Moggey Blog

new photography blog

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:25:00 +0000

A few days ago i put online a new little photo blog as an outlet for some of my photography work. Not much on there at the time of writing, but its new, and i will add more as time goes on, so i hope you come back and check from time to time!, Mayyybe even subscribe to the rss feed?.

http://photo.moggey.co.nz

Roller Derby vid on the tube of you

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:54:00 +0000

Here's a link to a promo video made by Rachel Laurenson for the Richter City Roller Derby 2010 season.
We went last year and i helped her shoot some of the footage for the clip, it was a lot of fun! Definitely recommended.

If you are a Facebook user, you can also check out the events Facebook page for more info.

It Returned to the Abyss

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Sat, 01 May 2010 08:06:00 +0000

Robyn Slade and AT48 from It Returned to the Abyss.

Hi Readers,

I have uploaded a new version of It Returned to the Abyss, to replace the old one we put up on Google Video 4 years ago. Thanks to advances in high definition video for the internet, we can show you a version that looks a little nicer :-)

We made this movie from concept to completion in a weekend, as part of the 48hr furious filmmaking competition in 2006.

If this movie is a little slow to buffer and play on your computer you can watch a smaller, faster version on Exposure Room, here >>

Details:

Year: 2006
Duration: Approx 7.5 Minutes
Genre/Style: Romance/Science fiction

Behind the scenes - 48hrs 2010, Team PuppyGuts

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 06:32:00 +0000

Hey guys,

So just as i type we are about to head off to check out the 48hrs heat that will be including this years short film from team Puppyguts, which i spent some time with during their shoot last weekend.

As with the shooting of short films for 48hrs every year, it was a lot of fun, extreme lol's abound. Here are some pictures from the shoot, more can be found on facebook here also.

Ok thats it for now, gotta get going to the screening!

UPDATE: Thought i should post a Youtube of the actual finished film too. Well done fellas!

Old School Attack!: Violent Man.

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:57:00 +0000

Hey guys,

It's been a while so i thought i'd do another Old School Attack post.

A few months ago i finally made use of a dvd recorder that i had for a while and used it to digitally record a bunch of old movies and things we made on videotape back in the day. When people still used things like analogue video camcorders, VCR's and things like that.

This totally awesome movie, Violent Man, was one of those things.

Basically i guess you could call it an Art film, created in a very bare bones, abstract, theatrical, satirical and self-mocking style. If there is any ideas or themes underlying the piece, it would be the nature of conflict* i suppose. Ridiculousness, pettiness, ignorance, and reality distortion to name a few. Ultimately though, it was a bit of fun to make and we were very impromptu with it - totally made it up as we went along, and it shows!

Also, i do recall us watching a lot of violent action films at that time featuring such fine action stars as Dolph Lundgren, Van Damme & Steven Seagal, so i think we were a little influenced by the story lines of a few of those films!

Shot on a Video 8 Camcorder and edited on a Panasonic "Postbox" Non-Linear editing system. Some of it was edited in-camera too!

If this movie is a little slow to buffer and play on your computer you can watch a smaller, faster version on ExposureRoom, here.

Details:

Year: 1998
Duration: Approx 12 Minutes
Genre/Style: Experimental/Improv.

Be sure to check out some of the awesome music featured in this video:

Greatest Hits (Amazon Exclusive Version)

Mezzanine

* referring to "conflict" as the needless variety that damages relationships, not the conflict that serves to hold the universe in balance.

Finishing Beanz: diary 09

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:48:00 +0000

Hey readers,

Its been a bit of a while so i thought i should write a bit of an update. Life's been a bit crazy over the last month or so, mostly due to things like work, moving house and worst of all being sick. But thankfully I'm feeling better now, but I'm sure that's the worst i have been sick in about 12 years from what i can remember. ugh.

We have been able to get a few things done on the film between the last post and now. Back in diary 08 we talked about the up-conversion of all the raw footage as well as adding in missing sound to the edit, this has all been completed. On top of that, we have tweaked a few sections in the edit also. All we need to do now before we can get people to look at it is to clean up some of the temp sound/levels mix in the final scene, sc25. So we are pretty close there.

