Connor has been in the process of editing footage of the crew behind this site and our movies as well as working on a few things he's wanted to do since April.

Connor PC has under gone a bit of an overhaul including adding a GB of RAM and 160 GB HD. He's still in need of a Firewire to improved the quality of the footage taken from the camera as USB is a bit on the pants side.

More filming and editing is planned for this weekend and we will hopefull have more to show you on Monday if not before. This filming was supposed to have happend nearly a month ago but due to illness and personal circumstances no one has been able to take part. All the props have been purchased for the next two but Sy has suggested that we work a little more on the script and have a full dress rehersal as the make may not work the first time.

We came third

We entered our first film "No Pain, No Game" in a PSM3 comp to win a Japanese PS3 and I was told via a gamer that we were in the mag this month.

Well more precisely Connor was in the mag. Connor bought it to discover that our film had netted him 3rd. With a picture taken from the film slapbag in the middle of the page.

But sadly didn't win us anything for our efforts.

This has meant two things:

1. We now need to get our acts together and film the stuff we've planned. As well as edit the stuff that has already been done.
2. We now have somewhere to send the rest of our stuff.

So this bank holiday should see the dress rehersal (tests with full makeup) and then filming will be done.

We're planning on doing the two cheapest and easiest ones first our budget for these two films is around the £20, which is a massive saving on the first one and should also take a fraction of the time to edit as we've planned and storyboarded them so well.

Dave seems to be back on board for editing duties, Sam & Sy are gonna be busy setting up the scenes and applying the necessary make-up to Connor. It's now a choice between using static camera angles and cutting between them or going for a braver handicam approach.

As soon as the filming is done we'll post some more information on them and give you a sneak peak via the animated storyboards that Connor has created. Which was at Daves request due to the hassle we had knowing exactly what we needed to edit, from the last film.

Keep checking back for more updates or if you're interested in getting involved then let us know. 

As we mentioned in the previous blog we've been working on a few PSP related projects but are currently having trouble getting time to edit stuff. With any luck we should have something on around Easter time.

We are currently running about 5 projects at the moment and tests shots and animatics have been done for 3 of them. One of them is done with 1 continuos shot which is causing us problems and needs more rehersing. Hopefully this will be filmed on wednesday and edited on Sunday. 3 of the others will be done over Easter weekend.

This is the first place to look for our current stuff and we'll add some of the behind the scenes stuff over the next week or so including the orginal animatic for one of them.

Connor has managed to get his tattoo topped up and it looks loads better, it's just healed and his training would have started last week had he not put his neck out. So he's currently doing planning rather than an  anything that could make it worse and thus further delay things.

We'll keep you posted.

Well due to a few things (illness, house moving, system problems) happening this month the sequel to our first film is now looking like it won't be ready for shooting until around June, July time.

This has meant that a lot more time can be spent on the planning and the costumes than was spent on the first film and the budget can be spread over a longer period.

So far we've discovered that we need to buy two set of costumes, which are looking to be expensive but with the joys of Ebay we may be able get the costumes cheaper. We're aiming to have the costumes well before the a second of actual footage is shot. We don't want to give away what the costumes are going to look like to early but we will let you know when we've got them and probably show you the test photos of the characters in costume.

The choreography is looking like it will need a bit of a more professional touch than anyone in the group can currently supply mainly due to the scale of the sequel. The two main characters will be starting formal Martial arts training in March.

Connor is getting his tattoo topped up this week and will start full fitness training when it's healed enough for him to be able to start lifting weights.

So to tide you over we have been working on a project that was suggested by Sam. It's basically her adventures with her newly purchased PSP and what fun she can get upto with it.

So far the intro is done and a very weird problem that we located has been filmed as well.

She want's the film to be done as a continuous series of videoblog which will be available from our space on youtube.com. We're aiming for the first part to be available by the end of Feb providing that editing can be done by then. As it's looking like Connor is doing main filming and editing duties on this one. Dave is returning to work on later projects and was involved in the PSP weirdness that we discovered.

That's all for now but we'll keep you posted.

Below is an introduction done by Connor about the film. Which was done for the PSM3 Mags "Win a PS3 competition."

No Pain, No Game the finished movie

So what do you think? Please let us know your views in the comments box.

After all the hard work had been put in doing the make over and all the pain of the tattoo, waxing and plucking. The hassle of hair styling and costume making, it was time to put all the pieces togther and film the final result.

