We’re Different, directed by Peter Mallett, a short concept film entered into Straight8  premiered at Cannes 2012 and then finally screened at the ICA London. For those who may be unfamiliar with Straight8 , it is essentially a short film competition where you the film maker has  been given 1 roll of super8 to make a film, all editing is done in camera, by starting – stopping the running of the camera where you want the shot to begin and end. So one of the beauties of the final film is how creative one can get with such limitations. I love a challenge !

The first time, the film is actually seen is at the film festival, very cool indeed.

The original amazing track is performed by Elan Tamara - http://soundcloud.com/elantamara

Hope you enjoy.

Maxsta “Pop Off” directed by Luke Biggins.

I remember given very little notice to shoot this promo, it was within the region of 2 hours. Just had enough time to grab my light meter and viewing glass to get down to the studio for 18:30 hrs, since I had a free afternoon I said why not…
Arriving there I was literally starting from Ground Zero. Decided to hang some domestic tubes that were laying around the studio, originally the bulbs were 865, but I swapped them out for cool whites and position a couple of gelled 2K blondes around the set and set my lighting ratios for low key/ high contrast look, using multiple colour temps to create mood and atmos, wanted it to feel like a gritty drama. Shot on Arri Alexa with Cooke Panchros straight onto SxS cards ProRes 4444.  

Many a times you have to make the most of what is readily available to hand and  think quickly on your feet, something I quite enjoy.

Definitely a great shoot and the label was quite pleased with the final results.

Going to keep this post short. maybe from here, now onward I will keep all entries to just a few lines.

Sabrina Washington – Hit it Hard, directed by Ben Peters, have to say we were blessed with such a good day for shooting outdoors.

Sabrina  was such a pleasure to work with, really down to earth and a real trooper.
Shot   on the Arri Alexa straight to the internal SxS cards at ProRes 422, the footage was then transferred via laptop to two hard drives on set – very straight forward.
I really started to appreciate how much latitude this camera has with the shot of Sabrina under the bridge in a semi silouette.  I was still able to maintain detail in seeing her face and still see her left eye, with no lighting, just purely by getting the exposure where I wanted it. I was just blown away by this. There are of course many cameras out there that may hold a similar level of latitude, but thinking that the Alexa footage can be ingested straight into any editing platform of choice, ready to be edited without transcoding/ developing  when you think about it is amazing. 
Definately one of my favourite shots – 120 FPS, using the 300mm lens, wanted to jump to 600mm but I was just way to close to the edge of the canal. I was close enough as it was already.

The shots in the gym were fairly straight forward as well, just concentrating on Sabrina Washington and Shantel Jackson who is Floyd Mayweather’s fiance. It all ties in with the whole boxing theme – nice.
The match did take some time to choreograph and to get the camera angles right, having the women work at safe distances enough so as not to cause injury to each other but close enough  for the shots to work.

Overall a good day.

Had to keep this  under wraps for a while prior to Pioneer’s global launch of their new controller  the – DDJ-WeGO , a virtual twin turntable mixer combo for aspiring and  DJs alike.  Didn’t have time to take it for a spin – excuse the pun - but I hope to some day. Directed by Ben Peters he as always brings something fresh to the tables. We have worked together on numerous projects now and I have noticed through time that we  basically speak in short hand.
The DDJ-WeGO DJ Controller plugs into your laptop/PC via the USB port and the two wheels of the virtual turntable simulate the wheels of vinyl ;  and an assortment of buttons create different audio effects.
The budget was  small for this viral, but we managed to squeeze two Canon C300s, a set of CP2′s and 100mm macro into this shoot. In my opinion 2 cameras are usually  necessary for  dance routines- street in particular .  I was working with my regular crew, who were as  always, very supportive.
I decided to go for a mini jib ( baby version of a jib)  - basically an extended arm which enables the camera to basically perform vertical moves, grab  bird’s eye view, overhead shots etc- an added expensive decision which further boosted an already limited budget - you could hear the silence in the room and the many pairs of eyeballs eyeballing me… but it was worth it    ( he says ), as the end result clearly shows. ( the last shot sped up with hands using the controller looking down from over head). What I am really saying here is that film  making is always a collaborative process or should I say benefits from collaboration and trust. Its not about getting a tool for the sake of it or just to create a “cool” shot and sometimes these tools do cost money but in the end one has to weigh up how much is to gain  from the use of it in terms of story telling vs how much one stands to loose for the sake of a few hundred pounds…
However, I have to say production were very supportive and  after explaining the necessary uses of the mini jib, they were all onboard.
It just deserved that different angle/viewpoint to really appreciate Pioneer’s beautiful  new controller the DDJ-WeGO.