So that's it for the moment. Reality has a funny way of getting in the way of projects such as this. So we hope to get back into getting some more Beanz stuff done once we have dealt to the real world! :)

Hope to post something again soon.

Moving the blog

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:45:00 +0000

Hey guys,

Since we started doing this blog diary in 2004, we were using the method of "ftp" to publish posts. Now as of May, Google are no longer supporting people publishing blog posts using this method.

So now we have been moving the blog to a new server, which should allow for faster publishing/updating as well as other goodies. While we are in this transition there will probably be the odd glitch or error while we iron out all the issues, so we apologize for that.

Will also have some new diary entries soon!

Finishing Beanz: diary 08

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:13:00 +0000

Rowan shoots a bit of footage to digital-8 tape on his single CCD Sony Handycam circa 2001. About 40% of Beanz was shot on this camera.

Hey guys,

Well its another Christmas. We have finished up with work for the year which gives us a bit of time to get down and get some stuff done on the film.

In the last post i was writing about the very first viewing of the whole movie from beginning to end. Since then, Phil and I had another viewing session. Overall we felt pretty happy at least with the cut as it exists... and yes, that it is worth finishing! There were some minor changes that we made to a couple of scenes though. Mostly just shortening a bunch of shots by a few frames, even removing one or two shots themselves. So now we are working on adding in some missing sound and dialogue bits so the movie is fit for our peeps we have chosen to be test viewers. This is when we will cop the real critical heat!

The other thing we are working on is the batch conversion of all the video footage that makes up the movie, from standard definition interlaced video to high definition progressive scan video. There is over an hour and a half of footage to upscale and convert. To do this, we are using Apple's "Compressor" batch processing software which is shipped as part of Final Cut Studio. So in between Christmas shopping, sitting in the sun, bbq'ing, drinking and decorating the Christmas tree, we plan to get all this video converted and verified over the course of the next two weeks.... or so. And then, it's onto finishing and grading, as well as a bit of 2D paint work here and there, removing the occasional boom mic that popped into shot.

So thats where we are at Beanz-wise.

I thought i would also take a moment to talk about the cameras we have used to shoot Beanz with.

Back in 1999, a good friend of ours by the name of Rowan, (or Rowox as he is otherwise known) purchased a flashy digital Handycam video camera. It was pretty much the first digital video camera i had used. It basically recorded digital video onto the "video-8" sized tapes that Handycam's had used up to that point. It was a pretty damn simple camera, just the standard built in lens, as well as a little wide angle conversion lens that could be screwed on for wide shots. From that i remember it was actually a nice little camera to use, very small and balanced as it sat in the palm of your hand. Its small size was also advantageous as it allowed for the occasional dramatic or awkward angle that a larger regular "professional" camera at that time would have been unable to achieve, very important for the style of this project.
However as you would expect, it didn't have the resolution or image quality that you would get from a more professional camera at that time, but that didn't really bother us too much. After all, it was our first attempt at a feature film and its how you use the tools.. right? Its all about ideas, story and character... right? And besides, we didn't have much money to spend, so its either make this movie with this camera, orrrrr.... make no movie at all. So we decided to make the movie.

The Sony PD-150 (with added velcro, and a bent mic from a shoot involving people in gorilla suits - long story)

The second camera is the Sony 3CCD PD-150, which Phil and myself purchased sometime in 2002. This was a sweet camera, and we still use it today. And hey! David Lynch used it for his awesome interview project. But anyway, as a prosumer 3CCD camera shooting standard definition onto mini-dv tapes, it is about as good as cameras get. We have shot most of Beanz on the pd-150, around 60%.

One of the issues on the surface we had in shooting with effectively 2 different classes of cameras was how to get the scenes shot on one camera to fit in with the scenes shot on another? The answer here lies in how we approached the movie in terms of it's shooting style, which i guess you could say mixes planned/composed shots with shoot-from-the-hip-documentary action. Beanz is a film set in the late 90's in a largely modern urban environment. So while to the conscious eye the difference between scenes will be noticeable, the effect should not be too distracting because of the overal DIY low budget documentary feel of the film itself.