Connor from behind showing off his homemade Jin trousers.

Connor posing in Jin's opening stance

King of Irong Fist!?

Well if you can do better then "Come on!"

All the pain and hard work was well worth the effort.

So the first film may be in the can but that isn't the end by far.

We're starting work on our second and way more intense filming project which should be done and dusted by end of March 07 with any luck.

So far Connor has been doing a price work up and the costume alone could sent him back about £200, but there is an alternative that could make things cheaper. As before it has been discovered that this part needs sorting first of all before a seconds worth of film is shot.

Sam has suggested that Connor and herself start taking karate lessons as it will make choreographing the next film far easier and should provide some interesting footage in it's own right.

Plans are underway to combine a couple of projects to save some time and money but the final ideas are just that at the moment.

As this blog has been started to cover our projects we'll let you know what happening as we progress but try and keep a couple of bits as a surprise for the final production.

So if you're interested in sponsoring us then get in touch via the contacts page on this blog.

Was done the day after the tattoo directly before the eyebrows were plucked.

There were no photos taken of what Connor chest looked like before he was waxed but...

The above image shows how his chest looked after it was waxed but before his abdomen was waxed. Connor doesn't look happy and he wasn't as it was more painful that the tattoo was. Sy can be seen taking a break from the filming with a few rounds on Tekken 5.

All that remained was a sink full of hair. The wee colour is from the wax that was used, when it diluted. Nice!

The tattoo was the first and most important part of the filming as it showed that Connor is truely hardcore when it comes to gaming.

He'd seen the Tattoo in the window of a local tattooist and asked if it would be possible to film the tattoo being done. The tattooist thought it was an odd request but was happy to. It was arranged that Connor would get the tattoo and that Sam and Sy would take turns in doing filming or taking pictures.

How the tattoo looked in the window.

Connor looking nervous before leaving to get the tattoo done.

Connor arrived at the tattooist and confirmed that it was going to cost £90 and take upto 2 hours to be completed it was also confirmed that Connor was only going to get the tribal symbol and not the water background.

No going back now. Shane the tattooist can be seen readying the tool of torture.

Sy can be seen filming the tattoo as Connor feels how painful it is to have ink injected under the skin. But no tears.

The outline took about 40 minutes to do and according to Connor wasn't as painfull as he'd expected but it still hurt alot.

The tattoo took nearly 2 hours to complete and after it was sprayed with surgical spirit (very painful), smeared in cream and then cover in cling film. Connor was told not to do any heavy lifting and to wash the tattoo in an hour and keep it clean and dry. He used Savlon 3 times a day after cleaning.

The final result was amazing and well worth the pain according to Connor. He has noticed after it took nearly 3 weeks to heal that he'll have to go back and get it topped up as it's a bit patchy in parts. Connor is not looking forward to that but as it's not costing him any extra so it's worth it.

Before we did the final piece of filming it was realised that Connor's hair was far to long and think to create the style we needed so we sent him for a hair cut after it had been dyed black (see pictures below)

Sam was the one in charge of doing all the make over parts of the film and offered to style his hair.

After Connor had it cut she was able to get the fringe right. As you can see from the picture but she was having trouble getting the back to spike correctly.

With a bit of practice she managed to sort out the back of it. It took a couple of hours with Connor having to undergo a lot of sraightening due to his wavey hair.

The final bit of filming was done after Connor under went the blow drying of his hair upside down to get it to stand up and straightening on the back and the fringe pieces. The final result was rather impressive and looked like who he was trying to be.

And how it looked from the side.

After the first parts of the film were shot it was decided that a rough cut of the footage should be cut together.

Thanks to Dave a qualified media production type to step into the breach with the required equipement and knowledge. Mainly due to the fact that he didn't want to see Connor make a hash of a rather good project by trying to edit on his aging and under performing machine. Also Connor didn't have the software or skills needed to get it all togther.

The editing process was not with out it's problems. The capturing started off well as Connor and Sam had sat through the 3 hours worth of footage and decided which parts were worth capturing so that an edit could be done that was no longer than 5 mins.

All was going well until it came to the editing. The tattoo proved to be a total pain as after the first 30 seconds of footage were edited together the software crashed and sadly it wasn't saved. That's three hours work down the pan, arse.

An important lesson to us all if your gonna spend time doing something then make sure you save everything!

After the problems with the tattoo footage, the best way to progress it was decided [by Connor] was to get everything else into place and worry about the tattoo footage at a later date.

