Blog
29th
July
2001
31st
July
2001
The main cast is now complete. The script is going through fine tuning. Principal photography begins on 2nd August and the first "studio" filming begins on 14th August involving the Holly character - Red Dwarfs Computer. I can do all her lines seperately from the main cast. Still got major problems with a Kryten Mask (ie ain`t got one !). The main studio day has yet to be planned but hopefully this will be on Saturday in September !
8th
August 2001
16th
August 2001
The read through today went very well loads of suggestions and the guys getting into their characters. It was really superb to see it starting to come together. One particular scene has been dropped and is going to be rewritten with loads of good ideas been thrown about to replace it. Rav (cat) has come up with a good addition to one scene which requires Simon (Rimmer) to do a stunt. Well maybe, it's onto a hard tiled floor and it will be without the aid of a safety net ! The read through was also filmed so some of that may weedle it's way onto the multimedia section. Although I only had a 45 minute tape so missed some of it.
Still on course for the initial filming day on 22nd September. Loads more planning to do. Costumes to produce. Gee up my brother to do the Kryten costume.
26th
August 2001
(Warning Saracastic Paragraph above)
Current estimated running time is 20 minutes for the spoof which is twice as long as I originally wanted. A lift scene has already been cut and another effects intensive scene has been cut in favour of a more visually comical scene. The credit sequence will also be worth watching as we are not having the normal scrolly up the screen affair.
Next scene to be filmed was a small one involving a plot device. Unsure as to the lighting on this one too but at least I don`t have to worry about the green screen, more concerned about sound. Included our first cameo appearance and was watched by an audience including a very very young spectator who slept peacefully through all the debacle. Also filmed the first bit of our musical number, will not say more about this but it will be funny.
Final set of scenes moved the cast and crew (all five of us) outside the front door of Teleware House. It was quite cold and Simon was feeling the weather. Unfortunately the digital camera I am using has no external mic so I am having to use an anagolue camera and portable video recorder to record the main sound, hopefully I can match this to the digital footage in post production. Apart from a couple of puzzled onlookers and the cold these were in the can. The wind got up a bit and the mic was picking this up so we put the furry buzby (the one our dog had a go at - but don`t tell Martin) on the mic and that cured it.
The next filming day has been scheduled for the 14th October and is 90% certain at the moment. During first day of filming managed to get the extra shots done for the proper trailer so will be putting together a rough cut and passing this to our Musical Score producer for him to work his magic. Hopefully expect to have the trailer finished in the next two weeks. So things are going okayish, the Actors performed better than the Director and we ended up with a brilliant Kryten costume considering !
14th
October 2001
The concerns I had over the green screen shooting we did was quickly alleviated when I did a small amount of test editing and the results are better than I could ever dreamed of. Made me think this could be something rather special. Another location shoot was completed today with more than 2/3's of the total filming complete. Excellent work was produced today and I can`t thank the people involved today enough. Cast list has grown a bit and also yours truly has made an appearance. Oh dear. The trailer is more or less complete and I just need the music.
5th
December 2001
26th
December 2001
Merry Christmas everyone. Well for the past two months I have been toiling away in post production hell. I'm having a rest for a few days as I have seen the movie that many times now I can recite the script off by heart.
The part of the Red Dwarf computer was recast so this is now played by Mark Carman (Steve's brother in law) and he is very funny and has some good facial expressions. I also had a slight disaster with one scene where I lost all the sound. The digital camera I was using did not have an external mic out so I had to use the mic from my analogue camera and unfortunately after we rehearsed the scene, checked the sound was okay, I could see on video I had captured Andy bending down and moving the microphone slightly so at that point the sound went off. So I have had to get the cast to redo their lines and dub it over the original. It does not look too bad and suffers a bit from "Japanese Lip Sync" but I will tinker with it a bit more. There have also been comments over Simon (Krytens) accent and that he did not quite capture Krytens voice. This he himself also admits and it is too late to do anything about it now but it is not bad. I still have to go back and redo some of the sound as in my attempt to clear it up I have gone too far and now some of it sounds rather tinny. Sound or should I say the verbal talky bits are my weakness. Special Sound FX no problem, speech, oh dear !
