Bite the Ballot TV

So, I’ve finally got round to blogging about the very special behind the scenes and photography shoot we did for Bite the Ballot on 8th August. ‘Bite the Ballot‘ is, for those of you who don’t know, is a rapidly growing national campaign to get young people involved in politics, and help them understand the choices they have facing them to help mould the future of their lives.

Unsurprisingly, BtB stemmed from the juicy, ripe, and fiercely passionate brain of Michael Sani, and a handful of his students from the school where he taught. Not heard of him? Check him out at his website, and on IMDb. Our working relationship began nearly 4 years ago when I hired him for short horror film 8ight Limbs, and this is a man everybody wants to know.

Now, along with Michael’s growing student team behind him, and his radical business partner David, they have created something truly unique, that really does, and will continue to, challenge the issues that face young people everyday, and join in force to make a change.

RedScar were hired to shoot the behind the scenes footage and photography of what has culminated into a successful pitch by Mike and his team to shoot a TV pilot, that will eventually be used to pitch for a commissioned television series. Shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, you can see a few of the photographs below. To see the full album, click here.

The promo is being edited currently, and will be online in the next couple of weeks. It’s a privilege to be working with Mike again, and in such a grand capacity. Take a look at the BtB website, follow them on FaceBook, share their blogs – this is one movement to watch out for.

‘Til next time,

JR.

The Martial Arts Show LIVE!

Well, another couple of months have passed – and RedScar has completed an intense weekend of filming for the UK’s largest martial arts entity, ‘The Martial Arts Show LIVE’. Organised by Kwoklyn Wan and his team, it’s seriously an event not to be missed – so keep your eyes peeled on tickets for next years show, at the NEC Birmingham. The event showcases the best martial arts talent worldwide, with performances, demonstrations, interactive seminars, merchandise stalls, Q&A sessions, and guest speakers.

This years hot list contained legendary martial artists Joe Lewis, Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace, martial arts movie legends Cynthia Rothrock, and Silvio Simac – to name but a few. Kwoklyns TV-known brother Gok Wan was also on hand to showcase a martial arts fashion show on the main stage. Myself and the RedScar team were on hand to film anything and everything we could – and had our fair share of interviewing of the named guests. An eclectic and dazzling array of different martial arts were on show, spread across 7 large areas, all branching off the TMAS Live Martial Main Street – creating a bustling street vibe throughout the entire show. Every corner was filled with practicing martial artists, competitors, fans, and people that could kick your shit from here to home.

With all the footage now captured, the lengthy process begins of what’s known in the industry as ‘killing your babies’ as I try and sort the good from the bad, the in-focus from the out of focus, and the interesting from the boring. In the end, we’ll be left with a TMAS LIVE promo that will knock your block off. On from this, there’s talks of creating a content rich DVD, for those that did and didn’t attend the show, highlighting the awesome line up TMAS presented this year. RedScar were at TMAS LIVE last year, on it’s first outing, promoting promotional documentary ‘Straight Talking Guy’. A huge thanks to those that were part of the RedScar team this year; namely Martin Steed, Caroline Meeks, and Craig Hayward.

Here are some screenshots of the footage to tantalise your tastebuds…

Gok Wan talking on stage about his support of ‘KidScape’

An up close and personal interview with martial arts legend Joe Lewis.

One of interactive seminar zones.

MMA Cage Fight from our exclusive ‘Cage-Cam’.
An incredible performance from the Shaolin Monks.

So as you can see – there was some awesome stuff on show at this years martial arts extravaganza. This is part of our continued working relationship with TMAS Media Ltd, providing exclusive filming for their martial arts events and tournaments, nationwide.

Stay tuned for a promo soon, and sign up to our blog to keep up to date with TMAS developments, and info about the DVD…

In brief other news – our website goes live on Saturday 14th May – be sure to check out the brand new look, and our showreel – from 9am Saturday morning.

Thanks for reading,
JR

Feb. 16th

So yeh couldn’t think of a title for this one. Nevermind!

As you may (or may not) be aware RedScar have teamed up with The Martial Arts Show Live as a media partner in a relationship that is beneficial to both sides. Part of the work we’ll be doing for TMAS is the filming and editing of tournaments which take place around the country and throughout the year.

Jamie has already completed one of these which he shot back in November whilst I was trundling around Europe escaping real-life. The second is coming to Nottingham this Sunday the 20th of February and promises to be another exciting affair. I sound insincere but I’m really not!