I hope to talk a little bit more about my approach to the shooting in a later post, when i have a couple of shots to show on the blog. So i will leave it at that for now. Merry Christmas y'all!

Next post: Finishing Beanz: diary 09 >>

Finishing Beanz: diary 07

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:50:00 +0000

Ok so for the first time i sat down and watched through the entire movie tonight, and i thought i'd blog a couple of quick thoughts about it.

This initial viewing wasn't really a review per say, it was more like a test that all the temp movies (one for each scene) rendered out from Final Cut were working and playing together correctly. Yes they all rendered out ok, But however there are still a couple of minor glitches in the files that we still need to iron out, but the movie is fit for watching... albeit in a very rough and raw state. Mind you, only for Phil and myself at this point, as there are a few points in the film where sound effects need to be added that better describe what is actually happening in the scene. We can sit there and assume that these sounds exist as we watch. Would be a tad distracting for anyone else though.

Anyways, the shots are pretty much as they are straight from the camera tapes - raw as. The sound is rough and sometimes choppy, temp music tracks and some other sounds are slapped in just to get a sense of flow for editing purposes. Its rough and gnarly at times, but it plays and it now has a beginning, a middle and an end.

I have to admit i was always a little bit anxious about getting to this point, its the anticipation of sitting down on a couch in front of a big 46 inch screen, playing a nearly-finished edit of a movie that we shot the majority of around 5+ years ago, on standard definition camcorders. There is nowhere to hide now. Yes this has always been a side project. Yes you can leave this moment for a later time, and goodness knows we have. But this moment will come, and it has to be dealt with. Watch the damn movie. Deal with the inevitable!

And so, the inevitable thoughts and questions arise... Is this going to work? Will it flow? The quirky and experimental style, will this style/feel that we were toying with and trying to achieve come through? Will we stay in the scenes? Does the filmed and edited product sitting in front of us live up to what we were imagining when writing of the script? Will we be interested in what happens ...or is it going to suck?? And if it does not suck, will it feel like its worth the effort to carry it through in cleaning up the technical rough edges to make a presentable finished piece?

After the last scene concluded and i sat there, i thought.... well... that wasn't so bad.

The movie as it exists right now certainly needs a fair bit more work. There is still one more song that needs to be either written or acquired to serve it's role as a story piece as an example. There are a handful of shots that need paint work to remove things like the tips of boom mic's that momentarily dropped into the top of frame, amongst other things.

But as the whole, yes, i can see a movie in there. Sitting there by myself watching it i am reminded that Beanz certainly has its oddities, but we always knew that. But it plays. There are one or two scenes in particular that still need some serious edit TLC to get to work and flow better. But we will find out in more detail when Phil and I sit down together to watch and critique it properly over the next couple of days.

Next post: Finishing Beanz: diary 08 >>

Finishing Beanz: diary 06

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:25:00 +0000

A shot of Phil editing on the laptop for prosperity - finishing up the last edits for sc25, the last scene in the movie to be edited!

So whats the status?

Well, it's been quite a few weeks since the last update - so here's just a quick update on the status of things.

We have been mostly working on finishing the edit for a scene we shot earlier this year, which as it turns out is also the last scene to be cut. And now its done! yay! No rest for the wicked though, there is still heaps of tasks left to do.

The first of which involves working towards getting a final lockdown of all the edits for all the scenes, as well as how all the scenes work together as a whole. It is basically this point where we go over the film one more time, as an assembled whole, to try and work out what is working and what might not be, and to make the changes where appropriate. Once we have this, then we can get started on the proper sound mix. This will make up the meat of the post production and finishing work on this project. Beanz is a movie that has quite a reliance on its sound and music in order to convey its story and style properly, so its important that we take the time to get this as good as we can from within our resources.

