TASHALASKA

Norway... the aftermath

2011-05-17T23:05:00.000+01:00

The Championship may be over, but there's no way the good times are going to end any time soon... on to the after-party at Macbeths!!

It's a hair-off!!

Bob from the South Central Alaskan Beard & Moustache club getting on suspiciously well with one of the locals...

Seems we've accidentally stumbled on a local annual tradition & possibly our next documentary - The Russ - school kids doing drunken dares and pranks in bizzare trousers

The locals and the beards seem to be getting on very well indeed.

Next day we decide to explore the local cuisine

Seems the Norwegians have nailed our regional sensibilities.

Hummmmm... fish cheese.

Oh Norway... looks what you and your insanely expensive beers have reduced us to. Public drinking it is then!

Time for a road trip....

First stop...

Turns out the food is almost as expensive as the beer. Pasta & Pesto for breakfast, lunch and dinner it is then. The glamorous life of filmmaking.

Us looking a wee bit on the completely knackered side!

Back to Trondheim and the local drinking establishment.

Tess rides a canon. Nuff said really!

Do you think that Tess can fit in that sand box?

Ta da!!

The Big Day...The World Beard & Mousatche Championships 2011

2011-05-17T18:38:00.001+01:00

Another year... another World Championships under our belt - this time a little bit closer to home in Trondheim, Norway.

While most people clearly turned up for the first preview screening of Tashalaska, there was also the small matter of sorting out the best of the best in the world of facial hair.

Reunited with two thirds of Tashalaska... let the festivities begin!!

Two old pros give some gratefully received tips to a championship newbie. Obviously worked a treat as Travis Nance (Oklahoma Beard Club) placed 3rd in Verdi.


After 2009's manic filming frenzy, this time we're sitting back and getting OURSELVES in front of the camera!

Keith embraces the lime-light once again.

Tess with Phil Olsen, captain of Beard Team USA

Us and the President of this year's host club - The Norwegian Moustache Club

The Row of Champions!!

Full Freestyle Octopus Beard

Glam-rock Musketeer

Jurgen Burkhardt from Belle Moustache Club, the hosts of WBMC 2013

Gandhi Jones' love heart stache...

...claims victory no 3 for our co-star

A newbie from Finland claims the Dali Victory

An emotional Moment as Lutz Giese from Germany claims the title from

4 times world champion Ted Sedman.

Frazer Coppin from The British Beard Club - onstage collecting 2nd place Musketeer...

...while posing with his well-earned trophy after

Crowd pleasing shenanigans on stage!!

Controversy as Jack Passion places 2nd in Natural Full Beard to Rooty Lundvall, Whisker Club

Burke Kenny collects first place for Full Beard with Styled Moustache

This time around Elmar Weisser sports a Reindeer and Norwegian flag combo... unstoppable!

The only man forgiven for being clean shaven(!) was the awards trumpeter... if only all of life achievements could be to a Star Wars themed brass section!!

Steve Parsons of The Handlebar Club showing his true love of Arsenal by kitting himself out in vintage.

And the tension mounts as the winners line up begins...

Elmar Weisser wins Best In Show, and makes sure his stylist - and sister - gets her moment in the spot-light as well.

Brits abroad - Team Tash and the Handlebar Club

Team Tash with a true facial hair legend... What a guy. What a beard!

Tashalaska previews to the facial hair elite.

2011-05-17T18:28:00.000+01:00

After two very long and very eventful years (involving one half of the production team relocating to another continent for a year!) Tashalaska was ready just in the nick of time for an exclusive preview screening on the eve of this year's World Beard and Moustache Championships.

Standing room only!

Keith takes a front row seat.

That's it. We're done...

2011-02-21T14:42:00.002Z

Tashalaska is finally locked and this giant mustachioed baby is ready to be set free into the big wide world...

After an epic night of celebrations on Friday after locking what feels like the past four years of our lives and a very hungover weekend of prepping the sequence for the grade, Tashalaska is ready for the next stage.

But hang on...the next stage? What exactly is the next stage? Festivals...maybe, then what? Suddenly it's dawning on me as a first time producer/director that it's time to retire my directors hat and dig out and dust off my producers one. This scares me immensely but I'm excited at what's in store while also slightly anxious at the added pressure of making this all worth while.

This may sound ridiculous to some people but when I say worth while I don't necessarily mean money (although of course eventually that would be nice). Like most first time filmmakers our main goal is for it to be seen and hopefully enjoyed by as many people as possible and just like the World Beard and Moustache Championships wouldn't it be great if we could some good by raising from dosh for charity while we're at it....

Watch this space!

Big Tash Love,

Tessa & Helen

Trailer Tash

2010-11-02T16:18:00.016Z

The Trailer
It's been a while since our last post. Life and work has just sort of been happening and Tashalaska has been bubbling away in the background as we try and juggle making a living and making a film. Thanks to our contributor David promising us a bear skin rug if we get on with it progress has been made, we now have a trailer. Watch it here...

