Musings Cafe

You know it's an English hotel when...

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:19:00 +0000

... You have tea making facilities hidden away in a cupboard.

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The new Posterous spaces (Update)

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 08:13:00 +0000

I write recently with my impressions of the new Posterous spaces app. I said I hated it, didn't like the interface and couldn't post pictures from my iPhone.

Well they've just updated the app and I'm posting a nice HDR picture I took at the recent Pram Race on the village as a test.

Will it work....?

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Links for 2011-09-14 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 PDT

The Two Axioms explained - Process Cafe
[ProcessCafe] The Two Axioms explained http://t.co/eDkWUmG

The New Posterous Spaces

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:03:00 +0000

Lots has been said about the new Posterous Spaces. Here's my thoughts:

It sucks.

Hate the new interface. Hate the social aspect (who needs another network?). Hate the fact that I can't do a simple thing like post pictures like I used to be able to. I've tried four times to post a picture and the app just hangs (iPhone).

Change us good.

Screwing up something that worked is bad.

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Stratford

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:45:00 +0000

See the full gallery on Posterous

Spent a lot of today in a penthouse apartment in Stratford, East London. Took a photo or two on the old iPhone and processed the hell out of them. Which do you prefer?

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Stratford

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:45:00 +0000

See the full gallery on Posterous

Spent a lot of today in a penthouse apartment in Stratford, East London. Took a photo or two on the old iPhone and processed the hell out of them. Which do you prefer?

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Links for 2011-09-09 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 00:00:00 PDT

BPM: Buy social or be social? – taraneon international blog
RT @TJOlbrich: #BPM : Will you try to bUY social or BE social? Changing the mindset is key: http://t.co/BCCQPRZ #socialbpm

Links for 2011-09-05 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 PDT

Silo thinking - It's still bad! - Process Cafe
[ProcessCafe] Silo thinking - It's still bad! http://t.co/FXn3AiV

Links for 2011-09-03 [del.icio.us]

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:00:00 PDT

RT @SquawkPoint: Process Ownership: Does the Janitor Own Yours? http://t.co/Z0hRWiZ

Links for 2011-09-02 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:00:00 PDT

Process Ownership: Does the Janitor Own Yours?
Process Ownership: Does the Janitor Own Yours?: http://me.lt/985H3 A guest post I wrote for Squawkpoint.com
[ProcessCafe] Business Process Management and Common Sense http://t.co/kLHt8p0

Links for 2011-08-26 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:00:00 PDT

Double for me! RT @TJOlbrich: @Gaz4695 An espresso process for the process-cafe: http://t.co/0gGYNj7 #BPM

Links for 2011-08-22 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 PDT

RT @adam_deane: #BPM and Artificial Intelligence: http://t.co/LiuPM2S

The Zen of Gas prices (Or how a 23% price hike is a selling point!)

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:46:00 +0000

My gas provider has written to inform me that they are unilaterally increasing their gas supply prices by 18% in four weeks time. This should increase my yearly heating bill by another £200.

However in the same letter they have also written to let me know that

'You can fix your gas prices until 2013 by signing up to our new Price Promise March 2013 tariff'

Essentially they are allocating a set tariff which they guarantee will not be raised for another 18 months. However the Price Promise March 2013 tariff is actually a 5% increase over and above the 18% increase already announced. In other words they are wanting suckers to sign up for a 23% price increase guaranteed for 18 months regardless of what the market does.

By itself this is outrageous (and has caused the UK competition committe to sit up and take notice), but this is being executed by a company which has announced a 24% leap in profits last year and who's parent company, Centrica, are making profits of £2.3bn a year.

I wonder how many old age pensioners will either a) Sit in the cold this winter because they can't afford to heat the place, or b) Sign up for the fixed price tariff thinking they are saving money, because they've received this notice, while the fat cats at the energy company rake in the profits.

I'm hoping they're wearing a condom because I feel like I'm being screwed....

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Waiting for a train.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:05:00 +0000

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Make a film in an evening...?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 07:39:00 +0000

I've been asked to act in a 'film in a night' event which is where teams have about 4 hours to shoot, edit and score a short film in a single evening. The team I am in is rehearsing the shots and the action to make the actual shoot go as smooth as possible this is us in action

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On the subject of friendship

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:00:00 +0000

This week marked the advent of another birthday for me. I've said it before and I'll say it again : as you get older these things seem to come round quicker than ever before. When I was a kid it seemed like birthdays took forever to come round. Now I appear to have them three or four times a year.

It wasn't a landmark birthday. Not one that ends in an '0', nor even one that deserves a jewel-themed anniversary celebration, but it did end in a '5' so it drops me between two important birthday stools.

With the growing importance (and intrusion) of Facebook in people's life, the ability to send birthday wishes across the internet has become easier and easier. Back in the days when I was starting out in the world, cards had to be purchased, written, addressed and posted. If you got your timings wrong then you missed people's birthdays.

Nowadays it's just a case of checking Facebook, clicking 'Write on wall' and sending a few choice words to the recipient.

I'm very pleased to say that I received well over 30 such messages - which is far and above the number of cards I have ever received on any birthday since I was 8.

But what also struck me as interesting was the longevity of the relationship I have with a lot of these people. My best friend Jon took great pleasure in reminding me that he and I have been friends for over 30 years and I was his best man 21 years ago. My younger sister has been in my life for over 40 years (and she won't thank me for telling you that). I received an email from a non-facebook friend who was my best friend when I lived in Australia back in the late 70's. He reminded me that we've known each other for almost 35 years.

