freddie bonfanti Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 hey all i wrapped up this short film and got the first footage from the editor. the short film was written by david cairns (his "cry for bobo" was an award winner for best short film in 2002) and directed by newcomers robert glassford and timo langer. main actors fraser calder and mr angus mac inness who was goldleader in "star wars" and starred in "hellboy", "superman 2", "the jacket" and many more. we basically had no budget but a strong story and a precise visual style. the film is based in a post apocalyptic world were the main character is a cyborg built by mankind who wanders around the alleyways of a lost city, "the big forever", playing the memories of every single human being. the directors wanted to portray this character as man/machine capable of emotions. i decided to get the message across by having him lit only on one side of the body and leaving the other one in complete obscurity, to higlight this duality. most of the shots were done in a small room, on the street and in a tv studio. fortunately, the gothic look of edinburgh and its amazing streetlights helped us to get a good exposure when we needed it. our lighting package was limited but sufficient to achieve our look: 3 650s, a 1k hmi, a peg light and practical streetlights. we shot it on a Z1E. main references all the noir films. lots of shots were made on a portable greenscreen which allowed the amazing animator we had, nick preston, to create the city of "the big forever" with its cgi zeppellins storming across the sky. here you have some pictures one of the many greenscreen shots a silouette of the main character in front of the city city our "steps shot". just a prectical sodioum vapour on top of the steps the main character lit by 2 650s hanging from a fast pole stretched above him our cgi zeppelins the library mr mac innes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie bonfanti Posted June 2, 2006 Author Share Posted June 2, 2006 sorry, forgot to mention. the total budget for the film was 70 pounds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Spear Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Absolutely amazing. I love the lighting and CGI work. When (and where) will it be released? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie bonfanti Posted June 3, 2006 Author Share Posted June 3, 2006 Absolutely amazing. I love the lighting and CGI work. When (and where) will it be released? thanks the premiere will be here in edinburgh on the 21st of june at the filmhouse on lothian road. we are waiting for an answer from the edinburgh film festival comittee, we have reason to hope that they will accept it. in that case it will be part of this year's edinburgh 60th international film festival. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adam White Posted June 5, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted June 5, 2006 what size of crew did you have for the shoot? What were your time constraints? looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie bonfanti Posted June 5, 2006 Author Share Posted June 5, 2006 what size of crew did you have for the shoot? What were your time constraints? looks great! thanks, i know you wont believe me mate, but it was basically 4 people. me lighting and shooting, the 2 directors sorting everything else out, including production issues and so on. then we had our main actor, fraser calder and whenever we needed him, mr mac inness. our only time constraint was the hand in for the college's graduation show (may 27th). it was a painful shoot, im glad we had lots of cups of tea to warm us up at night when we were shooting outside at minus 8. but it was worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adam White Posted June 5, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted June 5, 2006 thanks, i know you wont believe me mate, but it was basically 4 people. me lighting and shooting, the 2 directors sorting everything else out, including production issues and so on. then we had our main actor, fraser calder and whenever we needed him, mr mac inness. our only time constraint was the hand in for the college's graduation show (may 27th). it was a painful shoot, im glad we had lots of cups of tea to warm us up at night when we were shooting outside at minus 8. but it was worth it. Its never dull when you are a one-man-band! nice!! gotta ask though, are there other people on your course that couldve helped out? Also what prepping did you do to ensure the effects matched smoothly with the footage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie bonfanti Posted June 5, 2006 Author Share Posted June 5, 2006 Its never dull when you are a one-man-band! nice!! gotta ask though, are there other people on your course that couldve helped out? Also what prepping did you do to ensure the effects matched smoothly with the footage? yeah, but we wanted to keep it by ourselves as we know each other well and we work really good together. but also we didnt need huge lighting setups and we didnt record sound either so why asking other people to help? the huge work was definitely in post, but ironically even there we only had one great editor and one great animator who self thought cgi to himself. the pictures are not high quality but hopefully i will post some of the clips soon anyway. about the prepping as i said we had a STRONG visual concept from the beginning. we had lots of references and i tried to make it look that way. the tough thing to learn for me was how in noir films lighting is an "artifice", not conventional, and how unnatural and undjustified it looks. the directors pushed me to break rules and not to care if the lighting was too stylized. we went for a absolutely ubscure look where darkness prevealed over light. and thats how the script was written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie bonfanti Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 hey all here you have a link to a short clip of the film, have a look. we're having lots of enthusiastic feedback around scotland, it looks like people are very happy with this short film http://www.nostromo.org.uk/fiction/big-forever/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddie bonfanti Posted September 5, 2006 Author Share Posted September 5, 2006 hey all the reason why i am resuscitating this post is because i just had great news: CLINT MANSELL, composer of requiem for a dream, pi, and the very recent the fountain, decided to score "the big forever". its quite amazing and we are all proud of this. his work will definitely give the film an extra kick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adam White Posted September 6, 2006 Premium Member Share Posted September 6, 2006 good stuff fella. let us know when this has been done and the scored piece is out there in full. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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