Date: 4 SEPT 2010, Saturday
Time: 8.00pm – 10.30pm
Venue: TAS, Lot 10 Rooftop
Entry by donation (10 RM / pax)

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=121089341276311&ref=ts

Program Rundown:
7.30pm : YOUR ARRIVAL

8.00pm     : Screening of “UNSECURED LOAN II”

(*New & Improved – The REAL premiere) – a film by Juliane Block

*complete revised sound and was re-edited after the first screening… so it’s basically the REAL premiere! (And meanwhile this new version premiered at the Action on Film International Film Festival in Pasadena and made it 1st Runner Up Best Action Sequence Martial Arts Short! Wohoooo)

Trailer:

8:20pm : Screening of “100% YSSAM” – a film by Isabelle Mayor

*Isabelle Mayor is the Swiss editor of the Juliane’s and Virginia’s feature movie Kinks. We are using WAMM to present her newest short film, which is actually a world premiere!

8.30pm : TEST SCREENING of “KINKS” – a film by Virginia Kennedy & Juliane Block

This is a TEST SCREENING – that means the sound and the color will be RAW and might be disappointing for the ones of you who expect a premiere! It is NOT the final film, which will be premiered in 2011 tentatively. Now we are screening it to get feedback on the comedy elements as well as on structure and clarity of the story. It’s still all work in progress. So the final result might be similar or totally different from what you can see on the 4th

Hope to see you around!!!

KOWLOON STORY – Sunday 12th Sept between 2.30 and 4.30pm
LUTZ HECKELMANN UND SEIN BIER – Thursday 9th September between 1.30 and 4.30pm

VENUE: Lost Theatre in London. How to get there >

No time to watch it? You can watch Kowloon Story or the trailer on my webTV at Filmannex.com:

www.filmdirecting4women.com

Logorama from Marc Altshuler – Human Music on Vimeo.

Logorama is a short film that was directed by the French animation collective H5: François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain. Is anyone else surprised that this was directed by three French filmmakers and not Americans influenced by all this pop culture? It was presented at Cannes in 2009 and opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. (from firstshowing.net) – What do you think about it?

I recorded a short interview for the Action on Film International Film Festival 2010 – watch it here:

While pitted against one another during June’s War of Films on the Film Annex, we met the fascinating Juliane Block, a German-born filmmaker making films in Malaysia.  Not only was her short, Ramly at War Begins a well-crafted, well-choreographed martial arts film, she was engaging and playful.  We immediately wanted to know more about her, so we asked her for an interview.

(1) We understand that you started your film career in Germany as a special fx make-up artist.  Can you give us some additional background information on where you grew up and how you developed an interest in film?

When I entered art university majoring in industrial design, I bumped into a fellow student who was doing a no budget zombie movie at that time (Mutation). It was a home-made zombie movie, shot without a script on Hi8, Super 8, DV.  I joined the weekend crew as their make-up artist and have been hooked on film productions ever since.

(2) On your blog you claim that you moved to Malaysia to pursue your interest in Asian Cinema, can you discuss your interest in Asian film and how that led to you getting involved in making martial arts films?

Want to read the rest of the interview? Check it out on their blog here

Or watch their work here:

Dear Juliane
I am very pleased to inform you that your film ‘Lutz Heckelmann und sein Bier’ has been chosen by our panels for inclusion in the fd4w international film festival in London September 9th-12th 2010.
Ruth Torjussen
www.filmdirecting4women.com

Who doesn’t want to read something like this about their own movies? … Thanks Felix Vasquez Jr. for this awesome review! You want to read more? Find the full review here at www.cinema-crazed.com!

Want to watch the actual movie & making of? Check out ramlyatwartv.com! Or you can watch the single movies here:

Read the full interview on the KINKS blog here!

Check his website : http://chengtzuubong.bravehost.com/

Fortunately, more inexpensive lights, designed for other uses, can be adapted as video lights. Following a list of lights I consider good do-it-yourself micro budget video lights.

1. Construction lights

You can get construction lights at almost every hardware store. Usually they come with a tripod you can extend to about five feet and two 500W halogen lights. This is as close as you can get to a professional Redhead. Look for the ones with a wire protector which makes it easy to add on gels or other diffusion materials.

