Burns Night - and a' that

Hello folks, just a short note to say all is coming along fine with the movie (One Day Removals) and the last of the tweaking is nearly at an end. The imperious leader, Mark Stirton, is all ill just now with a nasty chest thing (not the thing from alien, or the alien's thing) and has been told to rest, but probably isn't, so the editing schedule is still on target.

I can't post any pictures or design work just now as all the stuff I was working on recently would pretty much blow the story of the movie, so instead I'll post a spooky night time scene of Scotland (Tam O' Shanter) and tell you about the Burns Night celebrations.

Robbie Burns is the national poet of Scotland. Even though he's been dead for a few hundred years Scots celebrate his life and works every January 25th by having a 'Burns Supper.' This is usually a formal affair in full tartan kit or evening wear - the main point of the evening is to eat heaps of haggis, drink whiskey and listen to somebody read Burn's poems (haggis and poetry are optional). Burns was also the bloke that wrote 'Auld lang syne.' I'll leave you with a short poem of the chap's called 'Fickle Fortune,' written in 1782.

Though fickle Fortune has deceived me,

She pormis'd fair and perform'd but ill;

Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me,

Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.

I'll act with prudence as far 's I'm able,
But if success I must never find,
Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome,
I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind.

Belated Happy New Year

Hello to all me chums and visitors that frequent the blogatron. Hope you all had a good one and are now as depressed as everyone else that had to go back to work.

I was going to put some design stuff up, but I'm a bit busy, instead I'll do what I said I wouldn't and put a top 10 film thing up. I'm not doing it in order though as it changes with mood and/or weather.

The List (and yes, I can't count either):

Alien
A matter of life and death
Blade Runner
The Thing
Wings of desire
Wild Geese
Demolition Man
Shindler's List
Subway
Highlander
Akira
The good, the bad and the ugly
2001
King Kong (proper one)
Leon
The devil's backbone
The 5th Element
Taxi Driver
Lord of the Rings

Just missing the top (whatever number) slot:

Funny Bones
Shadow of the vampire
Batman Begins
Spiderman
The duelists
Jason and the Argonauts (Harryhausen)
Ravenous

That out of me system now. Should have some new eye candy for you soon. Pip Pip.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays etc.

Thanks to all the folk that have visited the blog and main site over the past year. Lots of exciting news to come in the new year and more fun than you can shake a stick at.

Have a great time everyone, and don't do anything we at Stirton Towers would do!

Fags and Flames

This week were were mostly throwing cigarettes past the camera and blowing up retired company directors; in this case Niel Simpson (friend of our film partner and financier, Ken Fraser). Normally chavvy scum like us rarely get to meet anyone wealthy or interesting, but making movies changes things, and sometimes we meet the most fascinating of people.

Most people wouldn't allow you to set off explosions in their back yard, but Neil actually lent me a car battery to set the charges off. Also very willing to spray petrol about for flame shots. Great chap.

A series of pick ups shots and 2 explosions took 2 weekends to film, due to bad weather and availability of light. Trying to film fire in a gale ain't easy, neither is flicking cigarette butts to a specific location. But we eventually got the shots and hopefully they all turned out ok.

Highlight for us (me) was setting 2 small charges off (anti terrorism act means I can't say how or what was involved - but I may mention balloons). These were done at the location and hopefully saved us doing too much post production and fakery with the shot. Here are some shots, taken by the invaluable Mark Wyness, of explodey things and us freezing our arses off. Which explains our outfits.

Mark Stirton (director and smoker) looks on with disgust at Clarkie, preparing stunt cigarettes for filming. (rubbish herbal things)

Neil, acting in crucial scene while nutter with flaming tray provides effect.

Clarkie, in foreground, sets off a small but loud charge.

Movie moguls - this is what Speilberg does between takes. Honest.

Mean Streets
A short break between movie work led me to purchase some great models from the Daz 3D site (home of Poser and Bryce stuff), so here are some renders in Vue 6.

The models are from a vendor called Stonemason and they are very well done, I just stuck a few billboards for the film up, the rest comes with the model. As this is a poser model, the lights can be switched on and off and you can even have those funny looking poser folk, with their twitchy little legs, wandering about on it.

Once the model had been setup and saved in poser it was imported straight into Vue, with textures intact. The photo textures are very detailed and it's fun to have a wander about the back alleys looking for discarded porn (or is that just me?).

So here you go, a few semi-promotional images before I get back onto the film graphics and new website (opening very soon - finally).