January 14, 2020

Back in November we published STILL on YouTube without a great deal of fanfare. To our surprise and delight it has gone viral, with over two million views since this news article was published. This has been an amazing success for us, and provides us with a great boost to our future film making endeavours. Thanks to everyone who has watched, liked and commented. If you want to check it out for yourself, if you haven't seen it, just click on the image to the left.

December 19, 2019

Off Grid's festival run continues with a screening at London Lift Off, where we shared the screen with an eclectic and brilliant selection of shorts at a screening attended by many other film makers.

November 11, 2019

Mark and Carl attended the Gala Awards Ceremony of the Birmingham Film Festival, where Off Grid was nominated for Best Short and Best Local Film, and a grand evening evening was had by all (even if we didn't win in our categories).

September 10, 2019

Check out our first review for Off Grid, from Midlands Movies.

February 19, 2019

Dark Matter's first film, multi-award winning zombie short STILL is now available on Amazon Prime. Prime members get to watch it for free, so get on over there and take a look for yourself!

January 06, 2019

With the edit in full swing and plans in place to use the money raised by this campaign to finish the film, we thought it would be good to throw the curtain back a bit on the process we've been going through to get the film finished. 

Following the shoot last summer we had in the region of a healthy 800GB of footage, with which to edit a 20min film! This was mainly due to the shot list being carefully considered and storyboarded ahead of time by director Carl and storyboard artist Cong Nguyen...

This is the intro to a fulsome blog post from Carl on the subject of remote editing Off Grid. The whole article is available over at the Indiegogo crowdfunder.

November 14, 2018

Last month Carl and Mark went to the Birmingham Film and TV Marketplace to pitch a feature version of Off Grid, and a few other things beside. Head over to the blog section for the full story.

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Brochure image courtesy of strongarmphotography ©2018.

September 25, 2018

Great news! BLOOD CLOTS, the horror anthology featuring our debut short, STILL, is now available to stream for FREE to all Amazon Prime customers!

This is an amazing feat as it now means the film is available to Amazon's huge customer base of 100 million households! Not bad for a 2 day shoot zombie comedy from Birmingham. We're naturally extremely excited and may eat some fresh guts to celebrate...

To watch the anthology, which is packed with a bunch of other great debut pieces of work, including the ludicrously entertaining and slick HELLYFISH, and CALL OF CHARLIE, a film about Cthulhu being invited to a dinner party. To watch it, just click on the link on the home page.

If you do we have a HUGE favour to ask, which is PLEASE REVIEW THE FILMS AFTERWARDS!

Every review the film gets raises its exposure on Amazon and increases our chances of it being viewed, which raises our profile, and hopefully (eventually) may even throw a few dollars our way (I've seen Amazon's charge model, I'm not holding my breath).

This is amazing news for everyone involved in STILL, we need your support. Exciting times, keep following us for more exciting news as we move on with OFF GRID.

September 06, 2018

Here's a lovely surprise! After last year's great festival word of mouth STILL's been approached to feature in the inaugural Orpheus Brewing Horror-Comedy Festival in Atlanta on Oct 28th. They're also seeking submissions: submit at https://filmfreeway.com/OrpheusBrewingHorrorComedyFilmFest … waive code RETURNTHESLAB2000

August 04, 2018

Our debut zombie short Still has had two exciting pieces of distribution news! 

Firstly our New York-based sales agent Hewes Pictures PLC has confirmed that Still is to be added to Amazon Prime's catalogue in the very near future, meaning major exposure for the film across Amazon's monster streaming service!

Secondly, the film has been selected to be part of an anthology feature of horror films, called "Blood Clots", released by Freedom Pictures PLC. It is currently available to rent on Amazon Video. Their plans also involve a short theatrical run in the US before being sold as a combined feature to Apple TV, Amazon Prime and other VOD streaming platforms worldwide. Another recent sci-fi anthology released by the company, A.I. Tales, garnered enthusiastic reviews from the LA Times and various genre press. 

Writer/director Carl Timms said "This is just great news for everyone who was involved in the production; to think our low budget short is to be watched in cinemas in the US blows my mind. I intentionally avoided the easy option of releasing the short for free on YouTube with a well-planned, targeted festival strategy, which though riskier, is now starting to pay dividends in terms of exposure opportunities. Having that Prime logo on our future pitches will carry some serious cache and we hope lead to bigger and better opportunities for Dark Matter Films.".