However, be careful – the lights generate as much heat as light. The heat can be tricky, especially when you gel or diffuse it.

We used a lot of construction lights in the main fight scene of Ramly at War Begins.
(Curious? Click here to watch the film on my WebTV at Filmannex.)

2. Chinese lanterns

Chinese lanterns are great if you look for diffused light. Be careful to not exceed the wattage recommendation and turn them off in between takes. You can easily hang the lanterns on C-stands (or just pass it to a crew member and ask them to hold still – micro budget style!

3. Cheap Motel Style

Buy color balanced regular 48inch fluorescent bulbs. They fit into any regular fluorescent fixture. The trick is to find fixtures that don’t have cheap, flickering ballasts. Now we need to mount the fixtures in a portable way. I know people who have designed stands for whole fixtures… and that is one way to go. Alternatively, pull apart the fixture and attach the light and connecting elements to a wall or any other stand with gaffer tape. It ain’t pretty, but it is ultra versatile. If the thought of pulling apart a lighting fixture with thousands of volts passing through scares you, buy fluorescent lights for aquariums  which come fully sealed and without a metal fixture. But they are more expensive.

The use of these lights is great. They don’t get as hot as other lights and they diffuse naturally due to their length.

Flulorescent lights are also available for smaller areas where less light is needed. Furthermore, you can find 12-volt fluorescent lights for car “emergency kits” that work in and around cars. You can gaffer tape them almost anywhere, e.g on a driver’s visor for a driving scene.

On set of Lunatia Dogs – we lit the car interior with a car emergency light.

4. Poor Christmas style

Another secret weapon is the use of Christmas lights. Used as practicals they make night scenes more interesting. You can hang them anywhere – on a railing, in a tree or around any post or beam to add an accent to the picture. They provide a good amount of light in larger quantities. The unfortunate thing about Christmas lights – your white balance is screwed. They’re too warm.

Lunatia Dogs – The Christmas lights in the background give the right whorehouse atmo.

(Written by Dexter Bahjanoon – www.nine-mm.com)

Juliane contacted you to do the sound design for Unsecured Loan II after having seen your work on youtube. What was your first reaction and why did you decide to join the project?

I was pleasantly surprised. I’m an Australian living in California & I just received an email from a film director in Jakarta about a film shot in Malaysia. That doesn’t happen every day. It’s cool that by simply putting up some samples of my work on youtube, I’ve been given the opportunity to be a part of a great project that was a lot of fun to work on. I’ve always been interested in martial arts and martial arts films. When I was younger I studied Tae Kwon Do for 12 years and taught for about 3, so when the opportunity came up to work on a Martial Arts short, I jumped at the chance.

Unsecured Loan II involves a lot of fight sounds. Many people in the indie film scene have difficulties to find good sound designers on a low budget and end up doing the fight fx themselves. Do you have any tips and tricks you’d like to share for proper fight sound fx?

I guess I’d have to say that sound design (and mixing) are specialized fields that require various skill sets, just as is the role of the DOP, or Makeup Artist, for example. Anybody can pick up a camera, point it and press record, but might not end up with a shot that is technically or artistically adequate. I could pick up a brush and apply make-up to someone’s face, but the results might look frightening. The same goes for sound design. It’s often forgotten about until the last minute, or a lot of people try to do it themselves, but it’s a craft just like any other and it requires a lot of technical audio engineering knowledge to create great sound, as well as the creative aspect of it. Unfortunately there are many more great sound designers out there than there is enough work to go around, so I’d suggest contacting someone who’s work you admire and discussing your project and budget limitations. Quite often they’ll be willing to work within your limits. If you plan your production schedule out far enough in advance, you might be able to negotiate that your project is worked on during their down time. You may get your deliverables slowly over time, but it’s one method to consider if you’re well organized and can give a clear brief.

Unsecured Loan’s post wasn’t easy: you are based in California, composer Paul in the Netherlands and director Juliane lives in Jakarta. How did this affect your work?

