It's a wrap!! Cinema of Horror - day 5

We wrapped yesterday after a fantastic shoot. Technical problems and logistical issues dogged us nearly everyday. But each one was overcome, and the director got (nearly) all the shots he wanted.

We shot the shoot-out up at Almscliffe Crag yesterday. The wind was rushing around and it got pretty cold, but boy, it was worth it!

Our two actors had real guns to fire (with a stern armourer on stand-by), and fake arms and buckets of blood were the order of the day. Then it all ended! I'm both elated and sad at the same time. I made some new friends, and some great contacts. I can't wait to see them all again at the premier (whenever that is).

So onwards and upwards now. I'm creating my new production CV and on Monday I am going to send it to every man and his dog, and lets see what happens. So real world kicks in now. Looks like I'll have to start doing some temping through March. Damn requirement to earn money! ;) See you on the red carpet!!

Cinema of Horror - Day 4

Wow, an almost gremlin free day, although the weather did its best to ruin it for us.

I'm home early today as we are filming scenes in a 14th floor luxury flat in Leeds, but it isn't big enough for the usual 20 or so cast and crew. So a scaled-down crew is shooting the scenes there. I instead ferried actors home, dropped off equipment, and came home to do some emails for a couple of hours - although I will be out again at about 10 for a couple of hours lol. What long days film days are - so its nice to have a couple of hours at home :)

We filmed the Bollywood dance number today, with 14 extra dancers, and 9 extra make-up girls! lol. But it looked fantastic. Cant wait to see what that looks like at the end.

But, of course there was still time for some zombies. This is Cinema Of Horror after all!!

Cinema of Horror - Day 3

What a day!! Duncan and I were woke at 7.30 with news that the sound guy's back was well and truly knackered, and instructions to find a new one ASAP

Duncan found someone from Dundee! who jumped in his car and was with us by 1.30. He didnt have any equipment of his own thought, and our sound man was talking his own umpteen thousand pound sound kit home with him.

So I drove was sent down to Sheffield to borrow some kit from someone down there. When we got it back, turned out some key equipment was missing. So off I went to rent some from a company in Leeds (during rush hour). And no dialogue could be recorded until we got it!

Then our problems with parking in Leeds started....... That's for another day.

Onwards and Upwards!

PS. Look out for another award winning performance from me as Man Looking at DVD's ;)

Cinema of Horror - Day 2

Technical glitches all over the place. The equipment truck was an hour late, the camera had to go back to Provision to be fixed, and the generators keep shorting the lights!!

Oh, and the sound guys back gave way and I had to book him an emergency osteopath!

But great fun! lol

Cinema of Horror - Day 1

Well its 1am, and I'm knackered!

It was a fantastic day, though. So much new stuff and fun stuff going on.

There were technical problems abound though, as the generators didn't work properly. And the whole shoot lost a couple of hours. In the end we plugged it into someones house! lol

Me and Duncan went to Peters house for a late dinner. Peter had been re-united with 3 old friends from his time as producer of Highway. They are doing sound and lighting on the film. I spent an excellent meal listening to stories of Brad Pitt, Robert Redford, Lesley Ash, Harry Seacombe lol

As you can see, we're all having fun!

Will post when I can.

See you in a few days

I'll will probably be offline most of this week as we start shooting Cinema Of Horror today. Hence the larger than usual number of posts this week.

My tasks today include supervising the final run-through of the Bollywood number today in Bradford, then back to Harrogate to the Valley Gardens for one of the Zombie scenes (half brick in car for clubbing scene - check!)

See you all soon!

And I leave you with a final titbit to make you chuckle.

Dustin the Turkey has been chosen by the public to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final in Belgrade in May.

He won Eurosong 2008 from the University Concert Hall in Limerick with his song 'Irelande Douze Pointe'.

He saw off the challenge of other finalists Donal Skehan, Maya, Leona Daly, Liam Geddes and Marc Roberts.


Dustin the Turkey will now compete in the first Eurovision semi-final on Tuesday 20 May.

The final takes place on Saturday 24 May.


Bookies William Hill have installed Dustin the Turkey as the 10-1 favourite to win Eurovision.

The company's spokesman, Tony Kenny, said: "These days you have to be either from the old Eastern Bloc or have a great gimmick to win Eurovision - and a singing turkey will possibly be one of the most bizarre things that a Eurovision audience will ever see."

"He'll go to Belgrade on a wing and a prayer and, fingers crossed, he'll ruffle a few feathers when he gets there," he added.

Know thy neighbours

As always, click on the image to enlarge.

I've been Simponized

Have you?

http://simpsonizeme.com/ecard.php?lang=en_us&code=spsggsasqpohlgusllemnotldchhzpeg

After adding a scar, I don't think this is a bad one! lol

Now back to taking over the film industry. D'oh!!

Cinema Of Horror is coming!!

Shooting 23rd Feb to 28th Feb around North and West Yorkshire

The filming will include a shoot-out with amputations abound, a decapitation with pianowire, a short, decomposing zombie trying to kill a very tall man, and a Bollywood/Bangra dance number around an ornamental gardens!