Trailer Tash from TASHALASKA on Vimeo.

The Edit
Our sequence is taking shape and after a trip to the stationary shop to buy a flip chart and colour coded post it notes we now have what largly resembles a real edit suite in our front room. I guess this equated a bit to work avoidance, like having to tidy your room before you start revising...

Yes, these are actually scenes in this film.

Some stella screen shots if we do say so our selves.

Tea and Cake.

Largely what we have been sustaining ourselves on

Networking on a Shoestring

In other news Tessa is off to Sheffield DocFest this week to plug Tashalaska. Realising she had left it a bit late, an emergency business card production line took place last night in our kitchen...

Thats all for now folks. Thanks again for your support and best of luck to all of you out there growing for Movember!

Until next time...

Big Tash Love!

Follow Tashalaska here...
www.tashalaska.com
Tashalaska on Twitter
Tashalaska on Facebook
Tashalaska on Vimeo

The trials and tribulations of social networking.

2010-04-20T14:10:00.000+01:00

A few months ago I really felt like this was all beyond me. How do you maintain an audience when the main thing you are trying to do is sell an idea? It's not even a finished product yet so how are you supposed to get people interested in hearing about a film thats yet to be made. This is a particularly daunting prospect in the early stages of the edit when it feels like their isn't really much to say and quite frankly who gives a s%£*.

I'm not going to lie to you, setting it up and understanding how it all works was fairly painful, and does take a couple of days but once you have got past the...'what the hell am i going to say' and 'who is going to be interested' it starts to make sense. Since i've been on Twitter i've realised that, aside from building an audience for your film, their is plethora of people tweeting info that is pretty essential to anyone out there trying to do this on their own. Personally I find it a much easier way of digesting all the info that's out there for filmmakers because lets face it, most of us working on unfunded projects are working day and night to make the best film we can and the less time spent actually having to go and find all that information the better. Here are some essential follows for independent film...

For making

For watching

Because they are just cool

@weareopencinema

There are definitely mistakes to be made, for example, its a wonderful thing to be able to hook your social networking sites and film platforms together but beware of clicking those buttons. I managed to post our short to my facebook profile about 6 times in the space of 2 minuets without realising and then had to ring my friend to get her to tell me how to delete on the iphone (i'm new to that too). Already conscious that I might be spamming you all with my plees to join, vote and support I was mortified, but it was definitely a lesson learned. Twitter has a good way of telling you that you are being tedious, your followers simply unfollow you, particularly i've found if you tweet too much information in one go.

Follow us as we wrestle to find balance between being interesting and engaging to our audience while trying desperately not to scare people off with mindless self promotion...

If you can’t pay them, feed them!

2010-03-25T13:31:00.002Z

The other day during a displaced morning of editing at Curzon Soho bar my editor and I fell into hysterics. This is a frequent occurrence when we both become delirious with moustache fatigue but this time it was something different. The cause of the hysterics was not simply the loud slurping noises we made as we tucked in to the home made soup that I’d sneaked in, but the fact that I had served it in what was readily available: a plastic cup and a straw.

It reminded me of a great podcast from Shooting People where Amy Sewell, director of Mad Hot Ballroom says 'If you can’t pay them, feed 'em well...don’t just feed them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.'

find it here along with some other great podcasts from Shooting People...

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/shooting-people-podcasts/id284960739

Well, I'm not sure if soup counts as feeding them well but I'm persevering; for tonight’s edit I’ve gone all out with bowls and spoons!

2010-03-15T14:27:00.000Z

It’s been a while...

...since our last blog from Alaska the home of the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships. I arrivied back in June amongst a sea of tapes and minus my wonderful partner in crime Helen who I left behind in Canada.

Below is an extract from a blog I actually wrote in November but never got round to publishing, probably for lack of confidence. I hope it is of use to some of you no budget filmakers out there and better still I hope my future musings might steer you back from the brink of going mildly insane, I nearly did...

This picture was sent to me by a friend, It's what my screen is doing most days.

'Friends; they are invaluable. Not only do they provide emotional support, audience to endless Facebook messages, votes, tweets and enthusiasm when you ask them to a screening of your film they have already seen a million times, they can also be integral to the making of your film. I went to Sheffield DocFest for the first time this year where I partook in Digital Bootcamp, a fantastic workshop run by Shooting People. It was here, after listening Jenny and Mark from Future Artists speak on the subject, that I realised what a wealth of talent I have amongst my friends. Better still, I realised a lot of them are in the same position as me; at the early stage in their prospective careers and trying to carve out a name for themselves.'

Well, no sooner had I jumped off my train from Sheffield than I was enlisting my friends who were delighted to help and better still, excited at the prospect of being part of something outside of their day jobs. As a result of this amazingly talented group of people and a lot of hard work we are about to launch a trailer, a website, some fantastic artwork and a marketing campaign.

