Hey peeps, speaking to our keen Salfordite, and festival guru Mr Steve Balshaw it has been confirmed that the standard of output from Manchester, Salford, and Bolton these days is at an all time high. Its an exciting time to be a film maker here in the northwest, as so many options have opened up, people are communicating, collaborating, and there has even been a movement established which sums it up perfectly - The Northwest New Wave.

As ZFF’s output is moving along with these exciting developments, and our skill base improving quickly; the question is posed, as to what we should focus our skills to.

Talking personally, as much as I have enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity of making these little niche wedding video’s, I know that I have been distracted, and frankly; while its clear these video’s have improved my knowledge of production, crewing, camera’s, lighting, and editing, they have also served as a pigeon holing exercise, and minor setback to my ultimate ambitions: to direct narrative films!

Therefore this is where I’ll be focussing my attentions in the coming months, and I’m hoping I can be allowed the space and freedom to get my new project off the ground - “Will Power”, before returning to that niggling super ambition of a project - “The Other Extreme”.

This is of course at the same time I’ll be polishing off “New Blood” for festival submission, which I unfortuanatly had to put on the back burner due to new projects coming in. Next year is all about Narrative! And let no wedding project put me asunder!

Hey folks, it has no doubt been noted that things have been a little quiet in the ZFF camp in recent months - far from it. On the contary we have all been very busy, several steps have shifted us all towards our goals. Rob has invested in all new gear and taken part time in his day job to pursue music and sound freelance work. Phil has made a couple of outstanding films and proven once again his prowess in sound engineering has developed exponentially. I myself have knocked out four or five projects in as many months, exploring content, lighting, and production, and Mat has really come into his own in the last 6 months, again knocking out as many projects several of which we can all be proud of. The Catalyst?: Kabaret!

We’ve collectively and seperately engaged with two Kabaret’s this year, and I must say what a fantastic initiative they are to get people motivated and excited about film making. Some great projects came out of the Kabaret’s this year. We’re actually a little gutted as at present we can’t share some of these projects online. The feeling is that we should think about putting some forward for festival submission, I know from my side I’d like to shape up my Kabaret film “New Blood” for the festival circuit.

On a seperate note was discussing with Mat how fantastic it is to see an explosion of talent in Manchester in the last 12 to 18 months. With all the media attention descending on Manchester in the next few years, its good to see they will be spoilt for choice when Media City eventualy opens its doors. Above all else though its a really positive light thats being cast upon the film community in recent times, we’re all very excited to see where it will go in the next 12-18 months.

Another tasty development/proposal that came out of Kabaret: a feature “R.A.B” - see our video page!

Until next time

Phil the Sitar Player

The Manchester Kabaret is almost upon us, and we’re all willing and ready to descend upon it. It is clear that there is a new wind blowing through the ZFF camp at the moment, ambition, concentration, and tenacity are prevailant in the projects we’ve got collectively planned for the coming year. Matt is busy addressing a creative burst he’s had for his feature film project and is making remarkable developments in its form and content. Rob is busy arranging a secret music project, and is making significant investments in his equipment catalogue over the next few months, Phil is busy being a legend in all things web, scripts,  sound engineering, and Kabaret, and I am planning a short to be shot at Kabaret that will be utilising as many of the best resources available to ZFF as possible.

About 6-7 months ago I was silly enough to be rewarded a forfeit at a filmonik event to recreate the music video - The Never Ending Story. Of course this was met with several laughs and jaunts, I was unashamed to admit I quite liked the song but was obviously aware of its reputation as being… well… shit. It took a while to get round to, but then at the Filmonik screening in December when I confessed to Steve Balshaw I had been neglecting the forfeit, he replied “What forfeit?” to which I replied “You know, the Never Ending Story” and he said “Oh… Limahl, the living toilet brush” The rest as they say, is history. And so began ZFF’s first tentative steps into 2010. See our video section.

