SoundZ on YouTube.

Happy New Year to one and all – I hope you had a good hogmanay. Do you know what saddens me? Spell checks don't recognise that word – hogmanay! 

It was first used by Mary Queen of Scots in 1561 and may, indeed, have originated in France.

Here's what the dictionary says: Hogmanay (Scots: [ˌhɔɡməˈneː]; English: /ˌhɒɡməˈneɪ/ HOG-mə-NAY) is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year (Gregorian calendar) in the Scottish manner.

And by the way – all the spellings here are spelt the English way.

So now – I have put my film SoundZ on YouTube; it has had its film festival run, screenings at Soho Screening Rooms, Harrow Filmmakers, an audience at NW London Equity and to an audience of shrinks; well doctors. They said I'd got it about right with the schizophrenia but nobody can be hypnotised over the phone and I said it was his own voice; he hypnotised himself. 'oh yes,' they said . . . (SPOILER there).

I made the film as an experiment to see if I could do all the jobs and loved it. Those with good memories will remember me writing on here about it.

When you have seen it – when, I hope – you can always go to the IMDb and write a review – the link for that is at the bottom of the page and you are not obliged to write a good one.

There are 2 co-stars – a bird and a fox at around three minutes or so and I hope you like it; click on this to view the move which is only 20 minutes long - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dKxBVhpTpw&t=42s

AND FOR THE REVIEW:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3978386/reference

you will see other reviews which came from audiences at the screenings. But don't feel pressured.

White Rabbits.

One of the first things I said this morning was “White Rabbits;” I hardly know why I said it but I have been saying it for most of my life. My mother told me to say it and like a good little boy that's what I've been doing.

My wife always gets up at an ungodly hour on Saturday and Sunday mornings to go out to the markets to buy antiques – even though we no longer have an antique business - so I invariably wake up for a while then go back to sleep. If I lay awake for hours listening to the radio I go back to sleep till about 10.

But when I hear those magic words, 'This is the shipping forecast for today August 1^st 2015' I say 'White Rabbits.'

There are a few things I missed about living in Britain and one was the shipping forecast; it goes out on the radio a few times a day. I hear the last one – and I usually do – at 12:48 am, and it goes:

“And now, here is the shipping forecast. There are warnings of gales in Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, German Bight and Humber.

The general synopsis:

Low, Rockall, 9 7 3 moving northwards, losing its identity by same time. New low expected Malin by that time.

Low, Hebrides 9 9 4, moving rapidly South-East, and losing its identity by midday tomorrow.

The area forecasts for the next 24 hours:

Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire — Gale warning issued Oh, nine four two.

South-Easterly gale force 8 increasing severe gale force 9 later; wind South-Easterly 6 to 8, occasionally severe gale 9; sea state rough or very rough, becoming very rough or high; rain later; visibility moderate or good.

Forties, Cromarty —

Gale warning issued Oh, nine four two.”

And on it goes; it has to have a script of the same length each time and it is preceded by the music Sailing By – which is another thing I missed when not living here.

Those strange names, which sound strange to none sea going people – landlubbers – are taken from sandbanks, islands, north European shorelines, towns and islets.

In October 1859, the steam clipper Royal Charter wrecked in a strong storm off Anglesey; 450 people lost their lives. Due to this loss, Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, introduced a warning service for shipping in February 1861, using telegraph communications. This remained the United Kingdom's Met Office primary responsibility for some time afterwards. In 1911, the Met Office had begun issuing marine weather forecasts which included gale and storm warnings via radio transmission for areas around Great Britain. This service was discontinued during and following Word War I, between 1914 and June 1921, and again during World War II between 1939 and 1945.

Today, although most ships have onboard technology to provide the Forecast's information, they still use it to check their data.

ice can be dangerous

On Friday 30 May 2014, for the first time in more than 90 years, the BBC failed to broadcast the Shipping Forecast at 5:20 am. Staff at Broadcasting House were reading out the report but it was not transmitted. Listeners instead heard BBC World Service.

That's a but of information you didn't know you were going to get today did you and it came from Wikipedia!

The music Sailing By may annoy some people because it's played every day but that's their bad luck. It is a warning that the shipping forecast is about to be read and it fills the gap neatly between two progammes so it very rarely gets played in full mainly because The Shipping forecast has to go out at exactly 12:48 am.

So there, you are learning a few things about me – The Shipping Forecast, Sailing By and the theme tune to The Archers are three of the things I missed and the other was The Guardian – although I read it on line when in Los Angeles. - oh yes and the time pips from Greenwich.

The Archers annoys me, even though I like the theme tune as some of those actor voices sound just like that; actor voices. And The Guardian annoys me, even though I read it, with it's banning of certain words - idiots.

So back to White Rabbits; my mother told me to say it on the first day of the month and up to a few minutes ago I didn't know the reason.

Well it's supposed to mean that by the end of the month you will receive a present; some people say 'a flick and a kick for being so quick' on the first day of the month, but that has something to do with a pinch of salt.

