Raven Waiting is an ambitious British Fantasy Feature Film. It has been in the making now for just over 2 years and by 2013 we want to complete production and release the film.

We’ve completed the script, produced artwork and designs, fashioned costumes and props, begun set building and found locations,and we have some actors (we still need more).

Our workshop now has a small studio space and we have accumulated much of the equipment we need for production…we feel ready.

So this summer we’ll be filming raven, finally. This of course can only happen with a successful funding campaign which is why we’ve launched our new campaign on sponsume today.

Www.sponsume.com/project/raven-waiting-movie

If you can spare a moment hop on over to sponsume and check it out. As part of the campaign, expect new blog entries and videos to start appearing.

The other day we visited Victoria Baths in Manchester as part of a film we’re making for a client. On Friday we were once again lucky to get a trip to Platt Hall in Manchester, home of Manchester’s costume gallery.

The gallery has among other things lots of examples of period costumes, many the right kind of period to inspire Raven costumes. Although the development of costumes is reaching it’s end as we prepare to shoot it’s still exciting to see costumes of the right period and to know that our costumes are pretty close to the mark.

For those in the area check out Platt Hall here.

In the meantime our costumes are coming together nicely and our soldiers costumes in particular are looking fantastic.

I was lucky enough to get an Amazon voucher for crimbo off someone…ooh I love a good voucher. One of things I got with it was this great book about how to be a director of photography.

“Shooting Movies, without shooting yourself in the foot” is a great guide to photographing your movie. It takes a professional level approach to filmmaking but looks to apply these techniques to every kind of movie, even a zero budget fantasy adventure.

It’s an in-depth book with lots of examples and breakdowns of how each job is tackled. I highly recommend it. The book is available on Amazon.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been searching for possible locations for the movie. It’s a tough request, 1850′s style, mixed with tudor buildings, all with a decaying layer of filth on top.

I’ve explored plenty of places and studied the exploits of others at sites like http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/, and I now have a shortlist of places.

On Sunday me and my Sister were incredibly lucky yesterday to visit a Victorian Baths in Manchester and have a personal tour. We were visiting as part of a project we are filming for a variety of Manchester’s museums.

What’s fantastic about the location and what we should look for in other locations is the multiple locations within one site. We could easily see how at least three locations in the film could be covered by the Baths site.

Okay, next comes the hard part… asking them to let us film there! I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

Our Lomokino arrived this morning, all the way from Austria! Readers will remember that the lomokino is a hand cranked movie camera running ordinary stills 35mm film and shooting 2 perforations at a time.

What I wasn’t expecting was a packaging experience akin to opening an ipad box I (or any other Apple product). I love when goods are packaged just so – makes me feel special!

It runs at about 4-5 frames a second depending on how fast you can crank it, you might hit 6-8 if you’re lucky. It has a fixed lens and a button which pushes it from 1metre focal distance to 60cm.

We bought this camera for running lomo shots in a documentary we’re making (instead of using super8/16mm). But I can already see a use for it in Raven as an effects camera. I’ll post some footage / images when I’ve done a couple of tests.

Long live lomo.

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!