Well here she is, the final piece of our triumvirate character-trailer jigsaw. Trailer number 3 – Grace.

Starring the simply superb Rachel Gay and written by Mr Peter Wilkinson, this little monkey will give you an insight into our leading lady’s mind. We’re looking forward to sharing the finished film with the world. One final mixing session and we’re there

Keep it lit.

Well, here we are – as promised, the next drip from our slow feed of material promoting our next short film Saving Grace – Trailer #2.

Featuring the amazingly talented Mr Mike Rogers, and shot on the 5d in Northumbrian fields (and gardens), it’ll give you a little insight into one of the main characters of our latest and bestest work.

We hope it rubs you up the right way. Keep your eyes peeled for Trailer #3 coming in the next couple of weeks. Enjoy.

Well hello there!

How was your Easter? Yeah – ours was good too, thanks for asking.

So – with our second short film, Girl in the Woods, we took our first tentative steps into the world of film festivals being accepted into a handful here and there and climaxing with a long-list nomination for the BAFTA for best short film. Canny.

Whilst all that was going on, we started to pick away at our next one and what do you know – we’ve gone and bloody made it! Saving Grace is all but ready to start its own assault on the festival circuit over the next couple of months, but, in the build up to that, we thought we’d have a little play.

We wanted to share as much of the film as we could without giving too much of it away and so instead of doing the pathetic, typical, lazy, Thatcher-esque single trailer, we’ve gone to town and have produced four little tasty tit-bits for everyone to wrap their goggles round. That’s right, four. Each one gives a little insight into the film, and into one of the main characters and, we hope, in such a way that your appetites will be whetted, your interests piqued, and your boats well and truly floated.

We’ll be releasing these trailers every so often over the next few weeks – treating you keen so as not to be mean – and tonight we’re starting with Trailer #1. Tom.

Saving Grace – Tom from Blind Crow Pictures on Vimeo.

Please give it a gander, please tell your friends, please say you like it (and us) and by doing so give us a virtual hug  cos we need it after so long spent in our editing cave where the walls are damp and the food is scarce. Also, our dearest friends, please drop by this page (http://www.blindcrowpictures.com/film/2013/01/no-bafta-but-saving-grace-is-our-saving-grace/) to find out more about the film, who’s been involved, and what the bloody hell it’s all about!

Here’s the log line – do with it what you will:

In rural England, two men try, in very different ways, to secure the love of the beautiful Grace – one by trying to make her happy, the other by ensuring that she never will be.

Hey Neighbours.

Happy New Year! We hope everyone has thrown their resolutions to one side, fallen off their treadmills and rowing machines, picked up their vices, are carrying on as normal, and are happier for it.

Towards the end of 2012 we received some exciting news here at Crow Towers – it turned out that our last short film, Girl in the Woods,  after a successful mini festival run taking it to America, Romania, Poland, and finally Leeds, had been long listed for the Best Short Film Bafta! We later found out it had got through their preliminary whittle, and got through to the short long list! We were given the date of the 9th of Jan to look forward to – this is when the final short list would be announced, and lo and behold, when it came, we were nowhere to be seen. So near, and yet so very, very far. We had both been practising our acceptance speeches and our disappointed faces just in case, but all was for nought. Never mind – it was tres exciting stuff, and gives us a lot of hope for our next wee filmic doozy, Saving Grace.

Post has been a long one on this, but, as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding will gather no moss, and the whole thing is looking great. Picture is locked, sound is being engineered, music has been provided by the genius Paddy Conn of Kowalski fame, and we’re all about ready to get started on what we’re sure will be a successful festival run. But don’t take that as gospel. In fact, I didn’t write that.

As you will see from the picture featured for this new blog, we have our art work and our title and our tag line and our colourful and hopefully intriguing set of pictures and we’re just about good to go. Please keep sticking your head in for more news – trailers and festival updates will be coming soon.

All the best for 2013. It’s going to be a good ‘un.

