STRIKE

Seeing as I normally only have a single lesson on Wednesdays I was delighted to hear that my teacher for that lesson would sadly not be coming into school today. Best excuse for a lie-in I've had in a long time.

Immediately after breakfast I watched Dog Day Afternoon which was pretty excellent. Pacino was incredible as Sonny, it was a knock-out performance throughout, and when I went online to find that most of the dialogue was improvised I was very impressed. The plot was also very tense and interesting, the tone of the film switched from comedy to drama effortlessly and I found myself dying to know how it would end.

Quickly after that I watched High Noon, a Western that got me hooked by its very 'real-time' premise of a sheriff attempting to round up some deputies in the space of an hour to defend his town. It is heart-breaking to see that no-one wants to help him out, we slowly begin to understand the mindset of the towns folk but we still admire the courage of Gary Cooper, determined to see the afternoon until the end. The eventual train approach was genuenly very tense and it is one of the mosre 'human' westerns out there.

For the rest of the day I finished off Psychonauts, it once again provided a feel good ending that left me fufilled and happy, but also more desperate than ever for a sequel. If I ever have a very large disposable income, funding a sequel is where it shall go. 

Rainy afternoon

It was nice coming back home in Mark's car, it felt like a small bubble against the horrors of the torrential rain that lasted for about 10 minutes. All I could think about in the car was how much I wanted to watch Dracula, arriving home I did not find my LOVEfilm wallet and was left unfulfilled; I just played Skyrim instead. So yeah, bit of a meh day, can't wait for my day off tomorrow though, going to the pub with Jaime and maybe watch a good old fashioned film. 

Boris Karloff is the man

I had a relatively crumby and dull day at school, I lost a game of chess to Herbie after I played embarrassingly badly and it was really cold waiting for my lift in the morning. I came home to a heated house and my lovely computer, taking full advantage of LOVEfilm's watch online feature and tucked in with coffee in hand to watch Frankenstein. Although not as good as Bride of, this film did focus a lot more on Dr Frankenstein and his desire to be a God. His laboratory scenes were very cool, leading up to the most quoted line 'It's Alive!' However it is Karloff who steals the show completely, his monster is perfect showing just the right amount of humanity while remaining terrifying. Best scene? The little girl by the lake, everybody loves it, brilliant and disturbing moment. 

Blackcurrent jam makes decent blood

Did a lot more filming today, 2 til 10:30 again but we got a lot done. Aside from directing I was also on zombie make-up which I did quite well I think, they turned out looking way better than I anticipated but we absolutely trashed the floor in the girls toilets. There was this thick, golden syrup bloody mess everywhere and I ended up moping the floor twice. Another weekend gone, I wish I had some more free time over them so I could do something really relaxing, with me being very busy all the time, this weekend probably gets a 6/10; frantic but fun.

Cheap milkshakes!

Came back from Jack's house today, the first thing I noticed was how much I felt like I needed to brush my teeth. I forgot my toothbrush and we were living on a diet of Pepsi and 6 for 2 milkshakes which left my molars furrier than Chewbacca. I also had a rough night on account of Jack's dogs which were walking all over me as I was the only one sleeping on the floor. Now that I have won a battle with a particularly persistent wasp I can enjoy a canine-free slumber.

Down in Mamsbury

Chris, Dan and I have decided to pay a visit to our childhood friend Jack who lives about an hour down the road. After a hearty meal of fish and chips and 90 minutes worth of Smash Bros we are just about to start playing some Tatsonoko vs Capcom and then consider calling it a night. My English coursework came back today, I secured 27/30 which is a solid A, quite proud of myself there, means good things should be on their way for the other bit I'm doing.