There are numerous other examples of people I've known and who have been in my life for decades:

Patricia, If you're reading this, I've known you for almost 20 years.
Justin you're heading up towards 27 years.
Suzie S. I met when I was in college - which is the late 80's
Tim G. - Another college friend of 25 years ago.
Phil E. I've known since arriving in London 20+ years ago.
Karen W and Dana L. I first met when I worked in the US over 10 years ago.

What does this say about me as a person? I'm not sure. I don't particularly pride myself on being someone who actively cultivates long relationships. Those of my friends who have waited for me to send them letters or e-mails have usually had to wait far too long. By my own admission I get easily distracted when it comes to keeping in touch. But the upside to this is that when someone does get back in contact after a while it is always a great pleasure.

I was recently gifted with renewed communication from my old Australian friend Michael whom I first met in 1977. We had dropped out of touch for well over a decade (and probably longer) due to... well, I don't know why, exactly, but we did. Then he discovered my blogs, worked out my email address and was able to reconnect with me. It was great to get a long letter from him bringing me up to date with what's happened in his life. We are now back in regular communication. As I mentioned above he was one of the first to send me birthday greetings outside the Facebook medium.

It's times like this that it is good to look back on ones life and cherish the friendships one has made over the years. Sure, there are friends who are no longer communicating with us - I often wonder what happened to old school friends and the like - but they are replaced by other friends who have come into your lives over the years.

Thanks to everyone who wished by a Happy Birthday in some way, shape or form. My apologies to anyone who's birthday I have missed and shouldn't have.

Here's to many more.

The Ghost Train - Coming soon

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 31 May 2011 08:15:00 +0000

via hartleyartsgroup.com

As Hartley Arts Group's current production "Kiss Me Kate" winds down (last three performances this week), thoughts turn to the next production "The Ghost Train"

This is a little known play which was written by Arnold Ridley (best known for being Private Godfrey in 'Dad's Army' back in the 70's).

As you can imagine with a name like that it has a spooky feel and we will be performing it around Halloween this year. The plot revolves around a party of passengers who find themselves stranded in the waiting room of an isolated station. The station master tries to get them to leave citing the local legend of a ghost train that dooms all who see it to death.

The director, Gary Wales, has some great ideas for the show leveraging multimedia and some phenomenal sound effects. It is guaranteed to be not just a show but a "Performance".

In a change from tradition this show will be running in a confined schedule. Usually HAG do shows that run over two weeks (Thursday, Friday and Saturday of one week followed by Thursday, Friday, Saturday of the following week). For 'The Ghost Train' we are looking to condense this down into a single week with five performances grouped into Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (including a Saturday matinee).

Keep your eye out here and at http://hag.posterous.com for more information about the show and booking information.

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Sitting in the garden. Watching

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 17 May 2011 11:16:00 +0000

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Silja in costume. It's a tough job sometimes.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 17 May 2011 07:41:00 +0000

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Kew Steam Museum. Filming location!

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 17 May 2011 07:33:00 +0000

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You meet the weirdest folks

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:59:00 +0000

From a recent film shoot. These two delightful young ladies are Silja and Katrina and they're playing burlesque waitresses.

Sometimes I have a hard life.....

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General Musings for the week May 1st 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 01 May 2011 11:00:00 +0000

It's May already. Can you believe it? It seems like only last week we were struggling under unprecedented snow falls here in the UK and now we're almost half way through the year.

Not a lot to talk about this week.

Apparently there was some sort of Royal Wedding on Friday in the UK. You would think they'd have publicised it a little more wouldn't you? Almost missed it (In reality I avoided watching anything of the Royal wedding and instead spent most of the day outside in the nice weather).

The Twittersphere, however, was full of it. The most amusing note I read was that Pippa Middleton - the bride's sister - is the subject of a Facebook page called the Pippa Middleton Ass Appreciation page. It has over 12000 members.

I also received a quick note from a good friend of mine who asked "Why doesn't anyone make the obvious joke? Or is it just the elephant in the room?" When I inquired wat he was referring to he said "Prince Charles - bald, Prince Andrew - bald, Prince William - bald, Prince Harry - A shock of ginger hair". I replied "I wonder if the Kensington Palace milkman was a ginger". He replied "I think you're missing a MAJOR factor in your investigations". The intrigue goes on.

Big shout at the The Loddon Players at Sherfield in Loddon. Went to see their latest comedy production "Key For Two" this week. A very funny production in the classic style of the old English "Ray Cooney" farces. Well staged, well acted and excellent timing. It was the last show of the run last night so unfortunately you've missed it, but keep an eye out for their next production which I will publicise here.

Good to see old friend Fred this week. He's over in England from the USA for a couple of weeks and happened to chose the weeks that encompass both Easter and the Royal Wedding. Not sure whether he actually saw any of it - although I suspect his hosts would probably have had the thing on every second of the day. Fred accompanied me to the "Key For Two" performance and when I introduced him to people he reminded them that he and I have known each other for over 20 years now. In fact I first met him on a job in North London in 1988. 23 years ago. That's actually quite frightening. I know he reads this posts in the US, so "Hi, Fred. Great to see you. Hope the journey back was good."

Video of the week this week is the official trailer for Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II. This, you may remember, is the final Harry Potter film and one which I had the good fortune to be a part of late last year. I'm going to be one of the moving portraits in Hogwarts. I don't think I appear in the trailer but nevertheless it looks like it is shaping up to be a great film.

.

General Musings for the week 24th April 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Happy Easter to everyone!

