hi-definition formats and if you go to their website you can see they are planning on releasing even better cameras in the next few years. Couple this with the fact that most of the viewing public (often myself included) can't tell the difference between the two formats and indeed rightly don't care as long as the film itself is good and you can see why the RED or another digital format a very attractive proposition for both artists and especially the money men involved in productions.

I personally still prefer the 'look' of film. I should maybe clarify and say I think that film, if exposed and framed properly, still yields a better look than the RED or any other digital format can offer at the moment. I would have shot this film on 35mm but it would have been impossible to afford the lab and transfer costs. The RED camera gives a very 'clean' image which can take away the mystique of the film somewhat. My favourite looking films, John Woo's The Killer for instance, has a dreamy otherworldly quality to the point that you find it hard to imagine that they filmed it at all, it just magically appeared on the negative! This is merely a personal preference and I can say that the footage we shot outdoors and in one interior location in particular the footage looks practically indistinguishable from what we could have achieved with film. There is one scene in the film where I am a little disappointed with the results and it has quite a 'video' look. Its unfair of me to criticise it too much as the footage is ungraded at the moment and this may solve the issue. I will blog later and let you know if it does/doesn't.

The camera is good for artists as it gives the aforementioned great results combined with the speed of shooting on a digital format as opposed to film. I have only worked with film on student sets which naturally tend to be slow anyway but I can say that I cannot imagine us finishing the film on schedule and with good results if we had shot on film. The RED is very light and agile (it was still to heavy for me to operate for more than 4 takes but Henry seems used to it) and obviously there is no need to change magazines. The biggest flaw I could see with it was that the battery gives out with only a 30 second warning. This cost us a take one time and did hold us up once or twice. Since I can't remember details of any of the other times it can't have held us up too much. Be aware though that it does take a while to warm up after you re-insert the battery.

With regards to post-production I heard a lot of stories. One professional DP even told me I would need a technician to transfer the footage onto my laptop! If you go to RED's website and follow the link to reduser.net you will find lots of people with varying opinions on post production. I am not a technically gifted person so I will explain it as best I can. Be aware I am only detailing MY post production experience which is still ongoing (halfway through a rough cut since you ask) so I will not detail each and every way to do it.
First off, transferring the footage to my laptop (Macbook pro, 4G memory, 2.6 Ghz processor, 7200rpm). After my expectations of needing a tecnician to help Henry took the hard drive off the camera plugged it into my laptop (firewire 800 lead) and transferred it like it was a normal external hard drive. Thats it, it is that simple.
With regards to editing there are a number of ways to do this. You need to download programs from RED (they're free) to make the footage compatible with Final Cut Pro (as I understand you can now edit using Adobe as well). Having done this I decided to edit by transcoding to pro res 422 HQ. To the layperson (me) this basically means I am editing using very high quality files. Personally I have found this to be no more time consuming than editing using smaller files like I did for the trailer. The transcoding can be done by Final Cut itself and is quite easy to do as the plug in program needed to do it comes with an easy to follow guide (again all these plug-ins/programs are available free at the RED cam website).

I'm afraid I can't go into outputting yet bacause I haven't gotten that far! I will blog about it as soon as I do, but at the moment I can only speculate.

In general I am very very pleased with the quality of the RED camera. It was far from the technical nightmare many people promised. Personally I think if someone warns you off the RED it is because thay don't know much about it. It is a very new concept in many ways even in relation to other digital cameras and I think there is even an element of fear in some peoples attitudes. All I can say is get yourself a good DP and listen to their advice. Henry knew about the RED cameras capabilities, if I had a question he would answer it and the production while no walk in the park, was as free from technical problems as any I've been on.

If you have any specific questions about the RED feel free to leave a question in my guestbook and I will try to answer (please keep in mind my previously mentioned lack of technical expertise). I am still editing, so it may take a while to get back so please be patient.

Besides that, the edits coming along nicely and to anyone of a skeptical mindset out there I recently became aware of an awesome new website www.skeptoid.com Its basically a podcast by a guy who takes pop cultural myths, researches them with a critical eye and then draws conclusions from that. His subjects are genuinely interesting and he always presents them in an entertaining manner.

All the best,
Seamus

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The Trailer.

Tuesday, Dec 9, 2008 10:32PM / Standard Entry

Hi everyone,

Just checking in to say thank you to everyone who has voiced their support for the trailer. It was a lot of work but it was worth it for the nice reactions people have been voicing.

Just an update on where the trailer has been finding its way to and as a thank you to people who have been hosting it.

A big thank you to Philip Ng, Radwynn and Jayson Li who had it up from the get go. And to Mike Leeder for spreading the word.

The trailer is also on the Twitch website with a very nice piece written by a guy named Todd Brown.

http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/philip-ng-needs-somebody-to-love/

Todd's a real nice guy and the website is a great read if your film taste is anything like mine.

My main man Lucas Griego (production designer on the film) has kindly put it up on Vimeo

http://www.vimeo.com/2461609

Lucas is 100% right on his page too. We had a kick ass crew on it who made a lot of it possible.

A few people have been asking about when the film will be finished and how it will be available.

I hope to have the film finished completely by the end of January of next year. The film will be approximately 25 mins long. Barring film festivals which I will be approaching with the film and any unforseen circumstances the film will not have cinema release. However I will post any details of festival screening times etc so if you'll be in the neighborhood please come on down.

I will be making the film available over the internet in some fashion possibly as a streaming video or maybe even as a hi-definition download but I cannot say for sure now. If all you Philip fans would like a copy of the film when it is finished keep in touch and I will sort it out.

In closing (and to pimp myself and Philip shamelessly) here is a (very poor) scanning of a newspaper article about me, Philip and the film. All you Cantonese readers can make out exactly what it says but all I can say is that they obviously photoshopped me something fierce as I had medical histories worst case of sunburn that day.

Hope you all enjoy. Forgive the shamelessness but like my tag says I wanna make movies! If you like the trailer spread the word and hopefully I can get Philip kicking ass on the big screen some day soon!

Seamus

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