Wednesday, September 16, 2009
  Another review for 5:13

Reviews are like busses.

There’s a second review up now on At The Movies with Lim Chang Moh - the online version of movie reviews formerly published in The Malay Mail, arguably the longest running weekly column in Malaysia. The writer was Production Editor of The Malay Mail before retiring in 2006. He now contributes articles to magazines and does free-lance projects.

Have a read as to what he thinks about 5:13…

One thing we can all appreciate about Abraham's direction is that he does not rely on cheap thrills like sudden loud noises or creaking doors to jolt us. Instead, he carefully shapes the mood and atmosphere so that we can scare ourselves. The whole movie is shot (by Luke Yerbury) in minimal lighting, heightening our sense of dread and foreboding. As we accompany Viv and Ash at the semi-furnished house, we keep expecting demons and other untold evil to break through the door and wreak havoc.

Read the whole review here.

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Monday, September 14, 2009
  First review in for 5:13

DSC_6804

The first review is now in for 5:13, the horror film that we edited on earlier this year, which is due for release in early 2010.

Abraham’s sophomore feature is a curious blend of politically-minded domestic drama and paranoid invasion flick. It’s not an overtly obvious coupling, but at times it works surprisingly well.

The review has appeared on IndieFlicks and is largely positive.

Have a read here.

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009
  “Microsoft Tag” Mentions 5:13

513poster Microsoft Tag’s Blog has mentioned our forthcoming horror film, 5:13.

5:13 a thriller movie slated to release in 2010 just implemented Microsoft Tag in their movie poster. Highlighted in yellow bellow, the Microsoft Tag can be snapped allowing the public at large to gain access to mobile content, including mobile trailers and downloads.

Using Microsoft Tag on printed materials creates the opportunity for indie and corporate movie companies to increase the ROI on their print marketing efforts. With Microsoft Tag print advertising can now serve as a real life portal to the online world. Keep an eye out for Microsoft Tag on other print material in your area and for the release of 5:13.

Read the whole article here.

You can read about our experience with using Microsoft Tag here.  We believe it’s going to be a fantastic way to deliver our mobile content to nearly all internet capable mobile phones.

tag513

And, whilst we have your attention, feel free to “give the tag a go” – just download the app from http://gettag.mobi and point your phone at our tag (above)!

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Thursday, June 4, 2009
  5:13 Film Poster

It’s been a very busy few months here at Chaos Created.  Most of our work has been focussed on a couple of unannounced projects (more on that soon) and finishing up editing on horror thriller movie, 5:13, and the other movie, The Joshua Tapes.

Both films are slated for release early 2010, and Chaos Created has been responsible for post production (editing and sound design).

Yesterday, work was finished on the official film poster.  The film is slated for release in Malaysia first, but it’s also been submitted for London Fright Fest and will be submitted for London Film Festival soon, so we hope that you’ll get a chance to see it!

Here’s the official poster, designed by Luke Yerbury, with photography from Matthew Ong

513Poster

The official web site will be launching soon.  We’re just waiting on approval of the trailer, and we’ll be good to go.

We’re also using Microsoft Tag to distribute out mobile content, including mobile trailers and downloads.  It’s a fantastic bit of technology that allows users to ‘snap’ the tag using their mobile phone (actually, on most devices, you don’t even need to snap, the moment the application sees a tag, it’ll send users on their way to the content), and automatically be redirected to our mobile content (dynamically).  Not only does it work on most phones (pretty much any phone that can accept applications and has a browser – i.e. nearly all new phones) but the responsiveness is amazing…  Out of focus, no problem…  Too close/too far? No problem.

Tags can tie into mapping services, video, web sites, or simply pop up a message.

We’re even now beginning to think of ways we could use tags…  Take a look at one of our past projects, Gridsearch.  This is an area in which Tags would be very useful.

Take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/tag for more information on the technology.

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009
  The Beginning Of The End – Finishing The Joshua Tapes

3104814676_0f4e7e4c7d_m Ok, the title of the post sounds a little daunting, but after a long slog of several months of late nights and work-filled-weekends, The Joshua Tapes is nearly done.

