Christmas

Hey, quick update on all things G6.

Christmas is quickly approaching the Scottish capital of Edinburgh and I want to document the epic transition into the sparkling Christmas mode. I'm going to capture the construction of the vast german market and the magical winter wonderland complete with big wheel. The epic number of Christmas lights that cling to the many trees of the Gardens and lamposts of the entire city will all be shown. Even the exciting window displays of the prime shopping destination: Princes Street.

What I really just want to portray in what I'm calling a poetic documentary, is the exciting atmosphere that is created when all the decorations come out of that box. And judging by the weather just now; we could be looking at some snow adding to the sparkle of the tinsel.

As always with a G6 production we are constantly experimenting with new technology (to us anyway) and trying to do something creative. This film will feature our very first time lapse and also be shot completely on DSLRs, specifically the Canon 650d.

Taking part in the shoot is as always me (Oliver Watson) and Michael Dodds.

It's been a while!

Holy crap! It has been so many months since I last made an entry in the G6 journal! So you may be asking what exactly has been filling my time so excessively. Well, let's begin our journey from where I last left you.

So we were talking about making that short web series about weird stuff in Scotland. We still haven't got round to that because of a variety of issues which mainly are equipment shortages and the fact our driver sold his car. The good news is that project is still in the pipeline. We are still going to do it.

What's next in the list? We made Michael's documentary 'The Sound of Scent'. This film is quite possibly the best film we have made to date. It was shot in the stunning vividness of my DSLR along with a JVC HD camera. Watch the film on our YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/groupsixproductions). The film focuses on the possibility of making music using plant DNA with the future hope of doing the same with human DNA. We worked with a man called Stuart Mitchell who is at the forefront of this work and the best thing was he lives in Edinburgh. There are some things that given another chance at we would do differently but in all honesty we got a beautiful couple of days to get the shoot done and almost everything went perfectly. The film was also screened at the Edinburgh Filmhouse, which obviously felt amazing. There is definitely no greater feeling than putting in a whole load of work to produce something that we are proud of and then showing it off to people on a massive screen.

Speaking of that Filmhouse showing we also had a couple of other films that were being screened. One being a short documentary called 'Matters of the Heart'. The film is about falling in love, if you believe in love or not and also any losses in love such as a partner passing away or cheating. MotH has got a very defined style in that there is no V/O it is just people telling their story to the camera, letting you into a very private part of their life, sometimes it is funny, other times it was upsetting. The film was written and directed by Del Campbell. Unfortunately there is currently no copy available online so your just going to have to take my word that it was a really nicely shot film especially the outdoor voxpops in Princes Street Gardens.

I helped on another friends film which unfortunately is completely plagiarised from an existing internet series, but nonetheless it was still fun to help out on. I even play a small role. The film is called 'At Home With Dr Devious'. It is basically a drama but made to look like a documentary. It follows a young mad scientist and his pursuit of the love of his life. Here is a link to the film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuMzyWSUUTE&feature=g-user-u.

Lastly we worked on a short drama called 'Locked Out'. Fin is a sixth year high school student who has the house to himself for the weekend, and has invited his girlfriend round for a romantic evening. However he returns home to find that the worst has happened... He's locked out. This drama was written, filmed and edited in only a matter of days. We had surprisingly more fun filming this than we thought we would as well which is always a good thing. To see the film click on the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es3gR6Lwkts&list=UUsO-8WqOW5oqn5wQwBDtxVg&index=1&feature=plcp

That pretty much covers what we've been doing for the past wee while. We are working on a few short projects such as: a couple of music videos, a promo video for an open mic night and entering a few competitions. We are also trying to find a venue to run our own open mic night. Anyway cheers!

Oliver Watson

Web Series Incoming!!!

Remember that documentary I was talking about with the strange things in Scotland? Well me and mike were chatting over some Costa-bloody fortune hot chocolates and realised it would work really well as a web series. So that's what we're doing. Same plan as before though; can't film until March.

First post of 2012! Huzzah!

Cool, so we are in 2012 which, of course means that we only have roughly 11 more months to get our names out there and become famous film makers before the world ends. Great!

We've actually been pretty busy throughout the latter part of last year and the freezing start to this one. We made a fancy advert in a church for Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. However, we had to remove it from the Internet in order to continue living our lives without the Cardinal of Scotland on our back.

