Tokyo Cowboys (2008)
Tokyo Cowboys follows the stories of four western men living long-term in Tokyo. The film’s delicate and humorous portrait illuminates the price some pay for a taste of Tokyo’s success.

• DN EP 096: Tokyo Cowboys - Daneeta Loretta Saft & Patrick Jackson
• We Dreamed America - Alex Walker
• The Super Noble Brothers - Mark Escribano
• Routes - Alex Reuben
• Inside the Circle - Marcy Garriott

Tim Plester joins us this week to discuss his DVD released trilogy of shorts and directorial debut English Language (With English Subtitles), which he also wrote and stars in.

English Language (With English Subtitles) Materials
Stills & Storyboards
Script
Shotlist
Music by Barbarossa
Afterglow Music Promo
Trailer
Behind the Scenes Footage

Showlinks
timplester.com
English Language (With English Subtitles)
Blurring the Line
KMIR6 Breakfast News Interview
‘Ant Muzak’, Blake’s Junction 7 & World Of Wrestling Trailer
Buy the ‘Ant Muzak’/Blake’s Junction 7/ World Of Wrestling DVD
‘Ant Muzak’ Gallery
Blake’s Junction 7 Gallery
World Of Wrestling Gallery
Blake’s 7
Barbarossa
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Palm Springs Film Festival
Raymond Carver
Marion and Geoff
Uppsala International Short Film Festival
Greek Chorus
Annie Hall
Punch-Drunk Love
French New Wave
Control

• Filmstock #8
• Stagnate - Miranda Bowen
• Miss D 2007 Top Ten
• MarBelle 2007 Top Ten
• English Language (With English Subtitles) - Tim Plester

English Language (With English Subtitles) (2007)
A tenderly offbeat black-and-white romantic comedy… with subtitles.

Meet Mulligan (a typically English man), Esther (his Scandinavian girlfriend), and the on-screen captions that happen to find themselves along for the ride.

• The Upper Hand - Lana Schwarcz
• The Raftman’s Razor - Keith Bearden
• Filmstock #8
• DN EP 092: English Language (With English Subtitles) - Tim Plester
• _grau - Robert Seidel

Victor Solomon is a director in the rare and enviable position of being able to initiate his own projects through self-funding. He joins us this week to discuss his latest work Anthropology, a collection of five short films based stories from the Dan Rhodes’ book of the same name.

Anthropology Materials
Storyboards
Scripts

Showlinks
Victor Solomon
The Lovemakers
Faux Fox
Dan Rhodes
A Fine Tooth
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Panasonic AG-HVX200

• Anthropology - Victor Solomon
• DN EP 044: Film Eight - Dan Gitsham
• Time Piece - Kat Mansoor
• The West Side Episode 3
• The West Side Back…Again

Anthropology (2008)
Victor Solomon’s Anthropology series of films adapted from Anthropology, a book of short stories by Dan Rhodes.

• DN EP 090: Anthropology - Victor Solomon
• Film Eight - Dan Gitsham
• _grau - Robert Seidel
• ZOMBIE ZOMBIE: Driving Clip - Simon Gesrel & Xavier Ehretsmann
• White Red Panic - Ayz Waraich

On The Upside is now finished and there’s a clip over at Peter’s website or you can watch the full film on Babelgum. Enjoy!

• Mind Games - Peter Bunzl
• Vote Yes to Mind Games
• DN EP 043: Mind Games - Peter Bunzl
• _grau - Robert Seidel
• ZOMBIE ZOMBIE: Driving Clip - Simon Gesrel & Xavier Ehretsmann

My guest today is Lana Schwarcz talking about the plethora of creative roles she fills and her alternate reality piece The Upper Hand, where humans and puppets come together to bet on cross-species striping contests.

The Upper Hand Materials
Stills

Showlinks
That Lana Girl MySpace
That Girl Entertainment
Marc Fennell’s Film Ed 101
Lana’s ABC Video Lives
Tropfest
The Portable Film Festival
Apple Final Cut Pro
Mike Reed & Partners Post Production
UNIMA 2008 Masterclass Series Survey
Australian Film Television & Radio School
UNIMA 2008

• The Upper Hand - Lana Schwarcz
• DN EP 086: Extraordinary Rendition - Jim Threapleton
• DN EP 080: Gardens By the Bay - Squint/Opera
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN EP 071: Good Copy Bad Copy - Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen & Henrik Moltke

The Upper Hand (2006)
When the ordinary no longer sustains its audience, the ultimate performer will do almost anything to get them back on side.

