Filmmaking, Heartbreaking.

photos.

2009-04-14T05:01:00.001-07:00

Another update

2009-04-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

So it's been three months since I last posted on here; What have I achieved in this time? Well, I have:

Mentored a group of first time filmmakers from the idea stage through pre- and post-production, helping them to make a six minute comedy short which was shown at a short film competition and recieved great feedback from the judges
Edited two short films for other directors
Worked as the visual co-ordinator for the Edinburgh Charity Fashion Show- the largest student run charity show in Europe which has raised over £240,000 in the last 5 years- developing ideas to fit the theme of 'Revolution', filming and editing all of the footage played throughout the show, and filming and editing a 15 minute long documentary about the charities the show supported which will hopefully be used by the charities in the future for publicity
Written three short films which I hope to direct this Summer

You can read a review of the Fashion Show- with a good report on the visuals- here.

I'm currently six weeks away from finishing University so my main focus is my dissertation and exams, and following that I'll be working for six weeks at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, firstly as a tape checking monitor and then as a general assistant/runner. I'll then be moving back home to London and hunting for work in the Film and TV industry and continuing to make my own films. Hurray!

A long overdue update

2009-01-09T03:31:00.001-08:00

So I feel it's time I finally explain on here why my films/I have dropped off the face of the Earth! I am still very much involved in filmmaking and attempting this project was fantastic as it taught me that I should be aiming for quality rather than quantity- it's all very well throwing something out each week but I've decided to concentrate on a select few projects and make them to the best of my ability. I'll still be posting my films here and updating on my filmmaking developments, but it won't be a weekly production any more.

Week Seven- Dance

2008-11-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

This week a little animation thing; I'm trying out ideas, and this one has been in my head a while now. Basically, I took a short [12 second] clip of my friend dancing, exported it from final cut as a series of single frames, and then took each individual frame into photoshop where I duplicated the layer, extracted the figure and then filtered the figure as a photocopy, making the figure appear as it does whilst leaving the background as regular film. Then i imported each frame back into fcp, and looped a few parts to try and make it fit to the intro of MIA's 'world town'. There are 24 frames in a second, so I had to draw around my friend's dancing body nearly 300 times. Which was fun! But I'm pleased with the results, and in the end this took about 9 hours to produce.

Dance from lucy chambers on Vimeo.

Week Six- The Waiting Game

2008-11-09T08:46:00.000-08:00

So this week I've been pretty pushed for time with other non filming stuff, so I filmed and edited this little film that's been floating around in my head for a while. It even stars me, I am such a one-man band! It's filmed on my handy cam, so picture quality is bad if you go full screen, but I think it's ok for an afternoon's effort?

The Waiting Game from lucy chambers on Vimeo.

Week Five- Punchout

2008-10-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago I went out filming for a project that I'm really interested in creating, a sort of human flipbook; upon getting home and beginning to edit I realised that I'd not filmed in the right way to realise my vision. Gutted. I'm scheduling a reshoot for that project, this time filming it in the right way so it will actually look how I want it to look [fingers crossed!], but I decided that instead of wasting the footage I got on my first shoot day I'd play around with some editing effects/editing to music, and this is the result. The quality for some reason is really poor at the moment, I'm working on getting a better look to it but wanted to get this weeks project up and online! I think the reason for the poor quality is the number of clips and layers in this piece, I spent probably 10-14 hours editing, and it's 90seconds long, so you can imagine how many different little clips I have in my timeline. Poor little timeline!

Next project is a short fiction

Week Four- Tea in Paris

2008-10-22T04:42:00.000-07:00

So here is one of the films I was working on last week; this was edited by me in a few hours for a film making competition. The competition involved teams being paired up with companies to produce films about the environment, and the topic for this one was 'student responses to climate change'. The film was written and filmed in one day and edited by me overnight.

I'm currently working on some other editing projects and have written a few shorts that I hope to film next week!

Tea In Paris from lucy chambers on Vimeo.

Week Three- Update

2008-10-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

Ok so I haven't posted anything YET, but by friday I should have completed Three different projects, so at least one will appear up here; I've been really busy with Uni work, driving test, and editing a play I filmed earlier this month to be sent on DVD to theatre festivals, as well as filming these projects for this week. Excuses excuses, I know, but rest assured, Friday will bring something worthwhile [I hope!]

Oh also, my last video got mentioned on this blog,which is very exciting!

Week Two- Practise makes perfect

2008-10-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

I've got an idea for a future project in the pipeline, and have been practising some techniques and editing stuff; the main project i do will be a lot different to this little practise one, but I thought it was worth putting this up!

Week One- Falling

2008-10-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

So here it is, the first film. Yay!

This is a short documentary about love, filmed in an afternoon on Edinburgh's Royal Mile; The quality of the youtube version is quite bad, but it looks nicer on my computer. Ha. Anyway, I got the idea for this film from the film making society at University- we are currently running a film competition to give people a chance to make their own movies, and the word 'fall' has to be in there. I'm mentoring the documentary group [yay!] and thought I'd spend an afternoon making something to show them that in the time they have they could do a few awesome projects.

Anna, Queen of Hula

2008-09-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

So here is a quick 'pre challenge taster' if you will; A film I just made while I was on an intensive documentary making course at the documentary filmmaking group [dfg] in London.

The course was amazing, as were the people I met, and it is what inspired me to start this project.

The Brief

2008-09-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to 52 weeks in a year; You might be wondering what this little slice of internet life is all about, so here are some little questions that I have posed myself and then answered, in a sort of odd, one person based interview.

What is this all about?

I've decided to set myself a challenge: To make a film a week for one year. The films will range from documentaries to music videos, passing through all different genres of fiction films, whilst the length of the projects will vary week by week.

Why am I doing this?

It's really very simple; I'm a wannabe filmmaker, but also a student, and as I'm going into my final year of studying- and consequently the last year of my life where I'm going to have a LOT of time on my hands- I want to achieve something. The aim is to develop my skills, push my ideas and have fun.

Why do I need to set up a blog to do this?

Well, lets be reasonable, even the best of us procrastinate at times, and I have been known to sit on my arse thinking 'oh I should really make a film about this' without actually achieving anything. With this blog, I aim to have a major motivation to complete my projects- namely, somebody, anybody, might just be sitting at their computer waiting to see my next project [we live to dream]. Also, I may be a procrastinator, but I'm also a very sore loser, and I don't think I could deal with the sense of failure hanging over my head if I was to quit this project now that it's out there for potentially anybody to see.

When does it start?

I've got to give myself a little time to sort my shit out, so I've set the date of October 1st 2008 as the date of my first movie upload. From then on new projects will be uploaded every Wednesday for 52 weeks, when the project shall thereby be finished and this site will remain forever for posterity.

Well, I think that's about it for now- until the first upload that is.

Until then, over and out,

Lucy