Happy (very late) Birthday Website

Today, is not the sites Birthday, but it was around this time so we thought we would make a brief video to celebrate, the joke is a bit old fashioned but I think we can all agree that Daniels finishing expression is priceless. My face has also been plastered on the blog twice, each time I am pulling a similar looks so thats good. On a crazily, somehow related note, I have just re-started playing Psyconauts since Steam added achievements, I found this on Youtube a while back, if you watched the Birthday video you will get why its slightly related, but just watch this and tell me you don't wanna play this game!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWa1eiHPhKw

I watched Deliverance today, a film which has dated slightly but it's impact can still be felt quite strongly. Some good scenes and some lovely bits of nature but it did get a bit repetitive as the characters just go down more and more rapids, and the climbing scene looks so obviously green-screened now. Also Burt Reynolds should have been the freaking MAN in this film but his character is wasted completely by the second half which is a shame. The film does pack that good old fashioned 'paranoia of Hilbillies' theme going for it which makes it very creepy and real at times so watch it if you like feeling paranoid I guess...

It's everywhere!

Zombie Coursework

So we're in the middle of filming at the moment for our zombie film studies coursework. It's gonna be awesome. If you're around Newbury, free this Sunday and fancy being a zombie extra then email us or check our Facebook feed for regular updates. BOOM.

Such an easy day

School was just so simple, got in, had my 2 free periods and then watched Fight Club, no effort Wednesday is going to be even better next week though as the school may well be closed on account of the teacher's strike scheduled for that day. Jamie came round again today to finish off The 40 Year Old Virgin and a cup of tea, after he left I finally got a chance to watch Misfits, it wasn't as good as I thought it would be as the whole scenario was doomed to be a throw-away due to the non-cannon nature of it, but it was still a fun ride.

I watched Sherlock Jr. today and it really got me excited to see The General. I really enjoyed One Week and Sherlock Jr. was a small step above it, at least in terms of scope and budget. Keaton's stunts were extremely impressive, performing stunts more dangerous than anyone in Hollywood would even dare doing themselves nowadays. The highlights for me was the game of snooker (or pool, I can never tell the difference) in which Keaton dodges an explosive '13' ball blissfully unaware of its nature and the motorcycle chase at the end was also very exciting, prior to this Keaton does 2 amazing leaps through things, I still have no idea how he did them but they are mind bogglingly hilarious. Short and Sweet and you can find it on Google Video, no excuse!

Darn alarm!

I said I was going to watch Misfits today and I am ashamed to say that I did not, somehow in my desperate attempt to hit the 'snooze' button on my phone I switched the thing off instead, next thing I know, I'm late for school. I also showed my girlfriend The Silence of the Lambs because she said she wanted to be a police officer when she was older, not so sure about her views on that career path are now but at least she enjoyed the film.

Part 1 of English Coursework finished

Today I celebrate the end of an very very busy weekend and piece of work, I have no got some free time on my hands once again to do anything I like, really tempted to re-play Wind Waker or just watch a bunch of films that have been stacking up on my watchlist. Gettin' up early to watch Misfits tomorrow, my informant tells me that it is a good one so I can't really miss it, until then find a nice 5 minutes to yourself to just mull over all the good things in life.

Weekend... Y U NO LAST LONGER!?

Sorry about the lack of a blog yesterday, that was because I have been extremely busy this weekend, full of work and engagements. The first of which was of course the Furniture Project early Saturday morning, we had about 3 new volunteers then, all of which were very eager to impress the manager so they frequently asked me for help on a variety of jobs. That evening I went to someones 18th party which was really great, most of my friends were invited and it was quite a wild night, one or two people had one too many drinks than they should have but the music, the crowd and some of the banter was spot on.

Today the team reserved 7 hours in our filming location, sadly it got off to a very slow start, waiting for it to get dark and making the fake blood etc, so we only really got half of what we wanted done. That said the stuff we did get is pretty sweet, the obvious highlight being our first real special effect where we covered our lead actresses face in a spray of fake blood! I just got back at 10:30 and had a very late roast dinner, now I am full and ready for sleep; weekend rating: 8

Shopping trip

After school the Cafe Studios team all pilled into Chris' little car and drove on down to B&Q to pick up some supplies for filming, a visit to Tesco was also required for a watermelon we are intending on smashing for a headshot effect. Screwfix was a bit of a godsend though as they had just what we needed for about half the price, we got some piping for a blood splatter effect.

