A quick post about South Australian feature film 'Swerve'
Sean has been working as the editor of the film, and through it I got my first compositing job on a feature film. I'll have more to write about the experience (the SAFC funded me as a VFX Attachment) as well as more to write about the film as it gets closer to release.
I'm not going to make any bones about it... this is mostly another opportunity for me to embed The Courier somewhere. However I might as well take the time to do something with this.
One of the reasons I've chosen Jung Justice as a blog name is because as a storyteller I'm heavily influenced by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Jung's views on dreams and art as an important cathartic exercise validate my chosen vocation, so I'm hardly going to disagree and just about everything I've learnt about film and storytelling has come via Campbell's Hero's Journey in some shape or form.
The connective power of myths and legends (and how that interweaves with our dreams and our worldviews) fascinates me to no end and when these colossal elements and themes pervade what appear to be mundane narratives, I'm thrilled.
While I can't read everything on the page (i think its in Dutch... or German), it does look like it says
'The Courier' is in their top 10 sci-fi short films on the internet. That's really awesome, and I'm incredibly
happy with how this film seems to really be picking up steam 2 years after its completion.
I've got a stack of Courier stories waiting to be told. Hopefully somebody out there will get behind it
and help me turn it into an animated series. I've got three 13 episode seasons planned out and I can tell
you Jack Carrier's adventures haven't even started.
Despite all the ridiculous vfx we've tried out in the past, we had yet to do a simple driving scene.
With 'The Car of Awesome!', the first part in a new web series we are putting together, we thought it was time we remedied that fact. And so here is a quick test we did last Friday to make sure we weren't getting in over our heads. The entire test (filming and compositing) was done in about an hour and was very loose.
We're pretty happy with the results for something so quick and dirty, so onto production proper it is!
Very exciting news! Youtube has informed me that 'The Courier' is eligible for the Youtube Partnership Programme, which means that from here on out, it'll start generating revenue!
It won't be much (the film is still at only 3,000 views on the tube), but it's a wonderful start and is extremely encouraging. More important than any potential dollars (going to be more like cents) is the fact that this silly little film is still finding an audience... one that appears to be growing. 'The Courier' was invited to take part in the TFI3 festival in Washington this month, but my own lack of Producer tendencies means I missed the boat. Still it was very flattering to have somebody else find my film and ask me to submit it to their festival.
Looks like there's still life in 'The Courier' yet. :)
looks like Chyna has actually uploaded the test shots I did for him.
The quality of source clip was low, and the turnaround was very fast, but I just wanted to show him that clean keys (on the HD source) were doable and to see what some of his shots might look like with a quick muzzle flash.
I didn't quite know what do with them all so I made a quick Shoji background (thanks Samurai Fiction) as it seemed appropriate
So, Chyna McCoy (stunt double for Morpheus in Matrix 1& 2) contacted me the other day and now I'm doing a few visual fx shots for a feature film he's producing and starring in called Killer of Killers.
So that's pretty cool... I mean, it's not every day that somebody who's work you've been appreciating since high school contacts you and says he's a fan of your work.
How could I say no?
Sounds like there's going to be some pretty intense action visual fx coming out of Heavily Armed Productions in the next few months. What, with this and 'The Runner', we should cover just about every trope of the action genre (I can only hope!).
I've just completed a quick bit of work for Red Bikini Productions in the form of some Motion Graphics for this web promo.
This is the first time I've played around with the Puppet tool in After Effects, and I must say, I am very impressed with its potential. I shall definitely be playing more with it in the future.
Just wanted to quickly post about our upcoming short film 'The Runner'.
'The Runner' is a science-fiction war film about a couple of soldiers having an intense falling out over a question of Faith.
Co-directed by Sean and myself (Simon), we shot the film in December of last year from a script by Joel Shepherd. (http://www.joelshepherd.com/)
To pique your interest, here are a few vfx/costume/camera tests (for achievability, pipeline and look development) that were done prior to the December shoot.
Stay tuned, more on 'The Runner' to come in the days ahead.
Sean just informed me of something fun; In the process of getting a new (and incredibly awesome) muzzle flash element from the guys at detonation films, one of them told Sean they'd already seen some of our clips! Not only that, but he decided to embed a clip of Sean in the Gallery at the Det Films site!
How awesome is that!
So here it is, both a link to the Detonation Films gallery (go there and check out the elements, good stuff)
http://www.detonationfilms.com/gallery.htm
(its the third clip down on the page) and an embed of the the clip itself.
Welcome to the Heavily Armed Productions blog, I'm your host, director/editor/vfx guru Simon Herden.
Heavily Armed Productions is a boutique post-production company. Here, we like to work on creatively challenging films that give us the opportunity to always be pushing forward. We have editors, directors and writers, visual fx artists and supervisors, motion graphics artists, production and costume designers and are experienced with all stages of production.
We've decided that until we get our fancy flash site operating, it would be best to introduce ourselves and get some of our material all in one place for you to enjoy. In addition to myself, Heavily Armed Productions consists of Sean Lahiff and Nick Moss, both of whom are also directors and editors. Over the coming months you'll get to know us all better and the work we like to do.
Today though, I'm posting as many of our films as I can, each of them being given their own page. So just have a look under the Index and have fun! There is also a youtube bar that should (in theory) be displaying links to HAP content as well.
I have some more news about what HAP is currently up to, but i'll save that for the next post.
For now I'll leave you with a bit of improvised goofy fun in someone's backyard.
