archived-videos The Magic Circle

NickClapper

NickClapper

Something of a 'surprise' drop, given that I usually discuss these things in excruciating detail! This is a web-series that we started shooting about 3 weeks ago, and which is now debuting with Episode 1! The film was shot by Ollie Craig (chilipie) and scored by Josh Loughrey (JoshL) so, as ever with my projects, there's more than a hint of Indietalk about it.

Here's the pitch: The Magic Circle is a brand new web-series which explores the lives, loves and relationships of a group of adult Harry Potter fans who really ought to have moved on with their lives… but the boy wizard continues to work his magic and the books continue to exert a powerful hold…

Click here to watch the first episode!

The comedy (well, light comedy) will definitely appeal more to Harry Potter fans than people who have never read the books or seen the movies, but I hope that there will be some broad appeal. After all, the show is really about THE PEOPLE and not about the books. Let that one sink in... ;)
 
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"Have you ever... "

LOL!

This is great.
I look forward to seeing how each of the characters develop over the series.

Very very nice, Nick, Ollie, & Josh.
 
Excellent! Really enjoyed that. It reminded me of being at university again; lots of po-faced people taking trivial things far too seriously. The script achieves that most difficult of tasks, which is to be mocking but affectionate at the same time.

I know very little about camerawork, but personally I love the simple way its shot, shifting focus among the characters, and you seem to have assembled a pretty talented cast. How did you get hold of them? All friends of yours? Working for credit or are you able to pay them?
 
rayw said:
This is great.
I look forward to seeing how each of the characters develop over the series.

Very very nice, Nick, Ollie, & Josh.
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Thanks Ray – we've got one more episode filmed and I'm really hopeful that we'll get the opportunity to shoot some more and develop these characters further.

maz said:
Excellent! Really enjoyed that. It reminded me of being at university again; lots of po-faced people taking trivial things far too seriously. The script achieves that most difficult of tasks, which is to be mocking but affectionate at the same time.

I know very little about camerawork, but personally I love the simple way its shot, shifting focus among the characters, and you seem to have assembled a pretty talented cast. How did you get hold of them? All friends of yours? Working for credit or are you able to pay them?
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Hi Maz – first of all, I'm glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the kind words! You've hit pretty much on exactly what I wanted from the show, which is to avoid being cruel (which I think the premise could easily tip over into). I love Harry Potter and was into the fandom as a kid, so I write from the perspective of affectionate nostalgia.

I'm glad you enjoyed the camerawork. The simplicity is somewhat deceptive because, despite the fact there were no flashy camera moves and not that much coverage, we were shooting 21 pages in a day and didn't have a proper lighting set-up. So Ollie had a much trickier task than first appears when you watch the show, and I think the switching focus was a bold but very sensible decision because it allowed us to shoot much more quickly and I think it still looks rather nice! It provided a few challenges in the edit, but I'm happy how it came together.

The actors were sourced from a variety of places. Three of them are from a filmmaking collaborative group that I run in London, and the other two were found via a casting call. Everyone was working for expenses and to help each other out. I'm hopeful that the show gives them a good platform (as well as a good platform for me!).
 
Yeah, the actors do a really good job. I was struggling with the douche character (Kris I think?) who through most of the first two episodes seems to only be there to provide conflict. But I liked the little bit at the end which kind of showed another side to his character, giving him more depth. So I hope we get to expand on him more down the line :)
 
Once again, great work! I'm absolutely loving this, and am sad that you've only one more short right now. Hopefully you can get some more soon!

And of course, glad that I could be involved!
 
I like it! At first, I was like, "ahh, what's all this wizard crap" (I've never been too much into the Potter-verse). But then I quickly realized that these are simply about the people discussing the movies.

