Henry Bramble Back On Track

So it has been a while since I have spoken about my new short film, The Infectious Imagination Of Henry Bramble. Well that's basically because until now I wasn't really sure if it was going to actually happen. We went from a £20,000 budget shooting in Kent to a £55,000 budget shooting in Denmark and then back down to an £18,000 budget shooting in Kent. Why? Well it was all about getting the production value the film deserved.

£20,000 was not enough to shoot in 3D so we managed to raise another £35,000 on the condition we shoot in Denmark, but when we budgeted the film it was becoming clear that living costs and film equipment was more expensive in Denmark, there were no known dwarf actors out there or many experienced crew in the region and most importantly there were no twee English Georgian houses with pretty gated, landscaped gardened entrances. Not only that, but planning a film in another country is so much more difficult and frustrating as you have to rely on other people out there to act as an extension of your imagination, using Skype, e-mail and dropbox to share information.

Shooting in my home country of Kent is so much easier. I can walk out the door and be on location in less then half an hour to plan storyboards or pre-dress the set, I can source local crews that I have already worked with, who will not need accomodation and will work that extra mile for me. Because we have such a thriving film industry here we can also make great deals with rental and post houses. The fact we don't have to shoot in 3D now due to the brilliant deal my producer Charlotte struck with Prime Focus (a company with cutting edge technology that can convert 2D to 3D and who have been chosen by Lucasfilm to do the 2D to 3D conversions of the two Star Wars trilogies) we now don't have the added pressure of technicalities on set so we can shoot faster and cheaper and still deliver a fantastic 3D short.

So the reality at present is that we have £18,000 to make TIIOHB. I have trimmed the script to its very limits without, I hope, loosing the emotional and imaginative impact of the story. We are now aiming to shoot over a three day weekend on location in Kent at the end of Septemeber or beginning of October, so keep checking back for more updates!