Making Movies

Following several weekends of hectic activity, I decided to have a quiet one at home and get caught up on a few jobs that needed doing. First task was to complete the quintet of films for Poshboatz at Peterborough. So far, I’ve uploaded two films, one for the overall feel of the boat and surroundings (Ferry Cross The Meadows), followed by When The Boat Comes In; a version that was aimed at the round the lake boat trips for visitors to Ferry Meadows. So far, so good – now let’s get creative.

Poshboatz III - Feel The Need … The Need for Speed

And now for something completely different - a short but action packed film highlighting the exhilaration of a high-speed run up and down Overton Lake. Bob suggested this film himself, and thought it would work well if the Formula One theme music was used. I had reservations, but decided to give it a try. My feeling was that the music would be too fast and racy for the boat, so that in effect the music would be moving too quickly for the action.

Of course, you don’t know if you don’t try, so I listened to the track several times and began to imagine that it could work – the music wasn’t as fast as I had thought; it is simply that when you watch the F1 titles, the action coupled to the distinctive beat and guitar chords creates a feeling of speed and power. That’s the power of good television. I wanted to use the original song by Fleetwood Mac (The Chain) for this version – most of the song is vocal, but with a long instrumental fade out of nearly 2 minutes – the perfect length of film for a short but thrilling sprint. Unfortunately copyright infringement prevented use of this track, so I found an instrumental version where the owners aren’t as touchy, and this was happily accepted.

The film is very simple, as it consists of only two elements - a high speed run seen from onboard, and a high speed run viewed from land. That’s it. I had several sequences from these runs, and by their nature they were lengthy clips. During filming I’d wanted to get the build up of power and acceleration, and then follow through the run itself all in a single take. For that reason, I cut the clips down to intermix with each other so as to create a more exciting film for the viewer. My favourite clip is the long centrepiece taken from onboard the boat, when Bob executed near enough a full 360° turn, and I was able to go sporty and get a full pan at odd angles. Very Top Gear, eh Clarkson? The great lighting helped out here as well. The clips were placed onto the soundtrack, and looked pretty good I have to say – Bob’s vision was right on the money, and I’m glad that I decided to try it out.

As for the title – well, something short and snappy that would arouse interest and provide a hint as to the nature of the film was required, and so The Fast and The Curious was born. Well, it is fast, and if you watch it you must be curious!

Poshboatz IV - The Director’s Cut

From thrills and spills to slow and graceful. The fourth film in the series was an addition to the series, and has been included to demonstrate all that is available when the boat is chartered privately. This film’s focus is primarily on the river, as I had a considerable amount of good footage that hadn’t made it into earlier films – it would be a shame not to use it.

As always, the soundtrack needed sourcing first. I believe that a film of this nature – where there is no dialogue – is 50% music and 50% vision. A good soundtrack makes all the difference in film; think of the fantastic score for Jaws or some of the great chase scenes in James Bond films. (My personal favourite, if I may digress once again, is the ski chase in The Spy Who Loved Me. The music and action are perfectly edited together to create a truly memorable piece of film).

The soundtrack I was seeking needed to be calm and relaxing with a steady pace, but with a rise and fall in places to match specific moments that I wanted to emphasise as I was looking at making a 5 to 6 minute film. As with all the other soundtracks, I wanted something that would be familiar to an audience, and it had to be very different to all the others to ensure that the film would be interesting and fresh. After looking around for a bit, I found exactly what I was looking for. Ennio Morricone writes fantastic film scores, and Chi Mai was just perfect.

I was working on creating the film with around 80% river footage, some lake scenes and rounded off with a hint of a high speed run. The river scenes that were filmed from the boat were made early in the morning, and this proved to be a gift in a photographic sense. The water was a sheet of glass, and the reflections could have been painted onto the surface. My favourite segments are the approach to the stone bridge at Milton Ferry, and the delightful scene where the grazing cows stop munching one by one to stare beadily at the stranger in their midst. That was a lovely moment.

The title is self-explanatory – it is from a Chris de Burgh song that I originally planned to use in the film, but Chi Mai suited my vision much more closely. Still, I kept the title, so Chris doesn’t need to feel too bad about it. From a technical and photographical point of view, I feel that this is the strongest film in the series.

Poshboatz V – This Time it’s Wild!

This film was not originally planned, and is a bit of fun to round off the series. When I uploaded all the clips and filed them into various headings, I was amazed at how many fell into the ‘wild life’ category. Whilst many clips would find their way into the main films, it seemed like a good idea to bring them altogether to round off the presentation, and include some unseen footage at the same time. Once again, music was the key here – I’d wanted to use the lovely theme music from Howard’s Way all along, but none of the films really suited it. The melody really flows along, and there is a lively up-tempo section three quarters of the way through, and that was ideal for some action shots that I’d been lucky enough to catch on the day. So for the final time, take to your leather armchairs as we cast off and head for Meadow’s Way.

So if you're in Peterborough, be sure to pop down to Overton lake and say 'Hi!' to Bob, before enjoying a relaxing trip in comfortable surroundings.