We’ve been lucky here at ZFF. The November Mini - Kabaret incorporated all our efforts, and as usual the pressure of being in that environment forced us all to expand our skill base. We’re very lucky to have an initiative such as this at our disposal to field test idea’s and techniques, and if you’re reading this, and you have a film making itch you need to scratch then we highly reccomend you have a go. Visit www.filmonik.co.uk to learn more details.  A worthy initiative and a good laugh to boot!

The Music Video project has made its way onto the web site, so please visit our films section to give it a view.

Festivals wise, we’ve submitted to several. Cactus Selves was recently accepted into The Manchester Kino Shorts Film Festival, and has a preliminary screening and directors Q & A with our very own Mat Johns on the 9th December at The Green Room in Manchester. So come along if you’re free! 

Website! We have also been very fortuanate in gaining a website this year. However there is always room for improvement.  We have gained direction, and our experience is opening up opportunities to work in the corporate sector, as well as weddings, on top of the other professional work we perform already. We have therefore decided that the website needs updating as a result, a site that reflects our diverse multi media ambitions… watch this space.

It started out as a short. It then became an epic short. It is now, more or less… a feature. My own project that I’ve been working tirelessly on has been polished into a 120 page draft that we’ll be looking at closely in the new year. The research and preperation paid off, and am very happy with how this draft has turned out.

We’ve had some good news lately, our two submissions got rejected for funding from North West Vision!  (How can this be good news?) Well, the best thing about this is that NWV have passed up an amazing opportunity. Their loss is our gain, and in a way we are indebted to them because the deadline they provided us gave us the necessary pressure to get the scripts finished and production pitched. We always said these films would get made; funded or not. Any way you look at it, we have two worthy projects to get under way next year, two stirling opportunities to amplify production value, and our collective experience with Kabaret is providing us with the networking opportunities, contacts, and experience to bridge the next threshold. A good project to get the new year up and running is Mat Johns “Frankly” which we’ll be having discussions about soon.

Thankyou for sticking with the update, there have been several things to shout home about. Exciting times! Happy holidays to you all, and we hope to see some of you at the Kino screening on the 9th.

Tim

So, there’s a new script. I’ve been working away at this one for a wee while now, maybe a month or so. I’ve scrapped scenes and re-wrote them and and then scrapped them again… But I arrived at a successful 3rd draft at the end of last week. The working title is ‘Frankly’, though this likely to change. It centres around the story of an old widower and a particularly significant day in his life. I’ve wanted to get this character into something for a few months but had trouble settling in his world, but I think I have it now. I have sent the script to Peter Sharratt, whose worked with us on Returned, Just Us and Cactus Selves. He’s said he’s more than happy to move with the script and now its a case of developing the character further with Peter. I am quite keen to use non-professional actors for several of the supporting roles to try and get a more ‘earthy’ set of characters with faces people won’t recognize from other films. Hopefully, we’ll be able to take this film to shooting early in the new year.

Also, Suspicion is still on the plate. We are making slight alterations to the script but there is nothing massive to change. As with all projects, its simply a case of finding the time to move forward. I’m hip deep in work at the moment and the likelihood of any of these films being made by the years end is quite slim, but you never know! We’ve all got work on and Phil is away for the month of October on tour with The Orchestra (formally ELO). So we’ll see what happens on the run up to Christmas.

Tim is still developing his ‘epic short’ film, The Other Extreme, the script of which is gaining strength and depth with every word that’s added to it. We’re keen to see where this is going and will soon be having some kind of run through. Rob has picked up his guitar and is writing some original tracks both alone and in collaboration with Alice Brockway, one of our regular actors. Phil is also in the process of revising ‘Post-It Apocalypse’. So things are moving. And we like it this way.

Adios for now. MJ.