As the festival run of our last short film, Girl In The Woods, winds down (with a screening at the Leeds International Film Festival yesterday – the 10th November 2012 – where it competed for the nomination for the Melies D’argent) Blind Crow are straight back in to the hot seat with our lastest production.

We’ve been chomping at the bit to release some details and to start letting peeps know what is happening and as we start to near the end of post-production with the wonderful Paddy Conn composing some sweet-ass music, we felt now is the time.

So, everybody, say hello to ‘Saving Grace’. ‘Saving Grace’, say hello to everybody.

‘Saving Grace’ was shot this August in and around Hexham, Northumberland on the 5d with a mid-sized cast and crew of lovely jubbly guys and gals – some local, some who had travelled the length of the country. Written by Pete and shot and cut by Matt, it is a romantic thriller that we hope will float everybody’s boat. Here’s the log line:

“In rural England, two men try, in very different ways, to secure the love of their beautiful Grace – one by trying to make her happy, the other by ensuring that she never will be.”

We were so lucky to have the most wonderful people working with us over the 5 day shoot. Kim Mallam and Francesca Collier as runners and occasionally tackling the make-up, Matt Green as AD, John Eldridge on Sound, and, of course, the cast:

Alistair Donegan as Tom :

Alistair trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, graduating in 2010.  Recent theatre includes Accomplice for The Menier Chocolate Factory and Best Men at The Southwark Playhouse.  Recent film includes Milk for Sassy Films and Extract for Golden Lane Films.  Alistair will be shooting the pilot for a new comedy, It Won’t Be You, later in the year.  He is represented by United Agents.

Debra Tennant as Helen:

Debra Graduated from East 15 Acting School with an MA in Acting. She also previously gained a BA (Hons) in Performing Arts from the University of East Anglia and an HND in Dance from Dance City, Newcastle. Debra has a wealth of experience in acting and a few of her credits include: Rita in Educating Rita, Lesley in an adaptation of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, and Lady Anne in Richard III. She has worked as an actor and facilitator for various touring theatre companies, including Scene Productions and Fusion, which has seen her touring both nationally and internationally.

Mike Rogers as Neil:

Mike has a background in classical theatre and worked extensively with the English Shakespeare Company.  Among others, he played the title roles in Hamlet and Titus Andronicus for the ESC – directed by Malachi Bogdanov. Mike is an accomplished improviser and enjoys comedy and physical theatre, specialising in multi-role devised work.  His TV credits include Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Peak Practice, Doctors, Strange, Blackpool, Eastenders, and The Somme. Films include In the Spider’s Web and The Mandrake Root.  Mike teaches theatre and works regularly at Guildford School of Acting and at other drama schools in London.  He also works as a voice artist, narrating TV documentaries and audio books.

Rachel Gay as Grace:

Rachel is a North East based actor who trained at InterACT (NTC). She has worked as a devisor and performer with theatre companies and performance practitioners across the country and on independent short films and screen installations for regional artists. She currently works at Northern Stage on a new winter production and will next appear in Susan Sontag’s Alice in Bed (Tender Buttons). Rachel is also focusing on Aerial Rope training as a starting point for a solo performance project.

So please look out and keep following us guys and gals. Over the coming weeks we’ll be releasing production shots and art work and trailers. And not just one either – we’ve bloody well gone to town on this bad boy, haven’t we. We’re molto excited about Saving Grace and its potential and hope you all jump aboard the happy wagon with us. Join us on faceyb, twitter and subscribe to the site and keep abreast of what’s ganning on. Ya na.

Laters.

Just a quickie this time folks.

This coming Saturday Blind Crow’s Girl in The Woods will be playing at the Leeds International Film Festival where it will be part of the Melies D’argent Short Film Competition. If you happen to be around and fancy checking it out along with all the other cinematic fare, it’ll be playing at 12.00 midday at (we think) City Varieties.

The time has come and Blind Crow are about to embark on their latest filmmaking adventure. We start to shoot out next short film this week coming and we cannot wait to get going.

