Time is running out to save Henry Bramble's Imagination!

Don't take my word for it, listen to Downton Abbey's Mr Mason himself - Now come and join the adventure before it's too late at :http://igg.me/at/infectious-imagination/x/3449576

Join the Adventure and save Henry Bramble!

Help us to finish the vfx for our enchanting short film and in return we'll let you loose yourself in Henry's infectious imagination as you slip away to Minoitaniga on an incredible family adventure!

Find out why Henry's mother abandoned him with his estranged Uncle, Where Raygo Rattlegum comes from and why his Chumnink tribe need Henry's help. Uncover the truth about the terrifying Voydarkatrons and come face-to-face with Maliglut, the mysterious demon intent on destroying Henry's imagination!

Choose from a selection of exclusive perks that include the opportunity to read the latest draft of the expanded feature-length version of our heart-warming family fantasy short!

Alternatively attend a live reading of the feature-length screenplay on the London stage with professional actors AND then give us YOUR feedback.

Join the adventure and support our #‎Indiegogo Campaign to help save #‎HenryBramble at: http://igg.me/at/infectious-imagination

Why you should use SLIME in your films!

Get a sneak peek behind the scenes of Derek Boyes' long awaited spellbinding fantasy short film - The Infectious Imagination Of Henry Bramble.

This is the first of many EPK videos documenting the making of this enchanting little film, designed to entertain and inform, building curiosity and awareness before it hits film festivals early next year.

So if you like what you see, then please share it with anyone you know in the film and television industry who may be looking for fresh new directing talent!

Texturing of the Voydarkatron almost complete!

It is with a sigh of relief and a tingle of excitement that I can finally say the Voydarkatron texturing and painting has almost been signed off. Once I approve the eyes, we'll be ready to plough through the next stage of the process and Henry Bramble will finally see light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.

Here's a sneak peak at the beast himself in all his fully rendered coloured and textured glory. Unfortunately you'll have to wait to see his gruesome face!

The team has also been working on the inner trunk. I think this is going to be the most disgusting thing you've ever seen get close to someone's face - period!

Henry Bramble On The Move Again - Finally!

Here's a beautiful re-sculpture of the Voydarkatron's trunk just sent to me by Jan Daube and his team at Wham Bam Productions. Previous versions by the other vfx teams were not nearly as detailed and defined. This really does look like the flesh of an elephant! - Very happy right now!

Wham Bam! - Henry Bramble vfx get a boost!

So having lost all hope of getting the vfx completed, DiRoom, by the skin of their teeth, seem to have found a suitable replacement vfx team - Wham Bam Productions.

Although their showreel leans more towards drinks commercials and certainly does not include seven foot monsters, their test demo's they've sent me are very promising and after a productive Skype call I feel confident they know what I'm looking for. They have been briefed before I go on holiday for two weeks and I have to confess I feel a small surge of excitement by the progress they should have made by the time I get back. Fingers crossed this is third time lucky!

Here's their showreel below.

Henry Bramble suffers another VFX nightmare

If you haven't already heard, we didn't get into Cannes. There were just 8 films selected out of a whopping 3,500 shorts from across the globe. It was a relief to be honest, because if we had been selected, our film would not have been finished in time. It is now June and has taken the vfx team six months to deliver just one completed and approved vfx shot out of forty four?! - I can't tell you how frustrated and angry this makes me feel, but in these instances, you have to just set your emotions aside and find a way to move forward.

Currently DiRoom (who were responsible for outsourcing the vfx work) have found three UK based vfx compainies who are willing to do the work for the remainder of our budget. However, despite their impressive vfx reels I have not yet been convinced that they are capable of delivering such specific work - i.e. a life-like Hollywood level cgi Voydarkatron. having had such a bad experience with the last team, I am being more than a little cautious as I try not to let paranoia cloud my judgement.

I was never convinced that the previous vfx team were qualified for the job, but my concerns fell on deaf ears. After all the delays and additional funding, the temptation to want to believe that they could deliver what we wanted within such a short timeframe was just too great. Our judgements were clouded by the desire to resolve the problem as quickly as possible, but in doing so the problem just got bigger.

