Dashing youth filmmaker and animator, Henry Gale, is currently in production of a prologue trailer to Journals of Erwich and, boy, are we excited!
For a chance to get to know the man, the myth, the legend that is Henry Gale, check out his tumblr page (bottom). ‘Psychosis is Nothing Like a Badger’ is a fantastic animation that you should all watch.
We’re also going to have a look at the New Forest, because why not.
- JA
Austria was great and all but it’s not the only place in the world that this film can be shot. Indeed, despite its beauty, Austria isn’t even necessarily the best place in the world that this film can be shot.
With this in mind, we thought we should see what merry old England has to offer, starting with Puzzlewood, Forest of Dean.
For many years, the Forest of Dean has served as both inspiration and location for the fantasy genre, including JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954) and the novelisation and film rendition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010).
It feels fitting that we would at least take a look to see what all the fuss is about…
- JA
After spending the last couple months getting back into the full swing of things at university, I’m back online!
We’ve mainly been working on the budget plans and recce reports, but we’ve also redrafted the script a few more times and you can bet there’ll be plenty of content coming online soon!
Music, storyboards, artwork, everything!
In the mean time, here’s a scary forest to get you back in the mood…
- JA
The question we all have to ask ourselves now is: Is Austria worth it?
There are certainly pros and cons to both arguments, the main overwhelming factor being whether or not it’d be sensible to invest so much money into filming in Austria when the risk of factors such as weather could result in entire days of filming being cancelled.
This would certainly be less of an issue in England as we can always just drive back and forth with less fiscal worry, something not possible were we to film abroad.
More over, we have no idea how accessible or inaccessible the locations we have found become after Winter’s snowfall. That being the case, we would definitely need to return here again closer to the time of filming.
And what of the overall aesthetic quality of these locations after said snowfall? That’s not to say that it might not rain instead, what affect would that have?
This is all assuming that we even get permission to film here.
One thing’s certain though: Austria is truly beautiful and in an ideal world we would film Journals of Erwich here.
- JA
‘Journals of Erwich’ (2012): Location Summary (Zugspitzblick)
It is here in which we really fell in love with Austria, where it stopped being central Europe and became our fantasy realm. Though so few images can not do it complete justice (I have 100-odd pictures, but tumblr restricts me to 10), it is a truly amazing place.
I added a quick grade to them, again with Lightroom, and this is the finished result.
- JA
‘Journals of Erwich’ (2012): Location Summary (Telfs)
Here’s a quick summary on the sort of locations we found in the forests in and around the area of Telfs. What we particularly liked about this area of Austria was the stunning mountainside backdrop we had been looking for.
As ever, I added a quick grade to them, using Lightroom this time around (but I am still trying to get the hang of it), going in a different direction to the one I did for Krimml.
- JA
A day of promise!
Today, reinvigorated by our day of rest in Innsbruck, we ventured out westward in search of locations in forests near Telfs and in Zugspitzblick. With the weather on our side too, we entered the day with a sense of optimism, and rightly so.
The locations we found through the course of the day were simply breathtaking, and with each corner came new locations, new ideas and new opportunities that spurred us on throughout the day.
The forests in and around Telfs itself were remarkable in that, despite their accessibility via main roads, the locations we found were deathly quiet, and the sense of claustrophobic isolation from civilisation brought the world we were creating to life. Truly, this place was the Elder woods.
As we descended deeper into the forests it became clear that this was what we had come to Austria for. Yes, we have forests in England, but it was not in England that our vision was becoming to realise, it was here in Austria.
We were left speechless at times, often only breaking this silence to proclaim our excitement with the natural perfection we had managed to stumble upon in our journey.
Imagine our excitement then when we moved on to Zugspitzblick to find everything we had expected and then some!
If Telfs was breathtaking, then there is no word to describe Zugspitzblick. At first, we were somewhat sceptical; the sound of cars and motorbikes roaring down the overlooking main road was a little daunting - the intimidating silence we sought out was surely not going to be found here.
Then it hit. Silence. We were alone in an ever winding descent into the darkness of the wilderness and each turning led to unimaginable perfection. Every branch; every pebble; every blade of grass was where it should be and nothing more could be said on the matter.
When we finally reached the bottom, and the forest opened up into a glorious lake, we knew we had found what we were looking for. We stripped down to our underwear, jumped into the water and accepted that our day was complete and that it was a success.
Next step: Permissions…
- JA
Austria just gets more and more magnificent by the day!
After yesterday’s somewhat underwhelming location scout, we decided to take a day to recuperate, get rested and spend a bit of time to plan out the next few days. We thought the best thing to do would be to take a drive up to Innsbruck and have a bit of a mooch around, maybe have a word with a few of the locals for some tips as to where to go.
Innsbruck itself is a really cool place and I think we were all a bit surprised by it. We expected what was essentially a big, but traditional village style city but it was surprisingly modern (a personal highlight was a huge sign that roughly translated to “Hallelujah, we have a Primark!”). It was an interesting environment to say the least; a fairly large city that was isolated by the large and breathtaking backdrop of the Alps.
Much of the afternoon was spent exploring the city to be honest. We popped into one of the outlets, explored some of the high streets and really just used our time to boost morale again. I must say, it definitely worked! We treated ourselves to some goodies and had a great day!
However, the real success of today was a new potential location to scout out! We popped into an information bureau before we left and had a chat with one of the advisors working there, who provided us with a nice little forest near Telfs, which just so happens to be on route to tomorrow’s destination (Rasthaus Zugspitzblick; there’s a picture of it in one of my first couple posts).
We’re all absolutely buzzing about tomorrow’s journey and we can’t wait to see what locations we manage to find during our little excursion.
Thanks, Innsbruck!
- JA
‘Journals of Erwich’ (2012): Location Summary (Krimml)
I couldn’t leave you without a quick look at the types of locations we found on our first day so here’s a select few. Like I said, they may not be what we use in the final shoot but they’re worth considering.
I added a quick grade to them (though my familiarity with photoshop is fairly new) to try and create a moody atmosphere and help you visualise what we do.
- JA
My name is Joe Aldous, a 20 year old BA(Hons) Film Student at University College Falmouth. Life is alright.
I've decided to keep a production blog of all of my upcoming assignments and projects to help catalogue and track my work progress.
Within this will be progress reports, production stills, screen tests, news, and everything in between.
Email me at joejaldous@gmail.com if you want to give me a job...
