Bridges

So two of the bridges are confirmed. One will be about the suicides on the Forth Road Bridge. The other about the Cowgate fire in 2002 which spread to the South Bridge and closed a number of businesses. The last bridge is still to be decided. Should be an exciting shoot for both of these bridges as we are arranging to meet and interview people involved in the suicide clearing up process and perhaps a business owner who lost their business.

Oliver Watson

WOW

Ok so its been a stupidly amount of time since anyone last blogged but, there is a good reason.

You see myself and the remaining members of the group 6 production team are now learning more about film and production. In fact our blog and youtube channel are going to get pretty jam packed with films we are making. Soon there will be three short documentary's about various bridges in Edinburgh. Then after that three short documentary's on various statues in Edinburgh. Then after that there will be more but we have yet to decide.

On another topic I am also planning on making a music show for a young persons music project. It will feature new and upcoming bands performing live. Perhaps a peak at the recording process. Some interviews with tutors and bands and anything else I can think of putting in there.

That's all our news that I can think of just now but keep checking back to see what we're up to next! Group 6 out!

Oliver Watson

Group 6 Productions

Edinburgh International Film Festival

Its our big day on Friday 18th June 2010. Group 6 is having 3 of it's films shown at the festival as part of the Edinburgh Schools Competition. Saturday is the public screening so we're excited to know that an even larger audience is going to see our films.

Oliver Watson

Music Video - Trying My Best - MDM

Here at Group Six in Edinburgh we are preparing to enter a whole new dimension of film - the music video. The video is for Michael's song 'Trying My Best' which he wrote and performs himself. The reason for the video is that he can't make it to the gig that Totally Sound, a music project that we attend, is organising. We are making this video so that they don't miss out on Mike's talent. Should they like the video then they will show it at the gig to the audience.

The music video is going to be used to promote Mike's music and also increase our experience in the film industry.

The link to Mike's musical myspace is: http://www.myspace.com/mdoddsmusic

Fuck It

The filming for the short film Fuck It is now complete. All that remains is the editing. Hopefully it will be finished soon and then uploaded to youtube. If it is done in time then we should be able to enter it with Castelletti to get shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

UPDATE: Editing on this film is going very slowly. There has been complications with my PC which involve my firewire port just losing the will to live so to speak. So, basically nothing has been done. Although after watching all the footage over a lot of times I have a fairly good idea of what it will look like in the end. I have managed to get the title sequence done for the intro. Here is a snap shot of it!

What's been going on for the past month!

Hello April and hello to everyone else. So almost a whole month has passed since the last post about Through The Lens. After much discussion in a McDonalds somewhere in Edinburgh we have decided to postpone any pre-production of this film. There was no definite reason for doing this other than it just didn't feel right.

Instead of Through The Lens though we talked alot more about some of the other ideas we've had. The first production we are working on at the moment is a short called, "Fuck It", written and directed by Oliver Watson. Yes, it's rather explicit but it suits the narrative and ideology of the film. It revolves around a young man who is an iconic punk. He is an individual who feels a bitter distaste towards Britain's culture, society and the way that the government and other establishments treat the people of this country. He speaks directly to the audience about his feelings with the prime aim of making them question themselves. The whole film will be set in Edinburgh. All of the cast were also in Castelletti.

I believe that the production that we will be working on after "Fuck It" is a new take on the western genre. I won't go into detail about this short apart from saying that it is the brainchild of Michael Dodds. The film will feature artistic editing to give it the authentic western feeling but with a twist. There has been no decisions, as of yet, to who will feature in this film but expect it to be two males (although I could be wrong).

A project that we are working on is a documentary on a flashmob that happened last week. A flashmob is an event where everyone meets up in a certain location and when the signal occurs then everyone does something that looks unusual. For instance it could be everyone freezes when a whistle is blown. The t-mobile adverts that have been on lately feature staged flashmobs, which show lots of people dancing or singing in train stations or in the streets of London. Our flashmob was arranged to happen at the Galleries in Edinburgh, an extremely busy area where it would be seen by hundreds of passer-bys. When the whistle was blown everyone that was aware of the flashmob lay down still on the ground for 5 minutes. During this time many people joined in even though they hadn't heard of the flashmob before. Myself (Oliver) and Michael filmed it taking place and are about to start the editing process shortly. Expect to find it on youtube soon.