Personally, I don’t really know that much about martial arts. I mean I love movies with martial arts in and I enjoy watching some but perhaps not all. Other than that though my experience with martial arts pretty much ends with Jamie’s truly phenomenal short-film achievement – the name of which escapes me right now like a salmon evading a grizzly bear…..

So this Sunday will be something new for me but not for Jamie. I’ve also seen JR’s documentary Economy Of Motion (which FYI has an amazing soundtrack) and of course footage from the recently completed Straight Talking Guy, both of which featured Andy Gibney. Jamie’s been involved in this kind of thing for years so his experience and knowledge on what to look for and how to approach the subject in terms of shooting and editing will be invaluable. I’ve shot sports before but this will be quite different!

I keep trying to remember the name of that film…. I know one of the characters names is Lung Fuk so that gives you an idea of the truly majestic quality of it… ask Jamie if you want to know what it was called. I will be doing!

That’s it on that front. There’ll be another blog early next week letting the world know how it went, what it involved and so on and I’ll see if we can get some photos up online as well.

That’s how for now…
Dan

CBA

Greetings followers.

It’s been a while but we’re beavering away in the background trying to get stuff done. One of those things was appearing at the Corby Business Academy (CBA…) yesterday to speak to kids about becoming involved in the film industry or media in general.

RedScar were one of about 30 different companies who attended the Inspire2Exceed-led event which was encouraging students to work hard, think about their next steps and plan for the future. Obviously not every kid wants to go into film production and a lot have no idea at all about what they want to go into after school.

However there was a surprising number who were very interested in looking further into the arts and hopefully we convinced them that film and television is a great route to go down. I said to Jamie during a break how much I would have loved it if there had been a similar careers fair at my school when I was 15 to 16. A few of the kids were genuinely passionate about the industry and that was great to see at such a young age.

There are obviously hundreds and hundreds of different roles and I think even the kids who were thinking about going into something else – such as music – got a new insight into how those skills could be utilised in the film industry.

This was our first careers fair so we didn’t have the best stand on display (but we did have an awesome banner) but we’re now sure of the benefits of such an event and were already talking about what kinds of things we’d do at our next one. If we ever get to do a next one…

We also took the opportunity to speak to some other businesses, both local and national so it was great from a networking point of view as well. FYI, if you’ve never seen the Corby Business Academy (and let’s face it, unless you’ve been there why would you?) then check it out on Google because it’s the most amazingly modern and jealousy-inducing school you’ve ever seen. The days of wooden stools from the 70s in your science labs are long gone it seems.

All the best,
Dan

Happy New Year!

Hello there.

Long time no preach. I’d like to start by welcoming you into the New Year and saying that I hope you all had a wonderful, fun-filled and exciting Christmas and New Year period. It’s a long time since I’ve done the writing on this here blog, but now’s the time and there’s some stuff to update you on.

First things first, Jamie will appear on 107.8 Inspiration FM (I kid you not!) with that straight-talking-guy Andy Gibney, discussing the aforementioned DVD release. I’m pleased to say that early sales have been extremely positive and the film is now out there completely for the world to see. It’s not too shabby at all I’ll be honest, so might be worth a punt since it’s a very reasonable price considering all the goodies you get on the disc!
Anyway, if you get chance, it’ll be well worth a listen and they’ll be on from 10:00 in the a.m. this coming Thursday 6th of January.

Now onto other things RedScar…
We are more than aware that we made several promises/hints/statements declaring that narrative film work was coming out of us last year. Yes, it didn’t happen. But we weren’t fibbing. Well, we were, but unintentionally. Fact is, we were too busy to actually get on with it. Setting up the company from scratch took longer than we thought (almost there!) and the actual time needed to devote to script-writing alone is phenomenal. We now have a new direction in terms of narrative film; from the off, we’ll be looking at externally-sourced projects. This means that we’ll be looking at getting scripts in from writers eager to get their ideas converted into reality.
This doesn’t mean we won’t ever write anything ever again, just that we’ll leave 90% of the writing part to a dedicated writer. It’s fine to attempt the jack-of-all approach during uni when you are driven to it and can concentrate on it, but in the real-world it’s more difficult, and aside from that it’s much more fulfilling to concentrate on one or two roles yourself. Collaboration is a beautiful thing and it will become one of the core components and ideals of RedScar narrative. So if you know of any awesome scripts, whether you’ve written them or someone else has, then let us know and if we see ourselves working with your story then who knows, it could happen!

