Here’s Joe. The Head Knight of the Knights of The Golden Trail. He runs the Chateau Laroche just outside Cincinnati in Loveland, Ohio. He inherited it from Harry Andrews when he died about 25 years ago. He and his knights keep the Chateau all ship shape and Bristol fashion for visitors to come and just hang out. The Knights are kinda like a grown up group of boy scouts, that have a frikkin castle to play in. Really nice bunch of chaps, and Joe was just super. We also stumbled over Kings Island and got horribly beaten up on some of the best coaster we’ve ever ridden.
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Appetite for Distraction
Howdy folks, right now I’m sitting in a motel room somewhere in between West Virginia. We’ve begun our 3 week road trip across America to is talk to some of the people that build the roadside attractions that are dotted along the highways and freeways of this country. We filming and photographing the whole thing, and when I say ‘we’ I mean me, Jason, Richard Johnson and the Boob.
We’re at day 3 right now, we landed in New York 3 days ago, we stayed the night, picked up the hire car and got the hell out of there.
We drove 130 miles down to Margate, New Jersey to visit Lucy the Elephant (America’s oldest roadside attraction). We spoke to Richard who runs the show down there and a very nice and knowledgeable chap was he. Then Sarah (also knowledgeable, also nice) took us on a tour of Lucy’s innards, which are surprisingly spacious for an Elephant. The chats went really well and we took some pretty video.We then drove another 220 miles to Haggerstown (which is a lot like an American version of Strood) and checked into a hotel for the night. Johnson got a bit frisky with the Boob during the night, Boob is still trying to catch up on the lost sleep.
Today we drove another 200 miles see Mark Cline in Virginia and have him show us around some of his attractions; Foam Henge, Dinosaur Kingdom and Professor Kline’s Monster Museum. He’s a really nice guy (yeah, another nice person, a theme may be developing) and also pretty amazing. He’s made so much stuff over the years it’s tricky to work out where he gets the time, even if he does do it full time. He just wants to entertain people and make them happy, not a bad way to make a living. Foam Henge is a life size replica of the stone original, Dinosaur Kingdom is a sprawling adventure through the woods where giant dinosaurs attack fighters from the civil war, and the Monster Museum is a full on walk through haunted house kinda deal that’s probably one of the best I’ve been in. Mark has invited us to visit his work shop tomorrow morning, and then we’re off to see how far we can drive towards Ohio for our next stop.
Lightspeed to Endor /Romford
Another little test of the time-lapse controller. This time The Boob took us on a whirlwind tour from Collier Row, to Hainault then Romford and home. The dog track was kicking out in Romford, some slow traffic made for some good still moments in the time-lapse. Oh yeah, we were on a 3 seater speeder bike.
Testing the time-lapse
A quick low down and dirty test of the time-lapse controller for our SLR. Not the most awe inspiring clip, but I’m sure we’ll be gagging for a bit of grey sky when we finally limp into LA next month at the end of our USA road trip (more info on that to follow).
We Will Survive
This morning we had a knock on the door (well, ring of the door bell, but you know what I mean) and Mr Postman handed us 2 jiffy bags with “Survival Kit” written on each (plus address and stamps and what have you). Inside we found these essential English food stuffs to keep us alive during our imminent American Adventure (if you don’t already know about it stay tuned, we’ll be blogging all about it very soon) along with some life saving foreign translations. All lovingly crafted by our pals Oli and Meg, cheers kids, we shall surely live to fight another day with these kits tucked into our trunk.
we heart Elstree Studios
Spending this week at Elstree Studios working on the graphic design for a short film directed by a friend of hours. Involving a lot of hand painted Gill Sans. This is a very early shot of the set build after just a few hours.
moo’s perfect tone of voice
Just got some new moo cards. Still love their tone of voice. Here’s the grand unboxing of the cute little moo card plastic wallets.
We had an awesome meeting this morning
And I totally visited the library toilet.
a little jolly to Brugge
Just returned from a short trip out to Brugge. It was a birthday present from our folks. Thanks folks! What a jolly nice little place it is too. Here are some pics of mostly chocolate, weird roofs and chocolate.
The fun begins
Now the dust has settled, the cameras have been returned, the plates have been washed up… we begin the editing. So far, all going really well. The very rough edit seems to hold together. This movie making gig is a lark. Also, it’s first real test of our new rig. It’s almost as powerful as the computer in Superman III. That glowing blue light behind G is the power supply. It’s pimp.