Warner Brothers
Fri, 07 May 2010 09:21:03 > news
Great news. We've signed the deal with a sub-distributor of Warner Brothers which means they will distribute the film via DVD throughout North America. It's still going to be a hard sell because there's lots of competition, but at least we're in their catalogue and being repped up and down the biggest film sales territory in the w...
Audience response from the North American test screening
Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:53:18 > General
Here are some quotes from the North American test screening. Thanks so much to everyone who attended, your feedback was appreciated and we've already used it to make the final film better.
“A tremendous achievement.”
"Brought me to tears."
"Like a combination of 'Momento' and 'The Shawshank Redemption'."
“Rive...
Helping talent
Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:36:11 > General
We're looking at developing a slate of films which we can help push into distribution through the relationships we're forging with sales agents and distributors. We've done hundreds of hours of ground work and negotiating which can help other emerging film makers get their films into release.
There's no timescales on thi...
Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:58:25 > General
We've set up a Facebook page as another way to engage with everyone and start spreading the word about the film. The more fans we can get the better (I think it's sitting at twenty one as I write this, not that impressive). It helps us as we are heading through the long process of talking to distributors. So please, if you'r...
Cannes
Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:31:25 > General
We've applied for the Cannes Independent Film Festival which is in Cannes in May. They had a under £25K budget category that was perfect for us. We should hear about whether we're in or not sometime in April. It could be some good exposure for us with sales agents and distributors and other industry people who are there attendi...The Poster
Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:30:17 > General
The poster is done. It looks great. We'll work on getting it up here on the site shortly. Neil Richards designed it and he's done a fantastic job bringing together a our key Ryan/William confrontation image (photographed by Dan Regan) fused with the hand written letter elements.&nbs...
Developments
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:52:34 > news
Well, it's been a long time since we posted a blog entry here because we've been doing all of our updates on Twitter. We're going to continue to do that, but we'll also make entries on here as frequently as possible. Lots has happened, so here it is in it's most succinct form.
Film - The picture is complete and the sound ...
Twitter Time
Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:30:01 > news
Well, in order to keep everyone up to date on what's going on as we head in to distribution we thought we'd park this dusty old blog in favour of an easier, more immediate way of communicating. Yep, you can now follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/TPORfilm .
We'll keep that up to date and that's a promise (no really this time, we m...
AJ and the Bronx
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:45:18 > news
AJ's in the Bronx . . . for good. He's moved over to the Big Apple to live with his fiance. We all wish him the best and we're sure he'll land on his feet over there. His performance in our film has been very well received so far and I'm sure it'll help him move onto bigger and better things in New York. &...
First Festival Foray
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:32:07 > news
We're rushing to get the changes made after the test screening because we've had some exciting news. We've got a chance to show our film to the Festival Programmer and the Festival Director of one of the biggest, if not the biggest, festivals in the U.S. and, come to think of it, the world.
They're over looking to see if any Briti...
Thanks!
Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:20:03 > news
A massive thanks to everyone who attended the test screening. Overall the feedback was very positive and it highlighted a few areas that we're going to work on to make the film better. Thanks also has to go to Tony Hailstone, Andy Knight and the rest of the Worcester Odeon staff who have been incredibly helpful through out the who...
Test screening
Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:21:31 > General
So the blog's been a bit dead recently . . . and I promised that that wouldn't happen, but things have been a bit crazy (in a good way), so to make a long story short it's alive again and I'm sure not too many people lost sleep over it's absence anyway.
We've got a test screening of the film coming up on Saturday August 22nd at the Odeo...
Day 18
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:03:13 > Production
We had a good day of filming on Saturday where we shot Lucy's final scene as "Karen", some exteriors that we need to add some depth and clarity to the current cut of the film and we filmed Dean as the model in the flashback.
Si and Dave met last week for a six hour session to review the film. Si is now continuing ...
Monsters and rough cuts
Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:20:28 > General
Okay, so we've not been great at keeping the blog fully alive and kicking, but at least it is twitching like Frankenstein's Monster before the serious voltage hits. Speaking of Frankenstein's Monster, we have our first rough cut of the film together which runs to 103 minutes. It moves well, the story holds together and all of our ...
We Have A Maestro
Wed, 13 May 2009 08:49:31 > Post-production
After a six week search we have come to an agreement with a very talented composer who will be writing the music for the film. In the end there were over fifty applicants and the choice was not an easy one. Thank you very much to everyone who was interested and we apologise that we couldn't personally let everyone know about the d...