Also for research purposes we re-watched The Evil Dead, and it still scared the hell out of us. Watching it again with all the new knowledge I had from studying Sam Raimi made it a fresh experience, it was great seeing how he builds tension and atmospeare. Just have to re-create that kind of feeling for our film, after we spent so much money on the production it should turn out quite well!

A bit of cake

Mum has now had the last of her 'changing jobs' parties that have been ongoing since the last 2 weeks or so which means that she got to bring home all the left over cake. Regrettably this one was simply too fluffy and didn't have any butter icing in it so I think I will avoid that one until I have an esspresso or something bitter to wash it down with. We have almost fully prepared for the filming session on Sunday, just got to buy some more bits and bobs at tesco and the like for the remaining props.

I watched an older Hitchcock today, Notorious was in my opinopn, not his strongest work. The first half was rather dull with the exception of the kissing scene, but when the second half came to light I started paying more attention. I just really didn't understand what was happening towards the end though, I didn't absorb who the villian was nor why Cary Grant's team was out to get them. Something about film noirs that makes my brain turn off in the first 30 minutes, then when the action picks up I have no idea whats going on, it happens to me far too often I find.

Drip fed Skyrim

Louis was doing some after school stuff today so I had Skyrim all to myself for 2 hours! I did all kinds of things, I leveled up, killed a tiger and fell off a bridge; it's a pretty good game I think, not that far into it though but I like what I played! The walk into school was a very bitter one, its certainly gotten a lot colder in England but that's the way I like it. Still no chance to watch a film so far, will defiantly try to make time for something tomorrow though, starting to feel very unfulfilled in my day to day life.

Just really tired

All day today I simply craved going back to sleep, it wasn't just my eyes that were tired, the whole front of my face was knackered and wanted to melt off into some other alternate dimension where school didn't exsist. I need to prepare myself for walking into school tomorrow, first excuse to wear my jacket all year so at least I look forward to that part. I also really want to watch some more films, I gotta attach some more requests onto LOVEfilm, I did get a chance to watch Misfits though and it was awesome, until I saw the preview for next weeks episode and then I just cried tears of rainbow testostrone, it looked amazing!

No matter how much you scrub, You'll never be clean!

Cafe Studios headed off Within the Woods for one final time, once again I was covered in fake blood and I felt like Lady Macbeth scrubbing off the black (in this case red) dot off her hands. We had to re-do everything on account of it looking a bit naff the first time around but we are defiantly more happy with the stuff we got today. After 3 hours out in the dark and cold I just really want to go to bed and be hugged by the duvet; bliss.

Bone Hike 2011

Me and my old scout leader organized the annual Bone Hike again this year but this time with a small twist that got us several more people involved, 4 times as many to be exact so it was a big faff at times, especially when they got lost during the night period. Most trouble came after a rumour about gypsies started scaring the younger ones, some of them decided to man up and just do the course because we got Adam's little car caked in mud in attempt to get to one of the bases.

The Seventh Seal was a film that captivated me from the IMDB description of a man who plays chess with the Grim Reaper during the black plague, that sounds awesome, but if I could have one criticism it would be there wasn't enough chess. Actually 2 criticisms, it was a little slow going, however it was a very interesting film about a man looking for answers about the almighty, it was only difficult to understand I realize because I was also looking for answers for the knights questions so you may be left confuzzeled, dissapointed or amazed by the film, I was in the first catagory and that is where most will lie until they give the film a hard think; something I have yet to do.

11/11/11

Today we had a Remembrance Assembly in school seeing as they are very big supporters of the military and all that, the ceremony lasted about 20 minutes but we had year 7's dropping like flies throughout for standing up for too long; couldn't make a fuss though as it happened during the 2 minutes silence!

