Read All About It

The website for Invisible Bullets is now on the front page of Google when you enter the text “Virgin Media Shorts”.

I’ve heard nothing from Virgin Media Shorts so will assume that we haven’t made the longlist, but by being on the first page of Google it means that there will still be exposure for all involved.

I’d like to thank everybody who has written about the film and posted a link to the Invisible Bullets website, as the Google ranking is heavily reliant on inbound links.

Here’s a list of the websites and blogs which give Invisible Bullets a mention, click on the text to view each article:

Encyclopaedia Of Weird Westerns

Giallo Fever

Manchester Gossip

Salford Star

Speechmarks

If you come across any others please let us know!

Top Ten

I received a message from Dean Lines this morning telling me that Invisible Bullets had been rated one of the top ten films on the Virgin Media Shorts website! 

Obviously this is fantastic news for everyone involved, so if you took the time to vote for us then thank you!

Virgin Media Shorts will be announcing their longlist soon, so if you haven't done so already please do take a moment to watch and vote for the finished film here, your support really will make a difference. Lets see if we can get Invisible Bullets to the top of the charts!

Today I uploaded a rough cut of the film, to both YouTube and Vimeo. This is the rough cut that was edited and screened at Filmonik on the same day as the shoot. 

I hadn't watched the rough cut since the screening took place. All I can say is that it's incredible the difference two weeks of post production makes! Go on, compare the two... and of course, don't forget to vote!

No Logo

In Invisible Bullets we used four branded items, a can of Red Bull, a bottle of Highland Spring, a can of Diet Coke and a bottle of Stella Artois. 

Since our entry could one day be screened at the cinema all entries to the Virgin Media Shorts competition must conform to The Ofcom Broadcasting Code, which in short means that our film should contain no commercial references or give a particular company undue prominence.

Due to the tight schedule I didn’t have time to obtain clearances for these items prior to the shoot and so in the version on the Virgin Media Shorts website all visible logos have had to be blurred out. 

Whilst this doesn’t really have a big impact on the enjoyment of the film I would ideally like to obtain these rights so that we can remove the blur.

I’ve never had to clear any rights before and thought it would take a while to sort out, but both Red Bull and Highland Spring have been very obliging and got back to us within a day of contacting them. Hopefully Diet Coke and Stella won’t be far behind!

1 UP

The film is complete, online and can be viewed here.

The original deadline to submit the film to the Virgin Media Shorts website was yesterday, but luckily for us this was extended by 24 hours, meaning that I had time to fix the grade, which we had been having problems applying.

Last night I didn’t go to bed, and instead worked through the early hours, adding the credits and exporting the film to a smaller file size.

I did have a couple of problems with the export, and at 8.30am, after exporting the film, noticed that a single frame was out of place. I managed to resolve this, and after exporting again was able to upload the finished film with a whole hour to go before the deadline.

I hope you enjoy the film, it really has been a labour of love.

Over the next few months I’ll be adding production stills, behind the scenes footage and revealing how we went about achieving the special effects.

In the meantime if you like the film please help spread the word, and thank you for your continued support.

High Noon

Yesterday, Andy Poole, Paul Walters and I completed the final sound mix at SSR, the School of Sound Recording in Manchester.

We were in the studio for a total of six hours and missed the England vs. Germany World Cup match as a result, which in hindsight was probably for the best.

Andy and Paul had a majority of the sounds in place already, and it helped that we had all met up earlier in the week to have a brief chat about the project, to exchange files (including the final edit which I’d completed that same day) and to see what sound effects were still required.

The session went well, and the only sounds that needed recording on the day were drinking sounds for the shot of Jimmy drinking in the kitchen, and chewing sounds for the close up of Jimmy chewing gum outside.

Andy volunteered to record both of these sounds. To be honest I think he just wanted an excuse to eat Jellybeans, which were, according to Andy, the ideal way to get that authentic chewing sound.

As we left the studio I said to Andy and Paul that the project was now reliant on being completed by five people, myself, Gareth Crook, Pete Johnson, Peter Wobser and Mark Brereton.

In my mind I thought that it’d be possible to have the film uploaded to the Virgin Media Shorts website by Sunday night. How wrong I could be.