The cut we have for the movie so far (pre-lockdown) is approx 1 hour, 20mins. So its not the length of most feature films, its more like a short feature. :)

Need a shave?: Here's me taking a tourist shot of myself for prosperity with Phil working on the edit in the background. In terms of the editing duties on Beanz, Phil and I usually sit down together to work on the cut. Phil tends to take the controls for scenes where dialogue is king, whereas i tend to be on button pressing duties for scenes where action takes prominence. But we always feed off each other for critiques and balance of opinion - from the outset we were always on the same page as to what the movie is and what its vibe should be.

Next post: Finishing Beanz: diary 07 >>

The State of Georgia HD

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:08:00 +0000

Hey guys, I just uploaded a HD copy of "The State of Georgia" for you guys to check out.

Click here to download the original high definition copy or to view at a smaller size if you have a slow connection.

This is a film we made as part of the 48hr filmmaking competition here in New Zealand. As the name suggests... Film makers are challenged to make a short film over the course of 48hrs, within particular constraints such as genre, prop usage, and the inclusion of a particular line of dialogue.

In this short coming of age story, a young woman named Georgia goes out for her first taste of the nightlife with her hypochondriac friend Jerry, where she meets a mysterious woman who invites her into the VIP area of a nightclub.

Details:

Year: 2007
Duration: Approx 6 and a half minutes.
Genre/Style: Experimental/Abstract.

Finishing Beanz: diary 05

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:01:00 +0000

Back in our first Beanz diary entry i mentioned that the origins of this project stemmed back from a little film we made as students called The Wrong Side of Bed. Todays diary entry casts a bit more light on that little movie we made all the way back then!

If i am to be utterly honest i can not really remember that much about the making of this film. However. I do remember around 1995-96 Phil making a little video (also) called Wrong side of Bed, which basically involved me filming him (and sometimes him filming himself because i had a hangover from the night before or something) playing a character where by chance, all these horrible and unfortunate things would happen to him. I recall in that original video we made we did some really really super crude digital effects on our Commodore Amiga 1200.

One such effect was taking an animated dinosaur loop from a Playstation 1 demo and superimposing it over some footage we filmed of Phil on the street outside the house. Thankfully because it was supposed to feel all depressing because of this characters horrible day, we filmed it all in black and white, making the effects relatively easy to do with our Amiga computer, "Vidi-Amiga " capture card and copy of Deluxe Paint.

Anyway, after having a bit of fun with that we thought we would redo it. From what i recall we wanted to make something that was quite simple to do, a pretty simple story that was made up of mostly visual gags and involved one person as the main character. Then we put in a series of secondary characters where we could just get whatever mates we had around at the time to come and play them. So one day, sometime around 1997, we made The Wrong Side of Bed.

We shot the movie on a standard, run of the mill Sony digital 8 camcorder, and used a Power Macintosh 8500 to capture the footage. We edited it with an early version of Adobe Premiere (5.0 i think) at a sub-broadcast quality resolution of 384x288 pixels (our computer didn't have enough memory for anything bigger). So this weekend I managed to dig up a copy of it, upscaled the resolution a little bit and uploaded it to ExposureRoom.com.

If the above clip is loading too slowly for your internet connection you can watch a smaller version here

So how does this little movie relate to Beanz?

Well basically, this film and Beanz have very little in common. When we set out to make Beanz all the way back in late 2000, we really liked the Angus, Bum and Yawie characters. Bum is the big scruffy guy and Yawie is the annoying guy who sneaks into Angus' house. So we took those characters and wrote a whole new story from scratch featuring them.

The music you hear in that film (except for the cheesy opening music haha) Was all written by Phil and the ending credits music with his band "GoFellas" that he was in at the time.

Next post: finishing Beanz diary 06 >>

Finishing Beanz: diary 04

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:29:00 +0000

(Warning - another overly geeky post!)

It was a pretty productive this last weekend gone, I managed to find some time to crack into my 2nd go at doing some colour correction. My first attempt went ok, it was mostly involving rolling up my sleeves and getting stuck into trying to work out how to use a software application called "Color" which is part of Apple's Final Cut Studio.

The newest version of Color has fixed a couple of issues that I encountered on my first attempt to import a Beanz scene into the application from Final Cut. Previously if you had an edited sequence which contained still images, such as overlaid type created in Photoshop for title credits, the imported sequence would appear all messed up in Colors timeline, making it almost impossible to select clips for adjustment. So with that fixed we are now cooking with gas!

