So what exactly are we up to and the moment? What kind of crazy nut-case film are we trying to bring to life? Well, a quite a big one actually. At the end of last year we were worked on a documentary called “Superb Menura”. It was a major step up from our previous 16mm short, “Happy Sundaes”. And whilst we were busy filming doco footage, and getting surround sound recordings at absolutely crazy hours of the night, we were always plotting and planning for what we would do this year.

One thing that I’ve always wanted to do, ever since working on the BBC Kids show “Tweenies“, is create a movie about a bunch of kids show characters that are actually aliens. And so we started work on “TV Tubsters” – a full length feature film concept. However, due to the fact that our doco took over our lives for a lengthy period of time, the first story outline wasn’t completed until the start of November. It was also hopeless and massively incomplete. Then throughout November and December we continued, as a team to build upon the general outline. It grew and evolved. Characters were introduced, and then destroyed. Plot outlines grew in size. What started out as a 1000 word outline became a 2000 word outline, and then 4000 word outline. Ideas were accepted, and rejected. Christmas and New Years came and went. Then in the new year, despite our better judgement, we decided to stop trying to develop the story as a team, and sent Isaac to work solo on a first draft of the script. While he went absolutely crazy writing like a mad man, the rest of the time started organising all the pre-production elements – despite the fact that we didn’t have a completed script. After a few weeks or writing it became very clear that we were never going to pull off a feature film script in the time that we had. As heart breaking as this reality was, we decided to press on writing the script, and actually produce a teaser/trailer this year to use as a promotional tool to get the funding required to get the feature film script off the ground the following year. Everything continued along slowly but smoothly. The script grew in size and complexity.

And then Anli, Isaac and myself went to Hong Kong for the International Film Festival. We all had an amazing time – saw lots of great films, and also got to see all the sights and sounds. But when we came back, after some quite intensive script sessions, we came to the conclusion that we were in the world of shit. Because Isaac was writing solo, the idea was morphing, re-shaping and changing – which is fine, as it was definitely turning into a really fantastic script – however, Anli and myself just weren’t involved enough. We didn’t really know the characters on the page – nor could we relate to a lot of events that were taking place. This normally wouldn’t be a problem, as the writer could have continued to do his or her thing, and after a few rewrites, the director could then bring the script to life in their own special way. But because we’re really building this film “as a team” from scratch, everyone needed to be across everything.

We learnt a valuable lesson – in our case, we needed to do everything as a team to achieve the best results in the given timetable. Sure, if we had years to write the script that Isaac could have taken the first pass, then we could discuss it, make changes, move on to the next draft and continue along like that. We also made the fatal mistake of tackling the first draft without a clear plan of attack. We had a beginning and a middle, but no end. I don’t think you should start writing a draft without any idea of what direction you want the film to go.

So, despite having written thousands and thousands of words already, we made the tough decision to go back to the start, and revisit the story from line one. It was tough. We spent several weeks going back to basics and seriously reviewing all our decisions. What’s the story about? Who’s story is it? We started re-reading scriptwriting books, and re-visiting fantastic movies from the past. We spent a lot of time locked in confined spaces, forced to just put pen to paper and come up with something of value. Slowly but surely, things started falling into place.

Now it’s time to step into the present. Where are we up to now? What’s going on? Well, the good news is that we have a completed story outline – it has a very well defined beginning, middle and end. The characters have been completely built from the ground up, and we basically know everything there is to know about them. We’ve started work on the teaser/trailer script (based on the story outline) and everything is heading in the right direction. Costume design is under way, and next week we start meeting up with our Director of Photography, and other key crew members to start working out how exactly we’re going to pull this off.

This really isn’t the right way to make a movie. You shouldn’t really “force” a script out of people – although it seemed to work. Ideally, we would have loved to have spent two of three years developing the feature film script, spent all of last year getting funding, and then actually made the feature film this year. But that just didn’t happen. So the plan is, to create the basis for a feature film concept NOW, produce and shoot a teaser/trailer this year (to mainly use as a promotional tool), and at the same time start writing the 1st draft of the full length feature film so that it’s ready for a re-write later in the year. The aim is to have a completed teaser/trailer, as well as a feature film script, promotional website, and extensive marketing tools all in operation by the end of the year. Can we pull this off? Only time will tell…

But by far the most frequent question we get asked, is why are we “jumping the queue” and working on a feature film now? Seeing as we’re studying 3rd year university – why not just produce an amazing short film? If it’s really good then we’ll get into all kind of fantastic International festivals, and who knows were we’ll end up… Well, that all very well and good, and sure it works for some people, but we don’t want to head down that route. Why make shorts when you can make a feature? We’ve very much of the opinion that if you want to do something, then just get out there and do it. I’m personally a huge fan of Peter Jackson – despite all the limitations, he just pushed every boundary and made amazing films. Sure, he made a hell of a lot of short films before he started work on the bigger features – but so have we. Although Happy Sundaes is the first narrative film under the latenite banner, individually, we’ve all worked on well over one hundred short films, video clips, television commercials, low-budget/independent and professional feature films, etc.