I love both of the endings. Perfect. Made me laugh. I look forward to watching the third!
 
trueindie said:
I don't know what the hell these people are talking about, but you did a phenomenal job with the actors.
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Cheers man. To be honest, I just lucked out with the casting and then wound them up and let them go. They didn't require much direction, just rattled off the dialogue.

cheeseandachallenge said:
Yeah, the actors do a really good job. I was struggling with the douche character (Kris I think?) who through most of the first two episodes seems to only be there to provide conflict. But I liked the little bit at the end which kind of showed another side to his character, giving him more depth. So I hope we get to expand on him more down the line :)
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Thanks Jonathan. I enjoy writing and directing Kris – I'm not sure I see him as a douche, but as a guy who genuinely considers himself a Slytherin and is extremely pedantic in the way he puts forward his interpretation. But I didn't set out to make Kris a 'villain' and his back-story and motivation is something that I want to explore more. We tease a little bit more humanity from him in the next episode, don't worry ;)

But what I most appreciate is people looking for character development. I think there are sitcoms which feel constrained by the 20/30 minute runtime and leave their characters with a single-note, so I'm glad that we've managed, in only 7 minutes of running time, to suggest some development and nuance. I really hope that I get the opportunity to make some more episodes, but that remains to be seen... :huh:

JoshL said:
Once again, great work! I'm absolutely loving this, and am sad that you've only one more short right now. Hopefully you can get some more soon! And of course, glad that I could be involved!
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I'm super grateful for your help Josh. You're one of the most reliable people on this forum for lending other members a hand, and I think we should all be thankful for having you :blush:

Cracker Funk said:
I like it! At first, I was like, "ahh, what's all this wizard crap" (I've never been too much into the Potter-verse). But then I quickly realized that these are simply about the people discussing the movies. I love both of the endings. Perfect. Made me laugh. I look forward to watching the third!
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Glad you liked it Joseph, means even more coming from a non-Potterite.

The endings are very much of a type (and very typical of my work, I think) and the third episode has another fun ending note. I actually envisaged Episode 2 ending slightly differently – actually just like my short The Samurai ended, not that anyone would remember... – but it didn't work in the edit so we tweaked it and I'm pretty happy with the result. I like a bit of cutesy awkwardness...
 
It's definitely shaping up/finding its rhythm. Getting more of a feel for the individuality of the characters, which is nice. The camera work was more visually interesting than the last one, too.

I particularly liked the topic this time around. Though the whole Sirius is gay thing is definitely news to me. I'm surprised I haven't run into that fan theory before.

I don't really see the antagonist guy as a villain. Just one of those fans with a strong opinion and maybe a slight deficit of tact when expressing it. He does play it a bit grumpy, but the writing itself doesn't read "mean" to me. Then again, one of my best friends is a self-appointed Slytherin so I may be a bit biased/aquainted with the type.

On another note (hehe) I'm really impressed by Josh's ability to make a Harry Potter theme without actually ripping off John Williams. Actually, that's something John Williams himself is pretty good at. So good job, Josh!
 
Quick query: I can't seem to get the annotations to work on my YouTube channel. Can anyone give me advice about that? Ideally I'd like to annotate the end of each episode with links to previous or next episodes, that sort of thing, as well as a subscribe button. At the moment, I have a subscription annotation, but it's invisible unless you hover your mouse over it which, whilst undeniably magical, is kind of useless.

Also, any other tips about promoting a YouTube channel would be appreciated. This is my first time out to bat and I still find some of it incomprehensible :huh:
 
far too kind words, Dready and Nick! seriously blushing over here!

As far as promotion, I suck at that myself. I know you're hitting (and making waves) with some of the HP fan communities. Do you think maybe funny or die would work? Your humor is a lot more subtle than most so I'm not sure, but on the other hand, that's why I like it better (that awkward ending of ep2 is wonderful)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8iG9K3MhIA

After a number of frustrating delays – basically, our editor got sick and then went completely AWOL, leaving the project somewhat in the lurch – I've finally released the third episode of my web-series, The Magic Circle.

As ever, I offer the disclaimed that if you haven't read the Harry Potter books (you also probably require a certain amount of goodwill towards them) you might not get the show, but I hope that those who have find it entertaining and enjoy spending another 3:45 with the characters.