The strategy has already paid dividends with our current project Off Grid having secured James Cosmo, Alison Steadman and Marc Baylis in lead roles on the basis of the previous short's achievements. Off Grid is in post and we hope to have this released in late autumn.

July 16, 2018

Hello, it's been a while. We went a bit dark (what else?) after completing the Off Grid shoot, as is to be expected as we get into post-production. But Mark has put down a few thoughts about how the shoot went over on the blog, so do check it out.

May 05, 2018

We've pulled together some incredible talent for OFF GRID, thanks in no small part to our fabulous casting director Alison Solomon. The final roll call is: John Tanner to be played by James Cosmo MBE, Grace Tanner to be played by Alison Steadman OBE, Marc Baylis is The Stranger, Kate Davies-Speak is Caitlin Rourke, and Francis Quigley is George Rourke. Cannot wait to work with these guys!

May 05, 2018

We finished our crowdfunding campaign on May 2nd, and cameras will start rolling on May 16th, through to 19th in and around Wyre Forest. We raised £7,281 for which we'd like to extend a massive thank you to our backers. Although the Indiegogo campaign has now ended, we're still taking donations and selling perks, as every pound we make enables us to put more quality on the screen in post-production. You can contact us directly by email, Facebook or Twitter to arrange.

April 15, 2018

Great news. We have sponsorship on Off Grid. VR and AR experts Austella are covering the costs of our lighting and power on the shoot. We'd like to give a big shout out to the guys at Austella for their generous contribution. Thank you very much.

March 22, 2018

The day of reckoning has come, and the Off Grid Indiegogo campaign is now live. Here is the full press release:

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West Midlands filmmakers sign up Game of Thrones star for their latest film production

Birmingham, 23 March 2018 – Game of Thrones star James Cosmo will play the lead role in the upcoming supernatural thriller Off Grid from West Midlands production company Dark Matter Films. Award-winning actor Cosmo has a career spanning five decades, and is known for roles such as Braveheart, Trainspotting, The Chronicles of Narnia, Troy and Wonder Woman.

Off Grid will be the second short film for Midlands-based director Carl Timms and his writing partner Mark Brendan, who run Dark Matter Films. Their first film, the zombie short Still, was filmed on location in Birmingham City Centre and appeared at 25 film festivals, winning 9 awards.
 

Director Carl Timms said, “I couldn’t be happier that James Cosmo has joined us for Off Grid. From the moment I read script, I thought he’d be perfect for the role. James is that rare kind of actor who can play both terrifying and gentle with equal aplomb, a combination of qualities that make his character Tanner a force of nature.”

Cosmo will be joined in Off Grid by renowned British horror actress Kate Davies-Speak, best known for her role in multi-award winning sci-fi show Horizon. The short will begin shooting in June this year on location in Worcestershire, with a portion of the film’s budget being raised by public crowdfunding.

The Off Grid campaign launches on Indiegogo this week, with donations starting at £10. The ‘perks’ on offer include the chance to be an extra in the film, land an Executive Producer role or take part in an exclusive combat workshop with Movieworks International, stunt providers to films such as Prince of Persia and King Arthur.
 

For more info go to https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/off-grid-a-post-apocalyptic-horror-story/

ENDS

Facebook: Dark Matter Films UK
Twitter: @darkmatterfilms
https://www.darkmatterfilms.co.uk/

PR contact:
Rachel Devenport
Rachel@devenportpr.com | 07825 282 302

March 09, 2018

It's finally here. We've been like a swan at Dark Matter these last couple of months, placid and elegant on the surface, but frantically paddling like billy-o underneath. Off Grid's crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo will launch on Thursday, 22nd of March.

Check out the teaser on YouTube here. Also, if you haven't done so, sign up on the Indiegogo pre-launch page for updates and early access to some amazing perks.

January 22, 2018

We have a location for our exterior shots. The Cadbury hunting lodge in Wyre Forest will stand in for Tanner's cabin when we shoot Off Grid. We'd like to offer a big thank you to the Cadbury family for granting permission to make our film at such a great location.

January 19, 2018

STILL aired earlier today on the Shorts HD channel on DirecTV. Obviously we're a bit late getting this news out, but if you're a Direct TV viewer, don't worry, there will be another showing on January 24th, at 3.53 AM Eastern Time, on Shorts HD (channel 573).

