Local Film Night @ Slogan

Two blogs in one night! Oh how I am good to you (not that theres anybody out there...out there...out....the...)

Friday night was the second Project Slogan film night arranged by my old buddy The Mood of Collapse. I missed the last one due to the Shingles story arc, but was feeling fit for this one and glad I did cause it was a really good night. As the night went on more and more people crammed their way into Slogan as iammartin kindly demonstrates:
Work-wise the night was a mixed bag but leaned more towards the impressive, providing a really good impression of the sort of thing being put together out there in Aberdeen's mean streets. 

First up was a trailer for a documentary about Wattie, a 44 year old rigger from Stonehaven who is attempting the Iditarod, the world's toughest dog sled race, which takes in Alaska. The film, obviously a trail put out to spark interest from possible funders, gets the idea of the story across quite nicelly, and I look forward to seeing the main feature.

Id have to say that the worst thing about Donside Productions is their name, but that aside their film "Life in Ruins" was an odd yet hilarious take on the Mockumentary format. It follows an English filmmaker looking for a "true scot" but encounters a strange kilted man who lives in a ruined castle, drinking rain water from puddles and making sleeping in darkened hollows in the stone while at the same time avoiding a bizzarre ghoulish figure which seems to also live in the castle. Weird stuff, but very very funny.

Beige is a film by three of my Fourth Year PEM students, Ricky Gibb, Doog Allan and Rich Watson. I worked really closely with them during the production and it was great to see it being shown to a big crowd on the big screen (As opposed to the PEM crowd on the wall in my garden) Beige is the tale of two outcast misfits who find each other through a mutual fascination with Choco Fudds, Poo-Foo the dog and Barry Scott, fictional spokesman for Cillit Bang.  Beige is one of the projects that students have made in my time at Grays that I am most proud off, it is a gentle, odd little story which is as funny as it is touching and entirelly beferft of cynicism. It does teeter on the edge of nievete at points and the performances are far from polished, but that can be forgiven given the care and skill involved in making the story a reality.

The night also featured a couple of super8 films by a friend of Jon's called Sam, pretty amazing edits and use of the format, and an amazing stop frame time-lapse of "Er Magesty's aging as described by the 2p coin, and a susprisingly slick and professional "Blue on Blue." I was taken away with the high production values of the film, directed by Mark Ewen, lots of good costumes, nicely lit, fancy production cars and realistic locations, however this didn't help to understand what the film was actually about. It centered around what appeared to be a strange blackmailing plot involving some soldiers and a nervous woman, although I couldnt quite work out what connection these people had to each other. There were flashes of guns before a fella looking not unlike Minty from Eastenders staves one of the soldiers heads in with a car boot, splattering blood over the even more nervous woman.

Also managed to slip in Rock Action by Martin and myself, and unashamedly pumped up the volume for it. 

So anyway, just for an extra treat, heres beige. Ricky probably wont be happy because the aspect ratio is a bit weird, but here we go:

Beige from Ricky Gibb on Vimeo.