A Year On
Mon, 04 May 2009 11:21:14 > General
A year ago yesterday we had our first day of principle photography. It was like all first days on long shoots - fraught with awkwardness, shifting schedules and lots of shots that'll never see the light of day. Just your basic teething pains that you need to go through to get a flow going. I'm sure there were a few people th...
Composers
Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:09:52 > Post-production
We've started the search for the right composer and have had a great response so far. About forty composers have shown their interest and we are in the process of short listing these. We are aiming to make our decision by the end of the month so that, come May, we have three streams of post production working concurrently - editin...
Dave sharpens his knife
Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:35:56 > Post-production
Dave and I had a handover meeting late last week where we watched my cut of the first forty five minutes of the film after which Dave, in tears, gave me a standing ovation . . . or something like that . . . well, he liked it . . . most of it anyway, and he had a few suggestions on how we could make it even better (impossible, surely).&nb...
Killing Chris (well, almost)
Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:08:42 > Production
I have cut together the scenes where William and Ryan meet in Ryan's car in a secluded farming road. We shot this on the second day of filming and it was AJ's first day with the crew. The weather was great and Chris and AJ were like long lost friends coming back to work (or play) together. There was a great mood on the Glouc...
Cut the crap
Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:45:43 > Post-production
That's what I've been doing over the past couple of days.
It's always heart breaking to film shots that you want to look bad. We filmed several actors as news reporters doing on location pieces to camera circa 1978 and this meant bad framing, bad little zooms and sticky pans (as in panning the camera). Dave had to be ...
The end is near
Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:17:08 > Post-production
That's only because we've skipped the middle. Let me explain:
I've just rough cut the end of the film together. So currently I have most of act one and a good deal of act three in a rough cut form.
What I've just cut together is the denoument, right after the climax, where we learn our characters ...
Media Interest and Chris's latest
Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:14:48 > news
We've got a couple of media opportunities coming up which people can keep their eyes and ears open for. We're being featured in the film section of a new London based publication called 'What's New' magazine. The circulation doesn't reach outside of the city yet, so if you're in that neck of the woods keep your eyes out ...
News room scenes
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:51:17 > Production
We were incredibly lucky to be able to get the news room at the Bristol Evening Press/Western Daily Press to film a few key scenes between Ryan (Chris Hatherall) and Kat (Siobhan Bermingham). We'd never have been able to get the location if it wasn't for our unit photographer Dan Regan pulling some strings and, of course, the powers tha...
Press coverage
Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:33:42 > news
Dave has spent some time putting more of the press coverage that we've had on the site. Check out the 'Press' section of the site. There'll be some more coming up soon as well as we've had a bit of coverage on the BBC website as well thanks to our filming in the Cathedral. Our thanks goes out to all the local press who have ...
Paris or Worcester?
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:15:30 > Production
Worcetser's a great place, don't get me wrong, but I never thought that I'd be making that comparison.
But as I cut together the scene where Karen (Lucy) and Andy (Craig) meet this is an unlikely comparison. On the day of filming back in September we were blessed with beautiful sunshine and what seemed to be an almost endless gold...
Making history - the Cathedral scenes
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:39:39 > Production
I've been editing the scenes we shot in the Cathedral and visually they look great. There's something about the space that I think helped everyone on the day. Chris and AJ might turn around and say that I'm talking a load of rubbish (actually, they'd probably use stronger language than that), you'd have to ask them, but there is a...
Final casting
Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:44:57 > Production
There is one more role to cast. That is the crucial role of Stephen Maynard/Reverend Samuel Menzies. I won't try and explain here why he has two names, but he does, and this is critical to the script. For the 7,541st time on this project people who haven't read the script will just have to trust me. I know we're well i...
On the radar
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:09:11 > General
Our listing on Britfilms.com is finally up there. Check it out:
http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilms/inprogress/?&skip=60
I know I've said it before, but it's worth mentioning it again . . . this is where the distributors, sales agents ...
Loading the flashback
Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:49:25 > Post-production
I loaded all the footage from filming day 17 onto the hard drives. Now it's sitting ready to be cut together. At first glance it looks very promising. Sam and Hannah's performance is going to cut together nicely. A big thanks to Sam who was so professional on the day, and took good care of Hannah, even though he ...