Working on Beanz sc10. The colour correction process is particularly important for this project i think, Working with Color to help define the overall visual style, and to make the most of the available image data in a complementary way.

One of the things I should point out for any newbie colour graders working with this software for the first time is to bare in mind that Final Cut and Color display their Colours on screen quite differently. ...James says after image grading a whole scene only to bring it back into FCP with all the colours wrong - gah!

Basically, Color conforms to the Mac's system wide Gamma setting (which by default is 1.8) whereas Final Cut, apparently, overrides this and displays its colours at 2.2. However, FCP7 does assume that footage being imported into it is at gamma 1.8 by default. Confusing? yes, yes it is!

Long story short, I have found Color to be a pretty powerful grading tool when you have the will and give it the time to get to know it, and can look past its prehistoric caveman looking interface. I was able to write out a dvd-ready mpeg-4 file which looks correct when viewed on a standard Quicktime movie player, but it remains to be seen how it looks on an actual dvd playing on a random TV screen. I'm sure if I don't succeed I will moan about it here on a future post :)

Next post: Finishing Beanz diary 05 >

Finishing Beanz: diary 03

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:22:00 +0000

Ravers firing on all cylinders busting out the glow sticks + grooves. No narcotics were consumed in the shooting of this scene.

Back a couple of months ago, on the 2nd of May 2009, We finally completed shooting everything we needed to shoot to complete the edit. Here is a series of images by photographer Karim Sahai, who was there to document the action.

Now, while most of the "principal photography" of this project was completed a good 2 years ago, there were still a few little bits in pieces, or "pick-ups" that we felt we still needed to do in order to tie up the story a little bit better. So this was one of those shoots.

Hmm, well what else can i talk about on this post without giving away too much about the story and where this scene fits within it? Ok, i will state the obvious here that this scene takes place at a rave - In a nightclub, in the very early 2000's :). We learnt quite a bit about how to deal with doing a scene which involves working with a large group of extras. Directing was especially tricky, as i was shooting the action while Phil was performing as Angus. Normally when we were shooting the rest of the movie we could get away with not having someone acting as an assistant director, not so in this case. So we got the help of Sophia Elizabeth, who took on the juggling tasks of keeping the extras happy, dealing with misc production issues during the day as well as being an extra herself.

Juggling tasks is the order of the day: Phil ques up a portable DAT tape recorder to record the audio feed from the Sandwiches mixing desk shortly before shooting the first take. The idea here is to actually use the audio from the microphone that Angus is MC'ing into for the dialogue in the actual scene. This will be incorporated into the sound mix later on.

An extra patiently waits between takes.

An extra applies some hair gel whilst others chill out before the shooting begins.

Phil looking happy as he gets ready for shooting the scene while Sophia is wettening his hair for a more hot and sweaty appearance.

Extras stand by for shooting to begin.

Home made: Rachel holds up our makeshift slate for the camera. For this scene we shot in a very "freestyle" manner, so yes, we were very loose with our slate naming conventions :)

Phil as Angus: Working the decks.

Ravers in full swing during shooting.

Girls on the dance floor.

Quickly discussing some notes between takes.

Crowd shoot complete.

James downloads and quickly reviews a couple of takes as Clare looks on - its in the can!

Chatting with Hamish (cowboy hat), Who plays the character "DJ Danny Reed". This scene was actually shot on a high def camera, a Panasonic HVX-202. The media will be down sampled to match with the rest of the standard def DV footage. The idea here was basically: "well we have one at our disposal, so might as well use it. Better to have more information to work with than not enough"

If you would like to see more of the brilliant photographic work by Karim Sahai, check out his website - where you can browse his portfolio and order prints.

http://www.karimsahai.com/

Sending out a BIG thanks to all who helped make this shoot happen, including: (and not limited to) Sandwiches, all of those who helped organize costumes, the lovely extras, Rocket Rentals for their sweet rental deal on the camera and microphone equipment, Grouse lighting and everyone else we may have missed writing here - thank you!