The lesson that should be learnt here is simple - you pay for what you get. In reality we hugely underestimated the budget required for the vfx. The actual cost of the work to be delivered in such a short timeframe (a month), through a professional hollywood level outfit like Framestore, The Mill or the MPC is closer to £30,000. But rather than facing that fact we seem to be still looking for a way to get them done for less than a third of that estimate still within a similar short timeframe. With vfx artists expressing their anger at hollywood for not paying them an honest fee, I find this situation very uncomfortable.

Please can everyone wake up and smell the mocha choca. I really don't want to watch us make the same mistake a third time! In my mind, the only logical solution is to either be prepared to wait for as long as it takes for a smaller outfit to complete it for the money we have or raise £30,000. However the only way we can realistically raise this in a relatively short space of time, is through a carefully planned crowd-funding campaign like Indiegogo or Kickstarter. So for now I wait in hope for the Henry Bramble team to follow my lead.

DVD sent off to Cannes - Fingers crossed for a miracle!

I have just spent the last 24 hours creating all the elements for a region-free DVD of The Infectious Imagination Of Henry Bramble, to send with our submission to The Cannes Film Festival. 

I had to roughly mix the most up-to-date dialogue, sound fx and music tracks together alongside the picture from the locked off Final Cut offline. I then exported out to ProRes 422 (LT) version, which I opened in Quicktime to convert into an MPEG 4 720p version. I then imported this to a new iDVD project, creating a menu from one of the more tasteful template designs on offer. I also added a small section of Henry Bramble music to it, to get you in the mood. I then burnt off four DVD's (3 extra just in case I messed up along the way), opened a new photoshop file and using the elements from my poster design, created the images and text that will be printed onto the DVD.  

I had to drive to my Dad's to haul my decrepit Epson Stylus Photo R200 printer back home, only to find the cartridges were empty. I sped off to Tesco's to get a cheap compatible set only to discover it was £70 - The same price as Epson's own?! Frustratingly there's plenty available online for £15 or less, but the earliest they could deliver was Monday which is cutting it a bit fine, as the screeners have to reach the festival office no later than March 7th. 

Eventually I found a small ink cartridge refill shop in Maidstone and rather than going to sleep (I've just worked a 12 hour night shift), I jumped back in the car to collect a refill set for a more reasonable £36. I then get back home and installed the cartridges and a new printer utility software for OS 10.7.5, only to have to clean the nozzles three times, before I was satisfied it was safe to print. Finally at 12:12 on Friday 1st March, I have my God damn DVD. All I need to do now is bag it up and pop it in the post via Airsure for a mere £9.24! 

All this just to have our film considered  -  but just imagine if we do get selected in competition, I'll get to meet Steven Spielberg (this years president of the Jury) who can then convince the jury to hand over the short film Palme d'Or.   ....oh it's good to dream!

ADR session for Henry Bramble

Had  a good ADR session in East London with Archie Lyndhurst on Monday. It mostly consisted of getting better/cleaner recordings of some of his dialogue along with some moans and groans when he is attacked by the Voydarkatron. Nice to catch up with the busy young man and his Mother. There was a technical delay that took an hour to sort out, but Archie being Archie, sped though the material as a true proffessional does. We got the recordeing session free, so thanks to the guys at Filmfonix.

Woodkid’s - Run Boy Run!

Here's a nice music video by French director and musician Woodkid’s (aka Yoann Lemoine) that captures the wonderful essence of child's desire for adventure. Not too dissimilar to our very own Henry Bramble.

Turksworks commissioned for Henry Bramble poster

I can confirm that we have just commissioned the extremely talented illustrator and designer Richard Davies to create the final version of the Henry Bramble movie poster, based on my previous design ideas. 

Rich has created some amazing work that has a very modern Drew Struzan style about it - The man responsible for some of the most iconic film posters of the 1980's (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back To The Future, The Thing, Blade Runner and The Goonies). 

From Richard's portfolio it became clear that we share a very similar taste in films and in a particular style of movie poster art. I immediately sent him an email, begging him  to help us with Henry Bramble. Thankfully he agreed and I'm dying to see what he comes up with. Checkout some of my favorite pieces of his work below.

Evan Jolly - Genius Composer

Let me introduce you to Evan Jolly. He studied film composing at the National Film & Television School in the same year as myself back in 2002-03. We only officially worked together once in that time, on a short film called No Fixed Abode. Unfortunately part of the exercise was for the composers to be the sound designers so I never really got to experience Evan's true talents. 