Director : Keri Collins
Producer : Ray Panthaki
Production Co : Urbanway Productions

It was an absolute pleasure working with Keri on Convenience.  We had spoken quite a bit running up to pre production about the style and feel of the movie, because of our turtle’s anus schedule it meant we had to make decisions  with conviction, adapting to unfolding situations at hand.

Convenience feature film was my second feature and was shot on RED MX with MKII Superspeeds for a final aspect ratio extraction of 2.40

The film is 90% based in one location, a petrol station with 1 driving scene, a bedsit scene and an office scene, all being very short in comparison to the fore mentioned. Convenenience was undoubtedly a labour of love for everyone. The entire cast & crew were extremely supportive & patient,  personally I believe this attitude of positive energy was what gave us rocket boosters. Most of us had shared rooms, I know it was me and 8 others in one hotel room, yup thats right 9 of us in one room, to say the least it was one heck of an experience, would I do it again ? well, eeer…
Some of us were light sleepers, some of us snored like jack hammers and others slept walk and slept talk. If one has never appreciated personal space then surely this would have been the time. To show our consideration to our fellow room mates, we all made a pact to not do any No 2′s in the bathroom a sign of true dedication. In such an environment one of two things could happen, either some one or many would end up dead from the effects of cabin fever or we will grow to like each other like a big family sort of way and this is what truly happened and I have to say I will miss it, well not the snoring but the togetherness.

For this project production wanted to be editing as we shot. one option was to record proxies for an offline, but this became a bit troublesome in the sense of TC particularly with RED.
Thanks to Jon Rennie of Gorilla Post, he brought his personal machine down, wait for it… installed with a Red Rocket Card, yup, one of the most sincere human beings I have ever met, clearly a dying species. Jon specialises in VFX, when you get a chance check him out at http://www.jonrennie.co.uk/

In our hotel room of 9, in the corner was the transcode machine with RedcineX pro installed, we would transfer and transcode what was backed up on set  for Richard Blackburn our editor,. This gave us the opportunity   to catch any pickups  we needed to grab, it was fantastic watching the timeline grow as we shot. Of course without the RED Rocket Card, well this would not even be possible, we may still even be transcoding even a few weeks later. All handheld, with the occasional  dolly on tracks, easyrig on dolly and steadicam for the opening chase scenes through Soho.
 

Shooting night films in the midst of summer meant for obvious reasons a tight schedule, also our location was a live working gas station which was available to us from 22200hrs until 0600hrs and with a break for lunch, left us with 7hrs ish shooting time, couple that with sunrise and depending on the shots or scenes would render 6hrs on camera. 7 pages a day consistently in 7hrs sometime 6, not for the faint hearted, but we got it done. I have never shot so fast as far as i can remember, It was one of those schedules if the 1st AD dropped a pencil we would fall behind.

Because of the short prep time  I never had a chance to fully employ “grade as go” on this shoot. However I managed to create a look inside camera as always, a slight curve was applied during the transcode, so the Directors, producers, investors and different agents could have a very good idea of what the final film will look like instead of viewing raw or flat images. I think this is psychologically important, technical crew understand the whole raw deal (pun intended) and sometimes ordeal, so can imagine the final image when it is graded. For those of us who do not always visualise in this way it is important to be able to display as close as possible what the end result will be, I think  personally  this can be somewhat related to S.A.D, because of overcast grey weather some of us have to have colour temp 6500 kelvin bulbs installed at home. so looking at flat grey images can also make you feel down, even from a shooting point of view, he says…  okay I may have just gone off track a tad bit just now. With a 3 day turn around in the grade, it was essential we knew what we were going for  from the get go and try to get it on set as much as possible. No matter what there was always a form of problem solving everyday which made my role even more challenging and I loved it. 