Finishing Beanz: diary 02

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:05:00 +0000

Yay! My adapter arrived today! geek blog alert!

So to some this may seem a little weird to be getting excited about a little piece of plastic & metal, but i'm stoked. The adapter in question is a MiniDisplayPort to HDMI adapter that i ordered from a company called Monoprice in the USA.

So whats so great about it then?

Well to provide the answer for that requires a bit of background info on the setup i am using for adjusting the color grade for the movie.
I am working on a 2009 model Apple Macbook Pro. Anyone who uses these computers are probably aware that if you want to be able to output an image from one of these babies to an external display, it has to be output via it's Mini Display Port.

The display i am using for grading is basically a Panasonic plasma television. These plasma screens are better than their LCD equivalents for this sort of thing because of their superior contrast ratios and wider colour gamut. The problem with it being a television screen and not a computer monitor is that it does not have the usual DVI style input/s you would expect from a modern computer monitor. It does have VGA input though, however thats an analogue connection and for the purposes of image accuracy i am aiming for a digital to digital signal connection.

So this is where the new adapter comes in. Previously i only had the option of using a combination of adapters that i purchased from Apple. One being MiniDisplay > DVI, then another cable that went from DVI to the HDMI input at the back of the Plasma. I found this not to work very well as all sorts of weird image artifacts would appear on the outputted signal. Upon research online i found that i was not the only one and others have encountered this issue.

So yea, top tip! If you need to connect your Macbook pro to a big screen TV using this method, avoid! Buy a proper MiniDisplayPort to HDMI adapter. :)

Now that we have a decent 1080 digital feed into an external display, i can now start on working to achieve a good colour calibration for the screen to allow the image grading to commence. Because Beanz is shot using (mostly) older footage shot on "standard-def" DV video, the aim here is to try and get as much as possible out of the lower resolution images so that they gracefully translate into the now ubiquitous high-definition format. I will cover this in a bit more detail in a later post.

Next post: finishing Beanz: diary03

Poppy

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Sun, 24 May 2009 08:27:00 +0000

Hi readers,

NZ director James Cunningham has completed his latest short film "Poppy" recently. I worked on this project doing Motion Capture and Motion Edit work with the team at Weta Digital. It was a great project to work on and the finished product looks great!

You can find more info on Poppy at the official website at http://www.poppyfilm.com and/or if you are a facebook user, become a fan on the official facebook fan page.

The Official Poppy poster.

Another 48hr furious film making contest has come and (almost) gone, i went and took part this year helping out team Puppyguts with some camera operating. We got the "revenge" genre and the team ended up making a short about a Mime.

Titled "Mime and Punishment", we still as of yet have not seen the finished product! This is due to us missing the heat screening last monday. Anyways, check out the Puppyguts page on Vimeo to see more of their stuff.

P-Vans has another exciting gig coming up that he has been working on with the Strictly 138 boys, more info on that to come in a later blog entry.

And in other news, we have finally finished shooting everything we need for our long running project "Beanz" We hope to post up more blog diary entries over the next few months following progress as we get closer to finishing the damn thing. Focusing on post production info, technical hurdles etc, as well as a little backstory of the childhood legacy that is the movie itself. So stay tuned for that :-)

The weathers shit here in Wellington at the moment, so till next time - stay warm & cosy!

Cheers

-Jamesmog

Moggey Youtube Channel

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:20:00 +0000

Man it sure has been a while.

Well, as usual this year, Phil and I have been SUPER busy. But until i find something else to blog about, i thought i would post a little link to a page we have setup on Youtube, which features a lot of the videos that we have posted on this blog as well as others of interest to us, via our "favourites".

Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/moggey

Finishing Beanz: diary 01

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:23:00 +0000

Welcome to the Finishing Beanz, post production diary blog!

This section of the blog we have put together to document our ongoing process of completing a low budget Indy movie. Hopefully interesting to people, Beanz has been a very unusual and long project for us. Its a project that has served as a learning process about the serious business of film production - and of course just the fun of doing something creative.

