Stoptober

To all you smokers out there, it's time to stop this October and with that there is this ad we shot for M&C Saatchi.

A crazy day traveling around East Anglia amounted to shooting many locations ranging from the beach, garages and car parks all with permission given on the fly, it was certainly a very unorganised day and with the final shot clinched at night when it was supposed to be daytime was a miracle.

I was called in to operate Steadicam for Ian Murray on this one. See the result below

 

Easy Property Tv Commercial

So EasyJet have moved into estate agency and this is the commercial we shot a month or so ago.

The brief for me was "can you be like a motion control Steadicam Operator"

The answer was, yes it turns out I can. The moves had to be precise over multiple takes and timed perfectly to maintain the flow. 

From watching the ad you wouldn't know I was two days solid in the rig.

Anyway it turned out ok. 

 

New Clinique Global Campaign for Mens Hydration Gel

Here is a nice little piece I was Director of Photography on for Frontrow Picture House and a campaign roll out for a new mens hydrator gel by Clinique. Shot simply overhead with an Arri Mini and an Angenieux zoom on a pastel grey colorama, needless to say I ended with some of the product after the days shoot and it is really good. Considering the price tag, it should be.

Anyway, here is the result.... 

DJI Ronin 2

Dji just announced their next generation gimbal in the form of a sequel, Ronin 2. 

It looks to me to be in direct competion with Freeflys Movi Pro as it's a carbon copy although I think it has some even better features, extendable side arms and fine tuneable thumb trim knobs for accurate balancing.

I'm very excited and can't wait to find out more on release and more importantly, price. 

Watch this space......

 

A Mannequin Challenge Done Properly

The first job of the year kicked off well with this great piece for Sotheby's regarding a sale of a little known work by Adam de Coster, the Flemish candlelight painter famous for his stunning nocturnes of Caravaggio-like subjects. 

The VFX team did a wonderful job on seamlessly progressing the camera through the painting onto our live subject and the work they did on creating a still candle flame including smoke.

Camera movement was employed the old fashioned way with a good old steadicam as opposed to shooting on a gimbal. We used a 50mm macro all day and my focus puller did a stirling job in keeping everything sharp even when we were in close and pulling out to a wide. We did a number of oner takes all with varied shots sizes.

A back slap to the guys at Chrome for putting this project together very quickly.

Shot Entirely on Steadicam

League Against Cruel Sports

Here is a hard hitting little piece I had the pleasure of operating steadicam a few weeks back. 

We shot it during that week when we had all the seasons in one day but we managed to keep the consistency through out the two day shoot.

A lot of it was shot on the back of a quad bike which was fun especially as I got to sit down for most of the day, a real treat let me tell you. 

While the budget was tight due to the fact it's a charity I do feel it could have benefited from a gritty grade however the important message is still there.

Expect to see it on the front of most cinema screenings soon. 

Emmanuel Lubezki does it again

Having loved his last three Oscar winning films and many before them, Chivo seems to be unstoppable.

Check out the Variety artical below,

With three Academy Awards in a row, the celebrated lenser enters a league of his own.

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With his best cinematography win for Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “The Revenant” Sunday night, lenser Emmanuel Lubezki entered the record books as the first director of photography to claim the prize three years in a row. He also won for “Gravity” and “Birdman.”

Lubezki was already in elite company with the “Birdman” win, joining an exclusive club whose ranks had not been breached in nearly two decades. Leon Shamroy (“Wilson,” “Leave Her to Heaven”), Winton Hoch (“Joan of Arc,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”) and John Toll (“Legends of the Fall,” “Braveheart”) were the only other cinematographers to have won competitive Oscars in consecutive years, though Howard Greene received special commendations for color photography in its early days, for 1936’s “The Garden of Allah” and 1937’s “A Star is Born.” Both films were shot via the three-strip Technicolor process, with “Allah” being just the third film to use the technique and the first to do it on location.

But now, Lubezki claims the three-peat for himself. He was nominated five times previously, for “A Little Princess” (1995), “Sleepy Hollow” (1999), “The New World” (2005), “Children of Men” (2006) and “The Tree of Life” (2011).

“This is incredible,” Lubezki said in accepting the Oscar Sunday. “I want to share it with the cast and crew, especially my compadre, Mr. Inarritu.” He also thanked 20th Century Fox and New Regency for the “freedom” afforded to the epic production.

Shamroy and Joseph Ruttenberg hold the overall record for Academy Award wins among DPs, with four.

Lubezki’s next film is Terrence Malick’s Christian Bale starrer “Knight of Cups,” releasing on March 4. Malick’s “Weightless,” also with Bale, will follow, with Paul Atkins’ “The Devil’s Teeth” on the horizon.

Source: http://http://variety.com/2016/artisans/ne...

A Little Christmas Commmercial

Here is a tiny little Christmas commercial I shot for Bluewater last year. I think it was the first of the festive shoots as we shot it in September which turned out very tricky indeed. 

Needing a night shoot and working with a minor proved slightly detrimental as the long daylight hours during the end of the summer pushed us further into a no go zone for working with children. 

Having the shoot already postponed from the previous week due to rain we ended up battling it again, that on top of a very tired young lead, very slow and unorganised onsight contractors and a hard stop deadline, everyone was a little on edge. With a few dropped shots and the use of my Steadicam operator we managed to get what we needed bang on 11 o'clock.

Once again I'd like to thank my usual crew,  

The Hollywood Reporter Roundtable

The Hollywood Reporter has been around for ages but it's only now I've suddenly taken notice of it. This one inparticular caught my eye and, it seems, has been shared many times across social media.

THR continues to create many high production value round table discussions with many industry greats, be it directors, actors, producers and cinematographers. This episode invites a gathering of certainly some of my favourite zeitgeist directors in a steered chat about the trials and difficulties of their time in the industry and specifically the films that they had recently shot.  

It is extremely interesting the hear what these seminal directors have to say and on a few occasions spelling the beans on some movie magic that my well have got them out of trouble. 

There are already some other great discussions in THR back catalogue on YouTube but I'll definitely be digging deeper to see if there are anymore gems hidden away. 

Check this one out below,

Destination Films

Last year was great year in terms of the diversity of work and I found that very refreshing. Along side the usual promo, commercial and narrative based schedule I embarked on many overseas trips to shoot a few destination films for Thomson.

We visited many countries from Montenegro to Mexico and many in between. The itineraries on some of the location shoots were fairly crazy as our time was very condensed but we managed to turn out some lovely images.

There wasn't any Steadicam on this show as the crew was minimal but we had Drones, DJI Ronin and sliders at our disposal along with dedicated time lapse and crazy hyper lapse photography.

Here are a couple of the films we produced.

 

New Stabilisation Toys

This new little addition to the Steadicam and gimbal ensemble might prove useful. Not only can it become a rock solid addition to your Steadicam set up but it can also give you more diversity as an operator in that the Trinity head can be mounted to existing dolly's, cranes or just hand held as a stabilised unit.

With a few extra components it can turn a fantastic tool into a 21st century device for modern film and tv use.

Apparently production is starting imminently so you can bag yourself this set up for under 30 thousand euros very soon.

I look forward to getting my hands on it at the BSC show in the new year. 

Superbob Lands in Cinemas

Superbob will be released this October so do make sure you visit your local cinema and watch it. 

Having just received a 4 star review in this months Empire Magazine it's sure to be a comedy hit so go check it out and keep a look out for my 10 minute Steadicam shot.