Well, I guess this is the real start of the countdown to the release of the very first Imprint project – and so, to celebrate, we have kindly provided you with a short 30 second sneak-peak video that will hopefully give you a bit of a taste of things to come…

Go on, watch it. Then watch it again. You know you want to.

Imprint Media Grp. from studio stereo on Vimeo.

We’re really grateful to the guys over at studiostereo who have put this together for us to help give everyone a bit of insight into the look and feel of this project. It’s stepped our excitement levels for the final project up another gear (if that’s possible) and we really can’t wait to share it with you, and to see it being used to share the Gospel in a personal, relevant and engaging way – coming right out of the heart of the Church, here in Northern Ireland.

Again, I just want to echo Jonny’s words of thanks to all involved so far – people who are praying, people who are giving (time/money/advice and more), Stephen, StudioStereo, Colin and Dan. You are all making this project both amazing and God-glorifying.

So, aside from that, I just wanted to give everyone a quick run through of how things went down on the shoot, last Thursday, now that you’ve all (hopefully) seen the pictures and the trailer that came out of some of the work that day! :

Groomsport Harbour:

Well, we started bright and early (feeling fresh) at 7am at Groomsport harbour/beach to, ironically, film some of the closing scenes in the morning light, when the tide was out.  Once Stephen was all mic’d up, we hit the rocky, muddy and slightly damp beach – to the interest of some of the locals walking their dogs – as we tried to avoid standing on well camouflaged crabs or in some of the many rivers of water that crossed it as we filmed. These shots are some of the most powerful and engaging parts of the film – where the whole thing really draws together and crescendos – and the harbour made a great setting for it with loads of atmosphere, and yet intimacy, at the same time.

Bangor Seafront:

After grabbing some general shots and sound ambience samples of that location we headed onwards and upwards to the bright lights of the beautiful Bangor… and had a coffee. Following the coffee (tea), we filmed the opening scenes along the seafront in Bangor, where Stephen introduces the whole concept of the film in the middle of a busy town setting. It was great filming in a location with plenty of other people and ‘passers-by’ about – not only because of the natural feel it gave, but also because of the excuses they liked to give about why they didn’t want to appear on camera! We shot some great stuff against some of the derelict buildings and advertisement posters, which made for a great background (as seen in the promo video!)

Next we had an important meeting scheduled with a certain Burger King. The meeting was productive.

Excel Clothing Store:

Finally we were joined by a wonderful crew of around 15 extras at 5.30pm in the Excel Clothing store to film some of the central scenes. So, whilst 15 people convincingly pretended to shop, Stephen had to deliver some of the script in the midst of a busy retail environment. Some of the shots in the store look really incredible – and we made plenty of use of our favourite hired piece of equipment of the day… The Dolly (which no-one  should ever be without).

We wrapped up just coming up to 8pm, bringing the whole 13 hour escapade to an end. It was a great, if tiring, day and one which we hope is just the start of many!

Keep your eyes on the blog for more stuff coming soon…
Also feel free to fire us a comment by clicking the wee speech bubble beside each blog entry title – we’d love to hear from you!

Take it easy,
Sam