Can't wait!

PS. The Blue man is having a cast made for his prosthetic head (see above)

;)

How to destroy the Earth, part 6

6.
Blown up

You will need: 25,000,000,000,000 tonnes of antimatter.

Method: This method involves detonating a bomb so big that it blasts the Earth to pieces.

This, to say the least, requires a big bomb. All the explosives mankind has ever created, nuclear or non-, gathered together and detonated simultaneously, would make a significant crater and wreck the planet's ecosystem, but barely scratch the surface of the planet. There is evidence that in the past, asteroids have hit the Earth with the explosive yield of five billion Hiroshima bombs - and such evidence is difficult to find. It is, in short, insanely difficult to significantly alter the Earth's structure with explosives. This is not to mention the gravity problem. Just because you blasted the Earth apart doesn't mean you blasted it apart for good. If you don't blast it hard enough, the pieces will fall back together again under mutual gravitational attraction, and Earth, like the liquid metal Terminator, will reform from its shattered shards. You have to blow the Earth up hard enough to overcome that attraction.

How hard is that?

If you do the lengthy calculations you find that to liberate that much energy is equivalent to the complete annihilation of around 1,246,400,000,000 tonnes of antimatter. That's assuming zero energy loss to heat, neutrinos and radiation, which is unlikely to be the case in reality: You'll probably need to up the dose by at least a factor of twenty. Once you've generated your antimatter, probably in space, just launch it en masse towards Earth. The resulting release of energy (obeying Einstein's famous mass-energy equation, E=mc2) should be sufficient to split the Earth into a thousand pieces.

Greg Bear's novel, "The Forge Of God", contains an interesting refinement of this technique. Here, the antagonist instead generates antimatter in the form of a "slug" of anti-neutronium - superdense material massing a billion kilograms per cubic centimetre. This is fired into the Earth's core. Neutronium passes through ordinary matter as easily as a ball flies through the air, so the anti-neutronium slug doesn't annihilate immediately; rather, it builds up a protective sheath of plasma around it as it plunges downwards towards the Earth's core. It's then followed up by a slug of regular neutronium, which also falls into the core, at a time calculated to meet the first slug head-on at the exact centre of the Earth, where they annihilate themselves, and soon afterwards, the Earth itself. Highly space-efficient, and with the added bonus of all the energy being released at the Earth's core, where it can do the most damage. In the book, the antagonists simultaneously detonate nuclear warheads in certain oceanic trenches, to weaken the crust and allow the planet to be blown apart more easily.


Rearranging Earth into two planets - which, provisionally, is sufficient according to my current criteria - would take slightly less energy, but considerably more finesse.

Earth's final resting place: A second asteroid belt around the Sun.


Comments: trembling writes, "I still think that antimatter is crazy s**t, i.e. wouldn't want it on my flapjacks"

Feasibility rating: 4/10. Just about slightly possible.

Me and my new flat mate Henry

So I rescued a piano and moved him into my spare room!

The piano was left in the empty property we shot Bitten in, along with the detritus of the previous tenants - including her wedding dress, the vac, toaster, all the rubbish in the bins, and too many cotton buds and sanitary towels! ( damn chavs!)

The workmen were going to just chuck it in the skip!! And I couldn't bear the thought of that as piano smashing is right up there with book burning in my personal list of high crimes and treasons; so after the shoot, I hired a van and roped 3 friends into helping me carry it up 4 flights on stairs (thanks to Dave, Barry, and Chris!). All sorts of bruises and pulled muscles abound as we had a Chuckle Brothers moment "To me....to you....to me...to you!"

It was fooking filthy and I had to spend hours spring cleaning it lol. But now, I am the owner of a white! up-right piano! :)

I posted on a forum that I had a piano, and someone asked me what its name was. That was a tough one as I never name inanimate objects (and usually think only silly people do that), but I had a think about it and decided to call him Henry, an obviously good name for a piano (well I couldn't have called him Nigel now, could I?) And it had to be a boys name now as well ;)

So I told me friend the pianos new name, and he mailed back to say, what was the name of the make of the piano!! Yes I felt silly lol

And the final point....it not even a proper white piano. The chavvy fuckers painted it white!!! Its been Duluxed!! Oh well, he's still luverly!! ;)

The iAno

Wow, is the appropriate response!!

But my white up-right is not in danger just yet. lol

God, the Mac fanatics will never let me hear the end of this now! Non? ;)

Nobody expects the Czech Inquestion

The museum of Medieval Torture in Prague doesn't leave you in much doubt that it wasn't a good time to be a non-believer in the middle ages - or a woman frankly. Certainly not one who was good with herbs, or maybe had a wart on her nose. http://www.heartofeurope.cz/museum_6.html#torture

People were just so inventive at inflicting pain on other humans. And some of the things had for women! Jesus, only a man, and one who wasn't getting any, could have thought of those!

But the bloody-thirsty schoolboy in me sure enjoyed it! lol