'Team Tash' is in full swing! ...watch this space

keep up with @Tashalaska on Twitter

Our Tashalaskan Adventure draws to a close...

2009-06-03T13:54:00.000+01:00

...so its time to pack away our cameras and get started on the hard bit.

With 18 categories, 3 contributors, a very English Chinaman, a beard in the shape of an Alaskan snow shoe, a recipie for nut milk, a bear hunt and a definite love hate relationship with Sarah Palin (not to mention a multitude of fantastic moustaches to fight our way through) we've got our work cut out this summer.
Below is a final collection of photographs from our extraordinary trip into a world of ice, mountains and crazy facial hair.

The end of the competition and probably one of the most exhausting days of our lives. Here we are, still grafting, out on the streets interviewing passers by.
As far as I'm aware Helen, that trophy for 2nd place in the Freestyle moustache category does not belong to you?

My very poor attempt at a beard. I wore it like this for the rest of the day.

Our very own David makes it to the front page of the Anchorage Daily news.

This was a 10ft bear we found hanging out in the luggage department of the Alaskan equivilent of Debenhams.

On our way to see a Glacier...

So that kind of concludes it for now folks but in the mean time you can keep up with Tashtastic on the Facebook Group or on our website at www.tashtastic.com

Keep and eye out for the Tashtastic (the short) on the BBC big Screen at Glastonbury Festival this year.

Thanks for your support!

(see below for more photos of the competition)

Today's the day the beardy men have their picnic.

2009-05-25T23:07:00.000+01:00

If you go down to the woods today be sure of a big surprise...

...or just a lot of hairy men.

Crow Creek Mining Village.

The Dr and Breman panning for Gold.

Tess panning for her airfare home...

Still smiling until the very end...

The Big Day

2009-05-25T20:24:00.000+01:00

It's the morning of the competition and the big day is ahead of us.

A day of excitement.
A day of tension.
A day to celebrate all things beardy... and moustache-y.

Keith gets up close and personal with his tash minutes before showtime.

And the day kicks off with style...

A frenzy of excitement takes over the Imperial moustache winners

A beard without a moustache freaked us out at first...

...but we soon warmed to the new Alaskan Whaler category.

It really is the taking part that counts...

... however not sure this guy in the middle knew quite what he was up against.

Tess giving Ted some last minute styling tips.

Ted wins 1st place in the Fu Manchu style.

Jack Passion accepting his award...

...in his usual flamboyant style.

David winning first place in the freestyle with his amazing beard woven into the shape of an Alaskan snow shoe.

Ted sizing up the competition for a place in the grand finale of facial hair.

The lovely David Traver is announced over all champion in the world.

Picking up in beards. Taking in the sights.

2009-05-25T19:45:00.000+01:00

Only a few days until the big event. It's time for a bit of sight seeing and to pick up the furry faces from the cruise.

Here we are working our charms but then again with a 7 to 1 ratio of men to women, ladies don't have to try to hard over here.

Waiting in line for the tunnel we have to share the road with some pretty unique vehicles.

Now it's time for some face to beard action with David. And time for another mini-road trip up a mountain.

20 Hour Days. 46 Hour Bike Rides

2009-05-20T08:27:00.000+01:00

Another week another city. And clearly we've landed smack-dab in the midst of an urban hub. A city that literally never sleeps. A city of cultural melting pot. A city of great natural beauty. A city that seems to have problems keeping track of its poultry...

Classic moose pun. Don't see us ever getting sick of those!!

The quest for DV stock begins here. Errr... on a bicycle!
Our mini road trip - just at a more relaxed pace.

Just some of the highly tempting cuisine we encountered en-route

YAY - An actual real-life MOOSE!!!

Finally success - the illusive DV stock safe in the hands of Helen. Just look at that excitement!

And how to toast this success? With a big ole dose of milkshake.

Time to refuel before the 14 792 mile trek home!

Stashes in Seattle...

2009-05-18T00:45:00.000+01:00

This week we have been spending some quality time with our contributor Keith who has been showing us round his home town.

but before we get on to the serious business of film making...

This is a towel in our hotel room folded into the shape of an elephant!

We nearly wet our selves with excitement when we found this shop..

Kieth in his kitchen tasting his own vegan creations.

Helen Bonding with Diva.

Osama sampling one of Keiths delightful cocktails

Tess drinking out of a Mug with a Moustache Guard.

An amusing sign...

Kieth and the lovely people from Punk Rock Yoga (in a somewhat unusual setting)

Sightseeing in Seattle.

Ghandhi Jones - Tourist in his own Town.

The Space Needle

Keith Spots his apartment

A room with a view...Sunset from Keiths rooftop.

Tashtastic in Alaska

2009-05-17T21:06:00.000+01:00

What did Delaware? Idaho, Alaska.