I have made myself a deadline for the 3rd week in January 2002 for it all to be finished. I shall then send a tape off to Grant Naylor Productions and The Official Red Dwarf Fan Club so they can vet the movie and hopefully, (all fingers, arms and legs crossed) they will show it as part of DJ:TV during the Dimension Jump 2002 convention. Here's hoping.......
23rd
January 2002
It's finished............. I am now going to lie down in a darkened room........... Watch this space.......... Watch my dreams............
10th
February 2002
I have received excellent news from Helen Norman, General Manager at Grant Naylor Productions. They have given us permission to show Red Dwarf - The Other Movie at Dimension Jump 2002 in March 22nd/23rd/24th. The only place you can see this movie is at Dimension Jump 2002 so if you are not going, then why not, pop along ! Apparently Doug Naylor and Rob Grant saw the film and loved it, they thought it was quite funny and really well produced!
10th
March 2002
Two weeks to go till Dimension Jump 2002, can not wait. We have been told it will probably be shown on the Sunday afternoon, not sure whether this is a good or bad thing but hey, at least it is being shown. I have also been asked to do a short talk/intro beforehand. Yeah baby yeah ! My brother is entering the fancy dress too, not as Kryten I might add, but as something rather special that has not been done before. We are having some T-Shirts made up so you will probably spot us wearing these.
Big thanks go out to TORDFC and GNP for all they have done so far.
25th
March 2002
Helen Norman from GNP has said they would love to put part of the movie on Series 7 Bonus DVD out 2005.
The Dimension Jump 2002 convention was excellent. Our little spoof was shown late on Sunday around 5pm and I did a cringingly bad short talk/Q&A just before it was shown to about 125 people who were left. It was a shame the film was not shown on the Friday evening and also that the full credit sequence was not seen but you can not have everything. At least it was shown. So that was mission one completed. (by the way I also fixed the main screen projector for Den on the Sunday morning as it was not working properly !)
All the cast who were there, Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Robert LLewlyn (Kryten), Danny John Jules (Cat, and shares the same birthday as me, 16th Sept), Chloe Anette (Kochanki), Mac McDonald (Captain Hollister), Lee Cornes (Paranoia), Graham McTavish (Mr Ackerman Series VIII) received a copy of our video and we also have video footage showing me giving them a copy of our video ! In fact we met Mac in the bar straight after his Q&A to personally give him the video. At the same time I got my video sleeve of Tongue Tied signed by all, including personal remarks. DJJ also took about five minutes to read the acknowledgement on the back that he had written over ten years ago. Apparently he has not got a copy of the video himself. I also got my 7" Single of Tongue Tied signed by all and found out it was actually quite rare, so not sure how much that is worth. All the cast have a copy, mission two completed. The video distributed contained the trailer, the movie and the outtakes.
On the Sunday afternoon Helen Norman, General Manager of Grant Naylor Productions introduced herself to my brother and I then she reiterated her thoughts on how excellent the production is. Then Helen proceeded to tell us that it may be included on a future DVD and/or video release, either as a short clip or whatever so we shall wait and see if anything develops. Bonus !
The spoof is not being widely distributed due to a copyright agreement I had to sign. It was the only way they would allow this to be shown. I have let our cast/friends have a copy which consists of trailer, convention footage, The Other Movie and the outtakes. I own a DVD Writer so have made my own DVD version which is pretty cool.
info@red-dwarf.net
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Finally GNP
decided to run a Fan Film competition inspired by our own effort. I was
asked
to submit our film but the condition of the competition was it had to
be ten
minutes long. So I edited it down from twenty two minutes to just ten.
I
chopped out scenes that were more relevant to TeleWare staff who would
have
found it funny. I also removed the Indian takeaway scene which I was
never
happy with anyway as I was intending to film internally but never got
round to
it. The finished new edit increased the pace of the film too and came
in at ten
minutes plus the credits.
Sometime later I received a letter from GNP saying that I had been given an honourable mention in the competition and was issued with a complimentary certificate. Not quite what I was hoping for. Originally I was told the whole film would be shown on Series 7 DVD. The eventual outcome was about 10-15 seconds was shown on the Series 7 Bonus DVD to prelude the actual competition winners efforts. I was slightly miffed at this as I thought the actual winners videos were pretty poor, in my opinion of course. Perhaps our film was discounted as it looked too “professional” ?? (hee hee).
Also dust off your Red Dwarf Series 7 Bonus DVD and check out the Fan Film Competition section for a snippet of our production.