Last year, Perantauan Pictures, with Befour, filmed two feature-length movies back-to-back.  The first, 5:13, is a horror film and the second film, The Joshua Tapes is a drama/comedy/road trip film (I find it hard to describe it more concisely than that).

Due to the scheduling, The Joshua Tapes needed to be the first completed so, I ditched (for now) the editing on 5:13 in order to complete TJT.

The movie, shot in HD, was edited entirely in Sony Vegas Pro which has been a joy to work with.  I say that having had so many issues with other editing suites when I started on 5:13, also an HD film (Heck, Premiere lost me three weeks of work…).  Vegas has literally let me edit in HD, in full resolution or close to it, with real time previews.  It’s been great.  No rendering of clips in between previews, and no reduced-resolution clips on my timeline and output monitor.  I’m also running Windows 7 (beta, of course) which literally flies on this system (which has a nice 4GB of RAM), and a dual monitor set-up too.

3302267149_15d7b93d47 The only draw back (with Vegas) has been that the film has had to be split down into four chunks (as it seems to become a little wobbly when you get past the 1GB memory usage) but, to be honest, it’s made the whole project more manageable as we’ve been able to concentrate tasks on a specific quarter per day/weekend, deepening on the task in hand.

The edit itself has been fairly smooth.  There were a few issues with missing clips during the shoot, but the assembly cut, otherwise, was fairly straight forward.

I prefer, when the audio is recorded separately, as was the case here (as opposed to recording to the camera) to do the picture edit first, and then do a second run through syncing all the sound.  So my assembly cut used the camera sound.

My second loop around, assembling the sound, was where things got a little trickier.  A huge amount of the film was set in a car.  The problem is that the car chosen (A Pajero) is the nosiest beast you could imagine – and I mean, the living room, two floors beneath my office, literally shakes when the volumes turned up, and it couldn't be towed for a couple of reasons, mainly due to the costs incurred in Malaysia where the movie was shot.  The sound, in itself, isn’t a huge deal as you play through one take, and one angle, but it became suddenly very jarring as we cut between the actors in the same scene, as gears change and engine noises altered.

Anyway, it became a point of altering the audio in each shot, and we got around it the best we could by merging the audio into one file the best I could, using cross fades in the sound, and picking opportune moments to switch between tracks.  Then in was a case of externally filtering the audio to produce three tracks.  One, just base, to give a constant engine rumbling, the original file altered if necessary, and a track with as much bass as possible removed.  Then, it’s back to Vegas to play with the levels some more.

Am I happy with it?  I think that it’s something I’m pedantic about and still a bit shaky on, but it’s not as noticeable when played out on a TV in 5.1, and maybe I’m only noticing it because I’m aware of what the problems are…  I think it would have been easier if The Joshua Tapes was about three guys on a bicycle ride, but I’ll learn to live with it.

3299078599_163c215ba3 Being HD, it’s taken 2 days to render the whole film out, and it’s off to the director, Arivind Abraham, tonight for him to pick through and highlight any glaring errors or omissions.  I’m pretty confident in the cut we have as Arivind’s been here most weekends, overseeing the process, which has been useful, obviously to get his take on the film, but also to stop me from going crazy with cabin fever.  Which happened anyway.

Then, if we’re happy, the render’s on it’s way, later this week, to Luke Yerbury for colour treatment.

And the verdict on the film itself.  After, I suppose, 5 months worth of work, I can still sit back and enjoy the movie.  Sure, there’s scenes I’ve seen a thousand times, and there’s lines I can’t possibly stand to hear again because they’ve given me so much bother, but at the end of the day, it’s a great film.  Sweet, smart and well paced.

I’m looking forward to everyone being able to see it soon.

But, yeah, bike movie next time guys!

I’ll blog a little more about some specifics of the process once I’ve had a couple of days to recover.

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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
  Cutting a Coldplay Music Video!

We ended up with an interesting little side project last weekend whilst cutting together a feature film we’re currently editing. 

Coldplay have launched a competition, inviting individuals and amateur film makers to create a music video for the acoustic version of “Lost?” from their latest album.

