In the news...

The exhibition at Orange Studios went really well last week!


It was exciting as it was the premiere of Trainer, which was very well received. We even got a mention from Screen West Midlands who came along to see our short...


Click on the link below to see what they thought - 

Premier Screening of Mucky Duck Media’s Trainer

Where now?

As we have mentioned previously, we are extremely proud of this project and what we have managed to achieve within such a short time. We want this to be more than 'a film we hand in for an assignment and then it gets put on a shelf somewhere to gather dust'.

Our next step of post-prodcution is to scout around for short film festivals where we can enter Trainer and possible online competitions. Once we start this research in more depth we'll post up the places we have been looking at. We will also be posting up short films that have inspired us throughout the making of Trainer and the ways in which they have done so.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Film...DONE

In the words of Gordon Ramsey, Trainer is now well and truly DONE! How exciting!

This week we has the opportunity to sit in at BBC Birmingham whilst Trainer had a sound dub. It was an insightful day as we learnt so much more about post-production than we already knew. We would like to thank the BBC, especially for working alongside us as professionals and giving us this amazing opportunity to learn new skills.

This morning we all headed down to the Aquila editing suite, where Nat Higginbottom has been professionally grading the film for us. We are so please with the final look and can't wait for our first showcase this Monday at Orange Studios, as part of an exhibition by Media Talent Bank. Come down and have a look, not only at Trainer, but all the other exhibitors work; including Animation, Photography, Illustration, Film, Graphic Design and Jewellery: 

Editing

So now all the filming is finished, all the rushes have been passed over to our editor, Chris. Chris has spent the last week, and few days piecing together Trainer in to what we all know will be an exciting edit for the finishing of the film.

As we are trying to make Trainer look and feel the best we can to its audiences, we have been in touch with professionals, asking if they would come to the edit and offer advice and suggestion to ways in which we can edit effectively and creatively. 

Simon Wood from 2K5 Media has come along to the editing suite twice now, both times giving us an honest and critical review of our work. We see this as advice which is crucial to our work, and advice which we full take on board and appreciate... so thank you Simon!

Nearly there with a final edit, but for now, here are some photos of Chris doing what he does best...

 

Runners for the day...

Today, Mucky Duck Media took a trip to Harborne cricket ground to help out Aquila TV. Aquila are a Birmingham based company and offer a range of services from production through to post production.

We are pleased to say that Aquila are another company who we aim to collaborate with, as they too are encouraged by the thought of showcasing all that Birmingham has to offer.  As our offline edit is currently taking place (eek!), this will be finished by Friday 23rd April, as we are then heading off to Aquila to use some of their facilities for colour grading and sound dubbing for Trainer. 

We believe that making such important contacts and having a good relationship with such companies as Aquila mean that collaborations such as this will keep going in the future, meaning Birmingham will be as creative as ever!

Today we were runners on a viral promotional video Aquila were shooting for the Birmingham based radio station, brmb. Brmb's aim for the day, and the advertisements is to celebrate all things made in birmingham.

http://www.aquila-tv.com

A few photos from the day...

That's a wrap!

Last week, all our hard work began with the shooting of Trainer, and we are now in the post-production stage.

We filmed for a total of 5 days in Longbridge, the swimming pool and Perry Hall park. It's been a tough week, early starts and late finishes but we are all happy with how the filming went.

This week editing begins and we all can't wait to see what our first short film looks like!

Some photos on set - 

The team on set -

Photography by Shaun Bransgrove

http://shaunbransgrove.co.uk

Re-building Drama in Birmingham

Last night we all went along to The Bond in Digbeth to attend a night that was generously hosted by Screen West Midlands, SWM are a leading agency for all things television related within the West Midlands, and a company we have found very useful for us as a new independent television production company. Amongst other things they offer financial support for people in the area who are wanting to make a short film etc, and offer educational advice to further the film and media education available in the West Midlands. 

Last nights event was named "Re-building the TV Drama in the West Midlands", as Birmingham seems to be recently attracting high profile television dramas such as Hustle, Spooks and Survivors, how do we encourage this trend to continue and sell Birmingham as a perfect location for such series? 

A panel of professionals consisted of - 

• 
  
  Tony Jordan (Red Planet Pictures, creator Hustle, co-creator Life on Mars)
• 
  
  Peter Lloyd (Series Producer, Doctors)
• 
  
  Michael Eaton (Screenwriter, Fellow Traveller, Signs and Wonders, Shipman)
• 
  
  Lee Thomas (Executive Producer, Production & Development, Screen West Midlands)
• Claire Bennett (TV series writer) 
  
• Claire Parker (Kudos Executive Producer) 

The panel started by introducing themselves and giving a quick biography of the involvement they have had with television Drama, they then went on to discuss their opinions and views of how the West Midlands can start to re-build the drama content coming out of it. 

Points of interest we took away from the evening were - 

• Online Drama - there seems to be good investment for people within the Drama industry to create dramas for an online content. It is easy and cheap to do and means that the programme can be set anywhere as it is not having to necessarily fit to certain commissioning briefs. 
• The re-build of the Drama industry is not one large movement, it is a large jigsaw and all the pieces need to be gradually found and put into place. Hustle and Spooks being filmed in the area is one piece of this jigsaw, we now need a way to find more pieces and encourage them to come here.
• When nothing is being made here, nothing else will come. The barrier has now been broken and we need to ensure the stability of this industry and what Birmingham can offer.

