Documenting our work on the full-length feature film Risen

Risen: The Howard Winstone Story is a new feature film from Burn Hand Films. Maniac Films provided equipment hire, camera, sound and grip crew and post production services. This page will highlight some of our work on the film, document the history of the film and follwo the progress until the theatrical and dvd release. This is our first full-length feature and we are very excited.

"The story of Howard Winstone is a compelling one. Howard became Featherweight Champion of the World at the age of 29 in 1968.

What makes Howard's story quite remarkable, is that as a young man he lost the tips of three fingers in an industrial accident in his home town of Merthyr Tydfil. The accident was so severe that he was unable to make a fist with his right hand, a devastating blow for anyone, but a blow made all the worse for one who's entire career demands the use of both hands. Howard was known for his right handed power back in his early days, so the day of the fateful accident was essentially the day Howards' boxing career came to an end, but he completely changed the way he boxed and remarkably went on to become Champion of Britain, Champion of Europe and Champion of the World!

The story of Howard Winstone's boxing career alone is a remarkable one, but there was far more to Howard than just his boxing career.

In Howard there was an incredible burning passion, a passion to overcome all the odds, Howard Winstone was distilled with something quite remarkable, Howard Winstone was destined for greatness. And through incredible adversity he achieved not only his life-long ambition, and exceeded the hopes of an entire nation when he was crowned Featherweight Champion of The World at his fourth and almost certainly his final attempt. The feature film Risen takes the audience on this incredible journey, from potential to injury and from injury to greatness. "

May 2011 - Stuart Brennan wins Welsh Bafta for Best Actor his role in Risen!

An amazing piece of news and a fantastic acheivement! Lead actor and producer Stuart Brennan has won the Bafta Cymru award for Best Actor
Stuart received the award on the night from Suzanne Packer, star of BBC drama Casualty. he took a night off from filming his new film, The Reverend, the receive the award and was back on set the very next day.
Stuart was also featured in a BBC Online news story about the event.

Speaking after the event, Stuart wrote "What an honour! Was a mad evening, red carpet, autographs, champagne, the lot! To top it off with the win was brilliant and such a result for everyone who worked on the film.".

April 2011 - Stuart Brennan nominated for Welsh Bafta for his role in Risen

Yet another great piece of news from the Risen camp! Lead actor and producer Stuart Brennan has just received a Bafta Cymru nomination for Best actor
This is the latest in a long line of positive feedback about the film of which we at Maniac Films are very proud to have worked on.
The awards take place on may 29th and we wish Stuart luck and hope he walks away with the award!

February 2011 - Risen wins 7 awards at 3 film festivals

Wow! What a great start for Risen: The Howard Winstone Story on the festival circuit.

At the Newport International Film Festival in Wales, Risen almost swept the board! The film was nominated in 6 categories and won five! These were: Best Film: 'Risen: The Howard Winstone Story', Best Director: Neil Jones for 'Risen', Best Actor: Stuart Brennan (Howard Winstone), Best Actress: Grainne Joughin (Benita Winstone) and Best Supporting Actor: Boyd Clack (Howard Winstone Snr).

At the Bootleg Film Festival in London, Neil Jones and Risen was awarded the original Vision award. "We were really impressed by this movie, something that created a lot of buzz. We were really fortunate to have the film?s director and many of the crew involved at the festival, and to hear the story behind the 'making of', as well as watching the film, was really great."

Finally, at the New Jersey Film Festival in the USA, Risen won the Best Feature Film award. Neil Jones wrote about the win: "Very proud to announce that RISEN won best feature film at the New Jersey Film Festival! This is a massive reult for us and everyone who worked on it as to be recognised in America from Scorcese's festival is amazing for our small British film!"

January 2011 - Risen theatrical and DVD release dates announced

We finally have confirmed dates for the teatrical and DVD realses of Risen: The Howard Winstone Story.
Released through Scanbox Entertainment in the UK, Risen will hit theatres on 29th April 2011 and it will be available on DVD from 16th May 2011.

The DVD is already available for pre-order on Amazon - click here for more. The Pre-order currently has a special offer with £5 off the selling price. the website for more details

January 2011 - Risen gets US premiere and will feature at the Newport Film Festival

Since the World premiere of Risen: The Howard Winstone Story in Cardiff, the director and producers have been working hard to promote the film across the world.
Risen will have it's US premiere on January 21st as part of the prestigious New Jersey International Film Festival and Director neil Jones will be in attendance with Start Brennan. Visit the website for more details.
On the 3rd February 2011, Risen will feature as part of the Newport International Film festival in Wales. Visit the website for more details
In a little bit of extra Risen news: It was announced in December that the UK distribution deal has been finalised and that Risen will receive a theatrical release. No info on how many screens and where the film can be seen but we will post any info we get. We can also look forward to a future DVD and maybe Blu-ray release as well.