The shooting of the advert went very well though. Instead of hiring loads of extras to pose as the church's congregation we just asked everyone who had been at the church to stay behind to help us. As expected not too many stuck around but we definitely had enough. They were even kind enough to sing us a hymn whilst we set all the equipment up. A major problem which we still haven't solved is how to use the damn camera. We decided to use the large shoulder cam which we had been shown to use at college but it was so damn complicated we pretty forgot how to do anything with it. Lighting seemed to be a pretty big issue as well with large windows in the back of the room making most of the shots look a bit over exposed. However, with a bit of editing on the mac we got it looking superb.

We used Ross Donnachie, a student actor who is studying at Telford College, to be our protagonist in the advert. Ross has a very elastic face which means that his expressions were pretty much over the top and exaggerated. However, this worked well for a comical advert about holy cornflakes. Whilst we probably wouldn't use Ross for a serious drama, we would love to work with him again for another advert or a comedy.

After filming at the church we moved to Mike's house which was the setting for the teenagers bedroom. The room got pretty crowded after all three us were standing in it and then set up the camera (this time using my DSLR, which is better anyway) and the lighting kit. The idea is that we were filming Ross waking up in the morning and quickly getting dressed in order to run to church. So naturally we managed to film this at night and used the lighting kit to make it look like morning. What we should have done is put a light outside and shine it in the window but, I think it was raining therefore health and safety screamed, "no!" at us. Apart from this slight hiccup nearly everything else went smoothly. We got the shots we wanted: trousers up, t shirt on, jacket on, zip up. And they edited together beautifully.

And that's it I think for the Crunchy Nut ad. The advert was 30 seconds long and was missing a bit of text at the end during the product shot but apart from that I really enjoyed making it.

Time for a new project or three!!!

Two of the projects are documentaries and the other is a short drama.

I'll begin with the latter - The drama. It's about a wee conflict that me and mike had on a bus with some neds/delinquents. The basic premise of the story is that we got on a late night bus around about the time these neds roam free and they started throwing newspapers at us. Yep typical behavior from these unevolved creatures. And then as the newspaper throwing continues Mike's character refrains from brutally destroying their bodies and deleting them from the history books. It's a simple tale and perhaps Mike can explain it better than me considering he is writing it. Although I can tell you the tension that was in the air that night will most definitely be incorporated into the film. We are going to be doing something that we haven't ever done before and that's hold auditions for the actors. We need six actors all together (the 3 of us and the 3 neds). I think the biggest problem we face is getting a bus to use. We are only in the early stages of planning so haven't contacted any bus companies however, I think we will find a way around it.

I can only explain one of the documentaries that we are going to make. Mainly because I can't remember what the other is about (plants and music I think). The one I can tell you about though is something very strange for multiple reasons. One because it's about strange things in Scotland and secondly because it's being written and directed by me. As I said in that last sentence it is about strange things in Scotland. Three oddities to be exact. The Electric Brae in Ayrshire which is an optical illusion. The Secret Bunker near St Andrews which was kept secret for over 40 years. And finally the Egyptian style lighthouse that is well known in both poetic and novel forms for the disappearance of it's three lighthouse keepers. It's going to be shot around about March/April/May because we are extremely busy with other projects. Also access to the bunker isn't currently available until March. Hopefully I will be able to interview experts in the various locations so as to provide a bit more information on the history of each of these extraordinary places.

I think the last bit of news is that I've managed to get a copy of my old documentary about the Sherlock Holmes statue and put it on the Internet. It's called 'The Hunt For Holmes' and you can click it's name to be taken directly to YouTube to watch it.

Alas, that's another post finished. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed typing it out (which is very much so). Follow the link to watch the film. Whilst there check out our other classics such as Heraclitus, Castelletti and Flashmob. Keep checking back for more information about the documentaries and drama!!!

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!)

We're aiming bigger and better and even bigger and even better!

So after last year we managed to get extremely little done. We have one film that we are all very proud of 'Buskers' and that will be uploaded onto the youtube channel soon.

However, all the little films that we planned to make were left behind. They were mostly written and planned out but just sort of pushed to the side whilst there were better things to do. Now I'm not saying that we are going to make them, what I am saying is that we aren't going to announce stuff like that anymore and then never get round to making them.

I'm now going to announce our new 'business model'. Basically Michael and Myself both have jobs now apart from Group Six and are going to start creating budgets for our films. We have contacts that can lend us equipment so buying that isn't necessarily an issue, it's more for costumes and locations and things to make our films that little bit better and more real.