Virtual Reality and Time Travel are the final two areas this month that we are planning on working with. We have talked a lot more about the Virtual Reality idea a lot more but don't feel confident enough to talk about it on the blog yet and the same goes for the Time Travel, which we only briefly mentioned.

So that's this month for Group 6 Productions. Hopefully we can get some stuff up on youtube for the public to see. A trailer for Castelletti might appear soon if I can get round to it. But apart from that, I am done here!

New Project - Through The Lens

We've been talking about making a short film with a love story. The main narrative is about two photographers that meet by seeing each other through the lens' in their cameras. They then inevitably fall in love. As for what the more meaty side of the story will be I don't know as of yet. Michael has his ideas and I have mine. I wished for a more tragic side of events which ultimately tore the couple apart but I believe Michael wishes it to have a happy ending. I'm sure we'll get together at some point to discuss this film in more detail.

New Project - Blu Tack Advert

It came to our attention yesterday that blu-tack were holding a competition that specified that the public were to create the next blu-tack advert. It could be anything from live-action to animation. So far, we haven't really had a chance to discuss what we should do but, we are definately going to enter the competition and try to win.

The prize is £2000 worth of computing and film equipment that would be incredibly beneficial to us. And if we don't win but become runners up instead we get our hands on £200 worth of equipment which would still be beneficial to us!

Castelletti

Castelletti is a gripping tale that follows the interrogation of a 1940s gangster named Antony Castelletti. This work of fiction was written and directed by Michael Dodds, aided by a small team consisting of 5 other members. The majority of the camera work was undertaken by Oliver Watson with the rest done by Matthias Fischer, Harry Grieve and Neil McGlashan.

The film took a reasonable short time to create. The film process began with the pre-production work in September 09 - October 09. Filming then commenced once the storyboard had been created and locations had been confirmed along with acting roles. The filming of the short film took approximately 2 months, October 09 until the middle of November 09.

The editing of the piece was a painstakingly difficult yet enjoyable process. A lot of care was put into the editing by Michael and Oliver. Due to the extremely low budget we had to download pre existing sound effects for gun shots and even Officer Fischer's footsteps at the beginning of the film. This took 2-3 weeks for the team to finish which meant that the film was finished before Christmas. It also meant that some of the team got a copy to show to family.

Although a few copies of the film exists it has been sworn to stay off YouTube until the confirmation that Group 6 has won from the competition that it has been entered in. The idea of the competition is simple. Young film makers who have made a short film (around 5 minutes) can enter their piece to be shown at the International Edinburgh Film Festival. However, due to the large amounts of entries that they receive a jury has been formed, of which 2 members of Group 6 are part of, in order to judge the films and pick the best ones to be shown. An extract of Castelletti has been submitted as the full length version is 12 minutes long and was not an acceptable length for the competition.

Let's hope that Group 6 can win their first premier at a prestigious event but hopefully not their only premier there!

First Post

Hello. I have created this blog so that members of Group 6 Productions can easily keep track of what is going on for us. Also it will allow us to easily advertise our films to readers or internet users that have found this blog accidentally.

So without further ado lets introduce the current members of Group 6 Productions.

Michael Dodds and Oliver Watson. Both aspiring film makers. Currently they have made a short film, around 12 minutes in length. This will premier hopefully at the International Edinburgh Film Festival. After the festival the film will be uploaded on youtube for the public to enjoy and critique.

Michael previously created an earlier short film, 'The Classics Reloaded', which is essentially a selection of clips from famous films that have been spoofed. It is a humorous piece that I am sure that the many who watched the film enjoyed. The film can currently be viewed on youtube.