This certainly presents some challenges. When we need to make a creative decision it’s not as easy as all listening together in the same room & discussing our options. It generally involves emails, sending temp mixes for review, or a quick video conference. Sometimes the time differences can be a blessing in disguise. While I’m sleeping, a composer or editor is working during their daytime, so when I wake up the next day I have an update waiting for me in my inbox. The same goes for when I finish a temp mix, the director wakes up the next day to an update waiting for her. With iChat (or Skype) and a fast FTP site or other method of transferring files, it’s not so difficult to achieve a good result. With the tight deadline we had on Unsecured Loan II, in reality we were mostly awake through the night anyway, so as soon as I sent something out, I received feedback very quickly.

Is there something like a dream project you have, something you’d say I’d die to do the sound fx for?

I love any action based project, and I also love working to animation. You can get away with pushing the boundaries of reality just that little bit further. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work on a dream project recently, as cinematic sound designer and mixer for the game “Darksiders”. We were given a lot of creative freedom and the quality of animation to work with was outstanding, as was the script and voice acting. To choose another dream project, I’d say to be part of a Pixar project would definitely be rewarding.

Thanks Matt!

Watch his Darksiders showreel here!
Matt is available for freelance projects – check out his website www.bauer.net.au and give him a buzz

And if you don’t manage to catch it at the festival, watch all my movies on RamlyAtWarTV:

Or you can watch the single movies here:

TRAILER Unsecured Loan II (Malaysia 2010, 17min.) from Juliane Block on Vimeo.

Loan sharks in Asia inspired me to do “Unsecured Loan II”

In the recent western world, loan sharks have been a feature of the criminal underworld, but are otherwise rare. However, in Asia this type of moneylenders is quite common. They lend money to people who are unable to obtain loans from banks or other legal sources, mostly targeting habitual gamblers. They charge a very high interest rate (about 40% per month) and frequently threaten violence towards those who fail to pay in time using a multitude of tactics. They spray, splash or write threats in red paint on the walls or hang pig heads sometimes outside the borrower’s house. According to local police authorities, there have been cases where borrowers were beaten or had their property damaged or destroyed. Occasionally moneylenders abducted or even killed their victims. Some committed suicide.

As German I found the existence, and furthermore the fact that common people turn towards loan sharks fascinating. Loan sharks were the topic of my first short movie ever in 2007 which did quite well in the festival circuit. Following requests from cast, crew and friends, I decided to do a second movie on this topic with the focus on the human aspect combined with realistic action a la Donnie Yen in 2009. The result: “Unsecured Loan II”.

We are very proud to be able to premiere our work as part of the official selection in the Action On Film International Film Festival – nominated for Best Action Sequence Martial Arts Shorts!

Don’t miss it: Tuesday 27, Academy 4, 5:30 pm in Pasadena. Details at the AOF website: www.aoffest.com. Enjoy the film

TRAILER Lutz Heckelmann und sein Bier (Germany 2010, 5min.) from Juliane Block on Vimeo.

“Lutz Heckelmann and his beer” is a tribute to my dad. My dad is a weirdo. I remember one day he proudly told me about his habit to hide his beer in the forest (to avoid drinking it all at once). And if that wasn’t strange enough he told me then how he one day failed to find it. He ended up looking for it for hours and hours like a squirrel (until he finally spotted the plastic bag).

Last winter on my yearly visit to Germany I got bored. I decided I’ve to shoot something. My dad had a Canon powershot with video function and was willing to play himself. Hence, we had a story, a camera and the main actor. Two days we ventured out into the forest to shoot. I never lasted longer than two hours. In fact the first day, it was about -17 C, I think I got frostbite… not severe, but my toes were blue!

But it was worth it. Seeing my dad playing himself I find the story hilarious. To be honest, I’m not sure if others will, too… but in this case it doesn’t matter. The movie didn’t cost a cent and my dad will stay in my memory forever.

Premiere: CINEFIESTA 2010 film festival in Puerto Rico! It will be shown Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010, 9pm,  at  the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico.