So let's talk about politics this week. Controversial topic, I know, but stick with me.

Actually to be honest I'm not talking abouts politics per se, rather the topic of Alternate Voting. Alternate voting (or AV) is a system whereby instead of placing a single vote for a single candidate in an election you rank the candidates in order of preference. When the votes are counted the candidate with more than 50% of the votes wins. If there is no candidate with more than 50% of the votes then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and his or her votes are allocated to the remaining candidates according to the preferences stated by the voters. This continues until one candidate receives 50% or more of the votes. (I would also like to point out at this juncture that I am not advocating either method of voting in this post just discussing them both)

I received a pamphlet through the mail today which is trying to persuade me to vote against AV in a forthcoming referendum. I thought it had an interesting method of trying to persuade me. Let me explain:

The pamphlet (which is entitled 'Keep One Person, One Vote. Vote NO in the referendum on 5 May') has a big sign on the front saying "None of you taxes have been used to print this leaflet".

When I opened it the fold-out document had a number of compelling arguments about why the authors felt that AV was the wrong system for Britian. These arguments are - in order of presentation:

- It will cost £250 million to implement at a time when people are losing their jobs or having their pay frozen
- The second or third 'best' can win under AV
- AV is unpopular in other countries where it is being used.

It's an interesting fact that - according to the pamphlet I have in front of me - the most compelling reason for not voting in favour of AV is the cost issue rather than anything else. I find that a very telling point.

What I also found interesting was the fact that - according to the pamphlet -

"AV is not a fair system: That's why only three countries in the world use it: Fiji, Australia and Papue New Guinea. And even they don't like it - Fiji has got plans to ditch it, and in Australia, 6 out of 10 people want to go back to the system we use in the UK".

But ignoring the whole issue of whether this is a biased document (which it clearly is), looking at the main point of will this be a fairer voting system, I have to think that, maybe it is.

The example given indicates that under the current system in a vote Candidate A may garner the most votes in the first ballot. However with AV if this candidate does not get more than 50% of the votes they may - under the right circumstances - come in second after the votes have been redistributed. As far as I can tell there is no reason to think that Candidate B will receive votes that are not due to him, nor to think that Candidate A will have legitimate votes taken away from him. But the key to remember here is that we are talking about ensuring that the candidate that wins will have more than 50% of the votes. Historically in the UK elections a Candidate standing in a seat with 4 other people only needs to get 21% of the votes to win. So this means that the current system will see a candidate with 21% of the votes take a seat over a candidate with 51% of the votes under AV. Is that fair? I personally think that the person who receives the majority of the votes should be the person who wins. And in any mathematical equation, the majority has to be greater than 50%.

But what happens if the person who ultimately ends up with 51% is a BNP candidate, for example, or - worse still - a UKIP person? I am trying hard to identify a situation where, out of a general population of voters, enough people vote for the BNP candidate so that ultimately more than 50% have placed a vote for him somewhere. Can this happen? According to the pamphlet;

"The number 1 votes for each dandidate are put into a pile and counted. If a candidate receives more than half the votes cast they win and there is no further counting. If no candidate receives more than half the number 1 votes there would be at least one more round of counting. In round two the candidate with the fewest number 1 votes is removed from the contest. If their supporters ballot papers show a number 2 vote for another candidate, they are added to that candidates pile. if the ballot paper does not show a number 2 vote, it is no longer used. If no candidate recahes 50% after the redistribution of votes, the candidate with the next fewest votes is removed and their supporters ballots are looke at again to see if any of the remaining candidates are ranked....."

Well, it certainly sounds complicated, much more complicated than the current system. Any thoughts from my readers on this?

I was out walking earlier this week in tue good weather and came across a park bench that has recently been installed. This park bench looked like a normal wooden one but was made of hard, black plastic. The little plaque on the back indicated that it was donated by Waitrose and was made entirely of recycled carrier bags. Jolly good idea - although I'm not too sure about the black plastic look.

Teachers fear traditional playground games like British bulldog and conkers are disappearing from many of England's schools, a survey suggests. Health and safety gone mad.

Video of the week this week is called Symmetry. I offer it with no comment other than "Watch"

General Musings for the week April 17th 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Sunday evening and Monday morning saw me at the vets with the cat.

I had arrived home Sunday afternoon after a delightful trip to the local airfield for a drink and a sit outside in the sun watching the aircraft (I know, it's all go in my life), to find my cat lying listlessly outside the back door in the sun. Opening the door to him I realised he wasn't his usual, ebullient self and he moped inside and snuck away to sit under the bed in the back bedroom. A few moments later I went up to see him and realised he had been in a fight with something that had left him cut at a couple of points on his body. I left him under the bed for a while to see whether he would recover a little. An hour later he hadn't moved and I noticed that his right front knee/elbow had swollen up quite considerably so I called the vet to see if she could look at him that afternoon. It was now about 20 minutes before the close of surgery hours so I grabbed the cat carrier and went to pick the cat up.

Being the intelligent cat that he is, he worked out what I was doing and crawled right under the bed, laying in the most invonvenient place he could. I ended up crawling under the bed on my back, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and dragging him out from under there. He didn't like that at all.

Five minutes later we were in the vets. The weekend vet took one look at him and proclaimed "Not another cat in a fight. That's all I've had this weekend!" She cried out again a few moments later when she checked the history: It was exactly one year ago that day when I had taken him in to see her after his last fight.