If your clever with money you can get things done for very little of it. The two short films based on the video game half life called 'Escape from City 17' show what can be done with little money. Sure the script and actors are pretty terrible but it looks amazing.

Anyway once we have some money and a plan of action for a new film I'll let you know!

Peace Out!

Olly Watson

Everything new!

Buskers is done. Mike posted it on his vimeo account the other day and you can watch it here: http://www.vimeo.com/24664781

It's about 18 minutes long so you better have some time put aside to watch it.

Next up on the news is that I've ditched 'Stolen By Curiosity' or whatever it was. It was becoming a hassle and was getting out of hand, for me anyway, so instead I wrote something completely different. It's a sci - fi kind of thing. It used to have lots of computer nerd dialogue in it but now in the version 2.0 of the script it features none of it and is just a pure and raw story of an amnesiac alien sent on a mission to destroy earth but with recurring visions of his mother saying goodbye forever. It will be 100% finished by 17th June or else.

Anyway back to work!

Olivero Watsono!

Hey! We made a new film!

So yeah, been a while. We've had Neil, a member of Group 6 since 'Castelletti' was made, leave us. So it's back to being just a two man team. Just the way me and mike like it I guess. You wouldn't believe how much easier making a film is with two people.

Anyway, for the past wee while we've been writing and writing and writing to come up with some films. We've got two for you. One of them is actually just getting finalised in the editing process and the other is being postponed whilst I waste time (I could spend writing it) here.

Honestly 'Buskers' by Michael Dodds, is looking to be an awesome film. We premiered a rough edit of the film today at our old high school to the media class and it got an awesome reception. Once it's finished we will post it on our youtube channel.

The other (with a working title of...) 'Stolen By Curiosity' is being penned by none other than Oliver Watson a.k.a Charles Noble a.k.a Moi. Sadly whilst I have the idea all formulated in my head I just can't seem to just get down and write it. It's annoying me and I'm sure it's annoying everyone else involved.

Still 'Buskers' will be 100% complete next week sooooo keep an eye out.

Peace out!

Oliver Watson!

New Projects

So here at Group 6 we've been busy. We have a total of about 8 films on the go just now so time is pretty much eaten up with work. Four of the films are on that interesting subject of statues, of which here in Edinburgh there are plenty of. Our subjects are Sherlock Holmes, World War Memorial and James Young Simpson. The films will be 3 minutes and 30 seconds long each according to our brief.

The statues we have chosen are pretty interesting. They each have a story and a reason for being there anyway. Take my statue for instance: Sherlock Holmes. Everyone knows him, the genius sleuth with something like 56 stories written about him and now with Steven Moffat's new modern day version it's brought the character back. Well anyway, my statue has mysteriously disappeared which makes it difficult to make a film about it. Or does it? What I decided to do instead was make it about me tracking down the statue. Which is so far going well. I know it's in storage anyway getting restored. I also know it's been moved forrrrr... you guessed it, the trams! So that's my statue.

Mike's is the war memorial and he is basically making his film about what it stands for. I'll let him fill this in about his statue later. Same goes for Neil who is making his about James Simpson the founder of using chloroform as a anesthetic.

The other films are two dramas and a documentary although they aren't nearly finalised so I can't really talk about them.

So that's a short update on what's happening at Group 6 for the time being!

ciao. Oliver Watson.

IGNIS

IGNIS is being edited tonight. I hold all the video clips filmed on that night. The production team will be meeting and sitting down to discuss all their ideas for the finished edit. It will be difficult as we are all a really creative bunch of people and all have our own idea of what it should and should not look and sound like but hopefully we will make the most impressive and visually stunning film that we can.

This is Group 6's first attempt at an advertising campaign and already we can see where we would do things slightly differently such as getting more close ups or just more takes for example. The finished article may arrive later on tonight or tomorrow morning uploaded to the Group Six Productions YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/GroupSixProductions) and also to this blog. If you are a close friend of ours look out for it on facebook.

This is a Noble post from Charlie Noble.

IGNIS

'IGNIS' is a short advertisement for a fictional brand of mens perfume. It features the dazzling Harry Grieve as seen in Castelletti and Fuck It.

Crew list:

Director: Charlie Noble

Assistant Director: Michael Dodds

Lighting and Candle Supervisor: Katy O'Donnell

Official Chauffeur, Runner and general all round awesome guy: Connor Doherty

Harry Grieve as himself.

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!