A Fine Day Out - Now Online!

You can now watch A Fine Day Out online, a comedy short film from No Respite Productions...

Click on the picture below to watch the film in Windows Movie Maker.

Alternatively you can visit the films webpage to watch a streamed version, see photo stills from the movie and see our other works.

Hope you enjoy, it's not the world's most technically accomplished film, nor is it the funniest. But it should at least put a few smiles on your face, if nothing else.

Many thanks if you do take your time to watch this...

Adam

A Fine Day Out Launch Date

A Fine Day Out will be launched live on Thursday 23rd July.

You will be able to view this film from our website www.norespiteproductions.webs.com and an embedded video will also be present on this blog.

Following on from that, both A Fine Day Out and Chavular will eventually find their way onto our YouTube webpage, which is currently in the middle of being given an overhaul in terms of both looks and content.

Check back this Thursday!

A Fine Day Out - Pictures

Hot off the digital press, a batch of screenshots from the upcoming film A Fine Day Out.

This is another re-engineered short film, a more gentle comedy that will be out very soon, possibly by the end of this week.

I hope you enjoy!

Introducing - A Fine Day Out

A Fine Day out will be the next release from No Respite Productions.

The film itself is fairly whimsical in nature compared to Chavular, it tells the story of two friends who become stranded after a day out (which incorporates one of the most homo-erotic montages ever created) and must rely on their two less than reliable friends to help them out.

Will they be rescued in time? Will they f***.

This feature was once again another very simple movie that I filmed a few years ago, using nothing but Windows Movie Maker for editing. As with Chavular, I've re-edited with Sony Vegas and improved the footage with Effectslab (the lighting is about a trillion times better, if a little rough).

There won't be a massive fanfair with this release, it will be hosted online possibly towards the end of this week. The effects work is finished and currently being rendered out. After which will be some adjustments to both the sound effects and the score.

Screenshots to follow once the render has been completed. Work on a very small brand new feature is ongoing and will be announced soon.

Screenshots to follow once the render has been completed. Work on avery small brand new feature is ongoing and will be announced soon, as well as a massive change to the current No Respite Productions YouTube channel.

Even More Upcoming Work

So desperate am I to produce something that I've referred once again to my back catalogue of previous works (as small as it is).

The next production that you'll see unleashed on the web was a previous film, done back in 2007 before Chavular. It is a whimsical comedy based around two friends going on a day out together. When their car is stranded, their only hope of rescue lies with their two less than reliable friends.

So all in all, very light hearted with just a touch of blue humour and some language. It's going to be fun!

Current plans are to host said film in the same manner as Chavular... i.e. from this very site. My YouTube account will be given a fairly huge overhaul in a few weeks as a lot of my videos have been disabled thanks to my infringements on copyright laws with regards to the music. But my aim is to re-work what I have and try and have the most recent films available from YouTube in the not too distant future.

I currently have my fingers in a lot of different pies at the moment so lord knows when this will eventually be released. But it shouldn't take too long.

Cheers,

Adam

Updates

Inspiration can come from the strangest of places.

I was watching the brilliant That Mitchell and Webb Look on BBC and they have a fantastic sketch on there called The Quiz Broadcast. What's funny about this sketch is that this light hearted piece of entertainment seeminly takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where people are constantly told to "stay indoors" and a thing known as "the event" is referenced as causing the current state of affairs. The event itself is not expanded upon but characters frequently talk about it and the horrific effects it has had on mankind.

Watching this, I laughed my head off and then began to wonder exactly what would "the event" look like. This is the subject of a new script I'm currently writing. It's going to be a very short and morbid affair, starring just myself due to a lack of any other willing actors.

This is something small to keep me productive and creative whilst I still wait for the forever stalled filming of Ring of Death to eventually take place.

I've always avoided television in favour of working on my own creative pieces, but it would seem that in doing so I've missed out on a rather fundemental need... inspiration. Here's a clip of the show that I could find for you to enjoy.

