PARTEH!

As its Halloween I have gone off to a party for the evening, may be watching a movie later this evening, I smell either The Evil Dead (1/2) or possibly Zombieland. If not we will all be having a lovely and boistrous time, just as you shouldbe spending your evening.

Full blog tommorow, have a good one

Mark's stand-in blog #3

Evening all - just got back from filming "The Mikado" at Park House school - a production by Newbury Operatic Society. It was a good show and I enjoyed filming it, even though there were some awkward tape-changes that had to be completed! I am really looking forward to editing it using final cut's multi-cam system, though I am not yet sure how to sync up the clips when one camera has cut and then come back in.

Spent a few days earlier this week filming a music video with Chris at Newbury Rock School - organised by Leo Westby. The kids have written their own song "Holiday" and with the help of some famous teachers (such as the drummer from Tin Soldiers who is AWESOME!) they recorded it in a studio. The music video should look pretty damn cool and I shall be editing it soon.

So - what does tomorrow bring? Looking forward to perhaps watching "There Will Be Blood" in the morning before having a meeting with Dan and then maybe going to a halloween party after that. On a separate note - my brother is away and this means that I am looking after our Rabbit named Dumpling. Can I just officially note that he has been a bloody pain for the last few days! Just because John is away doesn't mean he should be taking liberties! He keeps hiding behind the water butt and knocking over his food bowl. Dumpling - work on your manners my furry friend.

Have a spooky halloween tomorrow (woo.) and enjoy an extra hour in bed :)

Daniel's Stand in Blog #2

So, Theo is away again for the Fright Night at Thorpe Park. Typical. Still, what a day we at CAFÉ had!

Today, Mark, Theo and I tested out our green screen ideas for the matrix scene, and we had a laugh. First it was Theo's typical kung-fu kick to the camera which we put into Final Cut Pro and it looked awesome!
Next, I went on the 'green screen stool' and sky dived, looking very stupid with a fan on max 3 in my face.
All in all, we had a great day, making toasties and watching an excellent film.

Fargo by the Coen Brothers.

Watch it, if not that, watch any of the Coen Brothers film! You won't regret it.

Well it has been a great evening. I hope you enjoy tomorrow and tomorrow's blog, where Mark will be telling you of the trails and tribulations of a Saturday. I just ordered pizza and we'll go from there.

Uru!

Hello everyone, I am back

Returned from Amsterdam this afternoon, it is acctually faster to fly to Amsterdam by plane than to travel to Cornwall by car I found out, which i pretty sweet. Went to this awesome chinese food place while I was there, 'Wok to Walk' is basically a stir-fry version of Subway, you pick your stuff and then you get a decent portion of noodles (or rice, depending on preferance) and you just pig out on some great food; if this is anyway came across as an indoresement of the resaurant, it isn't, it's just bloody good food! Visited a pair of art galleries, unfortunatly it had the older-still-life type of art rather than the modern impressionist stuff so it was essentially quietly suffeling around looking at portraits of bags of potateos and maids pouring milk, although high in quality it wasn't really worth the price of admission. Sleeping was just as fun, shared an extendable sofa and a duvet with my brother, the experience was neither a pleasent or a warm one as he repeatedly hogged the blanket and made digustingly awful breaths just as I was getting comfy.

Watched a group of movies whilst I was there, just quickly: The Fugitive, pretty good but was a little melodramatic. Die Hard 2, kicked my ass on multiple levels but still couldn't top the origional. And Cinema Paradiso, exeptionally wonderful in the first 40 minutes but then it occured to us that we packed the directors cut version which was FAR too long at 178 minutes, the ending was overdrawn and took too long to conclude; would have definatly preffered the theatrical version.

Finally the BB rifle arrived today, which should look awesome after its been painted as it is completly see-thru at the moment. Unfortuanatly I will not be here again to blog over the next two days as I will be away on camp over halloween, going to freight night whih should be sweet!

However, for your reading pleasure, 'No shave November' starts on the 1st, from that day I will not shave until the end of the month, if I am very awesome I will have a daily update on the fuzzes' growth via photos! I know, it's almost too exiting for your great minds, but if you just take a deep brreath and maybe and asprin then the pain will go.

See you folks tommorow!

Mark's stand-in blog #2

Theo is still away and I must say that it's a little depressing looking at his steam account to find the words "Last Online 2 Days Ago" - he is always on steam!

Just finished watching a Spanish film called "The Orphanage" and it was very good - not particularly scary but certainly tense in places. I was just reading the wikipedia article and it said that one of the director's influences was "Rosemary's Baby" - a phycological thriller that my Film Studies teacher has recommended I watch.

