Now the rough edit of Casimir Effect is past the midpoint we’re looking further into the future, everything from music, to the special effects. We have a bunch more meetings before we really get dug in, but we have established our post production and marketing budget goals. We are looking to raise £12,000 to cover post production and marketing. However we have a bit more time to raise these funds. This new goal has been split into two, the first £6,000 needs to be raised by the 1st October 2010 and will be mostly used for post production, the last £6,000 by 1st February 2011 which will be used for the preparation for film festivals.

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Like reaching our other goals we will be auctioning off a number of items including more film props, costumes and set dressing, and all those donation that have gotten us this far. We are also putting together a selection of limited edition signed prints that will be put up for auction over the coming months. As always we will be adding more items to our store, including signed versions of our regular prints. I have a bag with some more Torchwood goodies to be signed, and a few of the audio books Gareth did.

We’re also thinking of making some costumes for cosplay if there is interest, CJS ID badges custom made with your picture and name on them. As always we’re open for new ideas and suggestions as to what you would like us to do and we will look into getting them.

Sound and Music

As mentioned before Blue Gillespie’s tracks Paradox and Time Knot are for the film. Once we have the rough edit we will be looking at getting the songs as stems (each instrument in its own track) so we can remix and rework the songs for the sound track. However before that we have ADR (Additional Dialogue Replacement) to get done, once we have the ADR sorted we can start looking at getting the first full trailer out. But before then we hope to get a second teaser out.

Once we have the ADR sorted, our sound guys Espen and Ewoud will be spending the summer collecting sound effect and building banks of sounds. To create everything that is important to the world of the film, everything from a sliding cup to the hums and crackles of the time machine. When they are off doing this we will be working on the music and reworking the songs we have to create all the character themes and incidental music, that will set the mood and tone for each sequence.

Special Effects

This is the hardest part of post production and will require a large team working many hours to get everything that is needed. Once we have a rough edit we will be going through each scene deciding what effects are needed and what we would like to do but hadn’t thought of. Then we need to prioritise them so we can create our workflow for the coming months. Also it will tell us which scenes we need to re-edit first and allow us to structure our path to the final edit.

Everything from Rotoscoping (cutting out actors from the background, and replacing markers), to rendering new elements for the time machine and the future. Everything takes time and we need to start the complex things now and leave the easy things till near the end. Of course these special effects are also where most of our post production budget will go.

Trailer

As mentioned above we will be working on a new teaser once we have a rough edit, this will give you a taster for what we have coming. Than after that and we have some of the sounds in and music ready we will do our first full trailer and look to doing a longer trailer later in the year with some of the completed effects.

Sex Wales and Anarchy 3

And finally we will be at Sex Wales and Anarchy 3 this year, hopefully we will have a few scenes close to completion for people to see. However we are also running the film side of SWA, called SWA Film, we’re turning this into a mini film festival, with a prize fund at the end of it. The details will be on the SWA3 site in the next few days and hopefully many of the filmmakers that are following us will submit something. We are still looking for our judges at the moment but we’re hoping we can get some interesting names to help out.

Anyway it proves to be an interesting day with lots of fun and creativity and some good local bands to boot.

It’s been a few days since I have had chance to sit down and take it the scenery. So let’s try and do this in some level of chronological order. We have had audition for our lead actress; I can’t give names just yet, but she is good and overall fits our ideas of Alice. Next week I’ll pop out a press release confirming everything to do with the main roles.

The auctions are doing well, a big thank you goes to all those bidding, and I do hope you keep vigilant as they seem to have days of jumping around. At least money raised for these should be enough to start developing merchandise for the Hub 3 in Birmingham. Our aim is to make around £5,000 by Christmas 2009, both from merchandise, auctions and private funding.

Wrexham was good, for a small con it did well this year, there were a few names and plenty of interested. I think the only negative I could find was lack of publicity, so it was still quite small. However we should be at the next one with more promotion for us and we will do lots of promotion for Wales Comic-Con. There was mention that the next one will be in about 6 month’s time. I’m unsure at this time if Gareth will be there, I think the general idea was to be, but this all depends on prior commitments.

The Blue Gillespie Gig was good, an odd shape venue, but overall it worked out well. It was good to meet a few of you out there and talk a bit about the film and our plans. The Picture below is by Jann Tarrant. I will say if any of you are looking for a Photographer she is a good choice along with Mark Crowle Groves.

After the gig I was whisked off to the set of the Sherlock Holmes film Gareth is working on, it was interesting to see a full scale shoot in action and see hoe a different crew do things. Everything in this industry is a learning curve, and every film has a different way of doing things.

With the script now locked we are doing the script breakdown, this is the slow part each department looks over the script and we plan what is in every shot the sound and elements that make up the film. It’s not boring though, as you are telling the story of the world and the back-story of the characters as you build up the set dressing and props. On the props side we have found an old jetfighter chair, which were hoping to procure soon.

On other notes we have the films domain name up and running, www.casimireffectfilm.com just a holding page with links to the social network sites for now. We hope to launch the page in a month’s time just before the Torchwood convention (Hub 3) in Birmingham. Thanks to http://thelongmile.net/ for the help in getting everything setup and pointed to the right places.

We will be at Wrexham Comic-Con this weekend with Gareth and Blue Gillespie, I hope some of you can be there, as this is our first real outing on the promotion bandwagon. We won’t have much on offer but we will be free to talk and natter with anyone who is there.

We have also started up our eBay auctions, the first two items are exclusive San Diego Comic-Con Torchwood Posters. These exclusive posters are from a very limited run, beautifully illustrated by Tommy Lee Edwards, showing Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) and Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). These posters are signed by all of the above and have been made available by Gareth himself to help fund Casimir Effect.

It was only available at San Diego Comic-Con 2009 and because of this, has not been made widely available to the international market. These are possibly the last two available, so needless to say are very rare collector’s items. Beyond that they would make a fantastic piece for any collector and I would hope it can take pride of place in their collection.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150375320469

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150375322128