Now this is my kind of Magliner!

Well I was all set to do a blog about my last job when I found out it had already been done. Result!
For a little bit of June and all of July I was “out of the country” in the Isle of Man and Scotland doing more camera trainee work on The Decoy Bride which is a romantic comedy.

Argyll News did a great piece about one of our last days in Auchindrain, Scotland and this photo of me beaming somehow made it as part of that article.
It came as a bit of a surprise to me that’s for sure.

It was great fun and the cast and crew were fantastic although I promise you I did more than just wheel a single wedge from an easy up to set. Sometimes I went from the truck and when I was feeling real dangerous I even took three!

Big thanks to Basil Smith for bringing me along with him from Misfits to this job and to Phill “Sneaker Man” Hardy for showing me the ropes. You guys were great and so was everyone else on the shoot.

According to the article the film is going to Cannes next year so watch out for it.

From Heathrow to Chiswick

Well..! I’ve been meaning to update you all on what I’ve been up to the last couple of months.
I’m writing this you now on the eve of my first feature film. I’m on the Isle of Man and where I’m staying overlooks a beautiful bay on a sunny summers evening and I’m excited about this shoot and getting to work with such a talented crew!

Yes I’m still pursuing the camera trainee route and I’m loving it so far!
I actually got this gig doing some camera trainee on the Bafta award wining show Misfits which is currently shooting its second series. Another focus puller (the venerable Basil Smith) turned to me between takes and asked whether I was up for a five week shoot and the rest as they say is history… or at least will be.

I’ll endeavor to write more blogs as the five week shoot goes forward (energy permitting) but for now you’ll have to settle for what I’ve been up to to date. Read More »

The BSC love their cars

In my last post I drooled over the prospect of owning a Canon 5D MKII with all its Franken-Rig goodness. Well I shuld’ve known to be careflu of what you wish for.
I don’t own a 5D but I did shoot a mini documentary for a charity on the 7D and decided to spend all of my wages from it on purchasing accesories. So I’m now the proud owner of a Red Rock Micro Captain Stubling rig, a Zacuto Z-Finder, a Rode Video Mic (as seen on top of the camera in my last post) and an Alesis ProTrack (which I now know is not suitable for recording audio on the move and will be posting on eBay soon). I also got a LightCraft vari ND filter which was amazing but for the fact that it got damaged.
I enjoyed the job but it was hard work. You see it was just me trying to do an impression of a one man band  as I couldn’t afford to bring in extra help. The schedlue was tough and the ambiton was high (just how I like it). The end product was well recieved but the production was not without its difficluties (as all producitons tend to be when on low resources)

SO why the picture of the Mini above? Read More »

They call her ALEXA

So I went to The Production Show this year (First annual) Although most of you will know that it was just a bolt on to the Broadcast Video Expo which has been running at Earl’s Court for many a year now. But it was there where I saw this baby!
Now I’m a bit late to the party as it was announced at IBC last year and was the main buzz from Camerimage 2009 (or so I’m told as I didn’t go to Poland).
I’d heard the podcasts and nodded my head in fake mutual understanding whenever it came up in conversation with fellow camera geeks but this was my first taste of it straight from the horses mouth so to say. ARRI had a stand there (took up their usual position, technically, within the Broadcast part of the show) and as usual had the ARRI dark tent where they put on lighting seminars.
I remember being there a few years ago when they were unveiling the D20 and managed to get into the tent again this year to hear a talk on ALEXA (shown in all it’s iPhone camera glory above).

Before I go into it I’ll back track a bit. You see I’d gotten to Earl’s Court before the show doors open to join the scrum of eager beavers waiting to race to where they give out tickets. For the uninitiated of you there are numerous seminars going on all day at the show. This is bar far the best part of it as there is only so long you can stare longingly at a camera or new LED light panel without running out of saliva or going blind… Literally. Read More »

The Sony F35

Well Last week was my first commercial (the Kodak one) and this week was my first ever professional commercial. Although this time I was not the DP. I’d been kindly invited along by supremo cinematographer Gavin FInney, BSC who I met again a few days prior to the shoot. Read More »

The DJ or The Sound Mixer?

So me and some school mates were approached by our course leaders as to whether we were interested in participating in the annual Kodak Student Commercial competition. As the title suggests its a competition for student filmmakers and the task is to make a 30-45 second commercial off one roll of 400ft negative film

Now I’d made the personal pledge not to do any more student productions in an effort to step into a new chapter and work on professional productions but here was an opportunity to shoot on film and I knew that the likelyhood of me being able to be the DP shooting on film without having to stump up loads of money for films stock, processing, renting camera gear, lights etc was probaly not going to happen for a long time.
So I went for it!