We'd like to give our distributor Hewes Pictures a big thank you for organising this milestone, in what we hope will be the first of many showings of Dark Matter's films.

If you don't have direct TV, remember, you can always pick up STILL on Vimeo.

January 16, 2018

Fantastic piece of news for our upcoming Off Grid project! Fight choreography and stunt specialists, Movieworks International, known for their work on major motion pictures such as Prince of Persia, King Arthur and Cleanskin are on board with Off Grid to handle our stunts and fight scenes.

November 24, 2017

We are casting for a small role in our next short OFF GRID. This is to be a paid role plus expenses, couple of lines, one practical stunt. One day's filming, likely to be shot Feb/Mar.

Character is George Rourke: male, late 20s to early 30s, used to be a bored office worker by day/outdoor wilderness warrior by weekend type of guy until the apocalypse came, now he's trying to survive in the wild with his wife Caitlin when he meets the Tanners.

George comes over as confident without necessarily being competent, and it makes for a good counterpoint to Caitlin's capability. He can't find the way back out of the woods, after they veered off the beaten track. Or so he claimed. Tanner isn't fooled for one minute though.

Please email us via info@darkmatterfilms.co.uk with IMDB page/CV and spotlight (or equivalent) pics. Must be able to express loss and cry.

Artwork is a costume concept only and no indication of actor specifics. Dark Matter Films supports equal opportunities recruitment so we encourage applications for this role from all ethnicities and backgrounds.

November 15, 2017

Still comes to the end of it's awesome festival run with a showing at Grindhouse Planet  in Leicester, on the 26th November. Director Carl will be there, along with Still's star, Joe Capella. Hope to see you there.

October 09, 2017

Following its appearance at Scare-A-Con this past weekend, folks in New York state will get another chance to see Still as it plays the amazing Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival in November. We have made Official Selection and gained what could be our favourite laurel to date!

Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival is in its 6th year and runs for a massive ten days. The 2016 edition of Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival was a banner year for the event, receiving a record 350 submissions – approximately 310 films and 40 Original Screenplays – and screened a record 107 films. Festival organizers Gregory Lamberson (Slime City, Killer Rack) and Chris Scioli intend to build on that momentum to make the 2017 edition, which will again run 10 days, the best international film festival in Western New York.

September 26, 2017

Here it is, our coup de grace in the festival run, we've made Official Selection in the home of The Walking Dead itself, the state of Georgia! The Atlanta Horror Film Festival is the top horror film festival in Atlanta, and is dedicated to showcasing award-winning films from the world's most talented filmmakers. Their program is packed with award-winning films from every corner of the earth. With a Best Zombie Short category we are excited to be competing in the homeland of the world's biggest zombie sensation. Its going to be a fierce competition so here's hoping traditional slow movers can win out!

The 11th Annual Atlanta Horror Film Festival will be held October 19 - 22, 2017 at the Synchronicity Theatre. We'll release more details when we have them!

September 14, 2017

Our Indiegogo pre-launch page for our new supernatural sci-fi thriller OFF GRID is now live at https://buff.ly/2wcpjYD

Please share to all your sci-fi, horror or just plain sick friends and family and encourage them to sign up for news and updates on our upcoming Indiegogo campaign. Trust me, there's so much exciting stuff going on behind the scenes that we cannot wait to reveal more! We will begin releasing more news about the perks and the film itself soon!

September 11, 2017

STILL has made Official Selection for this year's @ScareACon Film Festival at the Turning Stone Casino, Verona, New York State, which will be running between 6th and 8th October.

Scare-A-Con is in its 18th year and bills itself as the "Best horror & pop culture convention on the East Coast." They have a great line-up of guests this year including Sid Haig, Tom Savini, Amanda Wyss and Matthew Lillard. STILL will be playing as part of the film festival which runs throughout the convention, more details when we have them!

August 27, 2017

In what's turning into a busy September, Still will also now be making its North Dakota premiere in the awesome Fargo, North Dakota! Darn tootin'!

Still has made Official Selection for the 15th @Fargo Fantastic Film Festival, making this the longest established festival Still has played yet! It takes place at the historic Fargo Theatre
on September 21st - 23rd 2017.