Rather ironically, it was the song that Arivind Abraham, the director, wanted to use over the final sequence of the film.  Whilst looking up details regarding the rights to using the song, he came across the competition.  So, last weekend, as we laid down the final scenes in the rough cut of the film, we cut together a music video as our entry.  It works (scarily) well.  It’s basically the final scene from the movie, cut back by about a minute, and edited to fit the timing and pace of the track better and it’s beautiful.  Editing it together, it was near magical just how well the song fits the content and context of the sequence and it seems to work out of context just as well.

You can watch it below.  If you like it, please feel free to rate it, and add it to your favourites.  And hopefully, it’ll do well against the competition.  Incidentally, I get the feeling that maybe somebody is trying to rig the competition seeing as all the “finalists” appear to have one star but, apparently, it’s the band themselves that will have the final say.

Enjoy!

Rate the video here

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Monday, September 22, 2008
  Cutting a trailer – 5:13

I’ve spent the last couple of days cutting the trailer for 5:13 with director, Arivind Abraham.

The one thing that actually really annoys me about trailers, in general, is how much they tend to give away.  It’s at the point now where I actually AVOID trailers as much as possible.  Especially when it comes down to scary films – I want to go and see a film and jump at the scary parts.  I want to be surprised.  I don’t want to sit there and know what’s coming up.  I want to experience the film with the characters.

Examples of decent marketing campaigns would be Taken and Cloverfield.  Taken’s trailers tended not to feature anything that happened outside the first 20 minutes of the film (for the most part, they featured just the phone conversation between Liam Neeson and the kidnappers).  Cloverfield was pretty much a teaser campaign – going into the cinema, I didn’t know what the ‘event’ was.

I think it’s been several years since anybody’s gone to see a film solely for the special effects.  That might have washed a few years ago with Jurassic Park, but I think the audiences are (more than) aware that great visuals don’t guarantee a knock out film.  That’s sort of why I don’t understand it when film makers fill trailers with all of the killer moments from the film.  I mean, sometimes trailers are treated like a “3 minute version” of a film.  And that’s bad.

So, going into the 5:13 trailer edit, the idea was to make the audience want to go see the movie.  We didn’t want to give away the story, we didn’t want to blow the “jumpy bits” in a trailer.  The goal was to present a minute-or-so teaser that leaves the audience wanting more.

Trailer to follow soon.

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Saturday, September 20, 2008
  Movie Editing Updates (5:13 and The Joshua Tapes)

It’s been crazy busy on the Chaos Created front over the past few weeks, and there’s lots of exciting projects in the pipe line.

We’re cutting the trailer for 5:13 over the weekend.  I was hoping to have some video blogs for you on this one, but there’s been all sorts of issues with codecs, editing software and formats, that it’s been a little bit crazy.  I’ll blog on this at some point in the near future, but I guess the down side of using the latest technology is that you’re often in uncharted waters – that’s certainly been the case here, with all sorts of issues early on in the edit, typically regarding brand new camera, the format they output to, incompatibility between PCs and Macs, codecs, how editing software handles file formats…  You name it, we’ve come across it.  And of course, using the latest technology means that there’s very little documentation out there (even on the interweb).

The end result is that we’re using a Sony Vegas suite now, and the edit is running smoothly at long last.  In fact, we’re about two scenes away from having the first rough cut of the film (minus sound treatment), which is pretty exciting.

Sony Vegas itself is rather new (relatively speaking), and certainly not nearly as well known as, say, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere and Avid.  But, rather oddly, it’s the only suite that’s been capable of handling what we’re throwing at it.  It’s audio facilities, incidentally, outclass any editing suite I’ve come across, which – seeing as we’re working on a horror film, warrants its usage alone.  It’s also creeping its way up the Hollywood ladder at the moment.  For me, the way it has allowed me to cut in HD without the need for rendering, and to run with such a smooth frame rate on an external monitor, has been a treat.

The edit on the Joshua Tapes will be starting the week after next, so hopefully, now that we’ve ironed out the teething problems with 5:13, there should be a bit more time on The Joshua Tapes to write about the processes involved.

Anyway, expect the trailers on both films within the next few weeks.  The marketing is being discussed at the moment – I think the plan is to launch the viral sites very early next year.

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Friday, July 11, 2008
  5:13 Teaser Trailer is now online...

