4th June 2008

Hello, I'm Lucy Spook!

'Lucy Spook in My Funny Valentine' was shot over the weekend. It was perhaps the most physically exhausting shoot we've ever had. Saying that, we were in a single location, shooting over two days, with toilets and sofas and everything, so you'd think it'd be easy. But we were literally shooting none stop, set up after set up, with no breaks, it really took it out of us. As a result of this approach we ended up with the most footage we've ever had for a film. I think the last count was around 3 and a half hours of raw footage. Not bad for a small 7 minute film.

Things to contend with over the weekend were fleas in the sofa, pigeons cooing over most of our takes, holes in the floor, nails through shoes, giant spiders in the toilets, people randomly hitting snare drums in the room next door, and a diet of energy drinks and Greggs sandwiches. But we got through all that and have produced some of the best footage we've ever come up with. Cast and crew all came up trumps to create something really special, I also don't think I've ever laughed so much on a set as I did this one. T'was a truly magical affair that will hopefully come through in the final film.

Myself and Steve will put together the edit before the Steve gets cracking on the effects - i.e. building a 3D computer generated funfair - good god man, are you mad!? We may be some time in post production but it will be worth the wait.

Thanks to all the extras who came on Saturday and once again a big thanks to the Cast and Crew for all your hard work. Watch this space. Lucy's back and looking better than ever!

8th May 2008

'Mr McKinley in Moviola Mayhem' completed and already uploaded to the Virgin Media Shorts website. Check it out and vote.

Lucy 2 is well into production. Rehearsal and shoot dates are locked and loaded, we just need to shoot the damn thing now.

16th April 2008

The 'Fate and Mr McKinley 2' final edit was completed this evening, we're just awaiting the score for the film before we start submitting it to festivals. As far as I'm aware it's the first ever silent splatter film.

We are also working on a script to W.W.Jacobs short story 'The Monkey's Paw'. We're planning on producing a wonderfully faithful adaptation of it as the best one we've see so far was when 'The Simpsons' had a crack at it. Stay tuned for more details..

30th March 2008

'Fate and Mr McKinley 2' is well into post production and is looking pretty good. Steve's been busy rotascoping myself and Kev, a task I don't think he's enjoying too much. I've tried to reassure him that it'll be worth it in the end but I don't think he believes me at this early stage.

We are busy casting for 'Lucy Spook in My Funny Valentine', we've only got one more role to cast and then we'll be set. We're still aiming for a May shoot for that, all being well. That'll give us time to beef up the script a bit too.

We're in the process of fleshing out 'The Horror of the Heights' script to about 20 pages. It's turning into a much more interesting film, with a brand new sub plot. We want this to be our first big short and are even considering applying for funding for it.

'Vespers' has secured it's first confirmed screening at the Aeon Festival in August. We've also got a glowing review from our friend M.J.Simpson. Click here to read the review, also have a good look around his site as there's loads of good stuff on there.

1st March 2008

We shot the second of the 'Fate and Mr McKinley' films last night. The shoot went off without a hitch and we completed the filming in record time, we're really getting the hang of this film making malarky. The footage looks very good, well as good as it can look considering it simply consists Kevin and myself hamming it up in front of an orange bit of cloth. It'll all come together in post. It promises to be a worthy sequel to 'Fate and Mr McKinley' and I can't wait to see it myself.

25th February 2008

Many of our completed films have now been uploaded on their individual projects page, including the lovely teaser for My Funny Valentine.

Once again we have changed which film we're going to shoot next. We are now shooting 'Fate and Mr McKinley' part 2 this Friday!! Can't wait, as it promises to be a gloriously gruesome film, and we do enjoy the knockabout shoots that go along with McKinley films.

13th February 2008

'Vespers'. Last night the final touches were put on our Victorian-era end of the world short 'Vespers'. It has been a very busy period of time following the December shoot. This has been especially busy for Steve who has worked night and day to produce some truly impressive digital effects which give us that desolate, dead city feel we wanted. Now comes the hard part as we get the film sent out to film festivals to see what they make of it. Check back for screening dates which will be posted as soon as we get them.

'Lucy Spook in: My Funny Valentine'. There has been a slight change to our post 'Vespers' project as we will now be returned to Lucy Spook for our next short. We shot some 'Lucy' test footage at the end of 2007 which turned out so well that we are able to use it in the final film. As a result we have already got one third of the film in the can without even breaking a sweat. We are aiming for an April production date, however due to the amount of effects shots there will be a lengthy post production schedule. This will sit alongside the production of our adaptation of 'Horror of the Heights'.

Finally we are now uploading lovely flash embedded versions of our films on to the website. We will be starting with 'Fate and Mr McKinley' and 'The Birthday Wish' and then will upload a full version of 'The Hand' before too long.

31st December 2007

As the year draws to a close I thought it was long overdue for a useful news section in the world of Loonatik and Drinks. We have got a lot planned for 2008 so keep checking back for regular, but most likely brief, updates.

'Lucy Spook in: My Funny Valentine'. We've uploaded the first footage from the second Lucy Spook film in the shape of a lovely teaser trailer. This can be found on our Myspace account and is another animated masterpiece by Joe Butcher. This should keep you going until we complete the film some time in 2008. Click here to view.

'Vespers'. We shot our new film Vespers on a very wet weekend in December. We are currently in post production and are aiming to have it completed early Feb. It's looking fantastic and marks Loonatik and Drinks first trip into period films.

'The Horror of the Heights'. We have decided that our project following Vespers will be our first adaptation. We'll be kicking things off with our adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Horror of the Heights'. The script is written and we're in the process of casting and location scouting.

I hope you all have a good New Year and we at Loonatik and Drinks are looking forward to a very creative 2008.