Everyone had various appointments today so there was no Film Friday, I instead watched The Magnificent Ambersons which I found to be quite good. After a charming introductory narration the film seemed to slow down a little bit, I never quite listened during the first half but I got the general gist of things, by the end though I was feeling all sorts of emotions for the characters after a very satisfying ending!

Louis got Skyrim today, about this time next week I may get a chance to play it for myself, if you have got it then good for you and enjoy your well spent weekend!

Stone in a shoe

While the team was editing the new film I noticed that Mark had a stone lodged into the grips of his shoe. Now I am the type of guy who wants no imperfections on the underside of his shoe so I naturally love removing the stones from them, but Mark had other plans. He wanted to keep it lodged in there so he could make tapping noises with it which I could not allow! I managed to yank his shoe off but he begun the chase, after 6 laps of the classroom I still couldn't get the stone out so I settled for an unconditional surrender. Still haven't got around to watching any films yet as my LOVEfilms haven't arrived yet, better luck for me tomorrow I hope!

Thats it?!

Modern Warfare 3... the series has been really great, so many incredible set pieces, interesting twists and surprisingly involving characters... But really Infinity Ward. Is that the best you can do?! Such an anticlimax to an otherwise stellar series.

Filming today was a bit of a fiasco,I asked the scout leader if we could film during the meeting tonight as it was going to be an informal film night. When we rolled up with our cameras I found half the district in there, eagerly awaiting a pair of guest speakers on health and drugs which was mandatory. Under serious pressure from my scout leader we rushed the filming, applying fake blood and temporary tattoos a-plenty to our scout extras and getting some good footage of zombie scouts! Stay tuned!

Dissapointment into victory

Woke up at 5:20 today hoping to play MW3 but steam hadn't unlocked the game files and wouldn't do so until I got back from school, I used the time well though and watched Misfits which was pretty good. School was a shlog and pretty dull I will admit, but when I got home, oh HO was I in for a treat. Although I haven't quite completed the single player (2/3 of the way through) it has been outstandingly cinematic and enjoyable and I have high hopes for the conclusion, act 2 ended very unexpectedly I will say. The Multiplayer is really sweet as well, I think the PC version will get a patch to improve stability when in game as I frequently get booted for no reason but it has been a ton of fun from what I have played and I can't wait to play more.

Good Lord...

Got home at 11pm, knackered, shirtless and covered in fake blood; just another normal evening for Cafe Studios. Although my shower did look like the infamous Psyho scene as the blood poured down the drain. We were filming more of our zombie film today and again, it looks pretty good. Louis released his new Edmund and Darrel episode today, featuring Me, Louis, Mark and Dan's voices and I must say it is absoultly cracking, check it out at www.fredthemonkey.com.

I am very excited for the new Call of Duty which comes out tomorrow, I shall be waking up very early so I can get my hands on it before school, until then: Happy Monday!

Drivin' on the highway...

Me and a friend drove around Ogbourne St. George to walk our planned route for an evening scouting activity. I haven't hiked for many months and I really felt it on the uphill drag, my legs aching, blisters developing (I need to check my feet now actually... we're clear!) and ankles giving in, I was desperately out of practise but I somehow felt amazing doing the walk because I really enjoy the views when hiking and the Ridgeway has some great ones. In the evening we got in Chris' car and drove down to our filming location to test out some shots for the Zombie film. shots so far look pretty good but they need to be much better lit so we can see but at the same time we don't want it to look artificial, we'll sort something out though, probably involving gaffa tape.

Brief Encounter was tonight's film and it was lovely and British. For some reason I don't really like any characters that commit unnecessary adultery in films but here I will make an exception because the characters felt extremely bad for their actions making them more likable. The narration was whimsical and the accents and mannerisms of the characters were so dreadfully charming, it's even starting to rub off on me now. This is a must watch for any British film enthusiasts, it really is one of the greats.

