As the summer holidays have drawn to a close, I shall reflect and summarise how it’s gone for a Midlands-based filmmaker, not just regarding projects, but in general.
You may have seen that I’m developing a new freelance videography business. For those of you who don’t know, Videos R Go specialises in video production for music gigs, theatre shows and other public events. The information is displayed in the following website;
Of course, I did film some event related videos before the formation. However, this was a freelance thing and I had not yet come up with a name.
With that said, I have kept myself busy throughout the vacation. I got on with my daytime job, but I have filmed a few videos, many of which took place at a local garden festival in Leicestershire organised by one of my cousins. The festival is called Bloodstock (a little bit of a play-on words from the festival Woodstock) and it first ran about 3 years ago. Believe it or not, not only did I film parts of the event, but I also performed there – for those who don’t know, I’m also passionate about guitar playing. There are more videos to come, but this is one of them;
I have also gained a couple of extra credits in the sound department. One was a promotional video filmed around late July, All The World’s A Pub, which was directed by fellow Leicestershire-based filmmaker, Rajnish Sharma, and stars Ken Huggett, who’s, well put it this way, been in a lot of things lately. My credit also goes to fellow sound guy, Samvaran Rai, who really knew his stuff – he’s even got a lot of experience using the Zoom F8N, and finally to all the rest involved.
The other projects I helped out on sound-wise consisted of two music videos – each for a song recorded by musician Kenton Hall (this is his YouTube channel). This is one of the songs displayed below;
For those who don’t know, some years ago, Kenton also directed the feature film, A Dozen Summers. For those videos in particular that I mentioned, I used my own equipment and put it to really good use. I also demonstrated my willingness to perform additional duties i.e. positioning the light reflectors.
And Kenton, if you and/or the rest of the guys are hearing this, it’s been really awesome to work with you.
Of course, I’ve also got some projects in the works as you can see on the link above, Upcoming. I have especially been working on the development of the upcoming short film, The Golden Tree, and am currently going through the production process of my first CG animated film. In fact, here’s a rough snippet below;
And before I close this post, you may have noticed on the Upcoming Projects page that I am in fact also writing a children’s book, which is a fantasy story about a little girl who discovers her enchanted abilities to soar through the skies and discovers that the greatest magic lies in believing in the extraordinary. It’s got a little bit of a Mary Poppins-style flavour to it. Currently, I’ve reached the sixth chapter and I’m debating with myself about which title to use. This is quite new to me as I normally write scripts. But considering that I studied Creative Writing and considering that authors i.e. Roald Dahl and Michael Crichton have written both books and scripts, I believe that this could be an opportunity to expand myself creatively and demonstrate a writing-based bias. Plus I have always wanted to aim some of my projects to children, this included.
And finally speaking of Mary Poppins, since the film has recently reached its 60th anniversary, I intend to write a review in one of the next blog posts.
Watch this space.
JDE Films 
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