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Robin Vidgeon Interviewing "Team Confessions"

So this was it. Finally there at Stage 7 on the Pinewood Studios lot doing a Q&A infront of influential film people and many BSC bods. Robin Vidgeo, BSC was the master of ceremonies and “Team Fantastic” (as we’ve been dubbed at the LFA) were fielding qustions from these lot. It was amazing
What’s great is that they all seemed to like the film and the way I lit it. This baffles me as its only the second film I’ve ever lit and I can’t look look at it without seeing the things that I’d do better next time. But “Confessions” seems to be on a bit of a hot streak at the moment as it won best film at our graduation two weeks earlier.

If I’m honest I’ve never been so nervous in my life. I’m usually fine talking in front of large numbers and the theatre wasn’t exactly full but I was definitely kacking it. Big time! As I answered the first question I was a shocked as anyone when my voice starting to sound like it belonged to soe gawky kid whose voice is going to break “any day now!”.

Six short films played on the night and an exceptional super short film. I’m glad people liked my work but I think there were far superior films out there, notably Brixon ‘85 and Chris Croucher’s “In Passing“. It was also fantastic to have Phil Meheux there (imdb him if you don’t know who he is) as he was my cinematography tutor on the first film that I lit (Phobics Anonymous) which also won an award at our graduation.

So I met some great people and I’ll let you konw if they turn out to be great contacts.

Finally! The Real Thing!

So I’d been in the running to be a camera trainee on a feature that started a few days ago but sadly I didn’t get the gig. It was a 7-week feature shooting in Newcastle and the rumblings were that they wanted someone local, which they went for in the end.
As is often the case in this business I heard about it through a guy I know who is the focus puller on the film. It’s shooting in Super 35mm and as you can no doubt guess using Panavision cameras!

So I got a call from said Focus Puller (yes you Richard) a day into their prep asking whether I’d like to come along for a day or two to help them prep. He said It’ll be boring stuff but maybe he didn’t know how geeky I am and that I’d actually find this exciting?
It was awesome. Just being in that environment alone was worth it. But I actually got to be of assistance and the picture above (taken on the beloved iPhone) is when we were testing the lenses and I’m taking down lens info before we do the infinity test.

I could ooze on about all the geeky toys I got to play with but you’ll probably fall asleep. SO suffice to say that it was brilliant. I learnt a heck of a lot and we weren’t even on set! And you’ll never guess the crew of what film was prepping in the room next door to us…?

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So all I wanted to do was sleep!

It had been over 24 hours since I was last in bed and I had a hotel room WHICH I WASN’T USING!!
It was 8am on Sunday morning and Tommy, Noemi, Yves and myself  had been stuck in this office in Bern (That’s in Switzerland for those of you whose geography might be a bit shaky) since 10am on Saturday.

The picture was locked and so that side of the edit was done but we only had 6 hours to finesse it with a grade Yves and I had been working on all night. Enough was enough though. I was starting to hallucinate. I was that tired. Tommy (who was the director) felt we should just go for it and plow on but I knew I had long passed that stage where you start making mistakes cos you’re so tired.
I still had the sound edit to do and I left Yves (my co director of photography) to put the pre-grade into action.

There was a mattress in the corner of the room that Tommy had used earlier and Noemi (editor and co-writer) was currently occupying.
“Would Yves even get any sleep?”, I thought.
I felt for him. But not for too long as I was on a mission to get some quality sleep. And as I was walking back to the hotel I’d never been to before (that you God for the iPhone) I just thought to myself “IJust 2 hours then I’ll be ok”

So what were we doing holled up in a room for 24 hours?

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Congestion Busting Buggy

So this weekend was another chance to brush shoulders with the great and the good at this years BSC show. For those of you who haven’t read the last entry or just don’t have a head for acronyms the BSC stands for the British Society of Cinematographers.
Each year they have a show at Elstree Film & Television Studios which they dub the “New Equipment Show”. The aim is to reflect the ever-evolving world of film and digital production technology. They basically invite all the heavy hitters in the equipment makers and rental companies to one place and unleash on them hundreds of geeky cinematographers.
So Kodak, Fuji, ARRI (who make motion picture film cameras as well as lights), lighting companies and many more were there in full force.

The picture you see above was on the ARRI stand and paid homage to Slumdog Millionaire (I mean who doesn’t these days) with the pink ARRI taxi. And in case you wandered why part of the film was shot using ARRI cameras.

It was a bit of a disaster for me on the Friday. You see the show is on a Friday and Saturday. Now all I wanted to do was go to the show but I went into school to get a camera that I was told I could use over the weekend in order for our Saturday Film Club to shoot a short film. But somehow when it came to it it didn’t happen. So I’d wasted all morning and missed a huge chunk of the show.
By the time I got there most of the people that I went to meet (noted cinematographers) had left. I was gutted!

Saturday was much better. One of our tutors was there and he introduced me to a ton of people. I made some good contacts and I hope many good things will come from them in the future.