Wish it was half term again

Work today consisted of the usual game of Pass the Pigs, over-eating at lunch and causing self injury out of clumsiness, nothing has changed except now the nights are drawing in. The sensation of walking through my town at night fills me with a weird happiness and nostalgia, the sense that Christmas is on it's way makes me all fuzzy on the inside. It was obviously fireworks night tonight having a massive display at the racecourse means that I will have great difficulty sleeping tonight, good thing I like fireworks. Que Katy Perry song!

Burger with my Friday

Did quite well in our quiz night today, 5th place overall but they weren't offering a prize for best 6th form teams and I didn't win the raffle... this time... I currently have Jamie Creed sleeping over, he wants to watch a film, I want to go to bed so this will be amusing at least for one of us as we are going to see the 40 Year Old Virgin.

Money goes out...

Mark and I were looking at the props we needed for our film coursework, Mark has agreed to pay £20 after I also put in the money in for our new camera (which looks awesome) so tomorrow we are going to the bank so I can take out a fat wad of cash (£83) for the benefit of Cafe Studios, this seems a lot to me considering I am not employed anywhere at the moment, and my contribution actually sounds miserly after Mark is paying over £500 for our new camera, damn my general lack of money when I need it.

I was really disappointed with Belle De Jour today after seeing it in Ebert's The Great Movies I was very eager to see this, but you know a film isn't keeping your interest when you keep looking at the clock and 95 minutes feels like Gone With the Wind. It was just nonsensical at times, the dream sequences added nothing, I didn't understand the protagonists motivation or eventual aims and I actually didn't like Catherine Deneuve's performance or character. Avoid this one in my opinion.

Russian history stuff

Most of today has been working on my Russian history essay that I still havn't fully completed, I'm going to have to get up early tomorrow to finish it which I hate doing because I have to drag my lazy behind out of bed early and work first thing, coffee will be a nice addition which I will probably include. I watched the ending of the new David Attenborough series about the Artic which looked amazingly pretty, probably will watch more of that if I get the chance. About our film that I said would be up by today... I saw what Mark has done, so far it looks really good but it is nowhere near done at this time so sorry about that. Our deadline is now ASAP so look out for it in the near future, heck, check the site everyday until it comes out, if the films not there a new blog update will be here... I'm always here... Have a good one!

Dia de los muertos!

Happy day of the Dead as I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, I went off to a Halloween party sleepover thing. I spent most of yesterday preparing my amazing Groucho Marx costume, headed on down to our local fancy dress shop to find a decent pair of glasses I could use, I ended spending £5 on a pair and was very nearly tempted in buying a smoking pipe as well. To get myself into character I watched Horse Feathers, not as good as Duck Soup but it was quite close in some ways, it also helped me drinking a very strong iced coffee and a regular cup of Joe, I was bouncing off the walls for about an hour, by the way there will be pictures of this (the costume, not me being hyperactive.)

Upon arrival at the party I was seriously down-hearted, no-one knew who I was supposed to be! The food and drink made up for this somewhat, actually now that I really think about it, Malibu is disgusting and that was somehow mixed into everything I attempted to drink, I happily settled with water, OJ and coffee; I truly know how to be the soul of the party. After watching Insidious, (crap) Coraline (WOO!) and Limitless (was ok) we unpacked our various sleeping bits and got some kip, this was at about 2 in the morning and I admit I am crap at sleep-overs, I can never get comfortable, often get too hot/dehydrated and end up making more noise than the big bang.

Waking up this morning felt awful, I finally got to sleep around 4 and had to be up for school at 7:30 (I'll let you do the maths.) I was treated to a can of Red Bull and a past its prime banana I bought with me: Breakfast of champions. School was hard as I lost my watch so I felt naked and vulnerable all day. Aside from that today was better than I made it out to be, the dentist appointment was fun and seeing Louis after a 12 hour absence was nice, the link below cheered me up to no end.

http://i.imgur.com/RL4nc.gif

Enjoy that, we are adding the final touches to the new video that should be up tomorrow and we hope you enjoy it! I am going to bed!