In Nov 2007, we got together to talk about our movie careers. Juliane was tired of waiting for money to drop from the Gods of Film Funding, and Adrian has had enough of TV bullshit. We wanted to test ourselves to see if we could make a movie for nothing, so we worked around the mantra; “if you don’t have money, you can’t spend money.” Making a movie this way keeps the stakes low and the fun factor high for us. If there’s zero budget, there’s zero risk for damage.

The genesis for the “Emperor” project was we wanted to do a practice movie, with absolutely no money, at our own time, using any and every available resource around us, and utilizing both Malaysia and Germany (where Julie is from) as locations.

So we kept the premise simple; an action-chase movie, where one guy runs around getting chased by the mob.

Months earlier, we had started putting ourselves out there as filmmakers who were looking for cast and crew to work with. We signed up for acting classes and took part in local theater (Juliane had to learn Tamil for one of them). We made a lot of friends, and treated everyone as nicely as possible (keeping in mind that some or all of them may become useful as cast or crew later on). We shot a short film called “Unsecured Loan”, where we learnt that working with a traditional-sized movie crew could be a pain, especially Malaysian ones. Hence, we developed a system of doing it all by ourselves.

So we hung out and developed the idea further. As we got seriously into pre-production, Braham Singh came to us and offered to adapt the first draft of his novel “Emperor”, which we developed and weaved into the idea we started with. The story in the movie was born.

Principal shooting began in Germany, over Christmas 2007, and quickly continued back in Malaysia. We literally did everything ourselves. Juliane was director, production manager, AD, secondary camera operator and SFX make-up artist. Adrian was lead actor, DP, primary camera operator, sound supervisor, gaffer and driver. However, credits were also given out deservingly as we had many dedicated helpers on set, and they made us look more heroic than it sounds. Consisting mainly of students and film buffs, we are proud to say that by the end of the “Emperor” shoots, they had graduated into a bona fide film crew.

One of the key to successfully making this movie was, we had not 1, but 3 plan B’s! “If this doesn’t work, we do this. If this person doesn’t turn up, we use this guy” kind of thing. We planned everything to hell, and then somemore. The process was almost mechanical, with little or no space for experimentation. The results however, felt organic, because to a certain extent, it was ALL experiment. The main focus was to FINISH THE SHOOT.

We finished principal shooting in March, took a short break, and went deep into post-production. We had put together a simple setup of iMacs with Apple’s Final Cut Studio and an audio-post room, which we now affectionately call “The Factory Movie Studio”.

Post-production was a similar story, we did everything ourselves. Juliane did graphics and editing, Adrian did sound design, scored most of the movie, and supervised a couple of collaborators for additional music. When it came to crunch time, we went shopping for quick-preparation foods (supplemented with lots of coffee, chocolate, ice-cream and muesli bars), disappeared from society to camp at the “Factory” (note: no heated shower), and emerged weeks later with a finished movie.

Now we have a movie. So what do we do with it? Fortunately, Juliane was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus earlier in February, and had met many inspiring characters like Mike Figgis, M Dot Strange and Arin Crumley, who are pioneers in new age film distribution and marketing. Bringing back her experiences and lessons from these gurus, we decided to do it ourselves too, thus completing the whole process independently.

We are now in the process of finding our audience in the new era of social networking: Youtube, Facebook and Myspace, and Filmannex to generate interest in the movie and ourselves as filmmakers.

It is our sincere hope that you will help us on this journey!

Check out JBlockbusterTV on filmannex:

Or you can watch the single movies here:

In the beginning I had a bit of trouble to adjust. The requirement was all natural lighting and usually I don’t like that. I would consider myself a lighting megalomanic hahaha! But after discussions with the directors and a few adjustments of my style it all worked out.

I felt like a mix out of genius and lunatic – always trying to solve problems without spending money – hence I learned a lot! How to set up a scene with almost no light and no power… well, we had bad days on set as well and I think it taught me how to handle airheads, how to train new crew on the spot or work without anybody at all. I wasn’t a big fan of the food either. But in the final end it was ok! Now I know how to value gaffer tape and cookie card boards.

Read the full interview on the KINKS blog here

I love Asian action movies. Being a female white director in Asia isn’t necessarily a common thing, but Malaysia has proven very open and very supportive to my visions.