Mistress Marvel’s Burlesque Club and MC Randy invite puppets to mingle with live humans to see Lulu Fountain (pron. FounTAINE) vs Capability Brown in a competitive strip-off that is sure to blow things all out of proportion.

The giddy heights of theatrical fame will no doubt be achieved by one of these sexy ladies, but which one?

• Tyger - Guilherme Marcondes
• The Raftman’s Razor - Keith Bearden
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• English Language (With English Subtitles) - Tim Plester
• DN EP 045: The Upper Hand - Lana Schwarcz

Today I’m joined by Dan Gitsham to discuss his dark comedy, horror, Film Eight which is quite fitting as I’m recording this on Friday the 13th. Dan describes Film Eight as a run, hide, run, film which I suppose categorises the coming section as chat in the talk, chat, talk structure of Directors Notes.

Film Eight Materials
Stills

Showlinks
Sketchbook Pictures MySpace
15 Must-Have Freeware Programs for Filmmakers
Bang! Short Film Festival
EM Media
The Decent
Sony DSR PD-150
Simon Ellis - Bubtowers
Joost
Halloween Short Film Festival
Soft For Digging
Primer

• Film Eight - Dan Gitsham
• Filmstock #8
• The Ten Steps - Brendan Muldowney
• DN Festival: Birds Eye View 2007
• DN EP 106: ZOMBIE ZOMBIE: Driving Clip - Simon Gesrel & Xavier Ehretsmann

Film Eight (2006)
One man’s incredible ability to make every wrong decision you could possibly imagine and then some! A black and blue comedy where anything goes!

• DN EP 044: Film Eight - Dan Gitsham
• ZOMBIE ZOMBIE: Driving Clip - Simon Gesrel & Xavier Ehretsmann
• SotW: I Love Sarah Jane
• Seeking Wellness - Dan Schneidkraut
• Now You See Me, Now You Don’t - Attila Szasz

Today’s interview’s slightly different in that instead of zeroing in on a single film, we’re looking at four very different pieces from director Mike Chan’s body of work, to get a feel for the variety of projects he creates with his regular team of collaborators; including experiments with photocopiers in Distortion, duelling Ping Pong playing TVs, Mods vs Rockers dancing chair fantasies in Biker Mike and Auto Pilot, a playful giant gorilla attack disaster music video for The Mount Cherries.

Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike Materials
Stills
Auto Pilot Gorilla Attack Animatic

Showlinks
Mike Chan
Mike Chan’s MySpace
malsirhc.com
chenghei.com
harumelon.com
Monster Talk
MA Communication Design 2007
CSM Illustration 2005
EMERGEANDSEE
Digital Horizons
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
The Mount Cherries
Adobe After Effects
NOISE
Pixilation
DepicT!

• Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• DN EP 095: The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN Ep 022: LIVE LOVE WORK PLAY - Thomas Atanazio
• DN EP 107: Thunderheist: Jerk It - That Go

Auto Pilot (2006)
A giant gorilla arrives in the airport and things quickly turn chaotic. The Mount Cherries’ aeroplane tries to dodge the gorilla’s grasp until the hot air hostesses jump out and dance with the gorilla, who turns out to be friends with the pilot.

Distortion (2005)
An animation about expressing yourself using a photocopy machine.

Ping Pong (2006)
A ping pong match takes place between two televisions.

Biker Mike (2004)
A short film about Biker Mike, mods and chairs. Biker Mike has been beaten by the mods. In order to escape the pain, he slips into a dream world of dance and chairs.

• DN EP 042: Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• Weightless - Erika Janunger
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• Carlin - Brent Green
• _grau - Robert Seidel

Remote tells the story of an amalgam of the fairer sex and TV. Despite the modest £1000 budget, director John Burns was confident the 90-second film could be realised on Super 16mm, until disaster struck: “The producer pulled out three days before the shoot and we realised she hadn’t organised anything in the month of pre-production; it was up to myself and production assistant Sagar Shah (promptly promoted to producer) to assemble the film from nothing in three days.”