However I was always was aware he had a lot of talent. He played the trumpet and the piano (among other things), his compositions on other films at the NFTS were diverse and of a high quality and above all he was a jolly nice chap! 

In the final year I asked him to write a musical song for my graduation short The Happiness Thief, which I loved, but then regrettably had to drop, as I was told that we didn't have the time or budget to include a full on musical dance number in the middle of the film - which would have been the icing on the cake!

So ten whole years later, I'm without a composer and I suddenly think, what on earth ever happened to Evan? I looked up my old contact details for him, but they were well out of date, I then Googled him, but he had no website, no Linked-In page - nothing! Eventually I checked Facebook and thankfully he was there, alive and well living in Brighton.

Less than three weeks later he has just delivered me the most amazing score for Henry Bramble. I was welling up with joy listening to it. For all the troubles we've had on this short, this was the first time anyone had blown away my expectations. He truly is a master at his craft and I am forever grateful to him for lifting our beautiful little film into a whole new dimension.

Evan Jolly, you are a God-damn genius my friend! 

We're back! - Henry Bramble on the move at last.

It's been a a frustrating few months. The visual effects on our wonderful short halted at the beginning of July last year. Six long arduous months later and we are finally beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. As of yesterday I have been 'linked-in' to the VFX team based in Pakistan via Asana, a clever collaborative task management application that allows me to keep track and manage the workflow, offering feedback quickly and efficiently.

Today I had my first glimpse of the work they have been doing for the last month or so and it's very promising. The texture and colour of the legs and arms of the Voydarkatron are much  closer to how I envisioned them and the shoulders have that 'gravestone' fungus on it that I was so keen to have. The top of the head still needs to be semi-translucent and slimy like a slug, but apart from the that they are progressing well - Can't wait to see more!

First Henry Bramble Screening ...Sort Of

On Friday 8th February, Berlinale 2013 (part for the Berlin Film Festival) is presenting the first official screening of all four Screen South innovation shorts that were commissioned back in 2011 ...The only snag is our film is still not finished! So instead we are presenting our teaser trailer which will still be an interesting experiment in terms of how the audience respond to it. 

Although we missed our deadline for this, we are actually very close to completion with the music currently being composed by the charming and highly talented Evan Jolly (Unfortunately Richard Chester, my regular composer had to drop out due to bigger and probably better paid commitments). Miha Jaramaz is standing by ready to design the Voydarkatron's roars, thumps and squelches, while Ian Macbeth is cleaning up the dialogue, atmos. and adding additional sound design where needed.

We are all now just waiting with baited breath, to see what will come back from the VFX team that DiRoom have pulled together (on a shoe-string budget of just £15,000 - less than half the cost UK major VFX companies were quoting). The VFX work is been completed by no less than ten artists from Pakistan and Dubai. They've been at it for six weeks now and so far I have seen not one pixel. The anxiety is unbearable, but if they pull it off on schedule, not only will we be submitting it to Cannes for its international premiere, Screen South also plan to present another private industry screening at Bafta in early March, so keep your eyes peeled!

Incidentally Annabel Bates (producer) bumped into one of the Sales Agents that we pitched to back in November, who said that Henry Bramble was the only pitch he remembered and was keen to hear it's progress - Always good to hear positive news.

Reached page 124 of Henry Bramble!

It is with great relief and excitement that I can announce I have reached the final page in what has been a huge slog writing the feature length screenplay of Henry Bramble. 

The writing itself was not necessarily hard, it was just trying to fit in the time to write around a full time job, a demanding family life and having to spend too much time on the short film that by all accounts, should have been finished over a year ago. Despite this I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. There were a couple of tough psychological barriers I had to get past, but hey that's what the re-writes are for. 

Anyway before you get too excited and demand a copy to read, please remember I have simply reached the end of the first pass - one of many re-writes. The story has been laid out, but it has many flaws, problems and discontinuity. Many of the characters are not clear enough on the page and the dialogue really sucks, but the point is, I reached the end!

I'm going to go through it in the new year page by page, scene by scene, tidying it up the best I can so it is in a readable state for my Producers, but it is still along way off yet before I can send it out to investors! In the meantime I'm off to Florida to rest my imagination over Christmas. See you in the new year!