My thanks go out to two members of this parish: chilipie, our trusty DoP, and JoshL, our incredibly gracious composer. Josh even altered the theme music to make this a SPECIAL CHRISTMAS EPISODE which is why I've released it in late February.

Also, please enjoy the planning that involves writing these scripts in the summer (hence why they're having a BBQ) and then filming them in November when it's pouring with rain. But hey, that's England.
 
Cracker Funk said:
Haha! Facebook stalking is totally normal. :lol:
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The knife just happened to arrive there...

For anyone who wants to spend 11 and 1/2 minutes watching these episodes back to back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYThBS1LPo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65dj3fv_N0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8iG9K3MhIA

(Someone left a comment this morning saying that they loved the first episode. I just saw that on the second episode they'd left a horrified comment that they were unsubscribing. I look at their profile and they're about 10-years-old and now I feel bad for not warning about masturbation jokes...)
 
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The Magic Circle is back!

Not that anyone was asking... We've shot a bunch of new episodes and the first of the new set is online now. There were a couple of enforced changes to the cast (not anyone's fault, just the way these things work out), a slightly different episode structure, but, essentially, it's all still the same.

Sadly these episodes weren't shot by our esteemed moderator Ollie (aka chilipie) because he is too damn in demand, but he was responsible for pushing me into making some more episodes, so I'm eternally grateful. The Indietalk presence, as ever, can be found in JoshL's fantastic theme music and the new title sequence by mussonman!

I hope you enjoy the new episode. The series is geared towards Harry Potter fans, certainly, but I hope there's something for non-fans to enjoy as well. It's very much a dialogue driven comedy, the sort that I really enjoy making, and maybe will help unleash that pedantic nerd in the back of your brain...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHdz5zl0z3w
 
Harry Potter is not about identity politics!
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:lol: I lost it.

I'm glad to see you're back in the game with these. I must say I really liked the cinematography (and the grade) on these. It paired really nicely with the very attractive sets and I think made everything seem more polished. It's been a while since I watched the original episodes, but iirc sound was kind of the weak point, and this one was definitely solid to good depending on the scene. So yeah. As always, I'm a sucker for HP. Totally wish I could find people to play that game with. :)
 
mussonman said:
That's a real nice new intro you've got there
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I know a guy...

Dreadylocks said:
:lol: I lost it.

I'm glad to see you're back in the game with these. I must say I really liked the cinematography (and the grade) on these. It paired really nicely with the very attractive sets and I think made everything seem more polished. It's been a while since I watched the original episodes, but iirc sound was kind of the weak point, and this one was definitely solid to good depending on the scene. So yeah. As always, I'm a sucker for HP. Totally wish I could find people to play that game with. :)
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Glad it worked for you.

I think we were definitely helped, in these episodes, by having done the previous episodes, and knowing, essentially, how I wanted to work in order to shoot quickly. The biggest change to the cinematography was moving to a wide/individual CU based cut, rather than the three-person MCU that was the dominant shot in the previous episodes. The main reasons this was possible was A) because Ollie had told me that he wanted to take more time over the shots, so even though he didn't shoot this, I took onboard what he had said, and B) because we had about 4 more hours to play with this time. So having more time meant that fewer corners needed to be cut.

As for the sound... it was very tricky last time. Of all the film people I know in London, I don't know any sound guys who'll chip in for free, which is completely fair enough given that it's a laborious task and there aren't that many of them compared to actors or shooters. Last time we had no usable sound from the wide, which meant we had to fudge the edit in a few places, not to mention that the overall quality of the recording was a long way from perfect. I don't think the sound in the previous episodes was terrible given the constraints, but there were too many constraints to have really satisfying sound. But I got a trained sound recordist in for this shoot and he did a better job and the recording environment in the living room and bathroom was pretty decent (the kitchen is a pain as there's a lot of buzz, frustratingly, from some built in wine coolers. The fridge is silent but the wine coolers hum like crazy and I can't find a switch to turn them off).

But I'm glad it's looking more polished - I'm definitely trying to achieve a happy balance between quick/easy to shoot and good looking/sounding.
 
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