Upcoming Open Source Video Editor

For those of you who have a particular passion for open source products, I thought you’d might like a heads up on the open source (re)development of Lightworks

Now I’ll admit I’ve never used Lightworks before, and there are still some questions around whether the free download referenced will be an uncut or cut down package.

But hopefully it’ll be a nice alternative for those who want to up their film making game from Windows Movie Maker but don’t quite have the disposable cash to do so, as long as the feature list remains more or less the same.

Anyway you can sign up to receive updates and a nudge for when the product is finally available for download from here

I’m also hoping this gets ported over to Linux, I’ve been looking for a decent Open Source video editor for some time now after my frustrations with having to upgrade Sony Vegas just to get a half decent stab at working with HD-DV footage and this would be a welcome entry into that market.

A resurrection from the dead

Since discovering WordPress.com and .org, I’ve fallen in love with them both as a way of easily publishing websites and media based materials. Currently I have set up a wordpress.org website for a band that I’m in, having chalked that up as a relative success (so far) I decided to move more of my online life over to wordpress.com.

No Respite Productions is a legally non-existent film company that makes low budget amateur films… mostly for fun and mostly centered around a small group of friends. We’ve previously released two very low budget efforts and will be embarking on our third film this Summer.

The archives posts on this site are from our old blogger.com account which has since been closed. Hopefully I’ll be blogging a lot more in the near future as we begin shooting our next film. I like to impart advice within this blog and talk about the stresses and strains of filming with such tight budgets (around the £500 mark).

Fingers crossed I’ll have more to say soon!

Adam

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 Media Player.

Alternatively you view the streamed version from the film’s main page.

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 the film web page 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!

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. You can watch this film from it’s main page (located in the menu bar above)

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 UnderCoverXP.

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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