Here's our big idea!

Hey!

So it's been two months since the last post, and not a lot has actually happened. Well I say nothing but actually we've finished one film and finished the shooting of another.

The first film is a nice and short documentary about the ancient greek philosopher Heraclitus who is famously known (kind of) for his doctrine of flux. Basically that's the idea that nothing in the world ever stays the same, which is true!

The film was written, directed and edited by Mr Michael Dodds (likes to do as much as he can, clearly). It was filmed by me: Oliver Watson. And I believe we both dabbled with the sound equipment which went great!

We used a friend of ours and coursemate Josh Gajree and another long time friend Connor Doherty for the dramatisations. Josh played Heraclitus whilst Connor played Plato, another ancient greek philosopher who disagreed with the doctrine.

We were pretty lucky being in Edinburgh for the shoot as we had access to some really spectacular locations. One of these locations was the peaceful River Almond in Cramond, where we found a good secluded spot to have Josh don a toga. Connor on the other hand didn't have the luxury of privacy. No, he had to change at one of Edinburgh's most famous monuments at the top of Calton Hill surrounded by Japanese tourists in the typical Scottish weather of rain and hail stones.

Getting to these locations would have been near impossible or at least extremely time consuming without the great help of our drivers. Eve Jarron and Connor.

I feel like its necessary to mention that we celebrated the completion of the shoot by having a lovely meal at Frankie & Benny's where we went in soaked through and made a rather large mess at our table.

Anyway that's enough for that project! You can check it out on our YouTube page! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFgNDa7cDWI

I'll write a new post concerning our latest quest! An advert for the ludicrously tasty Crunchy Nut Cornflakes!

Bub-bye!

Oliverus Watsonus (I'm Greek now!)

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!

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.