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Mumbling in the bathtub... |
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Mumbling in the bathtub... |
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| So
it goes... Once upon a time, the idea was that this page would showcase the efforts of a group of people determined to make "ultra indie" or "do-able" movies.... So it goes... The reality is, we've all been pretty busy keeping a roof over our heads. Our Canon XL-1 camera died - just died, in it's protective case - unmourned by Canon, who no longer repair "outdated technology". The problem is that it has left us with an expensive paperweight, our hearts made even heavier by the wasted additional investment in a beautifully useless 16x Manual Zoom. No way we can afford to buy a new HD Canon to fit the lens... there are mortgages to pay and even a baby to feed... So it goes... New technology is all very well, and I was an early adopter of video, but it doesn't last does it? The first movie camera I used professionally was a thirty year-old Arriflex... It survived a near fatal car-crash suffered by a colleague. One could've beaten a video camera to death with it and then still used it to film the scene of destruction! So it goes... I hate out-of-date web sites, even static ones, so the time has come to update this one. May have a fair amount of time in which to do it, since the world is working it's way through an economic reality check. WMD has been replaced by WEM (World Economic Meltdown) That said, we're still getting to cast whatever films do come to South Africa, so I guess the years invested in doing it better than anybody else are paying off... For now I'll leave some of the short movies on the page. According to site statistics, not a month goes by without at least "Land of Opportunity" or "Beyond Words" being downloaded. We'll see how it goes... I may use this page as a platform for my Essays - a sort of "blog-ette" - until I get my own Writer's site up. No more pointless or silly than the millions of bloggers out there, hence the title... More "Mumbling in the bathtub" some time.... We'll see how it goes...  May
2009 |
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The
Crew of Digby
Young's "Land Of Opportunity", which crams a
lifetime of
cynicism
into one minute!
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Download:"Land
Of Opportunity" (RealMedia 2.0 Mb) |
| Download:
"Sex
Drive" (RealMedia 1.9
Mb)
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Barbara-Marie
Venter and Gideon Emery play with words in Damon Berry's
Quickie
film "Sex Drive" As a thank-you to all the people who pitched in to help, we also each made a "Making of" video of our movies. At eight minutes each, possibly the only time in movie history that the behind the scenes "short" is longer than the movie! |
| We also did
the post-production on actor Gideon Emery's "The Great Glendini"
Shortly after the film was made, Gideon enjoyed a successful run in the Theatre as the star of a play he had written, also titled "The Great Glendini". Gideon Emery now lives and works in Los Angeles. |
Download: "The Great Glendini" (RealMedia - 1.39 Mb) |
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INKLESS
MEDIA co-productions
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| Joe
Vaz wrote an 18 minute
screenplay based on a short story by a friend, Vianne Venter.
"BLUE
VALENTINE" portrays
the events of one night after a chance meeting of two ex-lovers. SHE is now married
and HE is
engaged; both have found
love, but each has not entirely forgotten the other.... Vianne joined us in Johannesburg to act as Entire Art Department, Damon limited himself to being AD / Sound recordist, and Digby Young snuck out of "retirement" to be DOP again. We shot in a stripped living room over two nights.  Making "BLUE VALENTINE" was an important event in all our lives - it was the first time all of us had worked together and led to one of those rare events - an apparently disparate set of people suddenly "click" and find a very, very special and lasting relationship as creative artists and as people.  You can view "BLUE VALENTINE" via the link at the bottom of this page, which will take you out of this site to Joe Vaz's own site.
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For the next year we were all faced with the tiresome business of earning a living, compounded by the fact that both Damon and Digby had bought houses and were now paying off loans that scared them witless... so when Vi wrote a romantic short story set in London and Cape Town the obvious thing to do was to pack the camera, whip out our credit cards, and fly to Cape Town to shoot half a movie! Well, it wasn't as simple, nor as irresponsible, as that... Years before, Damon and I had discussed the possibility of co-operating via the Internet with other Indie movie makers. We were briefly part of a web-ring that had the same idea, but that quickly bogged down in a broth of many cooks... Being separated from Joe and Vi in Cape Town provided the necessity, Vi's story "BEYOND WORDS" provided the impetus to find a solution. When we had thrashed out the details via email between Johburg and Cape Town, Joe "auditioned" several English would-be Directors via the Web, chose one, and sent off detailed story-boards to Mal Woolford. We decided to let the London unit shoot first, since we had artistic control and were in a position to accommodate any deviation from the plan, for whatever reason. The shoot in Cape Town was the most relaxed ever. We all admitted to having the feeling that we'd better "start getting this thing done," yet we were in fact already doing just that! Even Damon "Messerschmidt" Berry was in a gentle glide for a change! With some trepidation, we had taken on a final-year film student, Salama Ogier, as Line Producer / Fixer. What luck! We all fell instantly in love with her - she had the knack of remembering things, reminding us, moving us along and sorting problems while remaining chilled. Also, how can you not like somebody whose smile is forty percent of her face! Definitely our first phone call if we ever get it together to shoot in Cape Town again! Just six minutes long, "BEYOND WORDS" is a gentle, romantic story of a very special Lunch Date, a story that has made it's audience smile... |
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 Director Joe Vaz & Writer Vianne Venter in Cape Town during a video-taped interview for a Retrospective viewing in Johannesburg |
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Download "Beyond Words" (RealMedia - 8.6Mb) |
The "Beyond Words" crew and Cast in Cape Town - well, the South African half, anyway, before half of us charged off to catch our flights back to Johannesburg. Who would believe Indie Movie-making in two countries with no budget! |
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Blue
Valentine - Full Movie (18 minutes) 56k
stream (160x120)
300k stream (320 x 240) |
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Serves
you right for
being so inquisitive...
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