My poor cat was severely distressed at this point. His fur was shedding copiously, they shaved his leg in two places, took an anal temperature reading and gave him three different injections. Not a happy cat. The vet recommended either leaving him there that evening or bringing him back in the morning to have the wound lanced and flushed. I elected to take him home, knowing that he would be very distressed to stay in the vets overnight.

The following morning we had another game of hide-and-seek as he saw me bring the cat carrier out again. This time I cornered him in the bathroom and slipped him into the box. Down at the vets they took all his details and told me to leave him there, coming back at 2.30 to pick him up. I had checked the swelling on his leg and noticed that it was much smaller than the night before so I asked the vet to take a look at it to see if he really needed to have it lanced and flushed.

After a few moments of examination (plus another anal temperature reading and injection) the vet announced that he could probably go home and if the problem recurred I could come back in to have it dealt with.

Total cost for both vet visits: £102.65. Potential costs for staying overnight and having sedation, lancing and flushing: £500+

Good call, I thought.

In other news: Thanks to everyone who watched and commented on 27 Arbour Street, the Sci Fi London 48 Hour Film Competition entry I posted about last week. Unfortunately we didn't make the final 10 shortlist, but I think we did fantastically anyway.

If you're going to make a reality television show you want something that has the potential to have conflict, excitement, danger. That's why programs such as Trawler Wars and Ice road truckers are so compelling. So why would Sky premiere a new reality tv show called 'Hunks' about self-obsessed, vain male model types? Where's the danger in that? I can foresee another program where selective editing and VoiceOver build fake suspense to try and make the program more interesting. Not that I'll be watching, of course.

Video of the week this week is a must for all movie fans out there. Peter Jackson - director of Lord Of The Rings and King Kong - has started filming on the Rings prequel "The Hobbitt". Being a big fan of the internet - and being determined to avoid any unauthorised spoilers coming from the production - he has elected to create a regular series of videoas about the shoot. The first one has just been released. Enjoy!

Juice Infused Dried Cranberries

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:49:00 +0000

So let me get this right: they take juicy cranberries, remove the juice by drying them out, and then add juice back into them (pineapple in this case) before packing and selling them.

Why?

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View from the Tate Modern

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:33:00 +0000

I find myself wondering around The Tate Modern in London and - whilst there are numerous eye opening exhibits inside the building - I find myself strangely drawn to the view outside.

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The Sci-Fi London 48 hour film competition.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

I had the great pleasure, and privilege, this last week of directing a short film for submission to the Sci-Fi London 48 hour film competition.

For those who don't know, the concept is very simple. At 10am on Saturday each team is supplied with three random pieces of information 1) A film title 2) A prop and 3) a line of dialogue. Over the next 48 hours the team has to write, shoot, edit and submit a finished film of no more than 5 minutes duration which includes the elements received at the kick-off.

I had been working with a group of guys over the last couple of weeks who had decided that they would like to enter this competition, so we made the submission and our team was accepted.

The problem we had - of course - was that without knowledge of what the parameters were for the film it was very difficult to start any specific preparation. We were able, however to do things like scout for locations, sort out actors and equipment etc.

Having worked on similar things in the past I know that the key to this is to be as prepared as possible and to work out the best way of trying to get to the end result in the most efficient way. To that end one of our team contacted an actress he had worked with before. She had been in a feature film and appeared as a policewoman on Emmerdale so she had knowledge of the film environment. I also contacted a friend I had worked with on Warhorse to play the male lead and we were cast. Another member of the team had worked together with a friend of his who is a production manager for commercials etc and they had sourced a load of props and hired some equipment. We were going to shoot on the Canon 5D mark 11 and were able to source two of these along with hiring some lenses etc. We also had some fancy kit such as a Sachler tripod.

The problem we had was sourcing anything that could be used as a location. Looking at the past winner, shooting seemed to take place in one of two types of locations a) public locations such as Soho Square or the streets of London. Sometimes forest and meadows were used. b) Inside people's houses.

Graham - our production manager had scoured his extensive list of contacts and had identified a fantastic location just outside London. It was an abandoned gas turbine test facility and it had a very dilapidated steam-punk look about it with both interior and exterior locations we could shoot just about any sort of film on. I drove over there and spoke to security and they sent me the contact details of the site manager. My producer contacted him and we waited in expectation for a reply. Luckily enough the reply came back very, very quickly. No. We were unable to film there as it is a health and safety liability. The whole location is off limits.

Our plan B was then to look at places in London's Docklands area. This had a double advantage as it contained some very futuristic glass and chrome style buildings along with some older, dilapidated industrial locations that would look visually appealing. So the question of locations was settled.

The big day came and expectations were high. We all met in a Starbucks in Docklands to wait for our producer to text through the details of the challenge. Shortly before 11 we were told the following three pieces of information:

Title: 27 Arbour Road
Prop: A Circuit Board
Dialogue: "He was bald and she was like a bloody parrot on his shoulder".

Lovely....

It is vital in things like this that we have a simple plan of action based on a simple, easily understood premise. Writing a script etc. was going to be out of the question considering the time we had so we sat down to brainstorm it. Luckily one of our crew was a sci-fi nut and he immediately started giving us some thoughts on directions to take etc.

We decided - after almost two and a half hours of discussion that our story would be as follows:

A young woman breaks into a facility where she helps a male friend of hers escape. They head back to her house at 27 Arbour Street. On the way back she realises that he is not the person she knew before and - when they reach their destination and he shows no sign of recognition - she gives him a kiss and a hug before reaching up the back of his shirt and pulling out a huge circuit board installed there. He falls to the ground and thick green liquid leaks from his mouth revealing that he is an android.