It is now 6am and with less than six hours until the deadline for the competition the film still needs to be graded, the logos on the cans and bottles have yet to be blurred out, I have no pixel art, the credits are incomplete, the Virgin Media Shorts website is crashing and our colourst is a German, meaning that if I do run into any problems this morning the chances of me being able to ask him for any coherent advice is somewhat slim.

Pixel Resolution

In an attempt to find a Pixel Artist to create pixilated images of all the cast and crew I did a few searches on Google, put a call out on the Arts Council website and set about contacting several people on Pixel Joint, a community of Pixel Artists.

Rick Eades, my cartoonist friend, did respond to my initial email, and I sent him all the info, but then he emailed me on Thursday evening saying that it wasn’t really his thing and that he’d have to pass.

Having had no other response aside from Rick, I decided to have a crack at it myself, and spent all Friday working on it, teaching myself the technique by following this tutorial.

I was quite impressed that I managed to create something that vaguely resembled myself and had started work on Colin Warhurst, Sophie Bates and Peter Wobser. The problem was that these four people had taken me all day! If I were to attempt every cast and crew member I could easily see the faces deteriorating as the final credits rolled, and in all likelihood we’d be ending on a couple of badly drawn stickmen.

Then, late on the Friday night, after spending all day staring at pixel after pixel, I got an unexpected email from a graphic designer called Mark Brereton explaining how he’d like to get involved in the project.

I was ecstatic, and quickly fired an email back to Mark. He confirmed that he was interested and up for the challenge, and so I stayed up until 3am uploading photos of all the cast and crew for Mark to refer to.

I did get responses off other Pixel Artists including top pixel artists Gary J Lucken and Richard Janes but they were both unable to commit to the project due to the tight deadline.

Just The Two Of Us

On Tuesday morning I sent an email out to the team clarifying a few things regarding the film’s post production.

I also requested that certain people start copying each other into emails, as I was a little worried that people would start doubling up on tasks, which we can’t afford to do with such a tight deadline.

Andy Poole and Andrew Thomson are now copying me in on their emails about all things sound related, and although for the most part I don’t have a clue what they’re babbling on about (recording at 48khz/24bit, levels of PPM 6, dithering down etc…) at least I know that they’re talking to each other and not working in splendid isolation.

I have also asked Gareth Crook to copy in Peter Wobser on all his emails. Wobser is working on the final grade and I sent him some game screenshots yesterday afternoon to give him an idea of what I’m after. Hopefully in this way we can get a consistent game look, with a similar colour palette being used throughout the film.

In the early hours of this morning Gareth sent me the revised opening titles and credits, and they’re looking fantastic. In the end credits Gareth has used some photos of the cast and crew, but ideally I’d like them to have pixelated versions of ourselves, similar in style to this.

I’ve sent an email to Rick Eades, a Manchester based cartoonist I know, but I’m not sure whether it’s something that he’d like to get involved with, since it’s not his usual style. However, having had a gander at Rick’s Facebook profile he does list ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ as one of his favourite films… which has got to be a good thing!

Today Paul Anderton and I are going to be shooting the opening ‘Tumbleweed’ scene, and now that we have Gareth’s files to hand we will be able to get a much better idea of what to shoot, and as to how this footage will relate to the opening titles.

In addition to the ‘Tumbleweed’ scene I am planning on shooting a Spaced like sequence, involving lots of fast cuts as Jimmy pours the Red Bull into his glass.

Ideally we would have an establishing shot of the kitchen for this bit, but unfortunately we missed it on the day.

Yesterday I got a call from Paul Walters, who first contacted me via Facebook. Paul, like Andy Poole, is a student at SSR and in my initial response I think I said that he should get in touch with Andy to see if he needed a hand with anything. Turns out that they know each other well, which is great and I’m more than happy for Paul to get involved.

With Paul onboard the film credits are starting to resemble a checklist for Noah’s Ark. We now have two Pauls, two Petes, two Gareths and two Andys working on the film.

It was only the other day that Paul Anderton was gloating about how he was the only Paul. I’m off to tell him the bad news.