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Here you'll find out what's been happening at Big Buddha Films and in the Independent Film Community.
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Posted on 20th of Nov '12
under Films: Documentary
I am absolutely delighted to say that we have completed the shoot of Phase One of Still Born, Still Loved. We have shot for ten days. We covered a weekend with Stephen and Bethany Morris before they set off on the Born Silently Cycle Challenge, interviewing them about the tragic loss of their twin girls, Felicity and Harriet. We then filmed almost all of the the Cycle Challenge, travelling 325 miles from Crowborough in East Sussex to Northallerton in Yorkshire, and raising money for Tommy's and TAMBA baby charities as they went. This was an amazing week, very inspirational and a huge emotional and physical challenge for Beth and Steve, and their fellow team mates. They have raised over £20,000 for charities during this ride. We filmed from the back of several motorbikes and across the Humber Bridge, country lanes, busy roads and the emotional finishing point greeted by friends and family from around the country.
We then travelled to Somerset and have filmed our first two days with Mel and Baz Scott and their daughter Toni. Mel is the author of the beautiful book, After Finley. We have been finding out about Mel and Baz's journey dealing the loss of their son Finley three years ago now. Mel is an inspiring therepist who is working hard to make baby loss a little easier for other parents to cope with.
We have spent all of our the money raised so far ont this filming, as we had the equipment to buy and we have covered around 5,000 miles already in travel. This has all been done on a shoe string to make our budget go as far as possible.
Filming this has been very powerful and more than ever we are determined to continue filming the rest of this very necessary documentary. To do this, we need to raise more moeny. Although we have passed our official target on here, we still have so much to raise.
There are many more families we want to work with and much more follow up work with the families we have already started filming. This film will be powerful and far reaching and we can only make it with your help.
We have 14 days left of this pitch and it would be fantastic if we could get to £3,000 by that time. Please help us by donating, spreading the word and sharing the link with friends. Every pound donated goes into the film and helps us to continue our work which will raise awareness and break the silence around baby loss. Please help us today.
Thanks
Posted on 10th of Nov '12
under Films: Documentary
I've just come back from attended the first half of Aesthetica Film Festival in York, which was wonderful. A great festival, with some really good quality short films and in stunning venue's ranging from Barley Hall a gorgeous medieval building with beams and tiles everywhere, to Brand Brown's Little Cinema, upstairs in Bar 1331, with big comfy leather arm chairs.
I really enjoyed this festival, very friendly people, and accessible venue's. There were some excellent master classes too and I attended Chris Jones's (author of the Guerilla Filmmakers Handbook) which was really useful.
Our short film Peekaboo played there, 4 times in total and seemed to be very well received. I also saw many other great shorts, from documentary, to drama and comedy. Some of the highlights for me were:
Photoshopping by Mark Davenport (comedy)
For Elsie by David Winstone (comedy)
Sassie's Gran by Derville Quigley (documentary)
Architecture Alive by Ole Stenum (documentary)
Come in and See the Bed by Simon Aeppli (documentary)
Home by Thomas Gleeson (documentary)
Dylan's Room by Layke Anderson (drama)
Hollow by Rob Sorrenti (drama)
There were so many more I would have liked to see but just ran out of time as I had to leave for a shoot.
Thanks to everyone that put on the festival. It's been great.
Posted on 5th of Nov '12
under Films: Documentary
We completed day one of our shoot for Still Born, Still Loved yesterday. We travelled down to East Sussex on Saturday night, and early Sunday morning our DoP Emma Dalesman, Sound Recordist Grant Bridgeman and I arrived at Bethany and Stephen Morris's house. Bethany and Stephen made us so welcome, offering us breakfast, lunch and home baked cakes throughout the day. And it was fantastic to meet their beautiful dog Mr Darcy, who is regal indeed!
The shoot was difficult emotionally and very draining for Stephen and Bethany, who were amazing and so open hearted, sharing with us their story of how they lost their twin daughters Harriet and Felicity. It was hard for them to go through all the pain again, especially as it still so raw, only being four months since their girls were stillborn. Thanks so much to both of them for being so open and sharing so much with us. They also showed us the girl's nursery and all their presents, cards and keepsakes. Bethany very bravely read some diaries she's kept to the girls. There were many tears, and not just from Bethany and Stephen. Although this was hard, it will be powerful stuff indeed for our film, and so we all felt it had been worth it to make a film that will make a huge difference to so many people.
In a week's time Stephen and Bethany and the Born Silently team will undergo a 325 mile cycle challenge in memory of their girls, and to raise money for Tommy's and TAMBA baby charities. We will be following the on this journey and wish them well! You can see full details of their journey and sponsor them here: http://bornsilently.blogspot.co.uk/
Bethany and Stephen are a truly inspirational couple, who have focused all their grief and energy on doing something spectacular for their girls as a way of channelling their love for them.