The Waxing and Plucking weren't too hard to edit it was just a matter of chosing the best bits and making sure that it flowed well.

Then came the titling and this part had a problem too as the production name we wanted to use was already being used to it was plan two. Which is were the name of this blog comes from. We also had issues with them being too long which was sorted during the second session of editing.

The second session of editing went a little better as Connor and Dave managed to get the final edit of the tattoo footage done, then incorporated it into the beginning of the film. This was all well and good until a problem was discovered with sound drifting out. Which thanks to Dave's skills was sorted fairly quickly.

The third session couldn't be done until Connor, Sam, Sy & Dave had shot the final parts. Which envolved all the hair styling and costume creation mentioned earlier.

The final edit was then transfered back onto the DV camera so it could be viewed on Connor's TV, at the premiere that weekend. Dave was then left with the task of making sure that the final version was exported to a high quality file so that it could be put onto a DVD and also re-encoded for the PSP. Then sent off for the competition after the premiere in case anthng needed chopping out.

Well we've kept you waiting this long and sadly we've found out that the competition we've entered the film in isn't drawn until the 15th of Jan 07 so I'm holding off putting it on youtube until then, but we're gonna try and fill this blog with all the background and behind the scenes stuff we can.

So whether we win or not you'll get to see and comment on the finished piece.

Now this should have been a really easy job but it was not.

We had to find some trouser bottoms that were black and could be easily turned into trousers for Jin.

We decided to look for a set of PJ's that were plain black and cheap. This was due to the fact that most of the trousers we'd looked at had belt hoops, buttons and pockets which were not needed.

Connor went off and purchased some fabric paints, brushes, a black fabric pen and bits for making a draw string (eye-lets and cord).

Take 1: Painting the PJ bottoms.

Connor's task was to paint the bottoms and decided to try just on one side. Starting with the red and placing a bin bag between the sides so that the paint didn't run straight through.  The paint seemed a bit watery but with a thick coat seemed to be covering the trouser leg...

 

The bin-bag was removed to find that the paint had taken but on the inside. So it was decided to try and use them inside out only to discover that it meant that the flames were on the wrong leg.

After the paint debarcale. It was thought that it would be a good idea to make the draw strings for the front of the trousers.

What you'll need is a hammer, an eyelets pack and some cord. And of course the trousers to put holes in.

The kits easy to use if you're not being retarded like Connor was and putting the hole cutterin the wrong way. He then messed up 3 eyelets before he managed to sort it.

Heres what the trousers look like with the draw-string fitted.

All that had to be done now was remove the buttons from the fly and iron the wonder web to seal the fly up and job done.

Finally a bit of costume design that worked

After the farse that was painting the flames on it was decided that the best way to proceed would be to buy some fabric for the trousers.

Take 2:

Firstly the outline of the flames was drawn on the red fabric then cut out.

The red flames were glued on to the yellow fabric with fabric glue then left to dry.

And here's what the finished flames looked like. Now time to add them to the trouser bottoms.

The sharp eyed amongst you will notice that it's not going to fit. The reason being that the fabric wasn't measure properly, d'oh!

Failure number 2!...

"No Pain, No Game"

The final filming and editing was completed at the beginning of this month and the premiere was a couple of days later.

It seemed to go well and we've had nothing but praise from those that have seen it. As well as one of the viewers asking if they could do the score for it. Unfortunnately he's not gonna be able to do it for this version of the film but would be happy to be involved in the extended version which will serve as a teaser for the second film due in Spring next year.

So now the hard work begins with the full on planning of our 2nd movie and the re-edit of the first movie. Believe me this is gonna be a lot of work especially on the the main two characters. It's gonna involve a lot of excersise and choreography as well as hopefully some good weather in March time.

I'll add some behind the scenes pictures by the weekend and hopefully be able to share the finished piece with you all so you can give me some feedback and hopefully encouragement to continue and do the second part.

After a week of planning and three weeks of filming our first short piece should be premiered to friends and crew on Sunday Night. 

A rather nice rap party is being organised as a big thank you to all those involved, along with the first screening of the finished film.

We're aiming with this blog to provide you with a running commentary of how the film was made. Using loads of before and after pictures with descriptions. 

Unfortunatley we can't promise that the finished piece will be online until about the 20th November.

But done worry I'll make sure that there is a streaming version in the Finished section of this blog.

Thanks for taking the time to read this FilmsyoUR_quire Productions