There were many media professionals that attended the event; scriptwriters, production companies, editors and freelancers that all have a passion to explore Birmingham and want to increase the amount of Drama being made here. The floor was opened up to a discussion of the ways in which we can all work together to put Birmingham back on the map, as an ideal location for production. 

Contributions and decisions that were made consisted of - 

• How do we start? How do we get noticed? Something needs to be produced that makes the city globally sellable. 
• Online Drama content is a biggy! We must try and push this forwards.
• There was talk of setting up a site where we can all post our ideas and thoughts.
• Think of a way local companies can be helped and kept in a sustainable position to keep creating the content needed.
• Get everyone to work together, think outside the box - consider other professionals you can work with.
• With all this we can then work towards a specific collaboration. 

The night was especially helpful for us, as we feel Trainer is an example of putting Drama back on the map for Birmingham as we aim to showcase local talent and we have collaborated with professionals and people starting out, trying to break into the industry, as well as showing how diverse a location Birmingham is. We had the opportunity to network with these people, tell them of our project and get to know what others are doing in the area to celebrate Birmingham. 

It has also given us the opportunity to better understand where the future of Birmingham is heading in terms of television Drama and Drama shorts, and it is now clear to us that productions like Trainer are in high demand for the West Midlands. 

Jaguar

Yesterday Siobhan and Ash took a trip to the Jaguar factory in Castle Bromwich to record sound for Trainer. 


The site in Castle Bromwich is one of the few car manufacturing companies within the UK, and we were lucky enough to be able to see the site whilst recording there. Jaguar create up to 700 cars a week from this area, and at the moment they are working on their new model, The New XJ...exciting!! 


After using all transport available to man, bar an airplane, Ash and Siobhan made it to the site receiving a warm and friendly welcome from everyone there. We were given a health and safety talk, ensuring we were aware of the passage ways available for us to walk on whilst in the factory spaces. We were then kited up with safety goggles and high visibility jackets and taken to the area where the shell bodies of the cars are put together and secured. Here we were allowed to record any sound we thought would be useful for us. 


The sound we captured was exactly what we were looking for, we feel we have truly captured all the sounds that emulate a car manufacturing factory, this will aid us with a shot we hope will be one of the most memorable and influential shots within Trainer.    


We would like to thank Jaguar, and especially Amanda Horder who was our contact there. 


Also a big thank you to Brian who escorted us around the site, and captured Ash and Siobhan looking their best...

Social Media Workshop

On Monday 22nd March, we attended another interesting and eye-opening event hosted by Trinket Creative. The day consisted of a talk from Pete Ashton, the founder of Created in Birmingham, and all round social media guru, and then after a short mingling break we broke off into two groups and had discussions with other professionals with an interest in social media. The Mucky Duck Media team went along and helped film the day.

As well as filming the day we also took a lot away from it, the talk by Pete Ashton helped us understand the benefits of utilising social media, and the most effective ways of doing this. He is heavily involved with all things creative within Bimingham and so it was good to have the opportunity to meet him and hear his advice on ways in which we can use social media, such as this blog, to further our creativity and showcase our work and interests.

Other professional involved with the day were; Simon Partington who works for Kinetic PR, Kate Hughes from Wolverhampton Homes, Nicky Getgood who write a blog about Digbeth and Alison Smith from Pesky People. During the workshops we were able to sit down with these people and discuss the ways in which we use social media at the moment, and how we can learn and progress our skills to develop this further. Their advice was something we really have taken into consideration and since then we have an understanding of the way we can use social media to get our work noticed. 

Not sure if I have posted this before... but there's no harm in doing it twice. You can find us on Twitter @Muckyduckmedia, to keep updated with everything we are doing!!

Thanks again to Trinket Creative, we are all looking forward to the next workshop.   

Actors

After having a good response from actors interested in playing the parts of Kirsty, the swimmer and Jim, her trainer, the past couple of weeks we have been going through a casting process to find our perfect actors.

We spent a few days auditioning all our actors individually and then we managed to cut it down for call backs where we did a full read through of the script with both characters. For the individual auditions we spent a lot of time talking to the actors, finding out about them and their interests, as we were interested in them as people, as well as their acting ability. We also gave them the opportunity to express their thoughts about the script, production and to expand on their personal views about the characters, their back stories and relationships. All of this helped us get a feel of how they saw the character they were auditioning for, and this was great for us to have the opportunity to delve into and develop Kirsty and Jim's back stories.

We now have decided upon our two actors, and after auditioning them together, we feel they encompass everything we see within the characters, and we are excited to see the end result on camera!

Playing the part of Kirsty we have Maryann O'Brien and playing the part of Jim, Greg Hobbs.

Maryann is a third year student at Birmingham School of Acting, she is an enthusiast

ic actress who has completed roles such as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet, as well as Hypatia within the production Misalliance.

Greg is an established actor, perfect for playing the role of Jim. He is keen to get involved with many areas of our production and is enthusiastic too about the script. Greg has experience within the field of feature length and short film. Productions he has acted in include both short films Rush and Lister.

Mucky Duck Media would like to thank them for all their help so far, and we really look forward to working with them on this project, and hopefully more within the future!

Maryann O'Brien 
Greg Hobbs