No matter the budget big or small, films  all bring their own level of obstacles and challenges. For me there is no differenciation between the two where my approach is concerned, I treat all films as if they are a hundred million except of course if it were two hundred million. Just because a film may have a smaller budget and restricts what can be done technically ie no jibs or cranes for example this shouldn’t deter from making a good movie and being creative , however of course it does helps… Please do not get this confused with trying to create a shot that is impossible because the tools and man power does not exist as it can render a waste of time, trying to hang your hat where you can’t reach it.

Will update post as film develops.

Molella music promo – “Let Me Give You More” is the new single of Maurizio Molella that will be released in Italy on May 18th 2012

My mission should I accept and I clearly did was to follow Bethany Harrisons’ bum for the entirety of the shoot, literally. This was the concept of Director Ben Peters.

When my girlfriend saw the rough cut, she smiled and said ” I bet you enjoyed that shoot” to which I responded by pointing out the complexities and technicalities of pulling it off successfully, which were to the best of my knowledge absolutely true, (spin doctor insert here) so there was no time to “enjoy” the shoot – a stern look & silence…
Haunched over, armed with a Sony F3 and a 14mm ultraprime in hand I set off on my mission. Have to say though, 12 hours in the same awkward position was taxing, I truly felt it the next day.
Shot the entire promo on that lens, being so wide there was minimum distortion except for when I went in really tight, which gave the bum a much more rounded look in my professional opinion, there were make up checks on her cheeks and a powder down to go…
Bethany’s bum was/is Hero (or is that Heroine)

As for the under water stuff it was quite straight forward, shot on the 1D MarkIV which held up quite well, shot on a deep stop, knowing the 1D MKIV holds up well in the iso range.
Created a custom look in camera to get the grader in the right direction and that was really it.

Definitely a great day for all the right reasons…

You can also view it on youtube here, if you like to read comments.

Small crew  and all hands on deck , generally good fun working on these shoots, everyone just pitching in to make it happen. Challenging as always but a real feeling of achievement.

Had to engineer it, so we could get through 50+ extras for the portrait  shots and be flexible enough to just swing around for the performance shots, with minimal turnaround time. Directed by Ben Peters this simple but effective promo is just the right feel and tone for the track,  we both decided to go for a more naturalistic look.  The BTS operator picked up shots of the artists and crew working away at it,  this gave me just enough time to concentrate on the portraits and performance.  All looks were created in camera using the picture profile setting, so essentially what you see is just straight out the gate – well I mean sensor. Whilst all of this was going on, I had rigged a 7D  for the time lapse shots on a hi hat secured onto a step ladder, no ladder pods, always got to find a way.

Most Definitely a good day. 
you can also watch on youtube here if your into reading comments. 
Ps, Hopefully next few times round I could actually snap a few  pics.

Just a quick shoot I did a while back, received quite a few queries from the still posted o the home page. so here it is.
Hope you Enyoy ! 

A love triangle that takes place between an East London rock-roll manager and two of his clients – a girl singer on the verge mainstream success and the young, front-man from a local punk-band who’s starting to crash and burn. As the star-crossed lovers tear each other apart, a showcase gig in Shoreditch turns bad, igniting anglo-muslim racial tension – now there’s a riot on Redchurch Street that can only end in blood-fire and redemption.

Director : Trevor Miller
Production Company :  Redchurch St Productions
Shot  on S16mm Fuji ETERNA 400T 8683 and Kodak Vision 3 500T Super 8 Color Negative Film 7219 for a final aspect ratio of 1.85.