This was the basic premise uncovered after a number of false starts, redirections, additional thoughts and tantrums. Personally I like the premise but I did feel we spent too long trying to get to the end result.

On his way back from the Challenge headquarters our producer, Anthony, had diverted to an electronics shop and procured an old circuit board for us. A quick check of Google Maps indicated that there was an Arbour Street in Poplar - which was a five minute drive away, so we set off.

Arbour Street in Poplar is a residential location with terraced houses down one side and apartments down the other. There is a little park at one side and it is relatively quiet. Number 27 was there and had both a number and a worded plaque with the number on it which made it stand out a little from the rest. More importantly it had a new set of apartments being built right across the road from it which gave some excellent background to shoot the reverse shots. We spent nearly two hours there filming an emotional scene where our two leads get home and she realises he has no recollection of who he is and she will have to decommission him.

Heading back to Canary Wharf we spent the next 3 hours trying to find suitable locations around the site to make something appealing and filmic whilst still telling a story. I found a set of stars rising up from a dark underground area and this turned out to be useful for an escape scene later on in the film. We shot on grassland, running between skyscrapers and overlooking the old docks areas. It was an entertaining and thrilling day.

At one point we were shooting in front of a glass fronted building and using the reflection of the grass to show our escapees. Just as we finished the shot a security guard came out and told us we couldn't film here. I asked him why and he said that we needed permission. Discussion determined that even though we were not shooting anything of the building we still needed permission from Canary Wharf. I argued that Canary Wharf was public property and we didn't need permission, He was adamant that we did. As we had already got the shot we needed I wondered off, only to turn back 10 seconds later and find the rest of the crew in a discussion with a white-shirted guy who had appeared on the scene. As I went back to investigate I saw that he was wearing a security badge and was part of the overall site security rather than rent-a-cop security for a particular building. He explained that the whole 95 acre Canary Wharf site is actually private land that the public have permission to use. But as such it is not publicly available for filming on without permission. My producer stepped in and explained the nature of the shoot, the fact that it wasn't commercial and the fact that we only needed a couple more shots to finish with. He was really nice to us and said we could continue as long as we weren't too long.

We grabbed the remaining shots and headed to our final location.

Millenium Mills is an old factory building on the banks of one of the wharfs in Docklands. It used to be where flour was brought in and made into bread and other baked goods, I believe, and used the water as a means to transport raw materials in, and goods out. At the moment it is derelict and patrolled by security. My DOP, Russell, had recce'd the place the day before and was convinced we could sneak in and grab a shot. We did indeed sneak in, crawled under a gap in the fence, shot our two set-up's with minimal problem and made our way out.

As we left I went over the footage we had filmed in my head and realised we hadn't shot the actual removal of the circuit board yet. We looked around to try and find somewhere we could shoot it and Russell suggested a nearby public park. As we drove there we saw an absolutely spectacular sunset which we stopped and filmed before setting up for our final couple of exterior shots. It was very nearly dark at this point, however, so we had one of the production vehicles wheeled into place with it's lights on and covered them in an old opaque shower curtain I keep in my car for just such eventualities. With the low-light capabilities of the 5D's we were able to get some absolutely fantastic shots which looked amazing.

Just then a police car wondered over to see what was happening. Anthony and I wondered over to see what he was doing and the following conversation took place.

"Evening officer"
"Evening. How are you?"
"Fine thanks."
"Shooting some photos?"
"It's a bit of a short film we're doing. Shouldn't be-"
"Don't want to know. Don't want to get involved"
"You could turn the lights on for us and we could get you in a shot?"
"Nope. I'm outta here. By the way they'll be locking the gate soon. Don't get locked in"

And with a smile and a wave he was gone! It was only later that I stopped to think what the situation must have looked like to him: Here were six people gathered in a semi-circle on the grass around a couple who were in a passionate embrace on the floor and we were taking pictures of them in a public park after dark! I'm sure there's a term for that sort of activity, but I'm not sure what it is.

Five minutes later a park official informed us he was locking up and we convinced him to give us another five minutes to finish 'the shot' we were on. We actually managed another two shots after he left before heading back in pitch black to film the interiors.

We adjourned to Russell's apartment in North London. This would form the location for shooting the opening of the film, set in some sort of institute. The problem was - of course - that when we got there we couldn't find anywhere that actually looked appropriate for the filming.

However with a little bit of lateral thinking we solved our dilemma. The advantage of the Canon 5D cameras we were using is that the interchangeable lenses allow really tight shots to be used. Couple that with a glass panelled door at one end through which we could shoot and we were able to create a shot that looked almost as though we had planned it that way.

The cast wrapped around midnight and I headed home shortly after that leaving the techies to transcode the footage from Canon 5D format into something we would be able to use for the edit.

The following day I was back in North-East London ready to work on the edit. All the footage had been transcoded along with the sound recordings we had done on an additional machine. However the editors hadn't had time to log the contents of the footage to determine what was on it. This meant that finding a shot involved looking through all the clips to find the one we needed. Considering we had used two cameras and each camera had used two memory cards for recording it did mean we had a LOT of stuff to go through. The obvious learning for the next one is to either keep a very detailed shot log and slate each take, or to make sure when the footage is transcoded that we tag the scene in some way to make retrieval easier. I estimate that over the next 12 hours we lost around 1 hour from not having done that.

'Graham the production manager' became 'Graham the editor' at that point and spent all of Sunday putting together a great initial cut. Sure it needed tweaking, but it was well paced, had all the right emotional beats in it and would form a great basis for a final cut.