October 2010 - Second post-release trailer for Risen: The Howard Winstone Story online now

The latest trailer for Risen: The Howard Winstone Story is now available for viewing on YouTube.
This is the 2nd trailer to be released since the knockout premiere in July. This version has a different feel to the 1st, with a faster soundtrack. Here at Maniac Films we cleaned up the edit and encoded the video for web viewing.

  Play Youtube Version

<more info on our Video production services>..

September 2010 - Spanish subtitling for Mexican premiere of Risen: The Howard Winstone Story.

Mexico City will soon play host to the Mexican premiere of the biopic movie Risen: The Howard Winstone Story.
Director Neil Jones asked us if we could apply spanish subtitles to the film. The translations were carried out by staff from the WBC Mexico offices and sent over to us. We then added the text to the timeline in Final Cut Pro, taking time to ensure correct alignment and reading times. We supplied the film on Blu-ray disk and also provided a HD Quicktime movie file on HDD to ensure compatability in Mexico
The film has generated a lot of interest in Mexico in part due to the importance of the legendary Vicente Saldivar in the story and also that current Mexican boxing hero Erik Morales stars in this role.

August 2010 - New trailer for Risen: The Howard Winstone Story online now

The latest trailer for the biopic movie, Risen: The Howard Winstone Story is now vailable for viewing on YouTube.
This is the 1st trailer to be released since the knockout premiere in July and director Neil Jones has added quotes from reviews to the trailer. Here at Maniac Films we cleaned up the edit and encoded the video for web viewing.

  Play Youtube Version

<more info on our Video production services>..

July 2010 - World Premiere of Risen: The Howard Winstone Story in Cardiff

We have just returned from our trip up the red carpet for the premiere of Risen: the Howard Winstone Story at the Cardiff international Arena.
The premiere was held as part of the WBC Night of Champions, a 3 day event that boasted some of the worlds biggest names in boxing and a number of these boxers were amongst the 5000 strong audience who watched the film.
The film received a standing ovation and everyone watched as actor Stuart Brennan (who played Mr Winstone in the film) and Howard Winstone's son, Howard Jr, recived honorary WBC title belts. It was a fantastic night and we feel proud of our part in this fantastic film.

June 2010 - Greenscreen filming for Risen with Shaun Cummins.

We have just returned from shooting the final scene to be filmed for Risen: The Howard Winstone Story in Leicester with former professional boxer Shaun ?The Guvnor? Cummins.
The scene starred Cummins as a radio reporter, commentating on Howards final fight in the film against Mitsunori Seki.
We shot with the Panasonic HVX 200 using the Reflecmedia lite ring and Chromaflex screen for greenscreen functionality.

May 2010 - RISEN Director Neil Jones delivers final edit

Neil Jones, director of Risen: The Howard Winstone Story travelled down from Methyr in Wales to deliver rushes from the last shoot and the final edit.
Neil is now handing the film over to us for Visual FX, rootscoping and the final grade. We will be editing using Final Cut, Motion and Syntheyes for motion tracking.
We now have to get the film completed in time for the Premiere in Cardiff in late July.

<more info on our film production services>

November 2009 - More filming for Risen in Wales

We have been back up to Wales to film more 2nd unit shots for Risen, the Howard Winstone Boxing feature - this time we were filming in the Merthyr Labour Club with director Neil Jones from Burnhand productions on the Sony F900. The shoot saw cameo appearances from 7 former British and World boxing champions including Leon Spinks and Tim Witherspoon. As well as camera and technical support, we also provided lighting and grip equipment including our Porta Jib camera crane, Indie Dolley and Tamuz HD monitor.

September 2008 - 2nd Unit filming on Risen

We have been up to Wales to do some 2nd unit filming for Risen, the story of Howard Winstone, by Burnhand films, directed by Merthyr born Neil Jones. A lot of the film has been completed and we were getting some more montage scenes with the Sony F900 to cut-in with existing footage. Final parts of Risen will be filmed in November.

Risen is the dramatic story of world featherweight boxing champion Howard Winstone. The Risen trailer is on Youtube here