Riot on Redchurch Street will always have a special place in my heart, Riot made me realise who I am.
Also for the following reasons

1. It was the first feature film I shot just months after graduating from the NFTS in 2011
2. Shot 95% 16mm and totally independent. I never wanted to shoot digitally,  nor on 35mm, for my first film.
3. It was also one of the last films to run through the bath at iLab before it relocated from Soho to Unit 10, Kendal Court out park royal sides 

I could go on and on but i would say these are some of the most significant three. I always wanted my first film to be shot on 16mm and have a John Cassavetes feel about it, I guess deep down inside this is where my heart lies who knows…   it was surely serendipitous that I would meet Trevor Miller Director who was after the same thing. Shot entirely on location in 18 days and 9 locations ( not 3) this was an extremely challenging shoot, I guess as it was my first but also the number of pages we had to get through in day as well as locations. The lighting package was tiny, a few redheads, a 2.5 HMI,  some florescent tubes and a couple of dedos. I also had a home made portable lantern that Brian Tufano  had given me the heads up on how to construct, aka The get out of Jail light. From the use of Asda bedsheets, to home made ND filters and custom processing of film stocks, all the stops came out to get this film in the can.

Riot had pushed me beyond what I thought at the time could actually have be achieved, but  with some imagination, determinations and some balls I truly realised anything was / is possible. Kept me on the edge every single day and night. Originally the film was destined to be shot on a Canon 5D, then Sony F3 but the very unfortunate event ( psunami) that struck Japan in 2011 had affected us not shooting on the F3, can’t exactly remember why precisely. Then the conversation of film came up. never looked back since. 

Another interesting point to make was that Trevor had felt very very strongly about the direction in which post production ie grading was heading , he came to me with the idea of not wanting to go through a traditional grading  D.I process , which meant whatever we got in camera is what we get. This freaked production amongst many and he was advised  not to take this route. For me this was strange,  exciting and a bit disconcerting at the same time, but deep deep down inside me past 21st street by the booth with no telephone, the idea excited me greatly. Grade as you go was created. 
Coming from the days of creating looks from with in the colour matrix menu of the Sony and Panny cameras using waveform and vectorscope instrumentation with test charts was something I would initiate before  most shoots as some productions may not have enough money for a full grade or the turn around was very quick, we’re talking back in 2004/2005 here. This was mainly done on shorts, documentaries and some television programs so in a sense I was always doing this BUT  applying this to a feature was a bit more of a challenge.  

Normally my go to stock would have been Vivid 500T, because of its rich blacks and saturated colours I thought immediately this was the best way forward, as it was the best stock bar none for an instant out of camera look in my opinion, but I wanted something different, something that was closer to our story in feel, look and colour.
I worked from home creating a look from a digital photograph of one of the locations over the next few days. I sent this into the lab as a reference. I then shot some tests with different stocks to see how each of them reacted to the LUT, from here I decided that the 400T was the best stock for the movie being that its an overall lower contrast stock than the others and the way it renders skin tones was beautiful, but also skin tones resembled skin tones after the look had been applied.  It was also very important for me that the look should be coming from the film stock rather it being solely a complete digital manipulation.

I had worked closely with Martin Mcglone and Nigel Horn from idaillies formally known as ilab. running the bath at different speeds, pushing and pulling +1 & 2 and even 3 stops. Dan Redrup – chief grader from idaillies  then applied this to the Eterna 400T tests I shot. In the lab we tweaked on a Spirit 2k with Pogle Revolution at the telecine stage. After some more tweaking and evaluating and re-evaluating  we nailed it. From here onwards it was very much a button push to apply the intended look. I called Trevor down to the Lab and he was very much pleased with the results. During the shoot, we would review dailies and he would just mention to crank this up a bit or maybe a touch more yellow. Of course each scene would be “graded” accordingly, by the time we shot the last roll of film, all rushes had already been graded and telecine to hard drive in our chosen file format awaiting , to be edited.
This is by far a much much faster and cost effective way of working I believe. Of course this has to work in accordance from getting it right on set, the colours, contrast and exposures, these have to be spot on without failure soething I am particularly meticulous about.
Grade-as-u-go is I would say is an attempt to create a framework where the director can edit basically what we shoot. In effect its a way to put this ‘look’ in the hands of the filmmakers rather than other people. I would say it is very fluid and flexible and makes creative-choices more important than a fix-it-later attitude. Ultimately by dispensing with an extraneous grading process we made the most honest and immediate story.

All the frame grabs in this post are untouched in terms of any colour correction or adjustments.
Check out the full cast & crew at imdb and the movie’s homepage here