Zen Films

San Francisco Buddhist Centre Screening

Arrived in San Francisco on Friday and 3pm and headed over to the Buddhist Centre on Barlett between 21st and 22nd Street to White Light author Bill Scheinman. Bill had seen an early cut of MindFlesh back in the spring at the World Horror Convention in Toronto. The film didn't have any sound design or music at that time and this was a new cut.

I'm very grateful to the Buddhist Centre folks for allowing me the space and use of their projector and speakers - it meant I was able to project from my laptop and Bill could get a little of the feeling of what the film might be like on the big screen :)

Staying with Bill for the moment, his follow-up novel to White Light (that I adapted for the screen and became MindFlesh), Raptures is available to buy at LuLu.com. Check it out, it's a good read.

London Voodoo download

Ok, so I know that certain people have ripped our movie from the DVD and illegally given it away via bit torrent sites. Quite what their motivation is to steal from independent filmmakers and deprive us of much needed revenues, I don't know. BUT recently I've come across a need breed of scumbag that's actually charging for downloads!

I did have the audacity to email one of these pricks and by way of reply got a barrage of spam. I kinda guessed that might happen :)

If you are an honest and decent person and would like to legally download London Voodoo, you can do so via the official website www.londonvoodoo.com (hosted via Brightcove), Vuze (which incidentally is a great portal) or via the only licenced online distributors www.jaman.com (our film isn't live yet but ought to be soon).

UK Film Council wants your support

We received an email today from the UK Film Council asking for us to complete a questionnaire. Apparently by us helping them, they will be better able to support our sector (ie. independent filmmakers).

I replied saying that in this endeavor the UK Film Council could expect as much support from Zen Films as they have given us ;)

HDCAM vs HDCAM-SR

There's a fair description of HDCAM and HDCAM-SR on Wikipedia but I couldn't find a simple quick reference guide - so here's just the comparison table I needed:

                       HDCAM              HDCAM-SR
frame size    1440 x 1080           1920 x 1080
color space    8-bit 3:1:1            10-bit 4:4:4
audio            4 chans 48KHz       12 chans 48Hks

A-Bomb in Wardour Street

Wow - what a weird feeling. I'm sat in Starbucks on Wardour Street after having handed in my harddrive to Stanleys. I finally did it. It's going to cost about £600 to get the film transferred to HDCAM (£200+VAT) then the HDCAM transferred to DigiBeta (£200 + VAT) and then the digiBeta transferred to DVD so that I can watch it all back at home to check the transfer. Obviously I can't check the quality of the transfer, just that it has been transferred and both the stereo audio channels synced correctly.

Of course this isn't the end of spending... for the film festivals I'll have to get digiBeta and HDCAM-SR clones made (so that I retain the masters) and I'll have to get the same again in NTSC. My plan is to wait until I'm in San Francisco to get the NTSC transfers - popular rumour has it that it'll be cheaper. Stay tuned to find out.

The first chance I'll get to check the HDCAM-SR transfer is at the cast and crew screening in November - we're projecting the hidef tape via a 2k projector. Nice... I hope.

It feels strangely nostalgic updating the blog in this Starbucks. It was two years ago in this coffee shop that we discussed shooting MindFlesh in Thailand... how different the film would have been! :)