Considering the terms of the competition were that we would need to turn in a film of between three and a half and five minutes we were anxious to make sure we had, indeed, edited it to the required length. So - around 11pm Sunday evening - we ran the first rough cut through from start to end. It ran for seven minutes without credits!

The next 90 minutes were spent cutting, trimming, honing and retiming everything in the cut to get down to the requisite time. I was all in favour of cutting out complete sequences, but Graham (and Russ, the DOP) convinced me to focus more on shortening what we already had to let the story come through without doing a “Brazil” on it.

Finally - at around 1am Monday morning - we had a completed edit of 4 minutes 59 seconds with credits.

Now the hard work was to start. All the audio and colour grading had to be completed. Graham left (anxious to make sure he got some sleep before he started his day job on Monday morning), and Russ and I were left to try and sort out the sound.

Our first job was to synch up the audio from the dialogue scene. I had made a decision early on that there would be minimal dialogue and this was what actually transpired. We had, basically, about 90 seconds of footage with dialogue. This was recorded onboard the 5D’s but also it was recorded to a separate sound recorder (actually a Sony EX1). The problem was we had started editing without synching this sound and were now left with having to match up individual snippets of sound with the actors mouths. Fortunately our sound recorder had insisted on recording one complete take of the dialogue as wildtrack (i.e. just the sound, no acting, no movement, no visual) and we were able to use a lot of this.

Our final job was to add some sort of colour grade over the whole film. Using Magic Bullet Looks we were able to both colour match different camera views of the same take as well as grade the overall look of the film. We went for a fairly contrasty look with colour either saturated or desaturated depending on the nature of the sequence being filmed. The final shot was graded at 6.15am Monday morning at which point i went home and collapsed. I awoke at 11am and contacted Russell to make sure things were still on track.

Russ had encountered a couple of rendering problems with the colour grading. This had resulted in the render taking longer than expected and he was now struggling to get the thing done on time. I left him to it

Then everything went quiet.

The deadline of 1pm came and went and I heard nothing.

Finally, around 3pm he texted to tell me he’d left his phone at home, finished the movie, burned it to DVD and jumped in a taxi to get him to the venue. Two miles from the venue the cab had encountered heavy traffic and so - with very little time left - he had sprinted through London’s side streets, arriving literally with 1 minute to spare.

Phew!

Anyway, to anyone who was involved in the shoot who is reading this I would like to say: Well done everyone. Let's keep our fingers crossed for a good result and regardless of the outcome I think we did really well and should do it again next year!

UPDATE: Here is our completed film: 27 Arbour Street

A few thoughts on The Masters

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Somebody once asked me how much I would pay to play Augusta National Golf Course - the venue for The Masters golf championship. The answer was "As much as it takes". The reason being that this hallowed venue is off limits to most of the golf playing population of the world. If you look at the other major venues, most of them can be played - albeit at a high green fee - by anyone with a suitable handicap. Hell, St Andrews in Scotland is a public course and - on a good day - you can turn up in the morning and play (I know, I did it a couple of years ago).

But Augusta is a private club. It has a limited, exclusive, membership. It allows no women members and - up until very recently - it didn't allow coloured members. Whether this is right or wrong is not the objective of this post, it is to talk about the competition itself.

The Masters is the only golf major played on the professional circuit which always plays at the same venue. It is a completely independent major in that it is not sponsored by any golf organisation such as the PGA or the USGA. It is completely managed by the committee of Augusta National Golf Club. As such it holds a unique place in the pantheon of golf mystique.

This is the venue where - for example - anyone found littering, misbehaving or even using a mobile phone on the course will have their access revoked then and in future. It's a strict place. The committee define just about every facet of the championship - including the entry list. It is an invitation-only event, unlike the other majors which are merit based and rely on knock-out competitions to narrow the field.

So let's look at what's in store for this years Masters. As usual the field contains some of the best players on the circuit. It also includes past champions (such as Sandy Lyle and Jose Maria Olazabal) who will probably not be contending come Sunday afternoon. But it also contains the top two players in the world - Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood, the other top Brit - Graeme McDowell - and the man who many people feel will win this competition one day - Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy. In there as well are the usual suspects such as Phil Michelson (coming off a win last week), Luke Donald (who always seems to get himself into a great position before falling away on Sunday afternoon) and - of course - Tiger Woods.

Regular readers of my blogs will know of my opinion of Tiger Woods as a player (In short, excellent player, but not the deity he is made out to be by commentators), and this has been bourne out by recent events. He is now ranked number 7 in the world and hasn't won a major since 2008 - which in Tiger's world is a lifetime. So what will he do this year? He's made no secret of the fact that he likes Augusta. He has 3 Green Jackets from this venue and has won almost $5million dollars in prize money since he first competed as a professional back in 1999. The course is set up for him as a player and we know he has the ability to survive the pressure of the Sunday afternoon back nine. So will he do it this year? I'm not sure. The one thing that Tiger has never been able to fix in his game is his tee shot. Long and powerful, but more often than not inaccurate. Statistics show that he is the best on tour at recovering from bad lies with his second shot, but at Augusta that might not be enough. The speed of the greens, the severity of the course and the hunger of thefollowing players will be enough to accentuate the shortcomings of his game. Couple this with the fact that his swing is going through another rethink (his third, I believe), under his new coach, and this might be another year he misses the top spot. Having said that he finished 4th last year amidst all the scandal about his private life so now that that has died down he might go one or two better.