I met Chee Hong at an indie movie screening and immediately thought I need to get to work with these guys! In my previous movie projects I had action scenes, but they were more the ‘Guys, get as busy as you can and I’ll edit something out of it’ type. Now I had the option to have real choreographed fight scenes! Chee Hong and his group of friends were very interested. They all have 9 to 5 day-jobs. The Malaysian industry is not known for paying good and the safety for stuntmen often lacks. Therefore the Ramly at War project, purely done out of fun and ambition, was totally along their lines.

Then I though about involving dC (Danny Chua) in the production. He’s the cousin of my previous movie collaborator Adrian Lai and has extensive contacts to a lot of Harley Davidson bikers. The idea of an action / biker / martial arts mixed movie was born. dC proved to be a good actor and scriptwriter as well, next to being a resourceful producer. Nothing better then to find people being able to cover several jobs at once in a low budget production!

dC’s friend Dexter, an Indonesian biker and cinematographer agreed to shoot Ramly at War. He told us later, he was actually ready to give up after the first day. No equipment (I told him I try, I meant more than likely he won’t get what he’s asking for, he read likely he’ll get the lights, track etc. he wants) and no trained crew made it tough. However, after the shoot he admitted that he became totally addicted to ‘chaos’ productions. According to him, once he got used to be his own assistant and focus puller, the whole environment of the shoot was a great creative boost.

Ramly at War Begins was a great shooting experience. I’m proud of the action sequences, the pictures and the entire movie. We hope to be able to extend our collaboration into a feature… involving again bikers and fights and A LOT of fun!

Cheers, Juliane

Check out RamlyatWarTV on filmannex:

Or you can watch the single movies here:

I’m half Maori which till today shocks most people when I tell them. Thus you’ll notice my hair is very thick and curly, so when I coloured it blond for the second time my hair was literally falling out and resembled what Virginia (the director) described as “The inside of a mattress!” This was days before shooting were to commence so I quickly rushed to a local Chinese salon to fix it up. I returned to the set with wait for it yes PURPLE hair.

Read the full interview on the KINKS blog here

I met Juliane, one of the directors and cast of Kinks in 2008 in Hong Kong at a independent filmmaker and actors meet up. A few months later I got an email if I wanted to shoot a short film for her since she was coming to Hong Kong soon. I said yes and the outcome was “Kowloon Story”. We worked very well together so when she approached me later and asked me to shoot Kinks it was a no brainer for me.

Read the full interview on the KINKS blog here

Check his website: www.youngindiefilms.com

Mariana is basically kind of a victim of circumstances. She wants to be a singer but has to do what she does to pay the bills. She loves her family and wants to make them proud but has made a few bad choices in life. She’s hoping with this that maybe, hopefully, she’ll be able to turn her life around. Or at least, make more money…..

Read the full interview on the KINKS blog here

I’m a megalomaniac. I wanna do everything!

Right now I can’t say if it’s film making or music. I need both. If I have to make a choice between acting and behind the camera I choose to stand behind the scenes.

And there’s graphic design too.. :p

Read the full interview on the KINKS blog here

I always suspected of Virginia as someone with (at least) a little perversed side.
I always wondered how my good friend, Juliane the director, would be in a lead acting role.
I was curious and I wanted first-hand experience to scratch the itch =]

Read the full interview on the KINKS blog here

Then I got distracted… I was extremely busy January till April with the shoot of my second feature KINKS (www.kinksthemovie.com) and it took me a while to get RAW online on indieflix. But here we go, it’s ONLINE!

Lois and I talked on Sat, June 5th. And I almost missed the interview. Nobody can imagine how crazy traffic here in Jakarta looks like. It’s nothing like anywhere else. For a trip which usually takes about 10 minutes it took us (with lane splitting and outlaw racing over sidewalks on a motorcycle) one hour to reach my friend’s house.

Thanks Aldy for providing me the opportunity to use your land line for the interview, thanks Dexter for the crazy ride to reach Aldy’s house in time and thanks Lois & indieflix for the great interview!

You wanna listen to it? Check it out here: