Oscar and the Empire

So..it’s a bit late, but HAPPY 2012! At least we just managed to sneak this through in the first month of the New Year

And already we’ve been busy!

Before we go on, though, we have to extend a mighty congratulations to long time MannIN Shorts supporter – and the designer of our logo, no less – the lovely JUAN MOORE.

Juan Moore conducts 'Storyboarding' workshop

Juan not only led an excellent workshop for us in the art of Storyboarding to round of 2011, but just a few days ago was notified that a film he worked on – the fabulous ‘Chico & Rita’ - has been nominated for an Oscar!! A large portion of the animated film was created here on the Isle of Man over a series of months in 2010, by Juan and a small group of fellow hard working artists. We will have our fingers crossed for him and all those who worked on the film on Oscars night!

Speaking of Oscars, our most recent workshop was with the the extremely talented and very determined filmmaker Danny Lacey, who came over from Leeds last week (Jan 26th)

Writer Director Danny Lacey shares his experiences of low budget filmmaking

to share his experiences making three highly anticipated low budget shorts in the course of just 18months. He shot one of them – “Love Like Hers” – immediately after visiting the Isle of Man for our MannIN Shorts launch night in Sept 2010, where he appeared on a panel alongside Hamish Morrow (FutureShorts) and Chris Jones (Guerilla Filmmakers Handbook). Since then, Danny has also written, shot and almost finished cutting ‘Host’ – with DSLR guru Philip Bloom as DP – and is on the final draft of script ‘That Day’ which is due to shoot next month (again with Bloom on board).

Thanks to our sponsors PokerStars, we were fortunate that Danny was able to take the time out of his ridiculous schedule to return to the Island and speak so openly and at length with our crews; sharing his mission to win on Oscar within five years – and seeing how close he has come already – left our would-be Producers inspired, enthused & determined to make their own marks in the industry.

Speaking of which…thanks to the forward thinking of MannIN Shorts Finalist Ady Hall, we could be on our way to winning our first award! A small group of workshoppers had great fun on a one day shoot to bring Ady’s tongue-in-cheek minute long version of ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ to life, which we entered into the Jameson sponsored ‘Done in 60 Seconds’ competition (championed by Empire Film Magazine). At last count, it was looking like there was a good chance of the video getting into the next round…we’ll keep you posted!

Look out for our next workshops, which are ‘Scriptwriting’ with Pathe/Working Title/UK Film Council story analyst Danny Stack on March 3rd (still a few places left), ‘Directing for Screen’ with Writer/Director Lesley Manning who also tutors at National Film and TV School (which is now full and closed) and we also have Cinematography and 1st AD workshops being planned for next month.

Next workshop – Production Design!

Thanks to our recent sponsorship from Poker Stars, we are able to hold our next MannIN Shorts workshop over weekend of Nov 12th/13th; it will be in the fascinating art of Production Design and is being run by Lynda Reiss of Lynda’s Prop Shop.

Lynda lives on the Island but has a career in the industry that’s taken her all around the world. She will be passing on her experience and knowledge from having worked on everything from no-budget to blockbuster films (Iron Man, American Beauty and most recently Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).

She will be using two of our MannIN Shorts ‘Finalist’ scripts as case studies for the workshop -partly to help the writers/teams associated with the scripts to realise their vision, but partly so the workshop attendees can see the process from the very early stages – how you can bring the words from a page to life through design.

Catering is being provided by the wonderful Molly Reiss, who has even promised cupcakes from her bakery business!

Video and pictures to follow…

In the end, all comes down to…

..money.

Tis a sad fact, but it’s true – you can’t run a film scheme without it. Money for equipment, money to hire venues, money to pay professionals to host masterclasses/workshops, money to cover the cost of flights and accommodation for aforementioned professionals – hell, I’ve not even mentioned the most important expense yet – you gotta have cash for coffee & biscuits!

Until yesterday, the funding we’d been expecting for the past year had yet to materialise. The Isle of Man Arts Council has been continually supportive (we love them lots ) but the truth is that we were STILL running the scheme from our own limited resources. Yesterday, we finally received a generous sponsorship grant from the scheme-saving folk at Poker Stars Isle of Man, and this will pay for future workshops, (hussah! bring on the training!!) but this money is not to fund the short films themselves.

We have to admit we were extremely disappointed when, after over a year of meetings and attempted communications, we were finally told recently that apparently, the relevant area of Govt couldn’t support the scheme. We are still endeavouring to make direct representations, to find out who could (or should) be supporting Mannin Shorts. We will persevere, as we believe 100% in the passion and dedication of our trainees – their screenplays, their vision, their potential – and in the value of helping to build a community of well trained film makers on an Island that promotes itself as a ‘great place to make movies’.