Also watched "Let The Right One In" yesterday - a Swedish film about a vampire girl. It was rather odd but all of the shots in it were amazing - awesome use of focus. Tomorrow plans to be exciting as Chris and I are going to Studio 91 in New Greenham Park to film parts of a music video for Leo Westby's Rock School - planning to use a filter on the camera lens that blurs out the edges of the frame. I shall then meet up with Daniel to finish off writing the script and show him the BB gun before going to duke of edinburgh.

So, enjoy the rest of your week and (if you go to St Barts) another week off before moving into the new school building. Dan will be here with an update tomorrow and speak to you folks soon :) Night!

Daniel's Stand in post #1

Hello there, this is Daniel standing in for Theo as he is on holiday in Amsterdam, drinking beer and other... stuff.
Today, it seems, was a lazy day. The only major event that I can talk about is the arrival of an awesome object. One that radiates with man power. That's right, I'm talking about the A15 Panther BB gun. The single shot rifle is made of plastic, metal with a tiny bit of rubber, has an extendible stock, two optional reload functions and one kick-ass fire sound. It can shoot a pellet at optimum power for 45 yards which is roughly the same power as a .22 air rifle. Mark did look happy on web cam as he was showing me the Panther!

Another minor topic is that I started to plan and choreograph the fight sequence of the Matrix dream sequence which should look fantastic if I can pull these off with Louis and Theo. Should be something to look forward to!

Moving on, I believe that's it from me tonight. Good night!

Mark's stand-in blog #1

Hello! Seeing as Theo is away in Amsterdam I thought that Dan and I should continue writing the blog for you. Well, it's finally half term after a work-filled start to sixth form and I for one definitely needed the break. Not much is going on when it comes to the filming side of things - I am in the process of editing our test zombie scene and it looks pretty good even though the sugar glass did not work. I shall upload the scene and it's outtakes as soon as they are finished. As avid followers of the website will know - unfortunately my updates are rare!

Yesterday I purchased some "special effects" for our new film including a BB rifle, zombie contact lenses and prosthetic wounds. They all look pretty awesome if you ask me - certainly looking forward to when they arrive. They were purchased with the £100 given to us by the CACP for special effects. We still have a small amount left over and are deciding how to effectively use this - any suggestions?

Watched "Broken Flowers" today - online on lovefilm. It started off pretty dryly and the storyline didn't develop hugely but I felt that Bill Murray was fantastic. The acting is pretty damn good but the ending left me frustrated and uncertain - arguably a positive factor!

Anyway, must be off to bed now but I shall return with another blog later on in the week. I think that Dan and I shall be taking it in turns to do daily updates until Theo's return. Take it easy and enjoy half term :)

I'm off on holiday

That's right, I'm leaving for Amsterdam tommorow morning and I still havn't goten around to packing (damn you, Battlefeild!) but I am looking forward to going as apparently they have very good coffee there. Bought some caffine tablets today, for the 'lols' also they may come in handy if I'm doing another all-nighter soon, they certainly perked me up at work today so they have already proven to be very fun.

I really ought to be packing right now, I'll see if I can keep in touch with you readers while I'm away, if not, then don't expect any blog entires; at least not for a little while. Have a lovely week, I will see you chaps later.

Horray for orange, plastic firearms!

Yes, the BB gun has finally arrived, albeit a few days late but it is awesome none the less. It will indefinatly be used as a prop in one of our later movies, so we can all look forwad to that as it very nicely replaces our small £1 pistol.

Apart from that, I quit mt job unfortuantly but still have to work until the end of the week, aka tommorow so I can say my farewells to the lovely staff and team-members, they were really pleasent and supportive and its such a shame I couldn't et the right hours there; but I did by some experimental breath-freashner... its minty!

What a relaxing day

Played a lot of Battlefeild Bad Company 2 today, although for some reason the game isn't recording my exp I earnt in game, which kinda sucks but it good fun nonetheless!

Fianlly completed the Evil Dead trilogy today after I watched Army of Darkness, it wan't as good as the first 2 but certianly worth a watch for the consistant use of 'Rami Rushes' and other origional shot, along with some awesome and witty one liners delived from the man of blue colbalt: Bruce Campbell. Also watched the Naked Gun for the third time today, still a comedy classic, very quotable and off the wall; which is exactly what you expect.

Work again tommorow and I'm handing in my unfortunate resignation since I'm not getting the right hours, also my BB gun finally arrived today and is currently with Mark since it was delived to him; hoping to check that out tommorow. Until then, enjoy your week-end! 