The production transformed a room in Shah’s aunt’s house into a decadent boudoir, careful to cover up actors when she was around, as the room was normally used for weekday prayers. As Burns had never used bluescreen before, Russell Stopford at Magic Lantern was consulted prior to filming about the complexities of getting the female lead’s face to play like a programme on her TV head. This necessitated the sourcing of three identical TV sets – only one of which needed to work. Pre-shot DV content was filmed off the working set in Super 16mm, using a phase corrector to remove the phase bar. On set, actress Frida Show’s reactions were filmed from the same set, displaying the output of a DV camera she was positioned in front of. Her actions were then timed from the best take of her wearing the mask.

“It was difficult for Frida to do first one take with just her body (not moving her head) and then another with just her face (not moving her body). The other two TVs were cannibalised to make two fronts and backs of a TV head construction. This was built around the production designer’s cycle helmet and allowed the actress to just about move, although it was very heavy. For a couple of the shots she had to have a blue screen where the screen would be and this meant she couldn’t see what she was doing at all. In post we overlaid the 16mm footage of her face onto the TV mask using the corners of the TV to track it in After Effects.”

Remote has featured in a number of festivals as well as an Underground Films DVD and the British Council represented it in Cannes. You can watch Remote as well as a host of Burns’ movies over at Big Red Button.

- Originally published in Showreel, Issue 9 (Autumn 2005)

• The Ten Steps - Brendan Muldowney
• The Scent of Seth - Anita Shukla
• The Darkside - Shane Sheils
• Talking with Angels - Yousaf Ali Khan
• Stagnate - Miranda Bowen

Most of the guests on Directors Notes have had to self finance and hustle to get their projects to screen, but every once in a while a directors’ passion and drive for a project manages to push through the maze of questions and checks to grab a share of the funding pot. Robin King and his Pixilation camera revenge piece Ten Thousand Pictures of You not only grabbed the cash but became a stronger film for the experience.

Ten Thousand Pictures of You Materials
Stills
Planning Documents

Showlinks
Stand Alone Films
Robin’s MySpace
UK Film Council Digital Shorts
Screen South
Pixilation
Venn Diagram
Blitz Basic
Cannon EOS 350D
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere
Graphic Tablet
Body Heat
Aliens
James Horner
BBC Film Network
Super Shorts
Future Shorts
On the Lot
Primer

• DN Special: Screen South - Digital Shorts 2007
• Ten Thousand Pictures of You - Robin King
• Dialog - Stephen Irwin
• The Scent of Seth - Anita Shukla
• Mercy - Candida Scott Knight

My beer fueled interview with co-directors Andy Gibson and Ryan Rogers is the first face to face interview we’ve put out and was great fun to do. Despite the ever growing stack of empty pints, the three of us managed to stay enough on topic to discuss the pairs’ stopframe animation Sunshine Indoors, an odd tale populated with a robot hero, pharmaceutical gangsters and snail genocide.

Sunshine Indoors Materials
Stills

Showlinks
Pixilation
Jan Svankmajer
Ray Harryhausen
Ashley Wood
Bonsai
Pixar
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W5
Adobe Flash
Apple iMovie
Pro Tools
Bradford Animation Festival
La Jetée
Ken Burns Effect
Consider Yourself at Home Piece

• Consider Yourself at Home - Andy Gibson
• Sunshine Indoors - Andy Gibson & Ryan Rogers
• DN EP 038 repost: 4motion - Marijn Dionys
• Filmstock #8
• DN EP 089: Bendito Machine - Jossie Malis

Our director de jour Scott Ludden knows how the support of a good crew can mean the difference between success or failure on a project. The crew who worked with him on his disquieting film The Big Day, were all willing to step up to the plate for the 20 hour shoot, which is good, as otherwise this would be an intro for an interview about a film that doesn’t exist and I already did that in DN009.

The Big Day Materials
Stills
Script

Showlinks
Scott’s Films
Furyon
St. Louis International Film Festival
Seattle International Film Festival

• DN EP 046: The Raftman’s Razor - Keith Bearden
• Carling Weekend Reading & Leeds ‘07
• Time Piece - Kat Mansoor
• The West Side Episode 3
• The West Side Back…Again

Anyone who’s been stuck waiting to pull out at a busy junction will sympathise with The Man in Mark Jenkin’s The Man Who Needed a Traffic Light. Based on an idea a friend had for a comedy sketch, Jenkin fleshed it out into a 10-minute script, followed by a redrafting which brought it down to a much snappier six minutes. The UK Film Council and South West Screen commissioned the script as part of 2003’s Digital Shorts scheme and a budget of £6,500 meant everyone involved could be paid, a rarity on shorts.