Our plan was to have finished three shorts by Sept of this year, after having run half a dozen intense weekend workshops on the major areas of filmmaking (Directing, Design, Editing, Producing etc). Although we haven’t had the budgets to produce the shorts, we have held several technical workshops using gear loaned by DAM Productions (which led to our crews being able to cast, produce, shoot and edit short scenes); we have had writers meetings/discussions and worked with 30+ screenplay entrants to help hone their scripts down to what is now our final 6; we have trained Editors in the marvels of Final Cut Pro; we hosted a Film Tent at The Garden Party music festival in conjunction with Future Shorts; we held another Short Film event to open the IOM Arts Council Film Festival 2011; and we assisted in the production of ‘Hide & Seek’.

As mentioned in previous blogs, ‘Hide & Seek’ was one of our finalist 6 scripts. The enthusiasm of the writer (Ady Hall) and his production team led to them raising private funding for MannIN Shorts so that the film could be shot in August of this year. The shoot was fantastic; crewed by MShorts trainees, shadowed by a number of experienced professionals, they are now well underway with their edit and the cuts we have seen are brilliant. It will be a perfect ‘first film’ for the MannIN Shorts scheme and we’re extremely grateful for their hard work (and very very proud of them, awww!)

Now to make another one! Our remaining five writers are currently putting together ‘production packs’ so we can find out how far along they are with planning and pre-production on their shorts. Whichever one is most advanced, will be the one we make next…. As soon as the funding is in place.

In the meantime, we will at last be able to hold some more workshops – thanks to Poker Stars. The first will be in Storyboarding (with Guardian contributor/ Chico & Rita illustrator Juan Moore), then two in Directing (‘An Introduction to Directing’ with Lesley Manning from National Film School) followed by a masterclass to be led by an internationally renowned and influential Director (who we cannot name yet, but is very exciting!), and we’ll also have a workshop in Design with Lynda Reiss (of Lynda’s Prop Shop, who worked on films like ‘American Beauty’, ‘Iron Man’ – and most recently supplied materials for ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’).

So, although its been a hard slog to get this far, we are finally making *some* headway. We hope to hear final confirmation about one part of the funding for our shorts before the end of this month. Either way, we’ll keep you posted. Funnily enough, it all sounds rather like the frustrating but ultimately extremely rewarding process of trying to make a film…

IOM Film Fest 2011 and ‘Hide & Seek’ preview

"Hide & Seek"

It’s been a busy few filmmaker days on the tiny Isle!

Firstly, “Hide & Seek” wrapped just over a week ago, which means the very first MannIN Shorts shoot ‘proper’ is finally in the can.

The team are now well on the way with editing the footage, which is looking excellent and which had it’s first public preview just a few days ago…

This preview was at the Isle of Man Arts Council Film Festival 2011. As with last year, MannIN Shorts was asked to host the opening night. As we’re yet to fully complete any of our own films, we called on the services of the brilliant FutureShorts.com to put together a bespoke programme of their favourite shorts especially for the night. To that, we added a selection of shorts by exciting young Manx based / born filmmakers:

• Will Sutton – free runner and filmmaker; we showed his excellent narrative short ‘Rail’ and his latest film made in collaboration with The Play People performance group, the hilarious ‘Operation S’ created to promo the group’s involvement with Mannifest 2011.
• Danieyl ‘Ducky’ Lowden- freelance fashion/youth photographer and filmmaker, whose recent shorts ‘Beat The Night’ and ‘Streetlight Diaries’ are a beautiful, beguiling comment on life as a teenager growing up on the Island.
• Daniel Lumb - Manx filmmaker, initially trained at the Manx Multimedia Centre, now based in London and working on award winning film & animation for th1ng.com. He made the stunning ‘Extrajnero’  with fellow Manxie Andrew Blackburn.

"98..99.." Tilly as Young Alice

These films were followed by an introduction to the ‘Hide & Seek’ project from Producer Debs Gwinnell, Director Laura Jones, Writer Ady Hall and Designer Lynda Reiss, then a short clip from the behind-the-scenes video before the exclusive preview of the opening sequence of the film itself.

The standard of film making from all contributors in this IOM section of the night was staggering, & hugely inspiring to those in the audience and the excitement building around ‘Hide & Seek’ was palpable.

DP John Craine and MannIN Shorts' Dave Armstrong

The FutureShorts reel was a superb selection of shorts from the international film circuit – funny, beautiful, moving, surreal, dark, empowering – but all from filmmakers at the top of their game and hopefully inspiring to those in the audience.

Yesterday was the Arts Council’s Young Filmmaker of Mann and Short Film Competition, at which Will Sutton won two awards – one for his Free Running reel, and the ‘Best Comedy’ prize for Operation S. Congrats also to long time MShorts supporter Emily Cook, who’s come a very long way in the past year and won Best Documentary for ‘Unkept’.