But White Rabbits is what I say and that's what the bomber crews would say each time they risked their lives going up in those little tin crates, during The Battle of Britain, where most of them never came back.

White Rabbits!

http://tinyurl.com/ptywbs3

So far . . . .

A bit of a gap since my last post so I apologise for that – if you have fervently followed me of late you will know that I have been working on a film all by myself which has been taking my time.

My aim – my experiment – is to edit it on MovieMaker, which is free software from Windows. I am also making it on a very reasonably priced camera from Sanyo and on Monday the film will go to the Edinburgh Film Festival, The Los Angeles Film Festival and the Brooklyn Film Festival. That will be it for now and after this I will probably get Final Cut Pro or one of the other cheaper downloads; I think Avid, which is what most editors use over here, will be too expensive for me.

Everything has been going quite well but the one thing, when you do everything yourself – and I mean everything from the music to the sound editing, acting, shooting and writing – you have some mishaps. What I do is to put the camera on the tripod, get on to my mark and then, to make sure, I look through the lens with a mirror. I also record the sound on a separate sound system (with a film called SoundZ the sound has to be good) so I usually start that, then do the bit with the mirror and start the camera.

The other day I was doing a fairly close shot of me sitting in a chair and I had to step over the microphone lead. The camera was on a tiny tripod on a book which was on the desk. As I stepped over the cable, I touched the book which knocked the camera on to the floor.

This hurt the focus and the rest of the shots from that day were out of focus. That is the problem with the small cheap camera – if it had have been a camera with a lens I would have been able to see the focus but it wasn't till I transferred it to the computer that I could see it properly.

I looked on the Internet but couldn't find the same type of camera; I saw some, but they weren't what I wanted. I eventually found that lots of the shots are now in focus as long as I don't use the zoom – today out of 24 shots one was out of focus so that's not bad; I can live with that. The zoom, by the way, when shooting yourself, is only to save moving the camera closer as you would never show a zoom shot in a drama – maybe some of the movies of the 80s but not now.

Having said that there is an excellent series on the BBC here – first episode last night – called Line of Duty where the director used a few zoom shots; when that happened I was reminded of the old series here The Avengers.

The other mishap on my movie – which happened yesterday when I couldn't shoot anything because of the horrendous weather – was that I broke the computer!!!! Yes I broke it. I previously wrote on here that I had problems saving stuff on High Definition; I know what is causing it and it is the background programmes that run and take up a load of space – you know useless things to me like Instant Messenger and the like.

So I got rid of some programmes and one of them I got rid of was something that ran the computer – I don't know what it was but it ran Windows the system that runs the whole shooting match – so when I put it back on I couldn't open anything. BOIIINNNGGG!!! It went; like a great clanking iron bar banging on my head; just like the character in my movie!!!!

So here I am on my lap top typing away whilst my computer bloke (computer guy to all my American friends) mends the big one.

And isn't the weather terrible.

SoundZ

Wow it's been a week or two since I wrote anything on here; I've been busy making a film – that one above. Now don't get too excited out there as it's only a short one – although it gets longer by the day like Pinocchio's nose each time I work on it – but the idea is to get the movie in to the Edinburgh Film Festival in June which means it has to be ready for February 28.

I am getting on well with it especially as the object of the exercise is to do everything myself and make it for less than – well, what can I say? Less than £100 which is about $150; okay let's say less than $100 – although I might be pushing it at that as I'll have to buy blank DVDs.

I'm writing, editing and shooting as I go along. I've done a lot of the sound editing and music and the only thing I am having a bit of trouble with is rendering on to HD!!! In English that is saving the film in High Definition. My computer keeps telling me that it's running out of memory even though I did bigger projects with my music videos before Christmas.

So if anybody out there has any ideas?

You know where to find me.

Here is a still from the film, by the way:

 

which looks more like the reaction I had to the first listening of my love song for Valentine's Day, I Love You. (still on YouTube).

The other thing I have to do is to not make it look like a vanity project but I suppose that is what it is; the same with the one man shows I have done in the past. One was the Irish show and the other my one man play.

The Irish show I did from the year 2000 to 2010 in Los Angeles; not all the time, you understand, just on St Patrick's Day, a few colleges and the Irish Fair at Santa Anita Racetrack; I would say it was very successful as it played to full houses but it didn't really work in London – there we are.

When the time came to do any of these shows I would get on with it but in the hiatus, if I thought of them at all, I would wonder at the gall I had to actually get up and do them; I'm not thinking of that now I am working at getting the film completed – tomorrow I have to learn more lines.

Now you may wonder how I can do a one man film – or a one person film to be boringly politically correct – without making it look barmy or even talking to the camera but there are loads of devices and techniques that have been used in movies over the years and I'm using some of those.

There is a trailer which was on You Tube for a couple of days but I've taken it down as the film itself has not to be on the Internet before the festival – if you missed it sorry!!

So wish me luck and if you have a solution to my little problem of rendering let me know.

Oh and here is another still from the film where I am looking a bit more intelligent.