One thing's for sure - I shall be watching.

Sunday afternoon will reveal all.

General Musings For The Week 3rd April 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

So it's the beginning of April already. The year is flying by!

Happy Mother's Day to a) My mother and b) All mothers reading this (Especially if you're in England as today is Mother's Day here)

As you read this I should be ensconsed in an editing suite (well somebody's front room) with a Macbook, Final Cut Pro and a couple of hours of footage trying to fashion a film out of it all.

I've managed to land a gig as the director on a Sci-Fi 48 hour film. The idea is simple: At 10am on Saturday we receive a title, a line of dialogue, a genre and a prop from the organisers. 48 hours later we have to hand in a completed short movie which is in the specified genre, has the title, the prop and the line of dialogue included.

It's a really exciting event and I have a great team of people working with me. Most of them I met while doing other movies but some of them I actually met for the first time last week at a get together meeting. We've spent the last 10 days frantically trying to get together a location, some actors, props and costumes to make this as good as it can be. Our Title is '27 Arbour Street', the prop is a circuit board and the line of dialogue is 'He was bald and she was like a bloody parrot on her shoulder'. More next week.

One big topic of conversation in the papers this week was the Arts Council cuts in England. The Arts Council is a government body that gives monetary funding to arts projects across the country. This enables things such as dance, theatre and visual arts to reach a wider audience.

In the recent cuts 205 organisations had their grants for the coming fiscal year removed completely. Some organisations have lost as much as a quarter of a million pounds sterling. This - obviously - is a tragedy for the arts. But it’s more than that. It’s a tragedy for common sense. Here’s why:

The budget of the Arts Council is £310.5M (source: The Guardian). It is up to the Arts Council to determine who gets how much. At the moment there are many hundreds of organisations vying for the cash. Recent government funding cuts have meant the Arts Council has had to slice the amount of money it can spend on the arts. This has been their solution.

But looking at the figures reveals a slightly different picture. Data revealed by the Arts Council show a disturbing lack of consistency when determining cuts.

For a start not every organisation has had their funding cut. Certain groups have actually had an increase in the amount available to them - and quite a sizeable one too. But what does stand out to me is the sizeable funding that goes to Opera.

I’m not a big fan of Opera - in fact I can’t stand it. But I do believe that Opera should be subject to the same funding criteria and opportunities as other sections of the arts. Which is why I was absolutely amazed to find out that the two of the four largest recipients of Arts Councils grants are The English National Opera and The Royal Opera House which, between them, take over £43m of the total funding. This doesn’t include such esoteric outfits as the Glyndebourne Touring Opera and The Welsh National Opera which account for another couple of million. At the opposite end of the scale there is the Open Art organisation in my home town which has had it’s funding cut from £22k to zero.

So on the one hand you have many worthy organisations losing money completely and on the other you have a select few organisations receiving huge percentages of the total Arts Council pie. My question is this: If cuts are needed, why not make a blanket cut across all organisations? Why cut some (smaller) funds totally and still allocate a huge percentage of your total money to two esoteric and elitist organisations?

In environmental news today. Rolls Royce has produced an experimental electrical car. It looks like a regular Phantom, drives like a regular Phantom and sounds like a regular Phantom (form the inside at least) but it is powered by the largest electric motor ever to be put into a car and could cost up to 100% more than the regular version. That rounds out at £600,000 for a car. Of course there are folks who will buy it - probably to add to their collection of existing Rolls Royces - but the company isn’t sure how many. That’s why they’re letting 500 existing owners drive this over the next few months.

If the EU succeeds in removing all combustion engine cars from our city centres as it is proposing, then the electric Rolls Royce may yet win the day.

Video of the week is another internet viral. This time it’s the two twin babies having a conversation with each other. You’ve gotta smile!

Destroying your reputation on the web.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I saw a very interesting - and potentially humiliating - entry this week on twitter.

The entry pointed to a book review on a blog. The review was for a self-published book by an English-born author now living in America. The review was complimentary on the story but critical of some of the grammar. Normally this isn't an issue, but the author has taken great pains to criticise the review for what she deems to be untruths. Her comments have even sunk to the level of expletives. Totally unprofessional. They have probably ended the potential career of the writer in question. The post has gone viral and now has over 300 comments on it, virtually all of them critical of the author's response.

What I found most interesting, though, is that the comments made by the original reviewer have proven to be completely accurate, but even when they were pointed out to the author she couldn't see the problems. Here's an example:

Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance

The author replied:

... what I read above has no flaws. My writing is fine.

And - as Forrest Gump would have said "That's all I want to say on that"

.

General Musings For The Week 27th March 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Bit of a hot topic this week: Nuclear Energy

With all the furore over the Japanese nuclear reactors that has occurred since the earthquake and Tsunami of two weeks ago, there have been a lot of people eager to jump on the 'This is why we shouldn't have nuclear energy' bandwagon.

Let me put my cards on the table so there is no confusion here. I am neither for nor against nuclear energy. I have no great feelings either way. It is, demonstrably, the most efficient way of creating energy. But it is also the one with the greatest potential downside. I think nuclear energy can be a great helper to mankind, bit I would also hesitate to have a power station situated close to where I live. Sure, it's a hypocritical thing, but that's why I say I am neither for nor against it.

But I read two articles this week which were so unbalanced against it that I had to retweet them to my followers.

One of them was from the St Louis Journal and was entitled "Nuclear Energy is No Alternative". The person writing the article had formed an argument around the following statement "If the people in government who manage nuclear energy are corrupt then nuclear energy is not safe".