Yan Yurko in a still from the Music Video Project

Since Music Video project was completed, ZFF has been bogged down in admin and general day to day responsibilities to life and career. However admin is also including tasty developments such as submitting select ZFF films for national and international festivals. This has been tremendously important in making people aware of our collective work, and raising our profile. Now it seems it may have a slight pay-off, as ZFF and the “Music Video” project might soon be getting some exposure in a national magazine. This of course will be invaluable in letting people know the level of creative service we are making available to them. For while we make short films, we are also a creative service for hire, and “The Music Video Project” is a great example of the type of service we offer.

On a seperate note, while we are on subject of short film. Last time I checked Mr Johns is chipping away at a new short alongside Suspicion which has (it seems) become a bit of a labour of love for him. Also - I know he likes to be secretive about what he’s up to, but Rob has a short up his sleeve too. Watch this space for more developments.

And finally, I myself am working tirelessly on my ongoing epic short, which in itself is becoming a bit of a “long” short. However I’m immensly proud of where it’s going. The research and time gone into it is paying off day by day as the new threads takes shape. It’s a really interesting journey to see how it started as a 3 - 5 minute short, and see how its transcended into (maybe) a 20-30 minute film. Exciting stuff.

ZFF’s Music Video was completed 2 days ago. Much to the delight of all concerned, it was finished two days ahead of schedule. Leaving enough time to burn off umpteen DVD’s for everyone who partook in the project, ready for the screening on Saturday night. As of next week we’ll be discussing our next step which will no doubt be getting “Kicks” and “Cactus Selves” out into festivals. Start promoting the idea’s and and projects completed by zero facility. If anyone reading this post helped in the production of the music video - I thank you once again! You were all spellbinding!

Well, I suppose these things happen. Work, once again, has got in the way. Between the 3 films I’m making for Manchester International Festival (with a beginning of July deadline) and the Feast Festival promo, my time is gradually being taken up… Thus, being able to rehearse/shoot/cut/grade Suspicion is not possible for the June 22nd deadline. We’ve put the film on hold until the end of July/beginning of August. HOWEVER, we’re taking this a good thing! Ultimately, this will enable us to take the proper time for pre-production AND allow us to make a longer cut of the film, instead of the 2min 20sec version Virgin Media Shorts would have required. We all feel SUSPICION would work better with a longer cut, maybe 5mins or there abouts. I’m actually very happy wth the decision we have made. This relieves so much pressure from all of us here and as I said earlier, it gives us the time we need to make it and make it right. I’m still very excited about making this film, and we all want it to be the very best it can be.

So, there we are. We all need to work to pay the bills and this isn’t the first time Real Life has intervened, nor shall it be the last. That’s just the way it goes. This means the film will be made later on, it doesn’t mean the film will not be made. Can’t let it grind ya down.

Adios for now. MJ.

The next month is going to be earth shatteringly busy for ZFF. It’s encouraging that after such a short time for us all working under this banner we would become so busy. The first project to be spewed out of the ZFF machine is the ‘music video project’ which is keeping “House 9 Post” busy. Once we’ve hit June 20th deadline with that, we’ll be focussing on getting our best projects distributed to film festivals to gain a little exposure. At the same time we’ll be throwing our weight behind pre production for “Suspicion”, whilst doing final re draft for “The Other Extreme” a short which we’ll hope to shoot towards the back end of the year. More importantly we’ll be going to see Transformers 2 in coming weeks, and dream of the day we could shoot IMAX, AND make a decent film.  ; )

Post production for “Suspicion” took one step closer to preperation today when House 9 Post took delivery of its premiere “kick ass” Mac Pro. 

This machine will be put through its paces in the coming weeks on the “Music Video” project which has already begun shooting. Myself and Mat went out to Temple Newsham on Tuesday and shot some fantastic footage, and among other things got completely sunburned due to the staggeringly perfect weather. 

Whilst the Mac Pro will be working tirelessly on the “Music Video” project in time for the June 20th deadline, House 9 Post will be taking delivery of hardware upgrades necessary for post on “Suspicion”.  Hardware capable of editing high end HD. We are all very excited about raising the bar that little bit higher.