5:13, the film that we are currently editing on, is now available in Teaser Trailer form.  The trailer doesn't give much away about the story, rather it demonstrates the style and the claustrophobia that the film conveys.  Having broken ground on the edit this week (video blogs coming soon), I'm looking forward to getting stuck in, as there's a really great script and some fantastic work behind it already and, obviously, I'm a big horror movie fan.

Embedded trailer below...

You can also view the video in magical Silverlight high(er) definition at:
http://befour.co.uk/513/

You can also catch the video in the following places, where video blogs, etc, will follow:
YouTube
MSN Video

Be sure to pass the link around, and if you fancy sharing the video on your own web sites, the embed code is included on both the MSN Video and YouTube versions.

Or, for Facebook fans, click below to share the trailer with your loved ones...

Share (the 5:13 Teaser Page)

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Monday, June 23, 2008
  The Last Drive - CD/DVD Now Released

thelastdrive Last year, Chaos Created/Befour filmed and edited a music concert for DVD release for The Last Drive, a reformed rock/punk band who are massive in Greece and big in other European regions.  The DVD has now been officially released as part of a Live CD/DVD pack entitled Time Is Not Important.

The footage we edited from was recorded in Athens last year.

From Wikipedia:

The Last Drive is a Greek garage revival rock group which formed in 1983 and broke up in 1995. They are regarded by many as the most important Greek rock group of the 80's and one of the most important and influential groups of Greek rock history.

In early 2007, the band announced on their official website their reunion for some gigs. They performed live in Athens on May 11th, 12th and 13th -all three dates being sold out- in Thessaloniki on the 19th and in Larissa on June 2nd.

Their first record ("Midnite Hop") is re-released by Greek DIY label Blind Bastard Records. They also played at the "Open Air Festival" in Athens on July 6. Finally, they were the headliners on the first day of the "Indie Rocket Festival 2007" (along with the Devastations, Acid Cobra and the Cesarians) that took place in Pescara, Italy on June 22nd . In May 2008 the band did another Greek tour while a live CD-DVD covering their reunion shows in Athens was just released Blind Bastard Records. The band is currently active composing and performing new songs.

More information here
Band's web site is here
Buy it here

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Thursday, April 3, 2008
  New Movie Details...

A few details have been released via a cast advert for the first of the two feature films that Chaos Created will be editing this year.

Perantauan Pictures and Befour Media UK, the team behind S'kali are now casting for their new feature-length horror/drama, written by Arivind Abraham and Keith Leong and to be directed by the former.

The film now has a name, 5:13, and I received an almost-final draft of the script last week and I think it's going to turn out to be a great film.  It has a far more universal appeal than S'kali and horror/thriller films from smaller film companies seem to be doing rather well as of late.

The film begins shooting on 5th May.

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Friday, March 28, 2008
  5:13 Announced

Chaos Created has been commissioned to edit 5:13, a horror film for Perantauan Pictures.

The film, which is scheduled for a May 2008 shoot in Malaysia, is set for release later this year.

The film is the second collaboration between Befour (made up of Chaos Created's Alastair Maggs, Luke Yerbury and Perantauan's Arivind Abraham) and Perantauan Pictures, the first being 2006 film S'kali.

Visit the project page

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Friday, February 1, 2008
  Two New Films Enter Preproduction

Chaos Created will be editing on two films in early 2008.
The films are being shot back to back by Perantauan Pictures in Malaysia and the material will be edited in the UK by Chaos Created/Befour.

More details will follow shortly, but we've already cut the teaser trailer for one of these films.

Keep an eye on the blog for up to the minute information.

About Chaos Created
Chaos Created is an all-in-one media group creating software for the PC market along with cutting edge web sites and film. Chaos was the runner up in the HP Award for Media Design in 2005 for its Melloweh demonstration and, since late 2005, Alastair Maggs of Chaos has been working for Electronic Blackboard Ltd developing an educational subscription service providing interactive applications for its i-board product.

About Perantauan
Perantauan Pictures are responsible for S'kali, released in 2006, which looked at relationships between the different class and racial mixes in Malaysia. The film received a theatrical release in Malaysia, with limited international screenings. Perantauan Pictures have two films green-lit for 2008.

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Chaos Created based in Portishead, Bristol, offers web site design servces, search engine optimisation, mobile app development, film production and editing services and more.

 
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