Filming Schedules

This blog has been very quiet because no filming has taken place recently. No filming has taken place because it's been incredibly difficult to find a date that two or more people can agree to.

This is a very common problem with amateur film making, normally people are incredibly busy with this, that and the other. So you try to arrange something even a month away and it turns out that people have weddings/holidays/stag dos etc. It's fair enough, but it doesn't help get a film released. Even worse is the very fragmented nature of the shoots themselves, you could have one shoot booked for next week, then not another for a months time.

So I've decided to attempt a different way of booking people's time, a method more akin to what they do in the professional industry. This involved setting a defined period for filming, which in my case is now five weeks during November - December. During these weeks my actors have to remain free of as many social appointments as possible, and prepared to do multiple shoots during consequtive evenings/days.

Hopefully this will help focus all of our effort (and the inconvenience of filming) into a single defined period, rather than the scattershot and fragmented way that has been so far.

Obviously strings are attached to this, some people may not feel comfortable in having such a large portion of time taken out of their personal calendars. Hopefully that won't put them off too much and fingers crossed by the end of the year the whole film will be in the wrap!

At the end of the day, trying to find random dates that more than two people could attend wasn't really working out. So fingers crossed this alternative trial will yield better results.

Chavular NOW ONLINE

Hello all!

Chavular is now online and available for you to enjoy. If you do then please leave comments either here on at my website!

Click here to watch it in your media player!!

You can also view the film from the embedded player below, and also visit our website to download the free soundtrack!!!


Hope you enjoy!

Adam

Creating DVDs

Hello!

Again another recommendation for some software that I found recommended online, and this is specifically for when you've finished your production, and you want to create something special out of it. Whether it's a keepsake, or something that you can sell to friends and family... even hand out to the cast and crew as a thank you for all their hard work.



So tonight it's a small gathering of friends and as well as showing off our new movie Chavular, I wanted to add a little extra something to the evening. So I decided to create some DVDs of the film itself, plus our past work, which I could then present to them at the end of the evening.

In order to create the DVD cases, I bought some cheap slimline 9mm thick cases from PCWorld, then went about designing the label. The problem here is you need to make sure the print out will be sized accurately. Thanks to this software I found, that step was a doddle.



I simply created two A4 cover graphics in GIMP, one for the front cover and one for the back. I then layered these onto one A3 sized graphic, and once that was saved I then installed and loaded up <a href="http://www.undercoverxp.tk/">UnderCoverXP</a>.

This free piece of software will automatically re-size your image to fit a whole variety of different cases... whether it's proper DVDs, Playstation 3 or even VHS cases! You can also burn CD sized labels as well.

You can also include cut/fold lines in your print out which makes cropping the prints for your cases a doddle. You can see the finished results in the pictures provided. You need to make sure you have a half decent photo printer and the right kind of paper (which I didn't at the time) but I think it delivers a very smart product that you can be proud of.

More soon!

Adam

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Chavular - Creating the DVD

Hello!

So probably the 2nd to last post on Chavular before the actual film release online (13th April) and then after that I will be focusing 100% on Ring of Death - our new production.

The Chavular launch party takes place on Monday at the same time as the film is released online. This in reality is just a small gathering with some friends where we'll be providing food and of course, entertainment in the form of the Chavular film.

I figured it would be quite nice to build a presentation around the film, so I got cracking on making a DVD using Sony DVD Architect (which I received in addition to Sony Vegas). The DVD creation was fairly easy, although I had to once again re-render Chavular into the MPEG-II format which allowed for true 16:9 widescreen on the DVD.

I built the menu options and added in bonus content (my previous work) without much drama. But I figured I wanted something quite dark and menacing to play over the main menu screen. So I knocked up the following in Vegas and I think it works quite well.

