Six Months of planning and its all over in three days!

On Friday 15th January we started shooting "American Rebellion" on the outskirts of Birmingham in place called Wednesbury. It was a cold day but thankfully not to cold and minus the terrible snow we had the previous weeks. Our first day was going to be shot in Post Office Studios, Matt our Director of Photography's building.

This was going to be a relatively easy day as it was just going to be the news report which was to be done on a green screen. We had the pleasure of working with a very talented actor, Ross Simpson. Ross had studied numerous American reporters and had come up with a believeable American accent. i was only mildly stressed that day and the shoots we got were great.

Day two started early and all our actors and crew arrived on time and without any problems. Filming had switched to a derelict building next the studiio. We started off on time and was for the most part of the day ahead of schedule. Until that is we decided to do a scene which was penned in for Sunday. Mainly due to us having to wait for sundown to do Scene 8. My stress levels started to climb and also Paul had to leave us to go to a premiere. Thankfully Matt kept a cool head and was marvelous and got through the scenes quickly. We was joined by Jennifer Aries that day who you might of seen in the Channel 4 series "Dead Set".

All the actors did a incredible job and all got their lines right and their positions. Speaking of actors I have to say for the record that all of them had to suffer the cold and the long hours, and not one of them complained! Dawson James probably had to suffer the most, due to his character not being well clothed through most of the shoot.

Day three was a much more relaxed affair and went wonderfully. All the scenes looked amazing and went without to many issues. We even managed to get the outside scene done in time before the sun went down at 16:30. Again Dawson had to suffer another day of torture and coldness. The 35mm lense that Matt used throughout the shoot gave the film such a cinematic look. When editing the rough cut both me and Paul where struck by how fantastic the footage looked and that we didn't really need to colour correct anything. Joining us that day was Barbara D'Alteria and Damian Sommerlad. Barbara has been in numerous projects including a minor role in "Hollyoaks".

I would like to thank all the cast and crew for all their hard work. It was truely an amazing three days and was a joy to do. Special thanks to Alex and Michelle who stepped in at the last minute to do a brilliant job with make up. As always with all our shoots the ever present Rita Kemp was on hand to do catering, helped by Julie Salt. We had two great boom operators for the project with Ifor and Edward both doing a great job and not once did the boom appear in shot, Well done! Also Edward thank you for helping with the not so glamourous jobs!

As for our wonderful cast, I do not know where to start. Our ladies Barbara and Jennifer where a joy to work with and kept us on our toes with their good humour and professionalism. Our supporting cast of Ross, Tom and Paul did everything that I asked of them and looked the part in every scene they did. David Frampton was born to play Major Claymore and was so in the zone the whole time. Some of the close ups of him looked amazing and he did us all proud. All of our cast also showed such great committment and dedication to the project throughout and really cared about the it.

Finally I would like to say a huge thank you to Dawson James who gave us a barn storming performance as Josh Franklin. He owned the screen and consistently did every shoot to perfection. So much so that I don't believe he put a foot wrong, he was on his mark each and everytime. If there was ever a actor who deserved to do well it would be Dawson.

Lastly my dear friend and business partner, Paul Dolmen. He has been there throughout the whole project helping me and couselling me. Paul is a huge talent and I am so grateful for his input and guidance, even if at times I may not show that. He continues to make me want to better myself and to succeed in everything I do. I could not ask for a better friend or mentor, he is quite simply my Yoda.

While filming on our latest film project American Rebellion at the weekend, in an old derelict building on the outskirts of Birmingham,  one of the actors succinctley defined the difference between low-budget and high-budget films.

"You can tell this is a low-budget film," he said, pointing to a mass of pigeon poo on the floor, "The pigeon shit is real."

"And if this were a high-budget film," he continued, shivvering, "we'd be standing in a warm film studio which just looked like a derelict building. And that pigeon shit would be a special effect from the art department."

Such is the glamour of the job.

But these will be the days to remember if (when) we reach the heights of success and are able to work within multi-million euro budgets. It's the working with people who are as passionate as you about filmmaking; it's the way everyone comes together as a team and works (unpaid) for the good of the project; it's about the reality of the struggling artist. These are inspirational days.

It's also a humbling experience. For one brief moment cast and crew, selflessly, offer up all their talents for the good of others, putting their trust and hopes in the director and production team, not knowing if the finished product will actually be any good, or not, or will actually be finished, or will actually see success. It is the act of doing which is important - for no-one will ever find out unless they try.

And for this I commend each and every person who offered their help and contributed to this project (and past and future). Success cannot be achieved alone.

Now, nearly one year old, Nebula Gate has been looking back at a successful year - and we are looking forward to a prosperous new year. The company has been growing from strength to strength, having worked on many new projects and we have met many new faces and incredible talent on our journey.

In 2010 the company will be pushing forward with its music video services and will continue to work on developing feature film screenplays and ideas for commercial TV.  An exciting, and challenging, future lies ahead and one in which we are proud to be part of.

Nebula Gate wishes you all a healthy and successful new year and wants to thank everyone who has helped us achieve our dream over the past year.

Le roi est mort; vive le roi.

American Rebellion - A Consuming Passion

I came up with the story of "American Rebellion" in September of this year, it was a "What if?" type of movie set in the late 1990's. The story is about a group of Americans called "American Liberty" fighting for independence from the British Empire in an alternative history. Instead of the USA getting it's independance in the 1700's it starts to in the 1990's. The two world superpowers are The British Empire and The German Empire in a world that both the USSR and USA do not exist.

The short film shows the arrest of Josh Franklin by the Royal Colonial Security Service, an organisation who police and control colonial life in the British Empire. Josh is taken to a detention centre in Boston where he is interogated by Major Steven Claymore for information about "American Liberty". I aim for the short to be dramatic and disturbing. The short film will hopefully lead to the making of a feature length version which I will start writing in February 2010.

Once I had done several drafts of the script (much to the annoyance of my partner in crime Paul Dolmen) We finally started the audition process for the short in October 2009. We decided to place an advertisement on Casting Call Pro and of course on our Facebook Group. In the space of 12 hours we had over 50 applicants in our mail box! Eventually we managed to narrow that down to 28 applicants and started auditions at VUE Fulham Broadway. By we I mean Paul Dolmen my 1st Assistant Director and Nikki Porscin my 2nd Assistant Director.

I have to say the standard of acting was very high and for the first time we had to do call backs on 10 actors for the roles of Josh Franklin and Major Steven Claymore. As I could not make my mind up on who to play the two pivotal roles in the short. In the call backs I was assisted in my decision process by Edward Mitchell a very talented actor who had worked with us on our short film "The Mayfly". We had decided to pair up the actors so we could see them interact with each other. After a three hour session I had cut the list further. After seeing the last candidates in Birmingham at the end of November I then made up my mind on who I wanted to make "American Rebellion" reality.

Once we had our actors the task of sourcing costumes started, so after searching the internet for hours I finally got my uniforms and military props sorted. I even had badges made for the uniforms of the "Royal Colonial Security Service". In December we also found the perfect location for the short in Wednesbury in the West Midlands. A large old municipal building which had been derelict for ten years with loads of atomsphere and I hope make the film stand out and be seen.