As I mentioned at the start of the week it’s a new chapter for Raven Waiting. We are full of positive energy…but more than that the film feels like it’s getting it’s momentum back.

A feature film is a tough thing to make as I’m sure anyone who has will tell you. Over the last year I’ve spent a lot of my time (when not working on my movie) helping young people of all ages make their movies. However, this wasn’t just work experience for them, it was also production experience for me, after all is there anyone trickier to work with on film than kids?

Two particular highlights have been ‘PALS’ a short film about the First World War and ‘Mill Life’ exploring the cotton mills of Lancashire. It is with the experience of working on these films that I feel ready and able to tackle my own movie project. The greatest thing i’ve learned from these projects has been location and costume are invaluable to selling your film.

The hardest part is that unlike the student work, if Raven doesn’t look right / sound right – we’re in trouble.

So February we’ll be kick starting the year with a small funding big online. I hope you’ll stick around to see how we do this time.

Having just watched the behind the scenes film on the ‘Scott Pilgrim VS the World’ DVD I was instantly reminded that we are in need on some fight choreography for Raven Waiting. There are some great sequences on the Pilgrim Special edition 2 disc DVD (UK) that gave me great ideas about what needs to be put into our movie. But my ideas need some professional help.

Raven Waiting isn’t a endless mix of fight sequences but is does have conflict. So we are on the look out for a fight choreographer, with experience of using swords and rifles. Ideally we are after someone based in the North West (UK), Manchester if possible.

We are looking to begin choreography in March/April for filming scenes APRIL/MAY(2012). So if you’re interested, please get in touch my emailing in the first instance dan @ cosmic-apple.com (no gaps).

It’s not every day you find a camera you just have to have, but the Lomokino 35mm Movie Maker is such a camera. I know we’ve all gone digital now (apparently) and we all have to lust over Red Epic and Scarlet cameras.. but I’m a simple sort of chap who loves the little things.

The Lomokino is a hand cranked camera that pulls a roll of 36exp 35mm film through a 2 perf gate. It’s capable of recording 144 frames, so if you cranked fast enough…ooh err.. you’d be able to film 6 seconds at 24fps.

However, that’s not really the point of this lovely little machine. The lomokino is there for the artist inside, for creative endeavours that don’t require pin registered film movement, for experimentation!

It’s soo cool I might just have to order one….and film Raven on it..it’ll only take 2700 rolls or so.

Last year I had a disastrous adventure in crowd funding. Yep, that’s the word I’m using to describe it, ill conceived and ill executed and downright disastrous.

Now it’s 2012, I’m older, wiser (well..maybe) and I’ve been crowd funding on the other side. What better way to learn about crowd funding than to take part in a campaign by contributing some funds.

I’m a keen follower of Neil Oseman’s work, he’s an independent filmmaker who creates interesting films and he’s recently been working on a short film Stop/Eject. As his crowd funding campaign progressed I was lured in by funding perks and eventually succumbed to opening my wallet.

I highly recommend, to anyone interested in raising funds for a project, get your cheque book out and fund a film. Experiencing funding from the other side makes you realise how people will view your project. As soon as I had contributed to Neil’s project I became instantly addicted to following the campaign’s progress. I had to read every blog post, view every update and video. In fact any way I could be involved was suddenly of interest to me.

So here’s how I now see crowd funding:

• A realistic goal helps, if you go over your target it’ll look brilliant
• Perks are a massive key to getting contibutions. The right perk could get you all the funds you need.
• Updates are vital. There are hundreds of campaigns that fail to regularly update – and fail to hit their target.
• Funders become followers become fans. Get people hooked in to your work and keep them coming back for more, in return they’ll help spread the word

Right, I’m off to design my next crowd funding campaign. See you later!

I love reading film books, it’s something of an addiction. I can merrily burn through the pages of a good film book in a couple of hours (give me a novel however and I’m as slow as slow thing on a sunday afternoon).

This Christmas I received Mark Kermode’s ‘The good the bad and the multiplex’ Jim Clarke’s ‘Dream Repairman’ and Blake Snyder’s ‘Save the Cat Strikes Back’.

I’m car crash fan of Mark Kermode, I constantly disagree with him but somehow I can’t help watching and listening to him. For me his book was an unusual reading experience, it’s funny and light hearted and yet I always have him pegged as such a serious soul. More annoyingly was the ease with which I found myself agreeing with him, especially the chapter on 3D.

Jim Clarke’s book is an autobiography that spans the career of an editor and filmmaker who’s credits would put most to shame. At times it’s really upsetting and painful to read and at other times wonderfully funny. It’s an autobiography in the true sense (not the I’m 20 years old, someone else wrote it, footballer sense). A real gem to read. Thanks Mum and Dad for scouring Amazon for a present.

Finally, Blake Snyder’s 2nd installment of Save the Cat is every bit as interesting as the original. It’s a great ‘oh yeah I never thought of it that way’ kind of read and brilliant for all aspiring screen writers – myself included. Which reminds me – I need to get back to re-drafting my script for Raven – see you later!

My sister bought be a notebook for Christmas, and I love a new notebook almost as much as the chap in Oracle Night, but this one is special.

It’s special firstly because it’s a Star Wars notebook, oooh baby, and secondly because this is the notebook that I want to use to get my film into production.

‘Raven Waiting’ the movie, has been my passion for 2 years now. I’ve been writing, designing and creating everything for the project at every opportunity. I write everything I need to about the project in my notebooks, and now with a Star Wars notebook.. I feel the force within me!

What better way to start the year, with new ambition, new hope (bad pun intended) and a new notebook. This I feel is the make or break year for me and my company, Raven Waiting here I come.

Hello to everyone,

It’s been far too long since I last posted on this blog that you’d be forgiven for pronouncing the project dead and buried. However, you’d be a little wrong.

Over the last 6 months or so I’ve been working on short film projects and running workshops in the BBC in Manchester, every spare moment I’ve had has been put into developing Raven Waiting and things are now ready to progress further.

In the next couple of weeks we’ll be launching a new funding call and releasing new videos and images from the film. With any luck we’ll be filming the start of the movie in Late November/early December.

And to top it all off, we’ll be keeping the website up to date!

Dan.

The dust has settled on our first funding call for Raven Waiting and I’m amazed. It’s been a lot of hard work but it’s been so rewarding. Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Wasn’t it easy?

I’m not saying I thought it would be easy, but I didn’t realise just how much of a daily slog it was. In the end what we got more than anything was… FANS and lots of them. I’m really pleased with the response we got from people – thank you fans!

So What’s Next?

We’re using the money raised to create some of the animatronic puppets that are needed for the film and from there we’ll be launching more exciting videos to promote the film.

More info to come.

This isn’t the movie we’re trying to make! Relax, calm down it’s only a bit of fun. We thought we’d just like to explain to everyone the kind of movie we’re making and the kind of movie we definitely aren’t making.

So if you’d like to help fund a movie that’s NOT related to Zombies then check out the funding page http://cosmic-apple.com/raven/buy-the-dvd/

The funding continues and we’ll have more news shortly of our current funding total.

Thanks,
Dan.

To launch our call for funding we’ve created a short funding video. It’s a crash course in what this project is all about. Have a watch a don’t forget to pre-order your DVD at http://cosmic-apple.com/raven/buy-the-dvd/.