Films

I’ve produced several short films, and I’m planning to produce several more. Although I’ve been making web video shows for years now, I’m relatively new to film production so this has been quite a learning experience – but a fun one!

My first film, The Locket, was a short horror film in the silent film style. The story is told entirely in visuals and uses music for its cues. My partner, Jennifer Kirk, and I shot the entire film in one day.

I spent a couple of days before filming working on the storyboard for the film and we were able to shoot the entire thing in one afternoon; which should be obvious when you watch it. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from the project and I’m quite pleased with the results.

For my second film, To My Beloved, I challenged myself to mix romantic comedy with science fiction. It was a fun project that I scripted over several days and filmed over several more; with additional recording having to be done using a screen recorder to capture the parts set in virtual reality.

This was a really fun project to work on and although I could have made some of the single-camera shots more varied and interesting, it nevertheless worked quite well as a story. If I could re-record the sound to remove the overpowering noise of the storm that was going on outside while I filmed a lot of those shots, I would. Sadly I was running out of time, so I had to make do with the footage I had.

Those screenshots of emails aren’t screenshots, by the way. I spent an hour putting together a fake desktop screen just so I could overlay emails onto it, and then later realised that was a complete waste of time. Oh well, you live and learn.

The third film, How To Make A Film, didn’t even start out as a film script. This was an extended episode of The Nobmouse Show that I was almost finished writing when I realised the sheer number of sketch comedy inserts in it would make the episode too unfocussed. So I spent the morning of filming quickly re-writing the whole script turn it into a short film.

The outdoor scenes were shot about an hour after I’d finished writing the script, while the indoor scenes were all filmed the next day. My long-suffering partner, Jennifer Kirk, is not only voicing all the cuddly toy characters but she’s also the one under the covers or under the table, animating them. I literally could not have made this film without her hard work.