Currently without title, this next project is our most ambitious to date. We will be shooting in Northumberland over four days with a brilliant cast and a script that’ll put hair on your chest.

Please keep visiting the site as we will be posting updates and info including cast details and trailers over the coming weeks. Our last short, Girl In The Woods, is still working its way through the festival circuit and this little bad boy will be hot on its heels come Autumn time.

Well, if you’ve seen our posts this week you will have noticed that we are a teensie weensie bit chuffed due to the our most recent short, ‘Girl In The Woods’ being accepted into a couple of festivals. First it was the Sopot International Film Festival in Poland and then it was the Full Moon Horror Festival in Transylvania.

Hopefully they are the first of many and of course, we’ll keep chucking our wotsits up on here as and when it is appropriate. But, in the meantime, what better week could there be to finally pull our fingers out and make public the little teaser we have put together?

Give it a gander – see what you think, Hopefully it whets the appetite and makes you want to rush over to the films website (www.girlinthewoods.com).

We want to give another huge heartfelt thanks for all the guys who worked with on this – our writer, co-directer and co-producers from 3:15 Films, Alex Rose and Lynne Hames. The glorious cast, Tom Bennett, Hilary Greatorex, Robert Atiko and Aria Prasad as well as awesome help from in a range of areas from Lauren Johnson, Jonathan Rose and Jeremy Peltzer.

Please keep the eyes peeled – you never know, we may even get in to a festival near you.

My oh my oh my! What a time we are having.

Yesterday was spent celebrating the news that Girl In The Woods had been accepted into its second festival (Sopot International Film Festival in Poland) and just this morning, drunk on the heady atmosphere of success, us Crows find out that we’ve bagged another!

The intervening period (last night) was heavily influenced by an episode of QI. Based on a comment by the ever impressive Monsieur Fry we worked into the early hours trying to investigate a conundrum of the upmost importance:

If toast will ALWAYS land butter side down when dropped, and a cat will ALWAYS land on its feet when falling from a height, what will happen to a falling cat who has a buttered slice of toast sellotaped to its back?

We went to work with two full family sized tubs of Lurpak, a pack of Mighty White, and a none too happy Persian/Siamese cross called Tabatha. Needless to say, the results were inconclusive, and this post is being written as Tabatha spins six inches from the ground as she has done since 2 am, as the forces of gravity, butter, and feline agility battle with each other for supremacy. Check this site for updates.

Anyway – getting away from that wayward tangent, last night’s high jinx seem positively pizzly when we received an email this morning telling us that Girl In the Woods had got into its second festival in as many days. This time it is the Full Moon Horror festival in Romania. A newish festival that is part of the larger Romanian International Film Festival and that we are proud as punch to be a part of. Can I write the word ‘Festival’ in this paragraph any more than I have done already? You bet. Festival.

More info to follow soon, but, if you happen to be in Transylvania betwixt the 16th and the 19th of August, why not drop in and say hello. Just tell the guy on the door that you know us. He’ll know what you mean.

Unfortunately the Crows are working at opposite ends of the country at moment, and so we had to resort to virtual high-fives and back slapping and the like, because our short film ‘Girl In The Woods’ has been accepted into another sweet ass film festival.

This time it is Sopot in Poland which may make a few readers go ‘where the f**k is that?’, but let us assure you that it is a pretty awesome wee filmic get together that looks even more awesome this year not just because of our film, but because of a Nicolas Wending Refn retrospective that should tickle any aficionados plumbs.

So, that’s two bits of sweet news with our little thriller, and we’re not even a third of the way through our calender, so here’s hoping there’ll be some more great announcements in the near future and who knows, maybe even a screening in this country. Wouldn’t that be nice.

Please keep your eyes peeled over the next few days as we will be releasing our trailer for ‘Girl…’ by the end of the week, as well as giving a little info into our next short which we are just in the process of casting, and will be shooting in August in the sunny North-East of Anglais.

So, get your rocks off and your pants on and we’ll see you in a minute or two. Bonza.