Let the relaxing begin!

Thought I would do an early bog tonight seeing as I have organized a Left 4 Dead mini marathon for tonight, basically myself, Mark and Dan are all going to play until midnight for a bit of a laugh seeing as I now have 17 days off school, hooray.

Although I was overulled by the family to watch First Blood, instead I watched Get Him to the Greek, in my opinion a better film than the directors previous effort: Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Although both films have Russel Brand and Jonah Hill, their characters are much more realized here and are definatly the main attractions of the film. Some scenes were an absolute riot in terms of humor and are definatly very origional in spite of the hilarious homage to Pulp Fiction. Some characters were harder to relate to than others and it took time for me to appreciate the fact it was a rock and roll film, although it won't change your life by any means, the film certainly provides some A grade laughs through a varity of exellent set peices.

Going to have a huge lie in tommorow, until then have a lovely evening and enjoy your time off if you are also a student, although technically half term starts after tommorow, mine is early so I am over the moon; have a good one folks.

HOLY HAMBURGERS AND LOVELY SWEET TEA

Just logged onto Gametrailers just now and I found what may possibly be the greatest thing EVAR!

I'll let the video speak for itself, lets just say: I'm exited, your exited and your mother in law is exited.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/japanese-debut-professor-layton/706427

I have a cunning plan...

Since I need to get up early tommorow to finish a little bit of homeowork for my last day of school I have devised a brilliant plan that will gaurentee my hasty awake. Basically it's three alarm clocks and a cup of coffee by my bed, although I brewed it very strongly so it should knock me back into reality quite nicely.

Local Cineclub awards was fun tonight, I say awards but it was more or less a movie showcase which was very pleasent, seeing our films on the big screen was glorious and it was nice to listen to a small audience response. Half term starts for me tommorow so I will celebrate with a movie (I'm thinking First Blood) and Left 4 Dead until midnight, we'll see how well that goes down tommorow, until then, have a good evening.

Bit of a letdown today...

I was really looking foward to Tuesday, but in all honesty it was a bit rubbish. I didn't get to bed early last night, so I overslept again leaving me 15 minutes to eat, dress, pack and make lunch; not enough time to shave. Film Studies was alright, we are starting our coursework on a film scene of our choice and I chose to analize 'Mise-en-scene in Blade Runner,' forgetting exactly what mise-en-scene meant. When my teacher came around to evaluate our chosen scene I had nothing impressive to say and I came across looking like an abolute fool, he kindly gave me some pointer though, so now I should be good to go. Apart from that, I had a lot of homework tonight and I'll have a lot of homework tommorow. I'm also not looking forward to my maths exam tommorow as I fear I amy not have what it takes to do A-level maths... only one way to find out I suppose.

Tonight I WILL go to bed early, (around 10 sounds good) which is about now. My BB gun didn't arrive within the 1-2 working day gaurentee, which is very upsetting but it gives me something to look forward to. Tommorow is hump day, after that it's just a pleasent downhill track into the glorious week-end, already I can't wait.  

My bed sure looks comfy

Woke up this morning after changing the duvet from the summer one to the winter one, essentially now it's very poofy and warm, so it was exeptionally difficult getting out of bed as I was so comfy. I'm going to try getting to bed early tonight so I can get the most out of my time asleep in that wonderful place I call 'Dreamland.'

Monday, full school day, hard work. Tuesday, full day, favorite day of the week. Tommorow should be fun with English and Film Studies, and I hope you readers have a good one tommorow also, tip of the day: go to bed early; you won't regret it!

Weekends go by so fast

Well, that was another lovely few days of rest, not for me, but for you. We are going to start editing the bits that were filmed on Friday tommorow which should come out pretty well. Other than that, not an awful lot happened over the past few hours, back to school tommorow so hopefully something interesting will happen then. Good night everybody!

Monatge is up!

Yes that's right, Mark kindly put up the '80s montage on a previous blog post so that saved me the effort. If it gets a little popular and we get some requests, we may officially add it to a 'scrapbook' video page to the website for our smaller projects, please comment and tell us what you think.

I realized I havn't had a lie-in for the past month as I have had to be up by 7:30 at the latest over the past 4 weeks, which totally sucks... but hopefully in the near future I'll have the chance to huddle in bed.

Enjoy your last free day from work or school, I will be at work tommorow, but don't let that get you down! I get time and a half on Sundays!