The Fargo Fantastic Film Festival "celebrates film, video and other media in science fiction, fantasy, horror, adventure, thrillers and all other fun genres! It exists to showcase the ambitious and creative independent filmmaker. To make a good genre film takes real creativity, craftsmanship and yes, artistic merit. We show professional and amateur productions as both can learn from the otherestival is the film festival that celebrates film, video and other media in science fiction, fantasy, horror, adventure, thrillers and all other fun genres! It exists to showcase the ambitious and creative independent filmmaker. To make a good genre film takes real creativity, craftsmanship and yes, artistic merit. We show professional and amateur productions as both can learn from the other"What's this item about? What makes it interesting? Write a catchy description to grab your audience's attention...

August 22, 2017

Even as it heads to the end of its festival run, there's still time for Still to rack up a few more festival appearances and state premieres. This time its been selected by NOLA Horror Film Fest taking place in beautiful New Orleans at Castillo Blanco Art Studios, 4321 St Claude Ave on 21-24 September. Don't know exact screening time yet but we'll update once that's announced. This will be our Louisiana state premiere so we're delighted to be featuring amongst a great looking line up of shorts. 

About NOLA Horror Film Fest:
""NOLA HORROR FILM FEST is a horror film festival created by horror filmmakers for horror fans. As film auteurs ourselves, we appreciate the blood, sweat & tears that go into making movies. We also understand that the fans are ready for something different!

It’s no small wonder and no great surprise that so many of today’s top directors got their start in “low budget horror”. With determination & imagination, these artists have created some truly memorable work that has encouraged & inspired a new generation of filmmakers.

The NOLA Horror Film Fest is committed to celebrating the craft & the art of genre filmmaking at its best.What's this item about? What makes it interesting? Write a catchy description to grab your audience's attention...

July 17, 2017

Announcing our next short film, Off Grid, a tale of post-apocalyptic supernatural horror.

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Script has been complete for some time, we're now getting underway with casting, and we've had a splendid new poster designed for it. Shooting will take place later this year, and watch this space for further announcements including an upcoming crowd funding campaign.

To get more low down on Off Grid, check out the entry in projects.

July 11, 2017

Another great review for Still, this time from the Zombie Research Society. Here's what they had to say:

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"Despite the recent success of the zombie genre, some of the most refreshingly original films have been small, independent productions. Writer and director Carl Timms continues that great tradition with his brand new debut Still, a clever little comedy that takes place in the zombie infested streets of Birmingham, England."

In celebration of the review, get Still for just 99c by using code RESEARCH99.

July 02, 2017

In the most exciting piece of news for Dark Matter Films yet, we are delighted to announce that we have agreed a 2yr distribution deal with Hewes Pictures, a specialist in selling short films to VOD, streaming and TV internationally. 

Hewes contacted us having seen the film at New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival back in March, so we are very flattered to have stood out enough to be approached. 

With things beginning to gear up for our next film, we are hopeful this deal will enable Dark Matter Films to really expand our aspirations and genre visibility! The hordes continue to shamble on...

May 02, 2017

Still screenings will be happening throughout 2017. This post will keep a list of where the film can be seen and where:

3rd - 6th May, 2017
Event: New Haven International Film Festivall
Location: Gateway Community College, 20 Church Street
New Haven, Connecticut, 06510
Time: TBC
Tickets: TBC

6th May 2017 
Event: Crypticon Seattle
Location: Doubletree Hotel, 18740 International Boulevard, Seattle, WA 98188.
Time: Shorts Block 4 Wild, Fun, and Cool Saturday 7-9pm
Tickets: http://www.crypticonseattle.com/att…/crypticon-2017-tickets/

Other details and screenings to be announced as we know about them

April 13, 2017

Still has its first official horror blog review courtesy of Horrorfuel.com and its a great one! Particular praise for Joe Capella and Rob Hall, well done guys!

Here's the final summary:
"This short film marks Timms’ directorial debut, and I think it shows a great deal of talent and potential. If this is what Timms can do with seven minutes, I would really like to see what he can do at the helm of a feature length film. This my Little Monsters is an example of what is meant by “short but sweet”. DEFINITELY check it out! 8 / 10"

Read the full review at : http://horrorfuel.com/…/short-film-review-still-frightfull…/

April 03, 2017

Delighted to announce that following its successful (and ongoing) festival run, Still is now available to buy from Vimeo - https://vimeo.com/ondemand/zomshortstill for £1.59/$1.99. Please help fund Dark Matter Films' next project "Off Grid" by sharing this to anyone who loves a bit of zombie gore and humour!