The Year of the Olympiad

Well as 2011 has almost completely gone and 2012 beckons I’m reminded by how fruitful this year has been and how excited I am about 2012.

As I write this I am careering down the East Midland from Derby back to London, as you read this you are… Read More »

Cinematographer?? Wait a Minute! Who Does He Think He Is?

So I was asked by my Alma Mater to do a short interview for Empire Magazine on the subject of cinematography. There were a few of us graduates that were picked and each one of us chosen fo rthe specialisation that were pursuing since leaving the London Film Academy.

It was a really swift interview (the way I like them) and I went online to have a look only to see that I wasn’t just taking about cinematography but they had put me down as a Cinematographer!
That was definitely a shock! I mean surely you have to have done director of photography duties on a film with a theatrical release (several would be better) before you can call yourself a cinematographer? I guess it’s one of those things where if you call yourself it you are it?

Anyway if you fancy listening to some half decent waffle go to the Empire Shorts page and click on my head beneath the play controls.

Whatever Next?

This year could be a great one!
For those of you who read my 2010 retrospective blog you would’ve seen that one of my wishes for 2011 is to work on more features and this week I’m one step closer to that becoming reality!

Here We Go!

You see I got accepted onto the Skillset Film Craft & Technical Placement Scheme!
It’s part of the Skillset Craft and Technical Academy which is a brand new initiative…

“hosted by a major UK Studio Facility” to be “a centre of excellence in craft and technical training, supporting new industry trainees to enter areas of the film industry most in need”

But what does that actually mean I hear you say?

Read More »

Picture from fwallpapers.net

Another one bites the dust!
This blog entry is going to be a little different from ones gone past. I started writing this on New Years Eve on my may way to a family holiday in Cornwall. I’m actually rewriting this from memory as Firefox crashed before I could save this and I’ve lost 80% of what I wrote. It was really good so if this ones sucks then blame Firefox!

So, I thought I’d let you know that I love the New Year.
Not because of the parties (actually feel to old for them at the ripe old age of 31) nor is it because of Jools Holland’s Hootenanny.
What I love about it is it gives you the chance to look back on the accomplishments (or disappointments) of the year gone by, be thankful for what has happened or be thankful that its over and with renewed zeal focus on making the year to come that much more awesome!

You could call it New Years Resolutions but I like to think of it as a renewed mindset that isn’t soley dependent on achievements. You see I like to think about ways that I could be a better person in the year to come. More forgiving, more cheerful in all situations and more giving of my time. The rest usually works itself out along the way.

So 2010.
I have a lot to be thankful for!
This was the year that I started out on my own on the path of becoming a cinematographer. This time last year I had no work on the horizon and no idea how I was going to get started. Would I go down the lighting department or the camera department? I had a seemingly unconventional methodology in that although I had no experience in the film industry I wasn’t going to take a job unless I was paid for it. I figured that it wasn’t hard to get jobs on films (short and feature) as there was always some “No Budget” production being made that was desperate for  people to work for free but even if you did that stuff for a whole year there is no guarantee that it will lead to decent paid work or that you’d progress as a film maker so as friends were busy doing whatever came up I knew that I wanted to go about it differently. I knew this could lead to me not working at all that year on films or TV dramas but I always think that you can only do things your own way and not be ashamed of it if its unconventional or doesn’t work out.

When I look back there have been some big personal achievements for me. I worked on my first feature film, camera operated on a multi-platform BBC drama and shot a timelapse sequence for the Kellogg’s commercial that is still doing the rounds at the cinema nationwide (as well as TV).

Its also been the year when I dipped into the DSLR market and got myself a Canon 60D (hopefully more blogs to follow on that in 2011).

I’ve also seen so many films this year that have time and again reignited the cinematographer fire inside me spurring me on to keep going the extra mile. Maybe none more so than Inception.

The Mind Bending Inception

Christopher Nolan in my opinion is something special as a filmmaker but don’t underestimate the massive contribution that his chief collaborator, cinematographer Wally Pfister, brings.
He is one of my top five cinematographers and I have the utmost respect for the work he has done. He and Chris have a special kind of relationship (they have worked together on all of Chris films save his first) that I hope that I can have when I can truly call myself a cinematographer.

So how about 2011?
Read More »

For the last few weeks I have had the supreme pleasure of stepping away from being an assistant and operating on a multi-platform BBC drama called The Cut.

Teenage BBC Switch Drama

So I’ve operated on half of Season 3 (6 episodes) and it was great fun. Hectic as we had a high page count. The Cut is an intriguing show in the way it gets to its audience. As part of BBC Switch it has a dedicated website (which you can find here) that is a gateway to its blog, fan forums as well as a new five minute part of that weeks episode that gets upload Mon-Fri.

The a weeks worth of these mini-episodes (one episode or omnibus if you will) get put together and shown on BBC2 on Saturday at 12:00 and BBC HD in the evening.
And its because of this that you can watch the show on BBC iPlayer.

Since graduating from film school I’ve been doing a lot of assisting this year so it has been brilliant to get my creative teeth into something more meaty.

It also gave me an opportunity to show myself that I could do it on something that really counts and has helped me make the decision to forge ahead as a camera operator.
I haven’t closed the door completely to assisting but I think I will be more selective about the projects that I assist on whilst taking on more work where my eye will be locked into that viewfinder.

Still Frame from Kellogg's Advert

So there I was…
In the still glistening Cineworld cinema in the O2 arena, with the missus, waiting to watch the 25th Anniversairy re-released Back To The Future. Now it was the middle of the day, as we like to do, and we were the only two in the whole cinema but that wasn’t the strangest part. The strangest part was that I was in the cinema before the adverts and more importanlty he trailers.

You see I have been on a one man boycot of the trailers for the last three years since I saw the epic 5 minute trailer for Elzabeth – The Golden Age.
It was that trailer that had confirmed what I had been feeling for a while that trailers were not only a waste of time but absoulutely spoil the film. Not only do they show you whats going to happen but sometimes show you bits that don’t even end up in the film. But this trailer actually showed you the whole story to the point where you were left thinking “Do I even need to watch the film, because I think I just saw the whole thing condensed into five minutes”

Well I did go and watch it in the end and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it although I would have enjoyed it more if I weren’t waiting for things to happen that I’d learned from the trailer.
What’s wrong with a teaser trailer Hollywood?! Are we all so stupid that we have to see the whole thing synopsisied in visual form before we go and see it? 9 times out of ten we know what kind of film its going to be just by knowing who is starring in it and if in doubt we just need to take a look at the poster!

Now I better stop there as this rant could go on forever.
So I was in the O2 and I had no plan or watching the trailers as I would either employ my iPod method or just leave my wife in the cinema (utilising the iPod method while I go for a last moment comfort break) when the commercials where playing and this shot of a beautiful sunrise beams out on the 40 Foot plus screen and my chin drops to the floor and its not just admiring God & Man’s handywork.

It’s because I shot that! It is the opening part of a Kellogg’s advert (shown below) and I did that very timelapse sequence! I had heard that the ad was out on TV as some friends had told me they had seen it but I was pleasently surprised to see it for myself on the big screen.

What a feeling! I’ve edited news packages before that have been watched by half a million people when I worked for BBC Midlands Today but this was something else. I hope to be one of the chosen few on this planet who get to have a film that they photograph be played on the big screen.

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 »