Penultimate helps bring another feature to Shetland

Written by Nic Wistreich on 21 March 2007. Posted in Production

After Devils Gate, The Blackening finally set to shoot in April, with possibly two more to come from Fresh Paint Pictures

A Shetland sunset - magic hour at sixty degrees north, the same as Anchorage, Alaska

Leslie Lowes, tireless champion of both British indie film and the Shetland Islands should be celebrating a double win with the announcement of a new HiDef feature to be shot on the Islands over the next year after producer Alec Bruce completed financing on The Blackening, with two more films slated.

Development on The Blackening by Leslie's Penultimate Productions and Bruce's London-based Fresh Paint Pictures was funded by Scottish Screen's NewFoundLands scheme four years ago and was featured in the first Film Funding Book (the Banana Book). Now as I'm putting the finishing touches to a new funding book, to see the film finally materialise, alongside a possible further two films is just fantastic news, and a great credit to Lowes and Bruce and indeed the scheme. Funding is coming from Sweden, Norway and the UK with a US major lined up for distribution. The three films will shoot on HiDef, without which the location may have been to remote to be cost effective with the cost of sending daily film rushes back to the mainland.

The films are to be produced at a low-cost production centre in the former RAF base in the northernmost Shetland island of Unst. Shetland producer Leslie Lowes says Penultimate is pleased to have worked closely with Fresh Paint for several years to realise the company’s plans and says it demonstrates that with the right encouragement and support, film companies are keen to locate productions in Shetland.

“Including Devils Gate, which we located to Shetland in 2001 and now Fresh Paint’s slate of The Blackening, Little Dallas and Kinky Cottage, we have managed to attract almost £4m of film production into the islands. This confirms what we have always maintained: Shetland’s landscapes, seascapes and skyscapes are very attractive to international filmmakers, despite the reservations of some agencies that could be helping them locate here,” Mr Lowes said. “Marketing Shetland as a film location is most effective when it is done from Shetland from a base of real local knowledge.

Medb Create One Stop Post Shop For Small Indies

Written by James MacGregor on 18 February 2007. Posted in Production

Medb Productions edit suite Not content with their first feature film, Gypo raking in a number of awards and international critical acclaim, releasing on DVD February 12^th, Medb films have opened their new post production studios in Ramsgate, Kent, just an hour and half from London and for qouta purposes, beyond that crucial M25 ring road.

"We wanted to create a one stop shop for other small indie companies like ourselves needing the all important last part of the puzzle by creating a low cost, high end facility aimed at other people like us" explains producer, Elaine Wickham.

The Forest, My Film and Save Our Tigers

Written by Ashvin Kumar - from his blog on 14 January 2007. Posted in Production

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ashvin Kumar as in the final throes of finishing his latest film, The Forest. And by all accounts it should be a top-notch thriller, but it offers much, much more than rising hairs on the back of the neck as his Ashvin Kumar's personal blog shows...

The Forest is a thriller with an environmental conscience. Instead of preaching to the converted (as wildlife documentaries do), I thought that I need to / could do something significant about the wildlife crisis that is staring us in the face, not only global warming and devastating effects of destruction on the planet, but focus on the most callous destruction of all - poaching, killing animals for skins and bones - to satisfy some ancient quirk of distant Chinese and Tibetan patrons.

Filmmaking and Directing in Jordan

Written by Sandra Kawar Samain on 13 January 2007. Posted in Production

Filmmaking in Jordan Jordan, hemmed in between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Palestine is facing many challenges, since our country is growing in many sectors and fields, such as the economy, and filmmaking, where the country is witnessing the birth of digital filmmaking, with the media industry in Jordan adapting to the new technology to achieve the highest standards.

Sandra Kawar Samain a Producer & Director from Jordan tells us more...

Risen: Welsh Warrior Howard Winstone Lives Again in Film

Written by James MacGregor on 23 August 2006. Posted in Production

British Featherweight Champion and Boxing Phenomenon

Stuart Brennan working out in the role of Howard Winstone Filming is underway on what is shaping up to be one of the biggest productions to come out of Wales. The film Risen, about the boxing phenomenon "The Welsh Wizard" Howard Winstone has been generating such interest it promises to put Wales firmly on the cultural map.

Born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1939, Howard Winstone was nick-named The Welsh Wizard. Although he had lost the top of three fingers from his right hand, Howard Winstone not only won the British Featherweight title in 1961, but remained in the championship class until he finally retired in 1968. Out of 67 fights he lost only six. He died on the 30th September 2000

Put Your Money on Filmmaker's Debut

Written by Rebecca Wright on 18 August 2006. Posted in Production

People who buy a word in Michelle Eastwood's film script will get a mention in the closing titles The budding movie-maker is banking on the fact that film fans will want to have the last word on her debut project.

In fact Michelle Eastwood, 23, hopes 369 other fans will also want to stake a claim in a script that she is selling off word by word. Buyers can pick a word of their choice which will cost between £5 and £50. Each of the 370 words in Hesitation - a short film being produced by Michelle - will go towards the cost of making the movie in France.

Liverpool Production 'Has Trebled This Year'

Written by James MacGregor on 15 August 2006. Posted in Production

Busiest Year on Record

Liverpool City Council's Film Office - part of North West Vision - organised a total of 240 filming days between January and the end of March compared to 74 last year.

The number of productions also trebled - up from 21 to 61 in the first quarter.

Filming Them on the Beaches

Written by Steven Pratt on 12 August 2006. Posted in Production

Redcar to Become Bombed Out Dunkirk

The sandy beaches of Redcar are son to be pitted with shell craters and foxholes Here comes the French invasion as the seafront at Redcar in Cleveland is transformed into 1940s Dunkirk - literally a bomb site with tons of rubble, craters, bombed-out houses and tanks half-buried in the sand - for the film version of Ian McEwan's bestselling novel, Atonement, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. In addition, 1,000 local people will be needed as extras when filming begins at the end of the month under the direction of Joe Wright, who made the most recent screen version of Pride And Prejudice.

Principal Photography Finishes on Working Title’s Golden Age

Written by James MacGregor on 02 August 2006. Posted in Production

Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth I) and director Shekhar Kapur discuss a scene on Brean Down on the Somerset Coast Principal photography has just concluded on 'The Golden Age' directed by Shekhar Kapur and starring Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush who reprise the roles they originated in the Academy-award nominated 'Elizabeth'. Joining them are Clive Owen who plays the dashing seafarer, Sir Walter Raleigh as well as Samantha Morton, Abbie Cornish and Rhys Ifans.

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