One of our projects which has dwindled in development hell for several years took a huge step forward in the past couple of weeks. You may know of it… it’s a horror (surprisingly!) but with elements of psychological fear and paranoia. I had somewhat of an epiphany (on Christmas Day don’t you know) and after a lot of writing, tweaking and improving on what I’d done, I sat down and rang Jamie. Then I hung up cos I didn’t have much credit and waited for him to ring back. Which he did and we spent a couple of hours talking about the ideas I’d dreamt up.
To cut a long conversation short, we got the basis of the storyline ironed out and tackled several factors which had been setting us back. With those out of the way, the path is clear for us to pen down a last few minor details before pitching the idea out there to bring in an outside script-writer.
Our reasons for doing this; we want someone who is exceptionally passionate about writing to be the one who pens it. Imagine hiring a writer with little experience of directing to direct your film… it might not turn out to be the very best it could be. It’s the same for us. Whilst we have written in the past, it’s not our primary passion. We have other roles which we see as ‘ours’ and so in order for the film to fulfil the potential we believe it has, we need to hire the best person for the job.

Right now I need a sandwich however. I may return to write more about this and other projects, but for now I must have bread, meat and mayo.

All the best to you all and I honestly do hope that you had a great time over the past couple of weeks.
Dan

Christmas Crackin’

Good morning everyone, JR here.

An uber-quick blog post to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year! We have some exciting projects lined up for 2011, so stay tuned!

Remember, we love you.

Best Wishes,
JR & DA

Snow

Well I’m back! Taken a bit of time to get back into English life – not least the weather – but I’m now back and Jamie and I have started seriously planning the next phase of development. Having been so long since our last meet, we decided a trip to the pub in Nottingham was in order. I even shelled out £3.60 for a single pint of the finest Peroni; for those that know me, I can be very tight with money so this is an event worth noting…

Jamie was, as usual, starving when we met up, so we initially found ourselves in Subway (other sandwich chains are available) where his royal hungriness saw fit to have a foot-long sub. From what I could tell it was a toasted tikka on wheat, but it was gone so fast I couldn’t say for certain. We headed to the pub, a nice place called The Approach just off Market Square and got the drinks in, disappointed that we missed a morning drink by just 15 minutes. Gutted.

The key point we were meeting to discuss was the future of the company. Happy to report that we both still have the same ideas for where we want to be in the end, but it’s fair to say that we have a more diverse and interesting way of getting there now. We’ll be stepping up the corporate work (although we hate the word ‘corporate’) as of January, when we’ll feature on yell.com with our own ad to promote the business. April will see the next edition of the print version of the Yellow Pages, in which we will also feature. Advertising RedScar in such a way is a first for us, but it’s a step that of course needs to be taken in order to grow, and it’s something we’re both very excited about.

Seems we’ve broken several promises over the past months with regards to short films. With the best intentions we’ve said multiple times that we’re working on things in the background and nothing has come to fruition. We wish this wasn’t the case, but we’ve obviously both had other work on at the same time as trying to push the company and make sure we keep on the right track.
What we worked on though was a more definitive month-by-month plan for 2011. Since we’re still a month off even the start of next year at the moment, I won’t say anything for fear of not living up to what I write. Tempted, but won’t.

That’s all for now. If you’ve been stuck inside all day like me and wanted something to pass two minutes, hope you enjoyed reading. Have fun in the snow!

Dan

Today’s March

Today was an interesting day for RedScar.

With Dan still away, we’re a one man band, so I joined forces with Scruffy Bear Pictures and Xplaination Media in London – to film footage for XPM’s social documentary ‘Bite the Ballot‘ aka BtB. Bite the Ballot is not just a documentary, oh no, it’s quickly becoming a movement, and in 5 years will become a standout UK institution in my opinion – in encouraging young people to get involved in politics, and vote. They say every vote counts, and the team behind BtB strongly feel that it’s important that young people understand how to vote and what their vote means in the long run. Heading the team is Michael Sani, a talented and all round nice guy from London, whom I first met when I cast him in our horror short, 8ight Limbs.