80s Montage

Hey Guys! (It's Mark here)

I've just uploaded the 1980s-style montage that Theo and I made in Film Studies - take a look:
80s Montage Youtube

Have a nice day! :)

Film Friday

Finally we got round to filming the first scenes of our zombie apocolipse, and I must say it was a little bit of a disaster. The footage should be great, but some of the little things went wrong, especially the fore-mentioned sugar glass which turned into a sugar putty when it came to filming. won't be making that again... Also a load of fake blood managed to land all over one of my best shirts, bearing in mind that stuff stains it was not a pretty sight. But we learn from our mistakes, next session should be much better and MUCH gorier!

'Thank God It'S Friday,' it has been a long week and I will try to get some good sleep in before work, enjoy your time off; i know I will...

Lack of a theme Thursday

Today, I spend 4 hours stirring sugar glass. It was not fun. It was not pretty. But i hope to God that it comes out alright as we have to import over corn syrip every time we make a batch, which costs upwards of £7! Should look good on film though. I also purchased a BB gun online which we should be ultimatly using as a prop, but that doesn't mean I can't cause some bruising while on set!

Finished editing the '80s montage, now I just have to persuade Mark to put it somewhere on the site and you can give us your feedback, I think it looks pretty sweet at the moment and definatly recommend checking it out when you get the chance.

We will be filming the zombie apocolipse scenes tommorow so I will inform you on how that goes this time tommorow, until then, thanks for reading.

Waist-coat Wednesday

Not much happened today, just a short day of school and a lotta homework.

Watched 'The Fountain' this evening, visually great but criptic as hell. I personally prefered the graphic novel which fleashed out the story a little more but the movie gave the characters a little more personality. If your willing to dig into the films story and layers of meaning then give this film a watch, if you hate that kind of thing, your not going to like this film...

Short one tonight, but I'm tired so I will have a longer entry tommorow. Goodnight

Red tie tuesday

Thought I would splash out this lunchtime and try something different so I picked up a cheap-O pack of sushi from the local Tesco, and I must say it wasn't half bad. the rice was ridiculiously filling but the fish was pretty nice, it also came with a fish-shaped bottle of soy sauce, but did not come woth wasabi or any form of chopsticks, ergo, I ate with my fingers feeling like a fool...

As mentioned, the '80s montage is comming along nicely, editing in an hour was a little daunting so we will see if we can get some more time on that because it is looking good. Watched 'East is East' this afternoon, and it's about damn time I watched some more British movies. The characters, although plentiful, had quirk and charm while the stylelized 70's suburbs gave the film a great setting perfect for the film. I did laugh out loud (lol) in places and it also made me feel uncomfetable to watch in some places, which is usually the sign of a terrible or a brilliant move and fortunatly this film landed in the latter. Overall a pleasnt way to spend a good 90 minutes although I cannot see myself showing this to friends anytime soon, its just not that kind of film i guess... I still recommend it though if your interested in the whole minorites living in England theme as East is East captures this aspect without forcing it in the viewers face.

Right, back to enjoying my evening, hope you folks do to; have a good one.

Man up Monday

Monday is always a big day for me, lug in all my text books and then I'm treated to 3 hours of history followed by another 2 of maths, life is good on a Monday. I will be editing the '80s montage tommorow, adding the corny music and the special effects will be awesome and good practise when it comes to editing and as promised it may be up later in the week.

One of my film studies classmates complimented our work today which really made me feel good, it was just pleasent to hear feedback from a third party and really motivated me to make more films to entertain the masses, so thank you friend, you know who you are and you are awesome.

havn't been watching many films recently because I've been busy, but if you ever have a recommendation for me (or doughboy/cafe as a group, we're not fussy) then leave it in the comment section and I'll get round to watching it at some point. Til next time currently small blog audience, til next time.

The weekend is over

I know, its that time of week again, Sunday evening where you just want your free time to last just a little longer, ah well.

Work again today, I was till monkey for the first time ever and I must say it was pretty fun, the customers wern't too much of a hassle either so I didn't make too many mistakes and therefore time went by quicker, problem was I only had a 25 minute lunch break and I have a very bad heat endurance when it comes to hot liquids like coffee, so I had to quickly add cold water and chug it down. Lovely.

Hope you people have an easy Monday to ease you back into the week, may have an update on our new film by the end of the week, until then sleep well

Damn you, ambigious work timetable

Evening all, had my first real day of work this morning, my shift was from 11 until 6 and I must say I feel like a trainwreak with a hangover, but I am currently looking forward to my free Sunday, that is until dan told me I have another shift tommorow... pray to God he's wrong.

L4D2 was pretty fun this morning and I plan to play a little with the group tonight if they are not too busy and then to crash to bed for a well deserved rest, bliss. Everyone else enjoy your weekend, have a roast dinner with the family or whatever you traditionally eat on your Sundays and drive safe.

