Young, High and Dead Film Blog

Young, High and ‘Not’ Dead! - 13/7/2012

With it being Friday the 13th and after a long time of no blogging I thought it the perfect time to update everyone on what stage YHAD is at.

So being my first debut feature film and making the film with minimum money and no help from established film companies etc, I have to confess I have learnt a lot of what ‘To Do’ and what ‘Not to Do’.

Would I ever make another film this way again?

No way! I hope I never have to work on another project where I have to do so much work and dedicate so many years, Since shooting YHAD I have watched many films I worked on during casting at Nash Studios get made, get distributed, get released and now the DVD’s are in HMV. All of these where big budget films with hundreds of people working full time on them. Mine is virtually just me doing part time work whenever I can grab a few spare hours. This has involved me staying up to the early hours of morning and then getting up 2 hours before I have to leave for work. It’s like doing 2 jobs. At least I get paid for my day job.

NEWS July 2012

So lot’s of exciting things bubbling away, some things I cannot release as of yet for obvious reasons but there are many people excited to see the film which is great.

I had to re expose all the clips in the final master due to a piece of software not giving me accurate video scope info, so basically I have had to adjust all the levels 1 by 1. As you can imagine a 129 minute films has hundreds of clips so it’s slow tedious work, but I have been watching the footage as I go along on my ipad and it looks amazing! Better than I have ever seen it before. Finally YHAD is a REAL film.

Whilst doing this I have been making adjustments to the audio, and getting it set for surround sound. Our music composer Blue Daisy has been busy as hell but is hopefully nearly finished with the music. I have about 1/3 of it already and if the rest is half as good as what I already have we will all be in for a treat. It’s amazing how integral the music is, especially to a film like YHAD. 

I no longer work at Nash studio, and have moved over to an amazing company called Casting Networks. SO it’s been tough switching jobs, getting used to new systems and routines but I feel settled enough to push more energy into YHAD. I still work in casting which is great and everyone at the office is great to work with and lot’s of fun. We even have 2 resident office dogs ‘Freddy & Honey’.

Also which is quite exciting for me. I decided that I needed something else to break my mind from YHAD, my head was too invloved in the project and sometimes you need to mix things up a bit. I promised myself to not do any other projects until YHAD was 100% done but in the end my creativity took over. I have started work on a brand new feature script and have knocked out 50 odd pages already, it’s completely different to YHAD and would need a hollywood style budget, I am only writing whilst I am on the train to work, any other time goes to YHAD. But I think it has huge potential to be something quite special with the possibility of many sequels! Obviously it’s top secret for now but I will say it’s like a mixture of ‘Full Metal Jacket, The Raid & Die Hard’ with a dash of ‘Heat’. It’s a full on Action film.

I cannot remember when I last blogged properly and I know our FB and Tweets have been quiet. It’s hard trying to juggle so many things and I promise to be more active during these final stages of YHAD.

Final Thoughts

Lots of people make films an a whole manner of ways, there is no right or wrong there is only a good or bad result. I truly hope that with YHAD all the specific details and care and attention that has gone into it enables it to have a good result. It’s a competitive business and I always knew the odds of being a successful at film maker where stacked highly against me. BUT it’s all I have ever wanted to do and I love every second of it, even during this epic struggle. “If you really want something? Go and fucking get it yourself”

Luke B

ps don’t forget to spread some YHAD love, RT, Like us, tell your friends about our 100% Independent British Horror film

www.younghighanddead.com

YHAD in March 2012

Thought it was “High” time I did another quickish blog, updating where we are with the film.

I can’t believe we are almost a quarter of the way through the year already! It’s incredibly tough juggling a full time job running a casting studio as well as trying to finish my film. But I have been putting every spare second I have into YHAD. It’s now been just over 18 months of Post Production since the shoot! That’s roughly the same amount of time I spent writing and re-drafting the script. Hopefully though the painstakingly slow process has guided the film to be in it’s strongest possible position. These are daunting times for me as a film maker, I have absolutely no idea whether YHAD will do well or not. I know that I am really proud of it, I have seen it about a thousand times and still enjoyed watching YHAD the other day, so hopefully that’s a good sign :)

Where we at?

Right now, the picture has been locked down which mean NO more edit changes. Over the past few weeks I have been tidying and cleaning the sound, adding sound effects etc.Once again this is where indie film making on a low/no budget is difficult because it’s all about taking time to learn new skills and finding the time to actually go through it all. I am over a 1/3 of the way through and really happy how the film is shaping up. I get so frustrated how long everything takes but at least I have full creative control on this project.

The Music Man?

In the mean time our brilliant music composer (Blue Daisy) is busy creating an original score for YHAD, I heard a sample of what hes has done so far a few weeks back and am extremely excited to see how it all lays up against the final film. If you haven’t already checked out his work you can do so via the links below. It’s hard to reference what he has done for the film, but the final scenes at the end of the film will blow people away!

http://twitter.com/bluedaisytwit

http://open.spotify.com/artist/14gzNjY6efkIqRY4hAca6a

YHAD future?

Once we get the music laid down and mixed into the film, we are set to push with all the online publicity and also contacting as many people as possible to help get the film sold and ‘Out There’. Hopefully we can organize several screening for people to come and check out what the hell the past 4 and a bit years have all been about.

Once we get that final master copy to duplicate and send out, we will press on with getting a poster ready, teaser clips, promotional material etc etc. 

Hopefully if people enjoy/like the film, we may just get lucky and get help onboard to push ‘Young, High and Dead’ far and beyond. That’s every film makers dream.

Luke

(Source: younghighanddead.com)

Young, High and Dead - pre XMAS blog

Holy Moley,

I cannot believe it’s the end of year 2011. The past 12 months have flown by, not sure whether this is down to getting older or because I have had my head deeply buried in YHAD all year. And what a year it has been, we haven’t witnessed any fruits of our labour or had anytime to kick back and relax, it’s been non stop on the film making treadmill.

We have had a couple of final viewings between my Co DIrectors, Producer and myself, making sure we have got the film right. We think so, so now we are just waiting on the  music and fingers crossed (mainly for my sanity) that will be it. Big fat screening and then we release YHAD out into the wild and watch where it feeds and what treasures it will bring back. Exciting stuff.

This year has been an epic learning curve for me, something that I hope helps me grow as a filmmaker, I will do a much more detailed blog about all the good and bad things I have learnt throughout 2011. I have been making YHAD for over 3 years now and it looks like its going to certainly overlap into 2012. But I reckon it will definitely be a film that people will love. It’s been a constant uphill struggle with many more obstacles than most people face but the peak is in sight and the last ascent will be crucial for the success of YHAD.

My team and I are getting a big strategy together which will hopefully ensure this film doesn’t go un-noticed, affording it all the exposure and credit that it deserves. I know things have seemed really quite of late but rest assured we have been busy collecting & stashing away our winter film nuts.

I though I would ration you all one of my acorns, a sneaky peek at the latest concept art for a poster that I have been playing about with, it’s purely experimental so expect changes and certainly get set for lot’s of updates to follow over the coming months.

Latest YHAD Poster December 2011

Let me know your thoughts, peace

Luke B

www.younghighanddead.com