The YouTube video below is the final footage, but without the menu options. Hope you like it and leave a comment if you actually read this stuff ;)

It never occured me to use Vegas in tandem with my DVD authoring software to create a more polished and professional DVD. But well worth considering if you ever wanted to compile your movies to show your friends. You never know... they may even ask for a copy.

And I'll have a few ready, especially for the cast, on the offchance that they want one!

Chavular DVD Menu

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Render Time

The new online film Chavular is currently being rendered (should be finished in approximately 2 1/2 hours time).

Once that has is done and dusted, all that is required is for me to proof view the final product. Assuming no glaring errors are present, I'll begin uploading the film to www.archive.org this evening.

Once that is hosted online, I can then submit the film to the FXHome cinema page where it can be viewed by the community.

Once the online hosting aspect is all covered, I'll then begin creating a DVD of the finished product, along with a sneak preview of Ring of Death (which I may well host online soon) and an interactive menu.

I'm hoping that a flash looking DVD may well cause a stir with my friends, and if they like the idea of supporting a struggling low budget film maker, then perhaps we can sell a few copies of the DVD off and can the online hosting for a while.

Anyway, all sorts of things going on at the moment, when in reality I should be working on the Ring of Death script ;)

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Incidental Music in your Films

Progress on the Chavular film is going quite well at the moment. I'm really looking forward to showing the whole thing on the 13th April, even more so now that we've made a house party out of it!

In the meantime I've been adding incidental music throughout the film. These are just short brief musical interludes, often a few synthesised notes that have been created by me to add tension to the overall scene.

I blogged about this a while ago, but ZynAddSubFX is what I've been using... and what a fantastic piece of kit.

All too often it's very easy to take someone elses copyrighted work and just paste it over your footage. Now whilst there are a few occasions on Chavular when you will hear of such things, where possible I've tried very hard to make sure that incidental music is my own work.

It's a nice feeling to be creating something from scratch, adding it in to the film and not having to worry about any legal ramifications, or having the videos blocked when uploading them to YouTube. It's worth exploring this software as... not only is it completely free, but it's very easy to create just a very simple music score that can serve as background music for your feature.

Because I've made extensive use of free to use downloads in the past, the one thing I have decided is that in a couple of weeks time, I'll upload these clips on my website for anyone to use under the creative commons licence.

So hopefully I'll be able to give something to the vast number of film makers, rather than just taking all the time ;)

I'll blog again when those clips are online and available!

Adam

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Chavular - Trailer Now Online

Hello all!

Well it's finally done! The Chavular trailer is launched and live and ready to view below.



I must admit, this was only edited in one evening and I really didn't want to spend tons of time on it, especially given that there are several sound issues I need to resolve, as well as the more pressing matter of getting the new Ring of Death movie back up and running.

Which is looking good, I'm actually revising the script again at the moment and really glad that I've done so, there are definitely a few areas that needed improvement and I hope that another pass through the script will help deliver an even funnier and worthwhile movie.

Back again soon!

Adam

Effectslab Grading and CamStudio Demo

Well as promised (and blogged about for most of the weekend) here is the capture of my grading work that was done with CamStudio.

The song you can hear is a rare track by Nine Inch Nails - it's their cover of the Black Sabbath original "Supernaut". Mindblowing song.

You'll also get a very teeny glimpse into the upcoming Chavular film.

Hope you enjoy the vid!

Cheers,

Adam

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Check Your Framrate!

Hello,

Whilst I hoped to have something of a trailer launced by today it would appear that it's not going to happen. Mostly because I was a complete idiot and stuffed up the correct render settings when I first created my grading and effects work in FXHome. Now I have to annoyingly start over again from scratch, it's not too annoying given that I was only really using the preset gradings and nothing more. But it's incredibly frustrating to know that I'll have to work through the entire thing again!

GRRRR!

Still hopefully my use of the gradings should give me an ideal chance to try out CamStudio properly and see if I can't get something aired on YouTube before the day is out!

Adam

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