Suit You, Sir!

February 16, 2012August 3, 2013 neilosemancostume, financing, preproduction, production, video

Benedict Cumberbatch as Max (photos by Richard Unger)

As regular readers will know, Sophie Black and I have raised over £2,000 for Stop/Eject through crowd-funding, and we’re doing some filmmaking lectures soon which will serve as fundraising events to increase that budget. (Don’t forget the Hereford one is next week, Tuesday, 7pm at The Rural Media Company.) The third and final piece of the fundraising puzzle is the sale of the “germ suit” worn by Benedict Cumberbatch in the pilot for my in-development fantasy film, The Dark Side of the Earth.

Benedict was playing Maximillian Clarke, a paranoid hypochondriac who’s so afraid of germs that he lives inside a sealed suit that filters all the bacteria out of his air and food. Isabelle Vincey, the heroine, finds him surviving in an igloo on the Dark Side of the Earth and he joins her on her quest to start the world turning again.

The suit was built by FBFX, whose credits include armour and special costumes for such films as Troy, Gladiator, The Phantom Menace and Event Horizon. Here’s the podcast about them building and testing it:

Benedict was a real trooper on the shoot. He was trailing cables and pipes, carrying all the weight of the suit, blinded by the fogging visor and deafened by the compressor that kept the suit inflated. Every time Katie took his helmet off he was sweating buckets. But he never complained. (By contrast, after he’d left – to go to the BBC for the first read-through of Sherlock – we put crew member AJ Nicol in the suit for five minutes for a wide shot and he came out swearing and cursing and moaning.) Here’s the podcast about shooting with the suit, featuring an interview with Benedict:

Since that shoot, in December 2008, the suit has been in a box in my loft. I always hoped one day I would live somewhere with enough space to display it on a mannequin, but there wasn’t much chance of that in the foreseeable future, so this year I figured it was time to trade it in for some filmmaking cash. If The Dark Side of the Earth ever gets off the ground, we can always build another one – an even better one.

Originally I planned to sell the suit on eBay, promoting the auction to Benedict fan sites and the like, but then Sophie put me in touch with David Bidwell, owner of The Monster Company. This Nottingham-based company sells movie props and memorabilia.

David was excited when I told him about the suit and Dark Side in general, and this morning he paid me a visit to check out the suit and watch the pilot. He loved the pilot so much he asked to watch it a second time. He went away with the suit tucked under his arm (alright, draped over his arm and with me following carrying a couple of boxes with the rest of it in) and the Stop/Eject budget looking a little healthier.

Additional: Here’s an interesting article on The Benedict Cumberbatch Situation, which suggests he’s getting quite a following on the other side of the pond.

Blackout

February 15, 2012 neilosemancrowd funding

A shout out today for Blackout, a short film written and directed by James Bushe, and DPed and edited by Gerard Giorgi-Coll, two of The Dark Side of the Earth‘s brilliant behind-the-scenes camera ops. They’ve already shot their film – and damn nice it looks too, as you can see from the video above – and are now seeking funds for post-production. I’ve put in what I can and I hope you’ll all do the same. I can”t wait to see how this project turns out.

Visit the Blackout campaign page at http://www.indiegogo.com/Blackout-1

DIY Cyclotron

February 11, 2012August 3, 2013 neilosemanbuild, diy, lighting, preproduction, video

Last time I tried to help build something for one of my films, I ended up supergluing my fingers together. (A couple of hours later, after the rest of the construction crew had laughed themselves silly and placed bets on how long it would take me to separate my fingers, I finally parted the digits by sawing through the join with a disposable plastic knife.)

Which is why you may be suspicious to see that in this new Stop/Eject podcast I apparently display perfect competence in woodworking and associated arts, and manage to produce a decent-looking item at the end of it. Is something fishy going on? I couldn’t possibly say.

If you enjoyed this, please consider clicking the Donate button in the sidebar to the right and helping to fund the film.

Distrify

February 9, 2012February 9, 2012 neilosemandistribution

Filming with the full-size train and the Mustang

Today I want to explain a little about Distrify, the on-demand video platform which Going to Hell: The Making of Soul Searcher is now hosted on.

When selling films on-demand on the internet became a reality a few years ago, it wasn’t that different to other modes of distribution. The filmmaker licensed the exclusive IP (internet protocol) rights to their film to the platform – Joost, Babelgum, whatever – and it was then largely up to the platform to bring in the traffic. The platform then took a big slice of the financial pie and passed the dregs onto the filmmaker.

But in the last couple of years a different model has emerged, championed both by Distrify and Dynamo Player amongst others. Their set-up is more a like a YouTube with money. You upload your film to their site, you embed the film on your own site and wherever else you want, you drive traffic to it, and they take a relatively small cut of the money the film makes. No exclusivity, no middle men, no chasing sales reports – just log in and check the stats.