CBB pitching event for Henry Bramble feature

Last Thursday we had the finale of our Creative Business Base programme run by Screen South. After six months of support and advice we ended up in the Blue Room at the BFI pitching to Film 4, Bfi, Prescience, The Works, Vertigo, Revolver, Bankside Films, Moviehouse Entertainment and Guerilla Films. 

Set up like a speed dating event, we had ten minutes to impress before moving to the next table. It was a lot of fun, and seemed relatively easy to impress with our crisp one-pagers featuring the new poster design and my passionate animated pitch of the story. However it was also a sobering moment of truth as we learned of the sheer size of the difficulties we will have to face if we are to succeed in bringing this wonderful story to a big screen international audience.

Although nearly everyone who attended the pitch really enjoyed the concept and would be very keen to see it made we had several issues to address:

• Henry Bramble is not a successful entity in any previous form (e.g. best selling novel or computer game) and will require large amounts of strategic marketing to get it into the public's psyche. 
• It is unlikely that we will be able to raise enough finance from the UK or Europe.
• No financier in their right mind is going to let a first time feature film director like myself be in control of $40 million. 
• Despite her impressive low-budget feature film achievements, Charlotte as Producer is also considered a high risk .

The advice that we received was extremely welcomed and gave us a lot of interesting facts to mull over. Here are a few of them:

• You need a strong Executive Producer backing you who has produced a similar film (in terms of content and budget) - someone like David Heyman for example.
• To compensate for not having directed a feature film before you will need to surround yourself with very experienced crew in particular the cinematographer. That way if you turn out to be a complete waste of space, the film can be competently made without you. 
• You will need to attach an extremely attractive cast (monetary not aesthetic). 
• If you want to make an independent film outside of the Hollywood system then you will have to slash the budget considerably.
• Even if you get the film financed you will not be able to raise the sufficient marketing costs required for this kind of film in order to compete with similar Hollywood titles.
• If one of the Hollywood studios agrees to distribute the film, they may (like Valiant) bury the film on purpose so that it does not compete with their current release slate.
• Hollywood will want to develop the project from the beginning and would more likely buy you out than let you direct the film. However you could probably pay off your mortgage with this fee though!
•  If you publish it as a novel first, it will take a minimum of three years to become a bestseller, which statistically is unlikely anyway with such competition already out there.

As you can see, it was a daunting experience, but a valuable one and something that I am certainly not phased by. I have a plan on how to deal with these issues and will report back with my final conclusions very soon. In the mean time I will leave you with the news that I am literally pages away from completing the first draft which although will be very rough and full of poor punctuation and verse, underneath is a very exciting and emotional story that I am desperate to share.

The Creative Business Base teams at Maidstone Studios.

Henry Bramble completed short in sight!

I am relieved and excited that we are finally on the road to recovery for the completion of the magical fantasy 3D short film The Infectious Imagination Of Henry Bramble. Unfortunately the hard working creative team up at VERL were unable to complete the VFX due to a 'project management'  issue that has now finally been eliminated. A big thanks to VERL and Screen South who have worked tirelessly to sort this problem out. 

The completion of the visual effects for the film are now going to be managed by DiROOM based at the Truman Brewery in east London who have also come on board to complete the on-line, grade and 2K deliverables. We are aiming to have a completed film for Berlin where the Innovation Shorts Scheme will be holding the first industry screening. We are hoping our international premiere will be at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival in May.

New Henry Bramble Poster

This is the latest poster design for the feature length version of The Infectious Imagination Of Henry Bramble. It will be used as part of a pitching pack to raise development finance for the film in London on November 27th so fingers crossed - It's come along way from the sketch I did at the beginning of the year.

The Fears Of A Stereotypical Imagination

I have just watched Snow White and the Huntsman which by all accounts is much better than I anticipated. Having been bored to death by Twilight, I was expecting a modern retelling with a lot of pale sullen faced  teenagers suffering mild depression from their broken hearts, but I was pleasantly surprised to see they were passionate about making this film. It's not quite the classic they were aiming for, but there are moments of beauty and inspiration. The beach attack on the castle was spectacular, some of the fantastical trees, fairies and toadstools were inspiring and the dark magical forest exceeded even Tim Burton's visions. The Huntsman (although his Scottish accent slipped into Australian from time to time) was convincingly masculine, without becoming homoerotic (Anyone see the film 300), though Charlize Theron's performance, particularly when she screamed, was cringing and about as effective as Ewan McGregor's 'younglings' performance in Revenge Of The Sith. However, to her credit, she has since perfected the ice cold performance in Prometheus.

