It’s been a rough few months for myself, illness has pretty much crippled me and meant I have only been able to keep a few things ticking over. I now have a massive backlog of work to catch up on, not only for Casimir Effect but all the other projects I’m involved with.

Now I’m back and fighting fit I can get back on with post production, I have been reviewing everything we need to do and it seems there is an awful lot more work than we first thought. So we are splitting the special effects into the ones needed to tell the story properly and everything else to make it look nice. This gives us a rough system to start prioritising things. However this doesn’t mean we’re going to do a rush job just to hit a festival date, as you only get one chance with a film so we want to be sure we have done the best we can.

So the release of the film will be delayed, provisionally until the end of the year so we can spend time on getting those finishing touches just right. The delay however has produced some good fruit, Clarky has completely reworked the music for the film the new songs he played me are awesome. With extra time we can put a lot more effort into everything and rework elements if needed.

Because of the delay I’m changing the fundraising deadlines and over the next few weeks will start getting the delayed action plan up and running. This means new merchandise, new stills and some new footage from the CGI tests and teasers. I have seen some of the work already, and have been working on the matte paintings for a few scenes, so you should start seeing things coming up soon.

We have come to the end of another year, and we hit the goals even if we over ran by a few days to get the last few pounds in. Some of the pressure is off for getting money in. Though we still need a small flow of money for odds and ends and to get the film out to festivals, however with more new merch coming, the sound track and the making of book we should see enough coming in to tide us over. We have a rough target to make £3000 by May 2011; this should cover us for our initial round of festival submissions. I have faith that we can all make the festival circuit and we will see many of our donators and fans along the way.  So…

A BIG THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE HELPED

We made our 2010 goals.

The Final Production Stills

These stills are from filming day eleven, though we filmed for 12 days, we had a minimal crew on the last day so never got many shots for the archive.  So this is the last of them, I think next we will go through our development archive and see what we have in sketches and other odds and ends.

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We’re not for now, about £170 to go before the end of the year. And what an amazing year it has been, going through some of the past blog posts. It seems we have been on a fun and sometimes scary rollercoaster ride. To get to the point it has been fantastic and we couldn’t have done it without the help and support of the fanbase. We have seen the filming through, had clips and previews. Yet this is just a small part of the journey, we’re about half way there now. The edit is locked, the music is underway, and the sound is getting there and the CGI is being planned. Yet without you we couldn’t even be here without you, so a big thank you goes out to everyone who has helped, and always remember you are supporting independent film and creativity.

Yes there is still a journey left, once we have the post production underway, we need to start really digging into what festivals we can and need to enter. As we start looking around we will be looking out to fans to help research and promote at local festivals. We’re also hoping many of you can come to a festival, as we will keep a guest list for all those who have helped so you will get to see the film at a festival. Then as we have done each festival we can find independent cinemas for screenings, before we make Casimir Effect available for general release.

So in the New Year, we still have a fair amount to auction off, there is the soundtrack and the making of book. Also if we can get our head around any legal ramifications we may do pre orders on a limited run of the DVD, to be released after each countries premiere.

So for now let’s get that last £170 in the pot and move into the new year with big ambitions and the passion to carry them off.

Just keep swimming, at least that’s what Dori the Bluefish tells us. It seems there is so much to do and never enough time. I have to work on the sound, getting foley this weekend, and work getting the SFX plan sorted this week. Then I have to work on a plan to meet the targets for the end of December.

At the moment were close the end of November totals, I hope some of the eBay auctions get bids, and that we can get some apparel orders in for the new designs. With Chicago TARDIS this weekend Jenn has made badges and will be nipping around asking for people to donate a few dollars or some change. So if you see Jenn coming your way brandishing some groovy badges, she will probably give you one and ask nicely with a winning smile if you can spare some change. There are two exclusive designs for Chicago TARDIS once they are gone we won’t be doing any more.

Here’s where the fundraising is at for this month.

Atrium Students and their Projects

I have the first video from the students at the Atrium in Cardiff, this one is from the title sequence project. Once I get the files from the others I’ll upload them, I’m also persuading them to do a mini doc showing their design and development progress.

Anyway here is the first title sequence.

More from the Set

I have uploaded day eight of the behind the scenes stills, this was out last day filming at the Coal Exchange.

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The good news is we will be doing a panel at Chicago TARDIS, on the Saturday morning. The bad news is we won’t be there in person. We’re doing a live chat via the internet, so you can hopefully hear us and if we are lucky we can get video going to.  I’m looking into exclusive stills for the event and as an extra special bonus I’m working hard to get a scene finished and some polish added to show at the end of the talk.

So if you want to see something cool come to Chicago TARDIS and be up on the Saturday morning for the talk, and to get you going it’s a touching scene where Bob and Alfred first start to bond and it ends at a nice cliff-hanger.

Production Stills

Here is another set of stills from Day 5, we have some nice shots of the actors in costume. Some of the costumes are yet to be sold off.

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eBay & Store

All the apparel has gone from the store other than items we have in stock. In a few weeks I’ll put up the first design from the embroidered range. These items require smaller orders so we can ship a lot faster. All current orders are with the printers, and fingers crossed will be ready in a week or so, as I want to get these out to everyone before we start on the new designs. Let’s hope we have better luck with these new ones.

We still have plenty of items on eBay, we’re working on Alice’s costumes at the moment. Many of these have been custom made for the film so are wholly unique, and extremely well made, thanks to our excellent costume department.