Distrify in particular has two unique features that appealed to me.

Firstly, the Distrify player doesn’t just allow the viewer to watch a free trailer and pay to stream the whole film if they like what they see; it lets you sell anything you want – other films (perhaps behind-the-scenes featurettes), downloads of films or any type of file, or physical objects which you mail to the buyer like you would with eBay.

Secondly, Distrify encourages people to promote your film by giving them a cut of the profits; anyone who shares your film by embedding it on their website, posting on Facebook, etc, etc, gets a percentage of the money the film earns through this embed/post/whatever.

So what this means in practice is: if you click the Share button in the player below you can earn yourself some easy cash – a 10% cut for doing pretty much nothing….

Soul Searcher Released Online

February 6, 2012 neilosemandistribution, video

Soul Searcher. Photography: John Galloway

The wait is over. Soul Searcher is now available to view in full for free at neiloseman.com/soulsearcher

Here are some of the lovely things reviewers have said about the film:

“A fantasy action movie in the grand style… It looks great and moves beautifully… As a statement of potential, Soul Searcher must be one of the best-value films ever made.” – The Guardian

“This is ground breaking digital film-making, it has heart and soul, and action and excitement. You should be watching this George [Lucas]! If it doesn’t get itself a cult following, I’ll eat my keyboard!” – Impact Magazine

“British low budget film at its cheekiest, but at times breathtaking, best.” – Shooting People Review

“Miles ahead of some of the multi-million dollar blockbusters I’ve seen.” – Disorder Magazine

“Oseman’s film is entertaining, beautifully directed, well acted, and spins one hell of a fantasy yarn that you’ll dig.” – Cinema Crazed

“An enjoyable triumph of a piece.” – Rogue Cinema

“Soul Searcher defies its limitations to show itself as the work of a director and his crew genuinely intent on contributing to cinema.” – Frightfest

“I’m a little bit in love with this film.” – Horror Talk

So what are you waiting for? Get on over to neiloseman.com/soulsearcher

Back into Hell

February 4, 2012 neilosemandistribution

Two days to go until Soul Searcher is unleashed to watch in full for free. Simultaneously, Going to Hell: The Making of Soul Searcher will be released on Distrify to stream online for just £2.95.

Going to Hell is a 90 minute documentary which tells the whole tortured story of Soul Searcher’s production. This is not your typical “HBO First Look” style programme. It is not filled with actors explaining the plot of the film you’ve just watched and patting each other on the back. It’s a no-holds-barred, warts-and-all record of the many ups and downs (mostly downs) of the production. It’s like Lost in La Mancha, only Soul Searcher somehow got finished.

I was delighted to discover that Raindance selected Going to Hell as one of its top six documentaries about filmmaking, alongside such towering classics of the genre as the aforementioned Lost in La Mancha and Heart of Darkness. Read the article here.

Here’s the official Going to Hell synopsis:

In April 2002, writer-director Neil Oseman and writer-producer James Clarke set out to make an ambitious fantasy-adventure movie. Telling the story of an ordinary guy who is trained to be the new Grim Reaper, Soul Searcher requires martial arts, countless special effects and a climactic chase between a 1973 Ford Mustang and an express train to Hell.  Despite the pair’s optimism and over a year of development work, they are unable to raise financing for the project. Oseman decides to go ahead with the film on a shoestring budget, and although Clarke has reservations, he agrees.

In October 2003 they begin a six week shoot, taking place almost entirely at night, with an unpaid cast and crew. They have just £7,000 in the bank.  The shoot quickly becomes a nightmare with freezing temperatures, props that fall apart and a malfunctioning camera.

But the problems are just beginning. Two weeks in, Clarke quits, leaving Oseman and his heroic Assistant Director Ed Reed to carry the project. The schedule overruns, exhausting cast and crew as they shoot from 5pm to 9am more than once. 

As post-production arrives, the troubles continue. Reed drops out, the money is long gone and there are 250 FX shots to complete, not to mention that Oseman is dead-set on recording the score with a real orchestra. Can he complete what may just be the most ambitious movie ever made on a five figure budget?

Also from Monday, for £3.95 you’ll be able to rent the deluxe edition of Going to Hell, which includes some invaluable “how to” featurettes for any indie filmmaker covering low tech FX, lighting, martial arts, props and sound design. That’s almost two and a half hours of content for less than £4 – bargain!

Rewards, Distribution and Scheduling

February 1, 2012August 3, 2013 neilosemancrowd funding, distribution, preproduction, producing, scheduling, video

You can say what you like about digital distribution, but nothing beats the feeling of opening a box of DVDs fresh from the duplicators, all packaged with lovely covers and on-disc artwork. The download generation will really miss out on an experience there.