“What were you filming?” I hear you shout uncontrollably. If you have your wits about you you’ll know there was a march/demonstration/protest – whatever you want to call it – regarding the extreme hike in university tuition fees, and cuts in education across the board. With Darren (Director of Scruffy Bear Pictures) and Mike at one end, and me and Caroline (assistant and girlfriend – girlfriend foremost though, otherwise she’ll kill me for introducing her solely as my ‘assistant’!) at the other, we shot the tens of thousands of students, tutors, parents, and those that were against the rise in fees, and cuts.

I went in lens first – head second – shoving the camera in many willing faces, to express their views on camera about the governments decision. While some of the language was colourful, a lot of individuals expressed great hatred towards Cameron and Clegg. I stopped filming just before Parliament Square, where the end of thousands was in sight. I walked with them for around 90 minutes, and they shared their thoughts, disappointment, hatred, chants, and messages across to me. I don’t think they particularly got their message through to the people who can make or break the decision though – by turning a student march into a violent riot of extreme proportions. My opinion? Any individual involved in the riot, causing physical damage to others and to buildings, have completely lost their voice – and the plot –  completely. And to be fair, without sounding old-mannish, behaviour like that doesn’t particularly ring favourable. I’m not sure what would cost more, paying for tuition fees, or paying court fees and bail for breaking windows and setting fire to government property…any thoughts? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I agree with the fee rise, but to a certain extent we all will end up paying one way for another to pay for the national debt, or we’ll be close to ending up like Ireland and be on the brink of bankruptcy as a country – no thanks. Anyway, I’m not getting into a political monologue as I don’t know enough about politics to warrant a complete opinion – but unnecessary violent behaviour will get you nowhere.

That’s why I like to keep it in a film, where you can get away with it!

Next blog – I’ll reveal a brand new working relationship, that could take RedScar to new heights.

Keep on truckin’…
JR

Time Flies…

…When you’re working hard. We are having fun as well. While working. Filmmaking is one of the hardest jobs, and also one of the most rewarding and fun, as you know if you’re reading this and have spent hours slogging away on a script, or sat for days in front of Final Cut Pro waiting for the spinning beach ball to stop testing your patience. The final result is always exciting, and that’s what we’ve been working towards recently. Notably Straight Talking Guy, and the NHS Stop Smoking film. STG is now complete, and is only a fortnight away from mass DVD production. We will distribute them under the RedScar label, and it comes with a host of additional features aside from the 25 minute film…

*Visit www.red-scar.co.uk/dvd for more information!

NHS is on it’s final editing stages too, with voiceover in place and the last amendments being made. Once complete, it will go onto the Brent Cross NHS website, which we’ll post soon once it’s live!

Dan is prepping for a month long travel around Italy with his girlfriend, so while he’s away I’ll be manning the RS fort until his return, and we then start to work some serious magic on some short film scripts we have floating about, nailing them down, and starting pre-production before the Xmas season – more news to follow soon about our short film plans.

That’s all for now – keep checking the site for an update on the DVD release date!

Ciao,
JR.

August 17th

Here we are, right slap in the middle of August. This is a blog about nothing in particular, but we’ve been slacking on the online front for a few weeks so I thought I’d chuck an update out there.

Jamie continues to work on a few things related to Straight Talking Guy and he and star of the show Andy recorded a DVD commentary for the 25 minute version of the film last week. I wasn’t there for it, but I’m sure I can say with some confidence that it will offer some interesting insights into how the film was made. No doubt there’ll be some humour in there too.
Staying with the theme of our corporate work, since the STG screening we’ve shot two more corporate jobs, one for the NHS down in Wembley and another more local affair for an antiques dealer based in Nottinghamshire. The latter was completed last week and the former isn’t too far behind. Just a few minor editing tweaks and then some grading and sound work to finish off.

We’ve been lucky in that we’ve found new clients easier to come by than we perhaps thought we would. I say lucky, but an awful lot of effort has gone into getting ourselves and the RedScar name out there so I guess it is deserved. But still, we’ve enjoyed healthy working relationships with all clients so far and reviews and recommendations have been excellent.

A quick word about narrative film – yes, we are still involved in that. A horror short which will act as a teaser for a feature will now be first up for RedScar. It’s already been written on our piece of paper at the top in big capital letters and has a number 1 next to it so I assume that means it will be made first.
Won’t be saying any more at this stage but whatever happens, this will now be the first short from RedScar and by the time it’s complete it will probably be almost 3 years since mine and Jamie’s last collaborative effort.

Nothing more to say in this non-blog, so for now, ciao.
Dan@RedScar