Neil Oseman
Inspiration and information for filmmakers everywhere
April 25, 2013 by neiloseman

Stop/Eject DVD Sneak Peek

It would be nice to be able to hand out DVDs and Blu-rays to the cast, crew and sponsors at the premiere of Stop/Eject. That means finishing the discs pretty sharpish after the movie is done. I’ve been working on the discs on and off for a while, and yesterday I shot the menus. Yes, you read that right. I shot the menus.

I feel that DVD/BR menus should be an extension of the world of the movie, and I figure: what better way to do that than to use footage from the film combined with new shots that appear to be in the same locations? So, for example, the Special Features menu is a shelf in the charity shop, where each item of junk represents one of the special features. Some of these were found in real charity shops, some of them were made by Sophie, and others were borrowed from friends (thanks to Colin, and Joel at the Rural Media Company). Before long I hope to officially announce the DVD and Blu-ray bonus features, but for now I’ll leave you to guess what each item might represent.

Special Features part 1

Special Features part 1

Special Features part 2 (Blu-ray only)

Special Features part 2 (Blu-ray only)

 

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February 10, 2013 by neiloseman

Random Events on Stop/Eject

Mystery grave

Mystery grave

Here are some of the assorted things I’ve been doing on Stop/Eject lately.

On Wednesday I returned to the Hereford cemetery where, almost a decade ago, in the small hours of a cold and rainy October night, I shot a scene from Soul Searcher. This time I was just there to photograph gravestones for a VFX shot.

On the same day compositing/rotoscoping artist David Robinson delivered the first offical VFX shot, a run-of-the-mill wire removal but extremely well done.

On Friday I recorded this thank you message for everyone who sponsored the project:

Apologies to anyone whose name I’ve mispronounced.

Yesterday Scott Benzie delivered a demo of his beautiful theme for Kate. Much as I liked the first piece he wrote – listen to it here – I felt it emphasised the film’s fantasy aspects too much, and this new piece instead concentrates solely on drama and emotions.

This morning I filmed the tape recorder for probably the last time – not for Stop/Eject itself, but for the DVD/Bluray menus. Tomorrow the recorder gets sent off to Henning Knoepfel so he can record some new foley effects with it (that’s with it, not on it). Henning and I had a great conversation about the direction the sound should take and I’m very excited about how it will turn out. More on that on this blog in due course.

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January 29, 2012 by neiloseman

Soul Searcher: The Return

As previously mentioned, more money needs to be raised ahead of Stop/Eject‘s shoot – which we hope will be in April or May. I can now reveal one of the ways in which we plan to close this funding gap.

Ray Bullock Jnr. as Joe in Soul Searcher

Ray Bullock Jnr. as Joe in Soul Searcher

In 2005 I completed Soul Searcher, described by The Guardian as “a fantasy action movie in the grand style”. With six weeks of night shooting, martial arts fights, 280 FX shots and a climactic chase between a 1973 Ford Mustang and an express train to Hell, Soul Searcher was a tough project to say the least, and I learnt loads from it. It was also my first film to be properly distributed, getting an international DVD release.

So over the next couple of months I’ll be delivering an in-depth lecture about how I financed, shot, post-produced and sold Soul Searcher in various venues around England. There will be lots of clips and behind-the-scenes footage and a Q&A session at the end. These lectures will be FREE to attend, but we will encourage satisfied attendees to contribute a little cash to Stop/Eject at the end.

So far we have the following venues confirmed:

  • Hereford, February 21st, 7pm at The Rural Media Company, Sullivan House, 72-80 Widemarsh Street, HR4 9HG
  • Derby, March 27th, as part of the Five Lamps Film Night at The Quad – details TBC

Details of further venues to follow as they are arranged.

The other big news for Soul Searcher is that, since its distribution contract expires this week, I’ll soon be releasing the film on YouTube. That’s right – it will be FREE to view in full. And there is more news to come regarding the extensive behind-the-scenes material, but I’ll save that for another day.

I’ll leave you with something I came across yesterday while looking through my old hard drive in preparation for this online release: a cheesy music video that was intended to be a DVD extra, but which never made it onto the disc due to lack of space. Enjoy…

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January 18, 2012 by neiloseman

The Next Step

Stop/Eject poster

Stop/Eject poster

It’s been a roller coaster two months and a very educational experience, but Stop/Eject‘s official crowd-funding campaign is now over. Thanks once again to everyone who enabled us to hit our target and get this project back off the ground.

But if you still want to donate, don’t worry; you still can. Just click on the Paypal donate button on the right of this page to make your contribution. Although the exclusive signed DVDs and artwork offered during the official campaign are no longer available, you’ll still get your name in the credits, an invitation to the premiere and access to my indie movie-making budget expose How to Make a Fantasy Action Movie for £28,000. If you want to know more about Stop/Eject you can check out the Stop/Eject page on this site or watch the pitch video.

Although I’m delighted that our campaign succeeded (I convinced myself at many times that it wouldn’t) the curse of filmmaking is that whenever you achieve one difficult task instead of feeling relief you just start stressing about the next difficult task. I don’t know if that’s how other filmmakers find it but it’s always been the way for me.

The next difficult task in this case is raising the rest of the money. Sophie and I have a number of ideas about how to do this and these will be revealed in due course on this site.

The Dark Side of the Earth: Making the Pilot - Special Features DVD menu

The Dark Side of the Earth: Making the Pilot - Special Features DVD menu

The other thing you can look forward to in the next few days and weeks on neiloseman.com is an evaluation of the crowd-funding campaign. I was completely new to this method of raising finance and I’ve learnt a lot from it which I want to share with you all.

For now my most pressing task is the production of the rewards that Stop/Eject’s sponsors have so justly earned. Currently I’m working on the DVD authoring for The Dark Side of the Earth: Making the Pilot and then I’ll need to design the DVD cover and label too. I’ll leave you with a glimpse of this DVD’s Special Features menu.

Oh, and check out the Hereford Journal tonight if you’re local for a photo and article about me and Stop/Eject.

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