The blog's alive
Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:49:13 > General
So my new year's resolution was to make sure people were kept in the loop a bit more and, sadly, like most stupid ideas thought up during the Christmas period, this hasn't really happened. As a result of this I am committed to keeping this blog up to date. There have been close to a hundred people involved with the film so fa...
Listing on britfilms.com
Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:58:41 > news
We'll be listed on britfilms.com in a couple of days time. This site shows all of the feature films being made in the UK and what stage of production they're at. It's essential to have this contact with the British Film Council in order to get on the map for potential distributors/sales agents.
- Si
A big, cold, good day
Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:09:49 > Production
That was Saturday. A long and at times cold, but very successful day. We got the flahback in the can and a number of key 1978 reporters pieces. The period wardrobe and car looked great - thanks Iain and Graham. The location was fantastic - thanks Debbie and Andrew and, thanks also has to go to Adam for getting us enoug...
Ready to flash back
Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:58:44 > Production
Well everything's in place for day 17 of principle photography which will take place this Saturday. Huge thanks to a few people for making this day happen: Adam for sorting out our night exterior lighting requirements, Debbie and Andrew for providing us with a great location and, probably more importantly, an aga so...
Cutting cutting cutting
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:31:26 > Post-production
We're well on our way of getting the first block cut of the film done. At the moment it's about getting the pace right so that there is a consistency in the film which is displaced where we want the adrenalin to kick in. The fairly daring style we incorporated during principle photography is holding up very nicely and the dialogue...
1978
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:06:20 > Production
Yep, we're going back to 1978 to get our crucial flashback scene. Details are being finalised and the date is looking like we'll shoot on February 7th at a farmhouse location in Sandhurst, Gloucestershire. After that we will have virtually everything in the can. To everyone involved we'll be in touch very soon with more details.One more day
Mon, 22 Sep 2008 08:16:04 > Production
Saturday saw us complete another day's filming, this time on the waterfront in Worcester and then at a farmhouse in Gloucestershire. The weather has been very kind to us on this film and the weekend was no exception, the light was extraordinary, it was like having four hours of magic hour to film in. Unfortunately the sound of the environment...
What's Next?
Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:41:39 > Production
This weekend we're shooting in Worcester on the river bank, so come along and be an extra if you're available. Then we're off to Gloucester to shoot some pivotal scenes at a farmhouse. We've also recently secured the use of the Weston Daily Press's newsroom office, many thanks to Daniel Regan and his editor for helping us out with this.
<...Getting There
Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:28:34 > Production
Well it's been a long time since we've written here, mostly due to being rushed off our feet with filming and editing, but I can safely say we're well over half way through principal photography. We have 8 days shooting under our belts, with 6 more to go.
The footage is looking great and the performances have been wonderful. The two le...
First day out the way
Sun, 11 May 2008 05:12:35 > Production
Well we've now completed the first days filming, and a big thank you to everyone involved. There were a few teething problems, some kit issues, some scheduling to rejig and a slight shooting style adjustment, but all in all a great first day.
A definite working method has developed between the crew and we got some really lovely footage....
First Rehearsal
Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:38:35 > Pre-production
The first rehearsal has taken place and there was a great energy between the actors.
- Dave
Make up/wardrobe stills 2
Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:36:40 > Pre-production
Left: If I use my hands a lot while I talk, maybe people wi...
Fisrt Aid
Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:19:25 > Pre-production
We also have Steve Oak on board as First Assistant Director. He's an experience industry professional that's gonna pull the shoot days together. Welcome Steve.
- Dave
Crew news
Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:17:34 > Pre-production
On the crew side of things we’re finalising our last few members. In particular our sound requirements which are incredibly important as this is where a lot of low budget digital features get let down.
We’re also in talks with a sound designer who will create the final sound mix in post production. Considering we might have in excess o...
Article 3
Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:13:07 > news
Look out for an upcoming article in the Hereford Times about the film. We are going for an interview there tomorrow and will be writing a blog for their online service (web address to follow). It keeps moving.
- Dave
Sounding out the film
Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:45:06 > Pre-production
We are pleased to anounce that we have two very experienced sound professionals on board to capture the audio with the same diligence that we've been planning the visuals… Recording the sound is an often overlooked art, it's 50%of the final product so we are very excited about having these people on board.
- Dave
Casting
Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:19:45 > Pre-production
After another successful weekend of casting we have an idea of who the final cast will be. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen a lot of exciting local talent and we’d just like to thank everyone that attended. We’ll be in touch with all of you, and remember if you’re not cast in this first film we’re planning to make at least one film per year...