At the highest level there is a degree of truth in that - corruption can be one of the causes of safety protocols being bypassed. This can lead to accidents etc. But what annoyed me about the article was that it presented no other arguments against nuclear energy, nor did it apply the same logic to other forms of energy. After all it could be said that one of the reasons behind the Gulf Oil spill of last year was a safety issue. This could have been caused by a lax regime. This could have been a result of corruption somehwre (although i have no evidence to suggest it was). So why not include oil (or coal, or biofuels) into this article? Simply because it was an unbalanced and one-sided argument

The second article, called "Forgetting Fukushima" was from Greenpeace. Surprise, surprise they are quoting a fantastic statistic which says that if we built one nuclear power station every 10 days from now until 2050 we would only decrease the CO2 in the atmosphere by 4%. Their logic was that if that's the case then nuclear energy is not worth having and the dangers outweight the benefits.. The also roled out the old chestnuts about how dangerous is it. But again, it's a one-side argument. At no point did they quote any statistics related to how much alternative energy methods would reduce carbon emmisions. Sure, they told us that Germany is producing x% of its energy through solar and wind, and Portugal is doing similar, but without comparison like-for-like figures it becomes a one-sided, unbalanced argument.

In comparison to that Seth Godin (A marketeer with a knack for stating the obvious in a way you don't think is obvious) has shown a graphical statistic which compares the number of deaths per production of a set amount of energy from Nuclear fuel, oil and coal. The difference is quite startling. I would urge you to look at it. But when you do, please make sure you read the admonishment he puts underneath which is "Any time reality doesn't match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved".

I wonder how big and effective the Greenpeace marketing department is?

Video of the week is this Silent City a short sci-fi movie made with the help of the Irish Film Council. It's a very impressive short which - I believe - was mainly done by a guy in his room. If you want to see the behind the scenes footage, it's here.

Everyone in the UK don't forget the clocks went forward an hour last night and today is the day you are supposed to complete your census forms (it's a legal requirement, you know!)

General musings for the week 20th March 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Comerford) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The story of the week for me was the unwarranted uproar around Midsomer Murders. For those who don't know, Midsomer Murders is a television programme in the style of Inspector Morse and Miss Marple. It follows the efforts of a police detective to solve crime (usually murder) in a sleepy English village. The programme has been running for 14 years and - last week - the co-creator made an off-hand remark along the lines of "We've never had a black actor in Midsomer becasue it wouldn't be right for the show'. This remark has caused an absolute stink in the media resulting in the broadcaster ordering an inquiry and the co-creater being suspended from his own show.

And it's all just political correctness gone mad.

Let me remind you of the facts: This show has been filmed, broadcast, recommisioned and rebroadcast over a period of 14 series. Presumably the big-wigs at the studios and broadcasters were savvy enough to realise that there were no black actors on the show, and yet the fact that one person made an off-hand remark is enough to finally jolt them into action.

It stinks.

But here's what really gets my goat: The co-creator is right: Adding a black person into the show wouldn't be right for it. The show aims at a particular demographic. It's set in a location which is reknowned for the "Englishness' of it all. I live in a place that is very similar to Midsomer. And there are no black people. There are no Chinese people, no Pakistani or Indian people. Hell, I'd be hard pressed to identify anyone who isn't Anglo-Saxon. Whether this is right or wrong is immaterial. It is the demographic of the location. It is the demographic of a lot of similar small villages around England. And it is the demographic of Midsomer. That's why adding something into the mix to appease the PC police is wrong.

But now the media have a hold of this and are blowing it up out of all proportion. This, I would remind you, is the same media who have watched, commented on and reviewed this same show for 14 seasons without noticing, or being concerned about, the fact that it is a white show.

I remember a number of years ago sitting down and watching 'The Cosby Show'. Loved the show (still do), but I don't recall a great number of white actors on there. I also don't recall a great number of complaints about it. I also loved 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' which was a wonderful movie. Not sure I saw too many Anglo-Saxons in there. "But that's a Chinese film, set in China in a feudal era. There were no Anglo-Saxon's in China then" you say. Exactly! You cast your production according to the demographic you need to make it work.

I've just come off filming three months on a big World War One movie. Guess what? Of all the people in the film, I saw English, Scottish, Irish, French, German and Belgians. But I didn't see any people of colour. Why? Because they didn't fight in the trenches in WWI! It's another example where you have to cast according to the required demographic.

But I also worked on 'Spooks' recently. In that particular sequence I was in a minority. I was one of three white people in the shot. Why was that? Because the scene was set in the British Embassy in Cameroon. The ideal demographic for that would be a minority of white surrounded by a majority of black. That's exactly what we had.

I know that people understand this. I know that they are not really concerned when they find out that there are no coloured people in a small English village (In much the same way they wouldn't expect to see any white people in a small village in the Congo). So why is this revalation causing news headlines? It's because the co-creater actually had the guts to say it on the record. Do you think that ITV weren't aware of this? Do you think that the great British viewing public who flock in their millions to watch Midsomer Murders were concerned about the fact that it was a 'white' programme? Of course not! But in this world of political correctness you cannot say that the show is 'white' or that adding any ethnicity to it would be wrong. And that's the mistake the co-creator made. He said what everyone in their hearts knew.

And he's going to pay the price for it.

Video of the week this week is The World's Greatest Extra. This guy would appear - it seems - to be in just about any and every film or TV series made. Check out the video and see how many shows you recognise him in.