We directed this short film back in 2008 and finished editing it in 2010. It was written by a friend of ours, Richard Johnson, and is all about what would happen if a great discovery lands in the lap of somebody who doesn’t know what to do with it. Starring another good friend of ours, the comedian, writer and actor Neil Edmond, and co-starring Rosemary Smith.

It picked up third place in The Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival 2011 (part of The Seattle International Film Festival), and the EMP Museum in Seattle are now screening the film daily on the largest indoor LED screen in America… which is kind of amazing.

We shot it in our garage with the help of many people including:

• Colin Butler bought all his camera gear and was our director of photography
• Paul Parsons was an extremely patient sound man (it seems a summer weekend is a popular time to get the lawnmower out)
• Nathan McLaughlin spend an incredible amount of time and talent on the make-up for the end scene
• Andrew Barnabas made it all sound great with his sound mixing
• The Boob was our voice of reason during the editing

more photos here.

We made a little website to house the short films we made the other week and list all the people who helped us make them (cheers gang). We’re going to do some more, not sure what or when, but this is the place to watch:

BINGOPICTURES.COM

*ahem* Konami code - ⇧⇧⇩⇩⇦⇨⇦⇨ B A ENTER *ahem*

We made this little video for the Monster Supplies Store working with excellent Terry Saunders who wrote and performed as both heads of the 2 headed presenter. It’s a short excerpt from the Monster Supplies shopping channel, viewed by many bored monster security guards working the day shift, or insomniac vampires.

Well aren’t we the lucky ones? We managed to find ourselves invited to a personal preview tour of the Harry Potter exhibit at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, London, about a month before it opens to the public. Our excellent tour guide was Craig Hanna, Chief Creative Officer of Thinkwell, the amazing guys and gals behind the attraction (also home to our pal Dave). They’re in soft open mode at the moment, which means they’re running the whole thing for preview guests to help test everything and make sure nobody dies before the real audiences turn up.

The experience isn’t quite what you’d expect judging by how the Harry Potter world has been re-created over the pond in Orlando. Here it’s a slightly more mature approach, and rather than telling the story as if all the magic is real, they are telling you the real story of how the films are made. So rather than entering the real Hogwarts, you explore the actual Hogwarts film sets and the rest of the Harry Potter world.

The place is full of genuinely amazing props and sets, the likes of which you really don’t see so much in films now-a-days. Anybody with a just a passing interest of the craft of film making would be wide eyed at the good old forced perspective corridors, extremely detailed machines and literally piles of animatronic monsters.

The big thing that makes this place special though is the stories of how these people, and especially the kids, have grown up and pretty much lived at the studio for over 10 years making the films – you get a real feel for the passion and pride that goes into the production coming out of such a close knit (and rather large) film making family.

The whole thing is just huge, we can’t mention it all here, but the highlights have to be the Grand Hall in all it’s glory, the stunningly huge Hogwarts model used in all the films, and of course the Butter Beer, which is not of this world, but we’re very glad it’s paying us a visit. Go book yourself some tickets.

One really nice touch is in the very last room of the tour. The room is stuffed from floor to ceiling of wand boxes. Every box carries the name of every single person that worked on the 8 films. There’s no order, no heirachy, they’re all smashed together in one big family. There’s a guy in there with a memory like Rainman who can point out any name you wish… with his wand.

… and Thanks again to Craig from Thinkwell for the tour. What a dude.

More photos here.

Day 5 of BINGO Pictures’ Lunch Time Film Project: The Walk. For this final film we made the squeal to the first one.

Day 2 of BINGO Pictures’ Lunch Time Film Project: The Lift. Featuring Eze, Mike and lots of sticky tape.

We’ve been talking about making a short film with our mate Eze for ages, and we never get round to it. So we decided we should make a short film with Eze (and other mates) every day for a week to make up for lost time. We’ve called it the Lunch Time Films project, the first of which is The Memory. Stay tuned for even more exciting high(ish) quality productions from BINGO Pictures, every day this week.

We got a new toy, a GoPro HD 2! We just happened to be going to our gun club the day it arrived, and it just happened to be empty, so we could muck about with our new toy, and shoot guns, good times.

We actually swapped our old Contour+ camera in for this one. We were never that happy with the quality of the Contour, and the good people at DogCam Sport agreed to swap it out for a GoPro and refund us the difference. Good dog!