IOM FilmMaker of Mann & Short Film Comp 2011 winners

Next for MannIN Shorts, we hope to run our first Director’s Workshop, and will soon have a workshop in storyboarding courtesy of excellent IOM based artist/illustrator Juan Moore. 

Keep checking our social networking sites for updates:

facebook.com/manninshorts
twitter.com/manninshorts
www.manninshorts.com

Go Team! First ‘proper’ film shoot this weekend..

Those of you who are on our mailing list will know that we’ve experienced extensive delays in our funding (a frustrating issue which has been ongoing since last October!) but, determined to keep the scheme going, we have continued with workshops and tutoring as much as possible regardless. This has left us way behind on our timeline of having three Finalist short films produced by our fully trained crews in time for this year’s Isle of Man Arts Council Film Festival in September.

HOWEVER – it recently led to an interesting and extremely encouraging scenario…

As you’ll know, we had shortlisted 6 Semi-Finalist scripts, to be whittled down to the final 3 based on resubmission with production pack / crew / cast attached and final judging by an invited panel of noted international Producers. Obviously, due to the problems mentioned above, we were forced to put this on hold. But while Dave, Phil and I tried to think of ways we could keep the momentum going without the financial support we needed, one of the teams was very busy ‘getting on with things’!

Dave & John discuss lights (& camera, & possibly action)

Final pre-production crew meet, in The Drawing Room

Director Laura shows her storyboards

Crew listen intently

Eddie Locations studies the call sheet

John and Dave, filmfighting duo!

Writer Ady and Photographer Geoff get busy

FInal pre-production crew meet, in The Drawing Room

Semi-finalist Writer Ady Hall created his production team around his short film ‘Hide & Seek’, as per the MShorts rules. But rather than be dragged into the holding pattern we were caught up in, Producer Debs Gwinnell and Director Laura Jones decided to try raising some money for the scheme (and their film) themselves. And once that ball was rolling, there wasn’t any stopping them!

So, with a view to helping us promote MannIN Shorts, Debs, Ady and Laura called on some of the professionals attached to the scheme (Lynda Reiss from Lynda’s PropShop, Bev Lawley from Ex-Isle, producer Rob Craine, DP and award winning young independent filmmaker John Craine to name a few), alongside some of their fellow MShorts trainees, and went into pre-production. Their goal? To get a short film made under the scheme’s name before the end of the year – private funding or no private funding!

And this weekend, they shoot…it’s all very, very exciting. Dave, Phil and I are extremely impressed with what this merry band of folk have achieved, and are supporting them in any way we can. Dave and I will be on hand throughout the shoot to advise and assist, with Dave also having official title of Gaffer and I’ll be on the usual BTS duties. We (as DAM Productions) are also supplying much of the kit, as they’ll be shooting on the 5D. We’ll let you know how it all goes, but in the meantime, PLEASE show your support – check out their blog here and their Facebook page to read about their achievements.

See you on the other side!

Film 102 Workshop & update

Hello hello! Wow it’s been a long time since we’ve posted a blog.. and not because we haven’t been up to much, ohhhh no..

Our Tent at The Garden Party (courtesy Christine Collister)

The organisers of a fab new music festival over here on the tiny Isle, called The Garden Party, asked if we’d like to host a film tent. ‘Of course!’ we said. But realising we wouldn’t have enough material yet from our own scheme, we approached our friends and helpers at Future Shorts. They supplied us with their July Selection for FS One, a collection of the best short films from that month from all over the world. It included the fantastic video promo for Battles single ‘Ice Cream’ and the video for ‘Uberlin’ by REM, so fit really well with the music festival vibe.

Testing the screen with Anna Goldsmith 'Night Fever' video

We added a reel of films by local film makers Glenn Whorrall, photographer Daniyel ‘Ducky’ Lowden and parkour genius Will Sutton, alongwith various music video promos we’ve produced (as DAM Productions) for people like Anna Goldsmith, Jacoba, Truman Falls etc.

We also had a special screening of ‘Ghostgirl’ – split into two halves between Anna Goldsmith, The Heights and Davy Knowles sets – really encouraged to see the place packed out, with people standing outside the tent craning to see in!

Festival folk flocking to see Ghostgirl!

The weekend before the festival, we had an intense two day film shoot for Film 102 workshop. The idea behind the workshop was to progress from our Film 101, where we taught the very basics of film making on day one, then allowed the group to ‘play’ with the gear and shoot a very short scene from Lost in Translation on day two. This time, we met with the group two weeks before, split them into two random teams, gave each group an unmarked envelope with a different scene in from a mystery indie film. One scene had a lot of action and several set ups to work with, the other was – on paper – very static and focussed on performance.