Don’t take me the wrong way, we haven’t learnt everything – and we’re by no means experts when it comes to film making. But, we think, for better or for worse, we’re ready for the next step. It’s time to make a feature film! Unfortunately it’s going to take a bit longer than we originally hoped (as we’re making the teaser/trailer before the full length feature this time round), but that’s all part of the fun.

So that’s the current situation! It hasn’t been an easy ride so far. Ignoring all the script/story problems, we’ve also had many other unavoidable set backs: marriage break-ups, couples break-ups, team member partings, sickness, car crashes… the list goes on. But we’re all alive (although you probably wouldn’t think it by looking), and feeling great about the project thus far! It’s not going to be easy – but that should at least mean that this blog will be half interesting…

As Chris Jones always says, Onward & Upward !

Chris!

Aren’t there already enough blogs on the web? I’m mean seriously, if you type the word “blog” into Google, you get well over two BILLION results. Why on earth would we want to start another one? There’s already thousands of film making blogs scattered around the place… So what’s the deal?

Well firstly, I must say that I’m a huge fan of them. Take for example HD For Indies. Written by Mike Curtis, a film post production and workflow guru, this site dedicated to providing independent film-makers with all the latest information on affordable digital technology. He’s now moving a lot of his new content over to the ProVideo Coalition – a fantastic new site which brings together the industry’s best writers, bloggers and video gurus under one website. Because technology changes so rapidly, and new products hit the market quicker than ever before, site’s like Mike’s help keep you in the loop. And because it’s written from his point of view – not just a whole heap of marketing crap – it helps answer a lot of questions and also helps make you question the way you think about new technology.

And then there’s blog like Stu Maschwitz’s, ProLost. Writer of one of my all time favourite tech books, The DV Rebel’s Guide. co-founder of The Orphanage (one of the best visual effects and production companies in the world), ex-employee of George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), creator of the award-winning Magic Bullet software and overall nice guy – Stu’s blog is jam packed with technical wonders. If you’re into After Effects, then you really have to take a walk around through his blog.

But my favourite blog at the moment has got to be Chris Jones’. Founder of Living Spirit, and author of the Guerilla Film Makers Book series – this guy is an absolute low-budget film-making legend! His books are priceless (I have all of them sitting in front of me as I type), and his blog (which is currently following him while he puts together a short film called Gone Fishing), is so easy to read, so jam packed with useful hints and information, and so interesting, it’s amazing.

So anyway, it’s pretty clear that I like blogs. But why start up one for latenite films? Well, mainly because film making is all about community and teamwork. It’s all about sharing information – and what better way to do that than by documenting everything we do, and publishing it free of charge on our website? Just like Chris Jones site, Peter Jackson’s various production diaries (such as Kong Is King), and Melbourne own Gravediggers Blog, we hope to have a site that people will occasionally have a read through, to not only see how we’re going, but to also learn about film-making through our experiences and mistakes. Although the best way to learn about movie making is by actually getting out there and making films, in your down time, it’s always nice to read up on how others have gone about things. And secondly, for more selfish reasons, we are putting up this blog so that we can actually keep track of what we’ve done in the past! Even now, there are so many times when we’ve been working non-stop without sleep for a couple of weeks, and we completely loose track of what happened and in which order. Film making is so intense and takes up so much of your life and time, that it’s so easy to just loose large chunks of time in the abyss. So hopefully, this blog will help us keep a diary of what we’ve done and when we did it so that when we’re grumpy (ok… even grumpier) old men and woman, we have some record of the past (because lets face it – whatever memory isn’t destroyed by drugs and alcohol, will no doubt be wrecked by our crazy no sleeping, no eating, hard working lifestyle).

So what exactly are we going to put up on this blog? Well, good question! The aim is to just keep it updated with what we’re working on and how it’s all going. We’ll post lots photos and videos were relevant. Basically, we’re after a site that’s very similar to Chris Jones and the Gravediggers site – except we’re a lot more indie, a lot more low budget and a lot less experienced! So this site will probably contain a lot of information that’s REALLY useful to budding student film makers who also don’t have access to huge budgets and fancy gear.

So welcome to the blog! We really hope you enjoy reading through it and learning about all our fun, tears and adventures. Let me rest assure you know – at least this site won’t be boring! With every shoot we do, the stories get more exciting and, let’s face it, scary, so who knows what amazing things will happen this year round!

Stay tuned!

Chris!