News

Here's the team working outside, getting some fresh air...

scheming
GreatOutdoors

Degawdawns were spotted assembling a zoo in the greenhouse. They assure us that no animals will be harmed during the production of their film. Unless it's crucial to preserving artistic integrity and creative vision.

Cheeky Monkey
Filming the Greenhouse

Hey! We are the drama students from Yale. We are all studying a national diploma in Performing Arts. We were asked on Monday if we would like to be part of this project and we all thought it would be a really good experience for us, we had never been on film before and considering the career we hope to go into decided it was a great opportunity.
On Wednesday we were with 'Have Wings' they made us feel really connected with the piece and welcomed our ideas and input. They made us feel really comfortable and were brilliant to work with. :] It would be a pleasure to work with them again because they had both a professional and fun attitude to the project.
On Thursday we were with the 'Degawdawns' in the grounds. It was freezing cold but we had a laugh and a giggle. This group was very professional and there were countless takes of set-ups. We got extremely muddy and are now covered in cuts and bruises, all part of the experience!!
We are all really looking forward to seeing all the films om Saturday and hope it goes well for all four teams. Good luck to everyone!
And thanks for allowing us all to be part of this excellent project
Katy, Leanne, Laura and Ruth
:]

i'm an actor from Yale college in wrexham in my first year doing a BTEC Performing Arts course and am here to experience filming and well...i say, this week has been such a cool experience for me. I was told on Monday that i could come here and act for the filmakers here, if i was interested. So i said yes of course because what i want to do is go into acting in films after i've left yale college. we arrived here at 9.00 on wednesday morning not having a clue what we had been put up for but were welcomed by everyone we met. we then met our filming crue for the day 'Have Wings, Will Fly', and they were extremely welcoming and a very nice group of people and lots of fun and i enjoyed working with them the whole time. we were told to come back the next day as we would probably be needed...so we did at the same time in the morning again not knowing what was wanted of us. this time we were with the 'Degawdawns', who had what i thought was a really wild idea for a film and they were just as welcoming introducing themselves and telling us what they want to explore with their idea. now its friday and these three days here have just gone and soon i'll be old if time doesn't slow down...but for today we are back with 'Have Wings, Will Fly' and are carrying on from what we did on wednesday and are finishing the film. the first two days were here were very mega and jam packed with the rush of this atmosphere really flying...and today hasn't been so much...but i think that i'm used to the rush now and all the cameras that are hovering around everywhere each day. i have really loved this week and its really boosted my confidence to go into acting in films and i really can't wait for that time to happen. thanks for reading!!! will miss you all james

Dw i ddim yn hollol siwr sut dw i'n fod i deimlo o fod yma. Y teimlad cynta' gesh i wrth fusnesu yn stafelloedd y plasty oedd "Waw!" Ond mae'n debyg fod yna rywbeth eitha' 'pretentious' mewn clamp o dy mawreddog efo thema i bob 'stafell?..'Blue room', 'Oriental room', 'Pw room'...Dwn im. Ond fedr neb ddadlau fod y lle yma'n dipyn o hwyl ac yn corddi ryw deimlad o fod ar set ffilm. Er, mae'r holl anifeiliaid wedi stwffio yn dipyn o cliche. Y profiad mwya' bisar hyd yn hyn oedd clywed un boi yn dweud yn hollol onest pa mor despret ydy o i fod yn enwog. Ei ymgais diweddara' ydy prynu injan dan ac adeiladu toiled 7 troedfedd yn y cefn fel bod o'n medru neidio (tra mae o ar dan, gyda llaw) i lawr yr u-bend - Mi oedd hyn oll yn digwydd o gwmpas bwrdd cegin efo 2 glown mud yn malu cachu yn y cefndir. O ia, cofiwch edrych ym mhapur y 'People' dydd Sul lle fydd o wedi gwerthu ei stori am Jeffrey Archer, meddai fo. Mae o'n cael ei 'nabod fel y 'fire man' - ei fywoliaeth ydy rhoi ei hun ar dan. Dw i'n cael lot o hwyl.
...gan berson sy'n ffilmio'r gwaith ffilmio yma.

