The last few weeks or so i been looking for run down buildings for my next Sci Fi horror movie about the last four people on earth, i found this nice build being knocked down and filmed some screens for chromakey.

It seems that a workprint of digital nasties film The Graveyard of death is
available to download from The Pirate Bay The worlds largest BitTorrent
tracker we have asked the site admin’s and uploaded to remove the file
from being downloaded, again we have ask and not told them to remove it,
being that the workprint, uploaded is only 40% complete and only runs 76
minutes not the full 96 minutes (25 FPS PAL), when the file is removed we
may upload the complete movie on the web but only after we have sold the
200 steel-tin box sets.

Just had a interview with digital video magazine i recall the magazine used to be
Camcorder User it seems that the magazine has gone with dumbing down that most
UK magazines do now reprinting the same unintresting articles which are very basic,
i highly doubt they will publish the interview so here it is in full:

I am a freelance writer working on a feature on modern horror film. I would like to
include an interview with you about your company Digital Nasties. The interview
would be about what it’s like making low-budget horror films in the UK, and what
advice you’d give to people wanting to do the same. Also, stuff like your favourite
horror films etc.

The Questions:

Q1: Digital Nasties is a great idea — a real low-budget studio for
horror, doing what the fans want. But what made you want to set it up?

A1: I was at college making short student films, i and some friends got really sick
of the type of films we studied in class, the kind of mainstream hollywood films that
should never studied, one of the most disappointing, even disgraceful, aspects of
the college course was that we never got to pick what movies we studied, i was
into video nasty movies at the time and still am, we talked in class about making
sci-fi and horror films away from the college course, at the time we shot mostly
on digital 8 and the first film we made was Chameleon, and we picked the name
digital nasties as my love of the video nasty movies and the fact was shot on digital.

Q2: Can you tell us about the high and low points in making your
films? Making any film in the UK is never easy — but was the money hard to
raise, or were there particular challenges in production? What were the
worst moments, and the best?

A2.Highs, getting up early before the morning sun and getting the sets and actors
ready before the mad rush of filming, low points actors who show up one day film
lots of important scenes and the next day never show up because they had a better
offer or don’t like getting up so early ,also people on the internet who just love to
destroy movies because they are under constant pressure to produce new material
for the website and nothing better than a bad review! if only most online movie
reviews sites had mconstructive criticism, particular challenges I know a number
of people who have been turned down for funding a number of times, with the
type of films we make i don’t think the British Council or The National Lottery would
fund that kind of film! but what I can’t understand is some of the very big U.S.
distributors offering to fund the very same productions that in the U.K. no one would
put into national distribution, the best by going out and filming in a group has allowed
me to learn thing many that college classes didn’t teach.

Q3: What do you think about horror film as a genre these days? Is it
in a good period? Is UK horror distinctive in any way? Have a rant
about your views, if you will, on where the genre is these days!

A3. what can i say i’m a fan of 80′s horror films when blood and sex were
less censored and had a lot more impact, most modern horror films have lot the
atmosphere that remained consistently gritty and brutal, not the nice goreless
teen horror and remakes that fill HMV’s stores, i still think that Scream was the
turning point to the blood less teen horror of today!teenagers getting doing drugs,
having sex, then running around screaming it gets boring after 30 different series
with same theme! while UK independent horror films like 28 days later &
Shaun of the Dead are some of the very best the genre has ever offered.

Q4: What do you think are the ingredients of a great horror film? Are there
particular stories,themes, or particular types of lighting, music etc?

A4. The score can make or break a film, you could make the best film ever made
and if you pick the wrong music and the film will loss most of it atmosphere, say
you add electronic dance music you may send your viewer into delirium.

Q5: How do you get your films seen? Do you sell them direct on DVD,
or to cable or horror festivals?

A5. Most sales of digital nasties films come from the internet we set up a open
source shopping cart to take payment as we only sell over our website to keep
down costs, 100% of the money made of the site goes back into the next production,
we also send screeners out to review websites, we have not yet entered any film
festivals but we plan to soon!.

Q6: What would say are the best horror films? Which ones have influenced
you in your films?

A6. The films that have been biggest influence on us and still are Zombie Flesh Eaters
this shouts out decay with particularly effective widescreen photography ghostly
zombies, it quite a fantastic movie something that hollywood could never match,
Profondo rosso contents some stunning set pieces, visuals staging and elaborate
murder scenes, Living Dead At Manchester Morgue the impressive surreal atmosphere
screams out here with very strong plot twists with zombies infesting the isolated lakes
district, night of the living dead & Peter Jackson’s bad taste it’s so over the top it get
funner each time you watch it.

Q7: Finally, if readers were going to make their own horror film, can
you give any advice about the best way to make sure that they make a film?

A7. Get your nearest video camera, write a short story and few lines for the script,
and just go out and film it, i know a lot of people who been to college and film school
wrote two or three scripts looked for funding and never got it and give up the ghost
without even filming one frame of video, don’t look for the money because if you make
a great film or short the money will find you!

I agree with the fact that some of their marketing strategies were more than suspicious because of wrong marketing information as in the so-called UNCUT versions, they stated them to be Original UK cinema Versions with no additional cuts and forgot to mention that the cinema versions were already heavily butchered by the BBFC.