Website
Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:18:20 > Pre-production
A big thank you must go out to Matt Hinchliffe for designing and hosting the website for us free of charge, you’ve done and continue to do a brilliant job. Look out for a couple of additional pages appearing here very soon.
- Dave
Music
Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:17:14 > Pre-production
After some recent coverage in the Standard we were contacted by the Dastards (www.dastards.com) a band based in Worcester. They kindly offered their music and composition services for the film, they’ve got some great tracks too.
- Dave
Funding
Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:19:55 > Production
A big thank you to Lea Stores who have agreed to help out with the food for the shoot. Strangely our biggest hard cost on the production is feeding the cast and crew so this is a much needed donation.
- Dave
It arrives!
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:27:03 > Production
Yesterday our new bit of kit arrived, the piece we've all been impatiently waiting for, and I must say it was well worth the wait. The technical term is a 35mm lens converter, but what it means for the film is a fantastic cinematic look.
The first few initial tests, performed against an television industry standard DSR camera, hav...
Casting session 2
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:10:17 > Pre-production
We've now just completed our second casting session and again the standard of acting was very high, it's gonna be a tough choice deciding the roles, but at least it's looking almost definate that we'll be able to use all local talent for the film. A big thank you to Worcester Tech for giving us the space to audition. And thanks to all th...
Lenses
Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:04:41 > Production
We now have all the lenses we'll be using for filming. The primary's will be 24mm, 35mm and 50mm. In tests we've found that these produce the best results with the 35mm lens adaptor that we'll be using.
- Dave
Wardrobe
Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:02:00 > Pre-production
Things are now moving along nicely in the costume department. The guys at Worcester Tech have a character wardrobe breakdown and they're now working on ideas for both the make-up and clothing in the film.
- Dave
Worcester Tech
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:21:25 > Pre-production
We couldn't be more pleased with the outcome of our meeting with Iain Burton-Legge at Worcester College of Technology. All the lecturers were extremely helpful and pledged their support for the project. In fact Iain has asked his make-up and costume department to work on the film, and after speaking with the class and viewing some o...
Worcester College Of Technology
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:02:00 > Pre-production
Today we are visiting Worcester College of Technology who we have developed a link with. We are meeting with Iain Burton-Legge who runs the Make-up and Costume department and has been extremely helpful up to this point.
- Dave
Auditions
Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:28:02 > cast
Today we held our first auditions in Worcester. Having never made a film in this area before we were unsure of what to expect but we were very impressed with the standard of acting talent that attended. We still have a few more sessions to hold but we're now confident that we won't have to look to London for our cast.
We also met with&...
First round of casting
Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:43:04 > cast
We finally have a date for our first round of casting, Sunday 24th February. Many thanks for everyone who applied for roles and if you didn't make this first date we'll hopefully see you in March.
- Dave
Casting
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:38:24 > cast
The first round of casting has been delayed due to location restrictions, but it looks as though we'll now be holding the initial session on 24th February.Additional Crew
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:36:07 > Pre-production
We have just had an experience production designer sign on to the project and we have a large team on board from the University of Worcester that will be handling the make up and costume design. All very exciting.
- Dave
The Script
Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:18:35 > Pre-production
Script – After meeting with Dave there are a couple of little additions to be made that can enhance the depth of Ryan’s character. It does mean more locations, more set-ups, more shots, more time. The changes will be worth it. I’ll try and tackle those this week.
The first level of script breakdown is done. Scene by scene what, who and...
Crewing
Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:10:32 > Pre-production
We are expanding the TPOR team now with notable recent aditions in production design, make-up, wardrobe and a 2nd camera.
- Dave
Casting started
Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:45:48 > cast
After placing several casting adverts we have had a very large response. We're planning to hold local casting sessions in mid to late February and London auditions after that if all the roles aren't filled.
- Dave
Camera Equipment
Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:43:30 > Production
We have just secured some camera equipment that will allow us to shoot TPOR using 35mm lenses, this will add to the already very high production value that we're planning to give the film…. Very exciting.
- Dave
First Entry
Saturday 29th Dec 2007 > General
Simon has just finished rewriting the final script and it's reading extremely well. There are a few new scenes thrown in and a big new character point.
With the website up and running we're gonna start casting early in the new year. We'll be focusing mainly on local talent but also contacting actors that respond...