Malcolm & The Magpies 2020

Malcolm & The Magpies 2020 is a spoof gangster comedy (A British Comedy)

I wrote the scrip five years ago, and we went down to Exeter in Devon and filmed the first trailer, from there we started to plan the rest of the shoot, however this took a while to get together due to funding. Two years ago we decided to fund the project ourselves, then at the same time we got an investment of £3K.

Last year we were then able to secure filming at Orchardleigh house at Frome in Somerset, this was a great location. I had been doing some work for the owners and instead of getting paid I exchanged my work for using it as a location.

Orchardleigh provided us with many of the toys we needed to make the pilot episode, the boat, the Rolls, the digger and even the helicopter!

The shoot was then planned for August 2019 however this turned out a bit of a disaster, we had lost our old original crew so had to get in a whole new team, we had allowed three days to film everything which should have been fine, but we had any amount of problems.

Sadly the sound guy and the DOP we used were useless! when it came to editing we lost so much footage because it was unusable and some of the sound recording was missing. On top of that we had the first day of filming where it was the hottest day of the year, followed by the next day in which it chucked it down with rain and had had really heavy thunder storms. Would you believe that despite seeing the script and planning the shoot with us, at the moment we were about to film the flying scene with the helicopter the DOP suddenly announced he was scared of flying and didn't want to do it!

However we pulled it together, much of that scene was just filmed by the actors and our drone pilot on their mobile phones.

The DOP was supposed to have filmed in 4K but filmed in HD without telling me, again something I discovered when we came to edit.

As if that wasn't enough we then had some guest who were staying in one of the cottages at orchardleigh take a keen interest in the shoot, they stayed up most of the night watching and talking to the actors and crew. They seemed really nice and friendly, but then the next day they put in a complaint to the owner saying that we were being being loud and disturbing them and they refused to pay their bill, so I had to cover their stay at the cottage. This was the night of the really bad thunder storm as well, so lessons were truly learnt on this shoot.

The last part of the filming was done just before the lockdown, we were well prepared and the shoot went really well. However due to discovering some of the footage was lost from the previous shoot we changed the story line a bit and had a couple of odd bits left to film once the lock down had been put in place. Not knowing how long this would last it was a difficult time, we could easily have to put off all our plans for another year.

We made the big decision to finish it off during the lockdown using an i - phone 8 and edited it at home which was quite challenging. As the months rolled by we could see all our plans of launching this film and doing film festivals just wasn't going to happen. We then made the big step and decided that with all the doom and gloom Covid has brought to people in 2020 we would put the film out Free for all to watch on youtube in the hope it may cheer people up a bit and let them have a giggle.

Sadly this mean we are not making any money which would have gone toward making more, but it has allowed us to get feedback, thankfully the film has been very well received.

We are currently seeking funding and investment to make some more follow on episodes, so if you fancy being involved or doing a bit of acting get in touch.

Our celebrity guests in this pilot episode were seasoned actors

Frank Harper https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0363857/

Michael Suluk https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4636482/

Jerry Anderson https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3449013/

Keith How https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1675105/

Chris Wilson https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2711324/

https://www.facebook.com/Malcolmandthemagpies/

Twitter @filmmakerphil1

www.dipiufilmsltd.com

The full film Malcolm & The Magpies 2020 can be watched on youtube at this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9euZIdPX9I