Over the next few months we will try and cover in a little bit more detail explaining exactly why this project, as a film, is so unusual. Posts dedicated to various areas and topics, such as shooting, writing/script, editing, directing, producing, music, sound design and mixing, dealing with DV video media, color and more.

So to start things off, here are a few little facts about the movie itself:

Beanz is personally produced, directed, shot, written, edited by the "Brothers Mogg". (James and Phillip Van der Reyden) So in effect, while we have received so much support from so many wonderful friends and colleagues, this has been pretty much a fully DIY project. In addition to all the production tasks, Phil also plays as the main character - Angus Peterson.

The characters and "story universe" were taken from a short 15min movie we made back in 1997 while just having fun/playing around as students. That film was called "The Wrong Side of Bed". Its story was pretty simple - A character named Angus Peterson wakes up one morning only to have a really unfortunate day, possibly one of the worst days of his life.

We started making Beanz back in late 2000, pretty much for the same reason as making The Wrong Side of Bed - basically to have fun and get a little bit of practice on how to make a film, a feature length film. I remember thinking at the time, "how hard can this be?".

Its worth noting this was at about the same time as us starting at Weta Digital, so it wasn't long before we got an answer to that question.
Trying to write, plan and shoot basically a feature length movie, doing things we have never tried before... on top of a 50hr minimum week at a major digital effects studio - on top of all the other responsibilities of life. This was not an easy feat for anyone. So we always wanted to think of Beanz as our little practice ground. We had no real need to make the thing, no set budget, and no deadline. Relax, have fun, work on it while we can, don't take it too seriously. But at the same time, treat it seriously. Believe that it will be something that will be fun to watch when it is done. And as a creative and learning process, it is certainly a worthwhile thing to do.

Beanz is shot in DV video. One of the interesting things about making something slowly over a long period of time, especially in an era where digital technology is progressing so fast, is that the very medium we are making the movie on can now be considered antique!
Basically, back in 2000, DV video was the best format that we could afford to shoot on. There was no such thing as high definition back then, and film was super expensive! Thankfully, the style of the movie lends itself to the lower resolution medium. A quirky late 90's story about a quirky character in love with a quirky song. Shot in a documentary influenced style.
Although the movie is shot on DV (720x576 pixels), the final movie will be created as a High Definition 1920x1080 print, where the footage will be treated to look as good as possible at the larger size.

Check out the next post, Finishing Beanz: diary 02 here:

Not at Work 2007

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:24:00 +0000

Last year, at about this time, a group of us at Weta decided to get together and have a photography exhibition at the Thistle Hall gallery space - It went really well. So we decided to do it again this year. Yay! Check it out.

Not @ Work poster. (photo, poster design credit - Ula Rademeyer)

Featuring Work by:

Simon Jung • Mel James • Maung Maung Hla Win • Jed Soane • James Ogle • Francisco De La Torre • James Van der Reyden • Ken Gimpelson • Matt Mueller • Peter Baustaedter • Allen Hemberger • Kathleen Beeler • Tom Mikota • Nick Booth • Marcus Schoo • Alfred Murrle • Peter Godden • Roger Wong • Johan Aberg • Erin Horton • Ula Rademeyer • David Phillips • William J. Earl • Colin Alway • Dmitri Krasnokoutski • Alexis Casas & Shane Cooper • Julian Butler • Andrea Merlo • Sarah Wilson • Fenella Stratton • Aaron Cubis • Lance Thornton • Mark Norrie • Stephen Rouche • Florian Fernandez • Kevin Romond • Wolfgang Niedermeier • Simon Brown • Richard Addison-Wood • Hovig Alahaidoyan • Lucas Putnam • Steve McGee • Tim Hey.

Links:

Thistle Hall community venue
Weta Digital

Old school attack! - Teach Me

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:22:00 +0000

Back in 1998 as part of the design degree i was taking at Wellingtons Victoria University, i did a paper that served as a sort of an introduction to 3D computer graphics. I forget the details of the actual design brief for this particular assignment itself - but it had something to do with the idea of injecting life into primitive objects.