Team B’s 1970′s period set design

Charley (camera), Chris (lighting) and Dave MShorts of Team B

Producer / AD Zoe Guilford of Team B

Actor Denise being extremely patient, and sound gal Laura Moore

Actors Kim and Matt ready for their close up

Tricky handheld camera work

Apprehension as the final shots are taken

Director Chris Chambers and Asst Producer Rob Craine

Team A transformed a pub into an Italian Restaurant

Most important thing on a shoot – REFRESHMENTS!

Dave shows Emily (Reel Vision) the ropes on the 5D

Makeshift clapper board (ours broke!)

Director John Brimble with his cast Josh & Kat

Ady Hall positions lighting

Kat’s flagging in the heat of the final shot’s lighting!

Festival folk flocking to see Ghostgirl!

Testing the screen with Anna Goldsmith ‘Night Fever’ video

Each team then had to choose a producer, and decide how they would assign the crew roles. Once that was done, they had to hold proper casting sessions to choose their actors (with a lot of help from Carl Parker and in association with the Isle of Man Acting Academy), then find locations, draw up shot lists, storyboards, schedules etc. So, not much then!!

In the week prior to shoot, Dave and I held a very compacted evening class for the camera & sound teams, who would be using the 5D & associated gear and the Edirol R44 sound recording gear/lavalier(tie pin) mics/boom etc. (bear in mind some of these guys have never even heard of this gear before, let alone used it!)

And on the last weekend of June, they each had one day to shoot their scene.

The effort these teams went to was just incredible. They’d each sourced great locations with full facilities & parking on site, had gone to town on design, pulling in assistance from Lynda of Lynda’s Prop Shop and each team brought at least one professional on board to help things run smoothly.

Dave and I were on hand on both shoot days, to assist with lighting, sound, camera, direction etc

The scenes then needed editing; a member was chosen from each team, neither of whom had any previous experience with editing before… it was clearly a mighty task they were taking on, not only to learn the practicalities of how to use Final Cut Pro, but also to try and grasp the finer points of editing, the intuition needed to get the ‘look’ and ‘feel’ that some of us are still learning after several years of using the gear…!

Although our Directors had requested to be present at the edit, we made exception this time as we really needed our editors to be able to concentrate on the training as much as the edit itself, and we decided that the pressure of having their Director in the room would be too much! Both girls (yes, our Eds were female hurrah were incredible, taking to the software and to the intuitive nature of editing extremely quickly.

Dave and I took notes throughout the whole process of each shoot, pre-and post production, and we’ll post the general pointers here in the next day or two (you may find them useful if you’re a new film maker yourself.)

Meantime, here are the clips – both scenes were revealed at a debrief to be from the excellent indie film ‘Blue Valentine’ starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. We think both teams did a superb job and are looking forward to the next workshop.

Our six script finalists are well on the way to getting their final proposals in for consideration – in fact, the game has changed slightly on the MShorts competition front, and we’ll tell you more about that in the next blog (which we promise will be considerably quicker than this one has been!)

Thanks for following
Christy D.

First workshop? Done.

Whew! That was intense…

A week ago today we held our first Writers’ Gathering at the Railway Inn, Union Mills. It was a great turnout, the discussion was inspiring, energising and fascinating, and all are looking forward to the next one.

Then at the weekend, we held our first filmmaking workshop – for which we had nearly 30 attendees. The idea was to give a general overview of the industry with practical experience and the chance to shoot and complete something by the end of the two days.

Saturday morning was spent giving a superfast, hardcore cramming session on film, the industry, crew roles, screen writing & some general tips on lighting, camera work and sound. In the afternoon, we split everyone up into two groups; basic crew roles were chosen (Director, Sound, Lighting, Camera Op, 1st AD, Floor Runner and 2x actors, with roles such as design & props being taken on by the crew as a group) and each crew was given the same scene – a short clip from “Lost In Translation”.  They then spent the afternoon blocking, rehearsing and discussing ideas for the shoot.

They had 2.5 hrs on Sunday morning to shoot it, then that afternoon all sat round a laptop with either myself or Dave to edit their pieces on Final Cut Pro – as per their own direction.

We were knocked out by the enthusiasm and passion the crews had for the task, their professionalism and their creative & technical talents, considering none had any real previous experience in the industry. All the attendees listened, took notes, then put into practise everything they’d been told, and the resulting scenes were well beyond the standard we’d expected. Both crews also worked very differently – one focussing more on the art & design of the shoot, and one on the technical aspects, but both worked really well.

We will now be compiling a list of notes for each crew that they can take through to the next workshop, and hopefully progress even further.

It was fantastic fun and truly inspiring – congrats to all involved!
Christy ‘shorts.

To watch the behind the scenes footage, and both clips by Crew A and B, visit our Vimeo Page

Few pics below – plenty more at our Flickr Site

Dave and Phil discuss a gameplan

Camera gal Hailey discovering manual exposure

Crew B blocking a shot

Crew A hard at work

Actress Bev working the camera