Thanks so much to them, our crew and our sponsors for getting to to this stage.
We still have so much more to film, please support us to carry on doing this fantastic work, making a difference and raising awareness about baby loss.
Please make a donation here.
Thanks
Posted on 1st of Nov '12
under Films: Documentary
I'm very excited to be beginning the shoot of our first feature length film in three days time. This Sunday we start our shoot of Still Born, Still Loved, our feature documentary about baby loss.
We will be shooting phase one of our production. This will be aprroximately ten days of shooting. Mainly following the Born Silently Cycle Challenge, and then some filming with Mel Scott, author of After Finley and her partner Baz.
Together with some footage we already have we will then be editing together our Pilot/Teaser and trying to raise money to begin phase two of our production in January 2013.
We still need lots of support with this film. So if you would like to help us by making a donation please click this link.
You can also see full information about this film on our page Still Born, Still Loved.
Thanks to all the team at Big Buddha for getting us this far. Special thanks to Colin Pons, Emma Dalesman, Grant Bridgeman, Amy Garrod, Isla Baddanoch, Cat Marshall and Peter Fraser. And all our wonderful sponsors, especially Christine Bell, Vanessa Thatcher and Alice Jolly.
Posted on 13th of Oct '12
under Films: Documentary
We're very excited to have our shoot dates confirmed for phase one of our shoot for Still Born, Still Loved. We will be starting on Sunday 4th November. Our first phase of the project is to shoot a big cycle challenge by the Born Silently team in memory of their twin daughters Felicty and Harriet. Bethany and Stephen Morris will cycle 325 miles from their home town in Crowborough to North Yorkshire to raise money for the baby charities that helped them with their daughters were stillborn at 21 weeks.
We have our crew in place, are equipment purchased and are schedule sorted and can't wait to get shooting.
We still need lots of help raising money for the next phase of this film. For anyone that would like to support us please see our link here
Thanks
Posted on 13th of Oct '12
under Films: Documentary
We are delighted to have appointed Peter Fraser as our Line Producer for Still Born, Still Loved. Peter will be working with us from this point onwards for phase one of our shoot. He will be assisted by Isla Badenoch and we'd like to say a big thank you to them for coming on board.
Posted on 27th of Sep '12
under Films: Documentary
Big Buddha Films/Studio of the North are looking for an experienced, dynamic Line Producer for their feature documentary Still Born, Still Loved.
This documentary will look in depth at stillbirth and baby loss. It follows parents journey's from the heartbreak of stillbirth, to acceptance, happiness and a joy in living.
Following on from our powerful short film Peekaboo, starring Lesley Sharp and Shaun Dooley. We have a huge amount of support for this film already and plenty of access.
See full info about this film on our page here
Our Exec Producer is Colin Pons of Studio of the North. Our Director is Debbie Howard of Big Buddha Films.
We are looking with someone with experience and enthusiasm that can help get all aspects of the shoot together. You will not be expected to go out on location, but have a hands on approach to overseeing the project.
We have some finance currently in place, we are currently making other funding applications, and we are crowd funding along side this.
Our main characters and crew are all confirmed.
For further information or to apply please contact Debbie Howard on: debbie@bigbuddhafilms.co.uk
Posted on 25th of Sep '12
under Films: Documentary
I'm delighted to say that we have moved into our new office today, in the lovely Workstation, Sheffield. It's located right in the heart of the Cultural Industries Quarter in the city centre.
http://www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/workstation/
Our new business address is:
Unit 410
The Workstation
15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield
S1 3BX
We're looking forward to having our production office here, and will be set up and ready for making our new documentary which we will be starting to shoot soon.
Posted on 18th of Sep '12
under Films: Documentary
Our new documentary Still Born, Still Loved will be going into production really soon. We have had incredibly kind and generous financial help to get started from Christine Bell, Vanessa Thatcher and Alice Jolly. We have also had heaps of support from Mel Scott who has kindly shared with us many of her still and video footage of herself and her husband Baz with their still born baby Finley.
We are curretly gearing up to begin shooting our Teaser in the next few weeks. Watch this space!
Posted on 18th of Sep '12
under Films: Documentary
We've started our shoot on our new short documentary that we're making for Target in Sheffield. This film will be looking at the transformation that a group of women who come from vulnerable back grounds will be undergoing while working with Target. Our first day of shooting went well on Monday, with a horse riding session in Ringinglow which was great fun. More news on this film soon.
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