Sugarglass and Bowie

Today we made the sugarglass and i must say it came out a little bit more yellow than I expected, not sure if there is a way around this yet, but at least it functions like glass as it in shatters when hit hard which looks pretty sweet, however it turns out that Amazon is all out of corn syrip so we have to do our grocery shopping on Ebay, joy. The mixture had to be stirred for about 2 and a half hours, which obviously was a pain, but it did taste like frosties which is pretty bad ass.

Finished filming the '80s montage today, as promised we'll post it somewhere if its any good for your viewing pleasure, just please bear in mind that it is meant to be corny, expect a crappy masterpeice... wait a minute; thats an oxymoron!

Apart from that, I finally started watching 'Life on Mars,' pretty damn good, work in the morning so that should be fun, bed soon because I'm tired, will see you all again after your day off; have a good one.

Damn you, American release dates!

I thought I was going to go see the new David Fincher movie tonight, 'The Social Network' however it became very clear to me apon entering the cinema that instead I would have to wait another week for that one to come out and that tickets were booked for me to see 'The Secret in their Eyes.'

Simply put, it was epic.

It combined a perfect amount of tension, humour and mystery, the cinematography was incrediable and the performaces from Ricardo Darin and Soldad Villamil (thank you wikipedia) were spellbinding and it had THE BEST continuious shot I have ever seen; it got better with every second and had me grinning throughout. It cannot be done justice in a review as small as this, go watch it if you get the chance, hell, go watch it again if you have the same opinion as me. Don't judge it because its foreign and you have to read subtitles, it has more class than you if thats the case. Nah I'm just kidding, but seriously, watch it and be blown away by something many movie goers wouldn't normaly watch.

Thats about all from me, once again im off to bed and I'll talk to you about our friday tommorow, hopefully we'll have made some sugar glass, if not, there will be a funny story to tell.  

Halfway through the week

Just a few more days until the weekend, something we all look forward to.

Been hard at work story boarding an '80s montage sequence for Film Studies homework, so far it is looking adequatly cheesy and motivating, like most other things from the '80s... Be filming that in class tommorow and we may even upload the results if we are pleased with them, so look out for that; should be pretty awesome.

Watched the Illusionist (the 2010 animated film) today, it was pretty good, the art was incrediable and the animation was fluid and beatiful to watch. Although the character were well thought out, they could have been developed a little more, however I did like the communication issues between the two main characters as most of the film is spoken in french or heavy scottich utterances which works really well. I would recommend it to anyone with a love for silent or animated movies, I prefered its predessesor 'Belleville Rendez-vous' (or 'The Triplets of Belleville' if your French, however I doubt you'd be reading this blog if you were) for its quirky and darker sense of humour, but the Illusionist certainly struck an emotional chord with some of the audience I was with so you may want to see it if you feel like being hit with a Europian ending for a change. My verdict: 4/5

Appart from that, I checked out the new Left 4 Dead DLC, 'The Sacrifice' and to be honest, it was ok. For the low price of £0.00 on the PC I can't really argue, some moments were more inspired than others, but as a whole it was a bit bland as there was a lot of running through shipyards... Oh and you also get L4D1's 'No Mercy' which was one of my favorite so its freaking awesome they made an official port of that.

Right, reviews are over, you all have a nice evening, I'm off to bed now as I remember to blog before bed. Wow, that sounds pretty sweet: 'Blog before Bed', might do that, probably not or I won't get round to it, oh well... 

The blog has arrived!

Good evening to all you possible viewers of the new doughboystudios blog! Welcome to our little website and I hope you enjoy the films and other media we have (and will) produce ove the years.

In the future we will be re-named 'Cafe' as it is an abriviation of something, but I can't remember what which is always a good way to start. One of our new films is up, a little project that took us about 3 days to script, shoot and splice for your viewing pleasure; you lucky people. The film is titled 'One Curious Predicament' and Stars myself, Dan and Louis in a mild crime drama where not an awful lot happens in a tense moment, give it a watch if you got a spare 5 minutes, if you like it please tell your family and friends as we have just started up and would like a few more views.

Just so everyone know, the film crew and myself are all students so please do not expect updates on a very regular basis, however the blog, which you lovely people are now reading, will be updated daily, we'll see how long that lasts. The blog will be about anything I care to share, particularily about anything I feel like talking about, there may also be sneak mentions about new films in the making so keep and eye out for that.

That pretty much wraps it up, you folks have a nice day and I'll tell you about ours/mine if you are so inclined to listen to it.