If I can recall correctly VIPCO distributed their uncut prints to Denmark and some other Euro country where they didn’t had to be worried about censorship issues or importing being illegal, they were never known for high-quality releases often using half-inch, three-quarter inch masters and sometimes Ex-rental VHS tapes, but never anything in Anamorphic widescreen.

I think they really do deserves some respect in putting out UNCUT versions of films not available in whole world, it’s just we never got to see them.

It’s that time of year again which see every teen armed with mpeg4 camera phones hit the woods and make zombie mayhem youtube poo, so far this year 5 people have owned up to remaking night of the living dead, boy so people love to freeload on other people films, like Jesus zombie fucking Christ get so over it, you will never match the 1960’s film never.

So any how some jerk was talking to his grandma about his new zombie movie and she said that if you like Night of the living dead and Romero that much (fucking gay), you should rename your movie and call it a homage to Romero and you will not benefit from using his name because your movie is 100 times better, and Romero sucks anyhow.

I used all of the following to deliver video on the web since 1996 and set out a guide to help in your quest to find the best format to deliver your video via the internet.

Flash
As seen on YouTube, currently the most popular format with the widest computer support, but useless for mobile devices. Video was introduced with version 6 and has improved a lot over the past five years. Made by Adobe, formerly Macromedia. Free player.

QuickTime
As used for Hollywood movie trailers. Historically poor Windows support has improved with the popularity of iTunes (which includes the basic free QuickTime player). Made by Apple.

Real Media
Once a popular option due to excellent compression and cross-platform capability, now apparently in decline, though it is supported on some mobile devices. Made by Real, free player available.

Windows Media
An obvious choice on Windows, but not recommended for web use due to cross-platform and codec issues. Made by Microsoft, no longer available on Macs (though Safari can use the free Flip4Mac plugin).

ShockWave
Not strictly a video player, but video can be embedded in ShockWave files. Free player made by Adobe, formerly Macromedia, now effectively obsolete on the web (you should have been there in 1999).

Ogg Theora
Open source cross-platform alternative, not yet fully developed, patchy performance. May well suffer the same fate as Ogg Vorbis but popular with Linux users. Made by the Xiph.Org Foundation, playable in QuickTime, RealPlayer and some others using free codec.

MP4 and variants
Possibly the dominant format of the future – an ISO specification supported on computers, many phones, Nintendos and iPods (including the iPod Touch). Enthusiasm from Microsoft seems lacking but if you want one format that can be played on multiple devices this is currently it.

MIME-Types
Depending on the video format you choose and your server setup, you may need to set the appropriate MIME-Type using .htaccess – Mp4, 3gp and WMV all need explicit settings on the shared servers I use.

Embedding and EOLAS
In 2006 Microsoft changed the way Internet Explorer handles embedded content due to a patent dispute with EOLAS Technologies. This meant that the old methods for delivering rich media that were found in textbooks and software packages were no longer suitable.

The workaround is to use JavaScript to embed your videos in webpages. There are ready-made solutions available from the player manufacturers and others but essentially they all do the same thing.

I know that the patent dispute was recently settled, but I have no idea what the effect will be and as the JavaScript workaround conveniently provides valid HTML markup I don’t really care.

Streaming Video
It is technically fairly simple to broadcast live if you have a camera, and there is software available that will let you run your own TV station, mixing live camera and pre-recorded video.

You will need a streaming media server and some knowledge of firewalls and ports to do it, and a lot of bandwidth for each viewer, but embedding the stream in your website is no problem at all.

We am going to start shooting some shorts with some friends who have zero experience with acting except for a school plays, tho most of our movie are made with non-actor some of them do have college training in media or acting, but the friends we are using for out next short.

Hello i am bob note Producer, Writer & Dog’s body for Digital Nasties Productions, this is my first of many blog post’s about underground movies, films and shorts and anything else.

In general i hate Hollywood’s polished watered down version of horror films, rip off’s and remakes, the problem today is that horror as a genre has been altered in order to appeal to a larger hollywood audience, horror became lost in this process, Independant horror is thriving not because of hollywood, but because people who want atmosphere & the raw quality that only underground filmmakers can do, Brain Damage Films is one of my favorite distributors sticking to the heart of the genre once hated by hollywood studios but gore doesn’t automatically equal scary.

I think its important for an actor or actress to try to know their character and bring them to life any it really helps me when actors do their homework by simply knowing there lines, but that doesn’t dictate a developed character.

If you have any plans to sell a film that you have made watch out for the bad guy and girls, the main production aspect is to get your actors or actress to sign contact release forms for your movie, once you get them signed, keep them in a desk or a paper folder or anything safe, because your bound to get some people that decide they don’t want to be associated with your movie, just make sure that you can trust the people that you are working with, “Hire the right actors and 90% of your work as a director is done”, also i always keep every no show in a black book, so I don’t hire them again.

You should also inform the police about what you are filming or if you plan to use fake guns, the last thing you need is one of your actors being shot by gun-happy cops, and later getting sued.

On getting the movie out dvd or whatever, analyze where the movie went wrong, and how not to make the same mistakes again, you will go through some of the responsibilities a real director has so you will know what to expect when you step up into the big time.