Yes, today the DVD dupes of Video8 and The Dark Side of the Earth: Making the Pilot arrived, so I spent the morning signing them, parcelling them up along with thank you notes and posting them to the Stop/Eject sponsors. If you contributed £50 or more and you haven’t given Sophie your address yet, then please do so because you’re missing out on your well-earned rewards otherwise.

The other thing that happened today is that Soul Searcher‘s five year distribution deal expired. If you’re interested to know how that worked out for me financially, just click on the donate button to the right and you’ll get access to an in-depth video on the subject.

As for the film’s future, I can now reveal that Soul Searcher will be online to view in full for free from next Monday Februrary 6th. Watch this space for the link.

In the mean time, here’s another DVD extra that never made it to the disc…

Soul Searcher: The Return

January 29, 2012June 2, 2012 neilosemanDVD authoring, financing, lecturing, video

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

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…

The British Film Industry

January 27, 2012 neilosemanfinancing

Yesterday I was interviewed by RKD Films for their feature documentary, working title: “The British Film Industry”. They had found me through the Midlands Today report and initially wanted to talk to me about crowd-funding, but after visiting my websites decided to focus more on my career history and the support I’ve received from public funding bodies…. or not.

RKD have already shot 30 interviews with a variety of people from indie filmmakers to Ben Kingsley, and they have plenty more planned. Their aim is to build up a picture of filmmaking in Britain today, with particular emphasis on what the government is and isn’t doing to support the industry. It should prove very interesting viewing.

Crowd-Funding Evaluation Part 4: Platform and Rewards

January 26, 2012August 3, 2013 neilosemancrowd funding, financing, preproduction

New crowd-funding websites are still popping up, so I’m not going to attempt a comprehensive list of them, but here are the main ones:

Name	All or nothing?	Currency	Fee
Indiegogo	No	$	4% if you reach your target, 9% if not. Extra fees apply if you’re not in the US.
Kickstarter	Yes	$	5% Note: you need to be a US resident.
We Fund	Yes	£	5%? Their website isn’t very clear about this.
We Did This	Yes	£	5%
Sponsume	No	£	4%
Crowdfunder	Yes	£	5%

Note that most if not all of these sites charge sponsors a Paypal/Amazon fee on top of their donations.

Crowdfunding sites fall into two categories: “all or nothing” and “keep it all”. “All or nothing” sites return the money to the sponsors if you don’t reach your target by the deadline.

So why did Sophie and I choose this kind of site? A good question, and one several sponsors asked me during the campaign. Two reasons:

It would have been impossible to make the film for less than £2,000. Even as it is we have to raise further money.
A ticking clock motivates sponsors, particularly towards the end of a campaign. Undoubtedly many of the people who donated at the eleventh hour did so because they didn’t want to see us fail and get none of the money. If we would have got the money regardless, I’m sure some of those people wouldn’t have bothered contributing.

DVD copies of Soul Searcher were amongst the rewards.

And why did we choose Crowdfunder over the other “all or nothing” sites? Mainly because Sophie’s successful Jar of Angels campaign had run on there. Also we were keen to use a site that works in sterling, because we knew most of our sponsors would be British and we thought some of them might be put off by a foreign currency.

It was only when the campaign was running that I realised Crowdfunder could be a little more streamlined. Two or three people contacted me to say they wanted to donate but couldn’t figure out how to do it. There’s no “fund now” button unless you’ve set up an account and logged in – and having to set up an account in itself puts some people off, although Crowdfunder has one of the quickest account set-up procedures I’ve ever seen on a website.

I’ve sent this feedback to Crowdfunder and hopefully they will be able to act on it in the future.

A signed print of this artwork by Sophie Black was one of the rewards.

Finally a word about the rewards. We wanted to be able to send out the rewards pretty quickly after the campaign finished, so we didn’t offer anything tied to Stop/Eject itself except a thank you in the credits and a print of Sophie’s living room artwork. Instead we offered downloads and DVDs of my previous films, signed posters, and even 35mm frames from The Dark Side of the Earth‘s pilot.

Coming up with original and enticing rewards is very difficult. I’m not sure the ones we came up with were anything special, but fortunately people don’t tend to donate for the rewards. Most people just want to be part of something and help out, in which case rewards that involve them in the film – visit the set, be an extra, DVD copy, premiere invite, etc. – are probably the best way to go. I think that’s what I’ll offer next time.

I hope you’ve found these evaluation blogs interesting. Let me know how you get on with your own campaigns. Meanwhile, I’ll be back soon with news of the other fund-raising efforts which will soon kick in for Stop/Eject.

Neil Oseman

Director of Photography

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