Not exactly Ratatouille in its technical sophistication (hey - it was my first shot at it!) but yes - its still kinda fun. So i thought I'd embarrass myself and upload it for a laugh. Enjoy!

48hrs 2007 - FarGish

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Mon, 14 May 2007 23:02:00 +0000

Crew

Director ~ Phillip Van der Reyden

Co-director ~ James Van der Reyden

Producer ~ Rowan Sharp

Co-producers
Rachel Laurenson • Phillip Van der Reyden • James Van der Reyden
and Sophia Elisabeth

Writen by Rowan Sharp and Daniel McClelland

Director of photography ~ James Van der Reyden

Editor ~ Rachel Laurenson

Score ~ James Hudson

Sound ~ George Oliver

Soundmix/Edit ~ Phillip Van der Reyden

Start titles ~ James Van der Reyden
End credits ~ Chris Town

PAs ~ Tanja Schubert and Tanielu laga

Grips ~ Johnny Dazzle • Mike White and The Roy

Catering ~ Phyllis laurenson and Christine sharp

~ • ~

Cast

Georgia ~ Penny Laurenson
Natasha ~ Sophia Elisabeth
Jerry ~ Daniel McClelland
Louie the bouncer ~ Chris Town
Bartender ~ James Hudson

Underground VIPs

Ian Laurenson • Will Neill • Chris Town • Katrina Ladd • Wiremu Paku •
Jo Laurenson • Tanja Schubert and George Oliver

Background Actors

Amy Paine • Tim Gregory • Tanielu Laga • Kohe Habberfield • Sharalyn Haddleton Leyton Haddleton • Jayne Billing • Kathryn Billing • Kat Warner • Holly Garner • Katherine Slipper • Mark Doherty • Willie Dacker • Melanie Clayton • Andreana Crean • John Watt • Kate Molineaux • Sai Inturi • The Roy • Mike White

~ • ~

Music

“Ambient Mush”
Tim Cheng

“This old house”
Hannah Curwood
Courtesy of Luggate Records

~ • ~

Thanks to

Bryce • Jonnie • Wade ~ Sandwiches bar
Shaun ~ Tupelo bar
Viti Olds
Rachel Sharp
Porky Love
Ben Bryan
Diane Tuapawa
Greg Sharp
Megan Brownlie
Emma Boniface
Bernice Prakash
Norman Cates
Jen Prince

Extra special thanks to

Captain Dazzle
Our mums/caterersJ
The Sandwiches Bar staff
Our background actors/dancers – rockstars!

~ • ~

The State of Georgia ~ Team Fargish ~ 48hrs 2007

Summerset

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:30:00 +0000

Just completed an animated clip for the Sandwiches Summerset live event thats on this weekend - Saturday the 17th of March to be exact. Some great live acts are featuring, including Fat Freddys Drop, Black Grass, Tom Middleton, Shapeshifter and Ladi 6 as well as others.

Its on at Wellingtons Iconic Basin Reserve. Check out the clip then head on down!

links:

Sandwiches Summerset '07

Friends of Mogg: Gregory P Sharp.

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:17:00 +0000

A good mate of ours, Greg Sharp, has just put up a personal site showcasing his work - Greg is a visual artist from Wellington, New Zealand who is now residing in Sydney, Australia.

Check it out! http://www.gregorypsharp.com

He is a great friend, as well as an inspiration to us. Big ups Greg!

Busy Busy Busy.

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:45:00 +0000

Well you might be wondering why there has been little updates on the Brothers Mogg front as of late.

Well, we have been very busy on all fronts with Weta, Moving house, Beanz and other projects. Stay tuned though, we will have some updates up soon!

Old School Attack! - Paper Bagged.

noreply@blogger.com (James Van der Reyden) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 06:43:00 +0000

A short film about a young man named Aidan who seeks help after being driven crazy by his flatmates.

Directed by Phil Van der Reyden.

Featuring, Aidan Forrest, Rowan Sharp, Sarah Ryan, James Van der Reyden, Dale Pugh, Greg Sharp and Kelly Sturgess.

Shot in Wellington, New Zealand, 2002.