Anyway the point I want to make, or rather the irritation I'd like to point out is that while I have been plodding along with the writing of the Henry Bramble feature I had absolutely no previous knowledge of this film, except for it's title and the DVD cover. I was just about to tackle the scene in my script where Henry and the two chumninks enter the Castle of Shadows through the sewage pipes when I decided to take a break and look at Snow White & The Huntsman. To my surprise and annoyance I discovered they had an almost identicle scene. Three dwarfs sneak into the castle via the sewers with Ray Winstone making almost the same 'poo' one liner that I had written. In reference to my previous postings, when you are coming up with the same scene as someone else rather than the same archetypal tool, then not only does it look like plagiarism but you then start to question your own ability to imagine original thoughts. For now I am not going to change my scene, just aim to develop it differently so that it exceeds and surprises expectations of audiences who have seen Snow White.

My other concern is the increasing release of gothic teen fairytale adaptations that are beginning to saturate the market with the same style and tone that I had previously liked, but is now becoming too familiar with audiences. The challenge is to have an original vision and style that audiences will be drawn to, which is no easy feat. As a result I am leaning much more towards a 'steampunk' world were medieval mixes with futuristic Victorian. It makes more sense thematically. Henry has a vivid imagination, the contents in his Uncle's country house are very traditional and Victorian, but as a boy living in a modern world, he is much more aware of technology. Merging these in his imagination would give him Steampunk which represents Uncle Geoffrey and the negative aspects of the adult world.

Finally, the last lesson learned from this film is that short actors playing fantastical elves, dwarves, goblins, sprites etc. in big Hollywood fantasy films could well be a thing of the past. Firstly, short actors playing these kinds of fantasy creatures (without complex prosthetics or CGI) arguably don't come across as 'magical' in a more diverse and progressive society. Secondly, in order to have more choice in casting, the filmmakers of The Lord Of The Rings and Snow White chose instead to shrink normal sized actors to play these parts. Since the creation of a completely CGI Gollum, there has been a surge in performance capture techniques allowing filmmakers to cast A-list actors that appear physically inhuman. I think for Henry Bramble, if we were rewarded with such a budget, this could be a direction we are forced into in an attempt to put financiers at ease by attaching well known actors (of any shape and size) to play Grimbo and Raygo. Can you imagine Charlize Theron and Brad Pitt playing three foot chumninks?

Outline for Henry Bramble is cracked!

We are pushing forward with the feature film version of this wonderful heart warming story while my imagination is still flowing fast. As a result the development of the project is moving much faster than anyone could have imagined and getting to the truth/heart of the narrative has been extremely rewarding, especially from a personal point of view. 

We are all very excited by its potential to touch audiences around the world with its universal themes and archetypal fairytale structure. With the huge demand for quality family entertainment and new developments in filmmaking technology we have an amazing opportunity to produce a wonderful timeless classic.

However, I have recently been struggling to find time to write over the past few weeks due to various other commitments and as a result I am somewhat behind with my deadline for a first rough draft. However I have managed to come up with a whole story for the film that will easily fill 90 minutes if not more and I have to say I am very pleased with it. 

Obviously I can't say too much, but I can confirm that in the land of Minoitaniga there are two main intelligent species, the Chumninks and the Morlogs. We also have three incredible creatures, the Voydarkatron (featured in the short), a Kabullarak, which is an eight legged crab-like creature that the Morlog's ride and then there are the Terrakite's, a featherless, vulture-like flying beast.  

When I'm writing I often come up with ideas that I realise I have taken from other films, however I do not see this as plagiarism, on the contrary I feel a sense of comfort knowing I have subconsciously recognised an archetypal story pattern. The film has merely a reference for me to become aware of it. 

For example one of the last scenes in the land of Minoitaniga is very similar to the end of Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom.  When Indy returns to the village with the stolen Sankara Stone, the land is rich in plant life. The villagers are dressed in bright colours and run to their returning children with open arms and tears of joy - A highly emotional moment helped in contrast to the childless, crop-less, dusty village we saw in the beginning. 

I use the same symbolic references in my film but because it is a fantasy world rather than 1930's India, a school boy instead of an archeologist and a stone instead of imagination, it retains originality and freshness despite using the same archetypal tool.