So today I discovered during one of my little chats with the lovely Eilir of Degawdawns, that our secret diary room sessions have been posted on this site!
This is an outrageous intrusion of my privacy and I have sent orders to have the culprit sought out and immediately punished.
All sneaky leaks of film from my boudoir have been removed and will not appear until after the teams vacate Trevor Hall.

This morning is a bit calmer. I'm sitting in the kitchen with a mug of tea. A team of actors has just arrived and is being allocated to the teams that have 'won' them.

Well in the time I've been trying to type this my day is hotting up. We have camera power leads that need purchasing, filming is starting to happen, experts need resources, the zombie master needs some candles.........

Yesterday was another day of bizzare images, an aristocratic pink pig with a hell of a cleavage, a seagull doing a weather forecast, a series of corpses in the kitchen drinking tea, one of the bedrooms had some sort of fetish scenario going on (Jacqui's a bit worried about how her mum's going to take that one!!!!) and a fire breathing transvestite up in the menage chasing people.

Filming is now going ahead full bore, I'm going to have to go. Noise is a really big issue in the house and I need to ensure we lock it down properly during takes so that the teams get the shots they want without any background noise. Its our last day filming today so there's a lot at stake

Hopefully see you tomorrow at the pavillion

Ian

Good morning everybody!

I'm really excited today, and up early. I just can't stop myself telling you about all the restrictions the teams will have today.

Octopus Apocalypse, the lovely people with the strange horror film, are on the Ground floor. They've got one drama student as an actor, but today they have up to five more actors! That's becaues they're allowed to swap team members with Degawdawns, and use them in their film. I'm really looking forward to asking them later what they've done. Oh yes, and Octopus have also got Dom's lovely cardigan to film today!

Degawdawns, those sweet documentors of marital failure and fire breathing transvestites, have the outbuildings to film in today. They can have all the scary people from Octopus as actors if they want. Although quite who the sweet, soft gorilla (he's called Myrddin) will be married to, I don't know.

Fruit cakes, delicious cinematographers of astronaut surrealism, are in the bedrooms today, with Jacqui and one drama student. They've got a costume expert as well. But the best thing is my special! They're not allowed to film any dialogue in the morning, or any human arms in the afternoon.

Finally, Have Wings, those gorgeous dissectors of sexual pressure and sexual depravity, have all of the grounds to film in today. And I think it might be good weather! I've generously let them have *loads* of actors - Mark and FOUR drama students. Well (between you and me only) I think one can't turn up, and they're only going to get three. But either way, I think there's going to be some Mathematics in their film, I do!

I'm really looking forwarde to having a little chat with Degawdawns at 9am. And I'm a bit grumpy, as there's something everyone's forgotten. And I don't just mean that NONE of them are up yet. Might have to do something about that as well.

Twenty to seven in the morning, Friday. I've been sleeping in the main Reali Institute control room, kept warm by the buzz of laptops and recharging camera batteries. I've just been and reboot all the webcams (link on the left of every page). Along with a dodgy computer hack yesterday, to reload the website update script automatically every five minutes in case it crashed, this means they're all now working. Yay!

I saw nobody else up, there's just the rattle of the wind and gentle storm outside. It doesn't sound as ferocious as the night before. Breakfast is at 7am, and is in the Kitchen right next to this control room.

Last night's boardgames went well - they all ended quickly for one thing! It's surprised me the ferocity of competition in some games. If you play a game at home, even to win, you don't ever quite take it completely seriously. Some previous nights, games I previously thought of as quite light and breezy have taken on a long, drawn out turn. This didn't happen last night - partly because the competitors arelaye more relaxed, and partly because, I reckon, they've got used to the capricious whims of Gemima changing the tide of their film, and they've worked out how to deal with it artistically.

So, as usual, they played four games. Philosopher's Football was a quirky and unusual strategy game played on a Go board. Bluff a gamblers game, where you have to bet on the number of dice under everyone's cup. Ave Caesar a chariot race, where you have to hail the emperor at least once within the 3 laps. If you don't he slits your throat, even if you won! (Luckily, the teams were all very devout, as we didn't want to get blood on the real wood floor).

Finally the most fun was Loopin' Louie, the dexterity game, which I'm leaving out for people to play in their free time. Stop the whirling, swirling, battery-driven arm with plane pilot Louie from stealing your chickens.

Check out Joel's super slide of people's faces while playing the game in Its All About Games, the post just below.