Casting ‘The Man’ was straightforward, as Jenkin had previously worked with actor Colin Holt and was confident he’d be able to pull off the physical acting required in this no dialogue piece. The greatest challenge came in securing a rural garage. Eventually the production found Mitchell’s Filling Station after the owner heard their appeal on a local radio station. His willingness to help extended to providing the classic cars that were required on the forecourt.

DP Steve Tanner shot The Man Who Needed A Traffic Light on a Sony PD100 in three days; two at the filling station followed by a half day out on the road with a bonnet mount and another half day in Jenkin’s local pub car park for the close-ups and night shots. The film was cut on Adobe Premiere then transferred to Avid DS for the grade. Dissatisfaction with the grade prompted a return to Jenkin’s Premiere suite, where he attained the look he was after by pulling in the levels and tweaking the contrast, contrary to advise he received at the project’s outset; “It was pressed upon me (by the broadcaster involved in the Digital Shorts scheme) that it was important to go the DS route in the interests of getting a professional finish, but people just don’t realise how simple it can be to achieve a great effect using Premiere.”

- Originally published in Showreel, Issue 6 (Winter 2004)

• Dialog - Stephen Irwin
• What are words worth?
• The Upper Hand - Lana Schwarcz
• The Ten Steps - Brendan Muldowney
• The Scent of Seth - Anita Shukla

The Suburbs (2006)
A ramshackle rainbow showcase of the comic talents of Lee Kern as he embarks upon an effort to bottle the crooked light of suburbia - and then smash it. It is a world where the spiritual turpitude of the suburbs is alleviated momentarily by emails to the Ku Klux Klan, where crucified fish-fingers are hung up on living room walls, and where grandmas are hassled to provide Ringos…

…it is a world you want to visit.

• This post is all alone.

Our long-time friend, director Lee Kern discusses his Lo-Fi approach to filmmaking, which has enabled him to develop a singular style whilst maintaining creative freedom on his broadcast documentaries.

The Suburbs Materials
Stills

Showlinks
Twinklebum UK
Twinklebum on MySpace
Shooting People
William Carlos Williams
Walt Whitman
Pavement
The Silver Jews
3 Minute Wonder
Modern Toss
Sony XM2
Avid Xpress DV
BritDoc
Rooftop Films
Scott Morgan Interview
The See Documentary Festival
Halo Panda

• DN Festival: Britdoc 2007
• Filmstock #8
• DN Special: Screen South - Digital Shorts 2007
• DN EP 056: Time Piece - Kat Mansoor
• DN EP 051: What We’ve Found Out About Stem Cells - Richard Fenwick

Following hotly in the footsteps of his multi-award winning shorts Sixty Cups of Coffee and The Fall of Shug McCracken, David Ward’s third short is one of three prestigious BBC/Scottish Screen Tartan Shorts completed in 2003. All Over Brazil is a coming-of-age drama set against the backdrop of glam-rock and the 1974 World Cup.

Written by Jamie Havlin, the film reflects a very specific time and place from his childhood which, recalls Ward, set designer Dave Arrowsmith met head on, despite the limited budget. “Our biggest task was to convincingly recreate the detail of a Scottish home in 1974; everything from the beer cans to the electric fire, from the hairstyles to the tank-tops, and from the cars to the chopper bikes was carefully and specifically hired or bought in. After much searching for a real house that might not have changed too much for 30 years, we decided to start from scratch, building an entire set within a very modern house. We had a blank canvas and built and painted false walls, covered light switches and fireplaces, and re-built an entire kitchen with period cookers, white goods and furniture.”

DOP Shane Daly shot the film on a high-speed Super-16mm stock that was put through a bleach-bypass process from neg to print in order to give the film a distinct 1970s look. In post, editor Darren Mostyn worked with Ward to produce the required nine-minute cut specified by BBC Scotland and Scottish Screen and approved by executive producers from both bodies.

All Over Brazil has been officially selected for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Florida Film Festival and recently went to its second print for Berlinale at the beginning of February. David Ward is currently developing several feature film projects and television drama series.
David Ward Films

- Originally published in Showreel, Issue 3 (Spring 2004)

• Ssssh! - Zara Waldeback
• DN EP 058: The Leafcatcher - Leo Sedgley
• DN EP 054: Sugarhouse - Gary Love
• White Red Panic - Ayz Waraich
• The West Side - Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo & Zachary Lieberman