Friday, September 14, 2007

John Bond, portrait of a B movie director - day 2

Production diary

Colin who is playing 'John Bond' is back from Spain. We started with some general shots.
All done in Cambridge early in the morning just after sun rise and before going to work.



We are looking for a 1960-70's look. Colin is walking in some old industrial part of the city. The team for this early morning is me, Punaketu who is assisting me with the camera and Colin of course. We moved very quickly around the train station and in a hour all the establishing shots are done.



Later, the full team is gathering in a disused quarry to shoot some more action. I am using a Minolta Super 8 camera with some Kodachrome film.





We have a lot of light and we want to take advantage of the nice colours we are getting from this stock.



The location is ideal for the set of a B movie film. Our extra today will be playing our film crew.
I start filming the crew arriving on location.



Then some shots of people working and getting ready. Simon who was Colin's double on the first day of filming is playing one of the cameraman.



The main scene in the quarry is shot. Punaketu is playing one of aliens. 'John Bond' is directing the scene.



In this scene, our alien is loosing his temper and leave the set.



Simon is setting our 16 mm camera, a very nice Eclair from the 1960's belonging to Tony (He's playing the role of the B movie producer).



Our complete team (Thierry, director - Anna, script girl - Punaketu, the alien - Colin, John Bond, the B movie director and simon, the cameraman)



In our next scene, we are joined by Tony and his friend who is lending us his 1950's american car.




In this scene, John Bond is meeting his producer and his talking about his next project "The naked vampyre "



We are filming in the car. As it's the evening the light is just low enough to film with extra light.



We have just enough light to film the car driving in the countryside.





We have not finished the day yet. We are driving for the next scene.



John Bond and Tony are in the production office and are talking about philosophy and B movies.



The scene is set at Simon's house. We don't have to do a lot to transform it into a B movie producer office.



John Bond wants to work like the 'nouvelle vague'. He just means with the budget of the 'Nouvelle vague'.



That's enough for today. Now let's have some gin with Simon !



To be continued...

Monday, August 27, 2007

John Bond, Portrait of a B movie director

Production diary by Thierry Bonnaud - Part 1

Today, we have fun we started a new film " John bond, Portrait of a B movie director", staring Colin Dewar as the film director.



Simon has offered to help on this project. He's coming to collect me at 7:30 am after a few hours sleep and a big hang over.




The shooting is down in a landfill. Our B movie team is filming a zombie film. We will do some filming to insert in our documentary.



After being lost, we finally found our team. Carl Honer is shooting a short film about a post apocalyptic event, we are going to hijack the set to film some Super 8 cartridges.



Basically it's a film in a film. Thierry has his camera loaded with some black and white Tri X, he's shooting the crew getting ready.




We start shooting some general shots of our 1970's hero, John Bond.





Simon is playing John Bond today as Colin is still in Spain on holiday



We are filming the team building the set for some of the next scene.



Thierry ready for another shot.



Luckily, the car is not in the shot. Not really 1970's.



We are shooting some of the zombie buried under the ruins.



Carl is getting ready for his first scene of the day.



When the two directors of photography are meeting.






Different cameras, different styles !



The first cartridge is finished !





Simon is quiet tired but very motivated.



He's taking numerous break, any time, anywhere.



People from "Bed and Breakfast" are working very hard, some have been on the set for 3 hours already.



We shoot our first zombie scene with some of the extras.



After bing the double of John Bond is playing another character.



We meet Atti, one of Colin's friend, difficult to recognise with all the make up.





On the other set, a zombie has taken control of a camera. Thanks goodness, it's only a video camera.



Ready for another zombie scene !


Simon is really doing everything!



More zombies are arriving on the set. we have our cameras ready to capture these moments.




We are shooting some color film as well. It's Ektachrome 64T.



Simon is now filming while Thierry is playing one of the film technicien.


Today, we are only two for our fake documentary. We decided last night to go on location to film. So nobody could be found at the last minute to give us a hand.



Thierry is even playing a second character. Will the audience notice ?



Ready for another zombie scene.




It's lunchtime , after 4 hours on the set, we have 3 cartridges and enought material for the day. Carl is still filming his short. |Thanks for welcoming us on his film set and good luck for the end of his project.

We will try to hand process some of the cartridges and shoot more material in the coming months.

to be continued...