Every Friday I post a short film that has really impressed me, this week:
‘Break My Soul’ by Hybrid
There is a major skills convergence under way and this film music video is a great example, bands that would once be at the mercy of a labels video production arm now have the access to video technologies that enable natural extensions of their music. It could be argued that this turns an artist into a ‘jack of all trades’ but this superb film shot on the Canon 7D screams otherwise.
Hybrid Sound System are a Swansea based trio and if you haven’t had a chance to hear them before this superb single/vid is a great place to start. Check out their superb website for free re-mixes and band info.
I’m chuffed to report that Mark Faiers the producer on our feature film Fatigue has secured a distribution deal with Safecracker Pictures which means that Fatigue will be available from all good retail stores early next year. It will first appear on the shelves of Asda in January.
So this new year, when your walking the lonely ailes filling your basket with pizza, camembert and vodka, please pay a visit to the DVD shelves and drop in a copy of Fatigue.
A word of caution however, it’s probably best not to consume any of your food products while watching Fatigue – the sublime, tense, plot may invoke severe indigestion.
I’ll have a much longer blog post about the making of the film in the near future. We really did it the hard way and made many mistakes.
This crazy tale will have many tips for those attempting feature film production, hopefully you won’t make the same errors we did – from multiple limb breakages during the shoot and having to wait a year to view our rushes because of lack of funds, to post production and distribution horrors due to evil sales agents, it almost killed us……
I’m very proud of the fact that a short film I worked on last year has been nominated for a Bafta. Huge congratulations must go to Jess and Jim for their passion and drive to realise this vision.
Shot in three locations around Cardiff’s city centre in one one night, the production was a very enjoyable race against time and the inclement weather. A fantastic performance by the Dancers and great soundtrack by Frank and Sion made for a very original short.
I was Director of Photography, Camera Operator and Editor. Christopher Forster Directed and the very talented Anna Siegel operated Camera 2.
Every Friday I post a short film that has really impressed me, this week:
‘Sincerely, Spain’ by Mathew Brown
If you have ever attempted to turn a holiday video into an interesting atmospheric piece of art and failed.
Or if you have ever had the painful experience of sitting through a relatives holiday video and have felt suicidal after about five minutes….
You could do a lot worse than check out Mathew Brown’s latest film which is essentially a holiday film in Barcelona – don’t let that put you off though, through an exquisite use of editing and post grading (Sony Vegas) he manages to produce an atmospheric film that intrigues and enchants, and all shot on a humble Canon HV40.
I was recently asked by the Festivals Company to produce a number of high quality interviews for web broadcast to highlight the three day inaugral festival – ‘Pierhead Sessions 2010′.
The contributors included:
George Monbiot, environmental activist and Guardian columnist.
Clare Hudson, Head of Programming, English, BBC Cymru Wales.
Charlie Beckett, director of journalism and society think-tank Polis.
Neil Midgley, Daily Telegraph Assistant Editor, Media.
Simon Wright, food critic, restaurateur and presenter.
Kevin Higgins, British Council Wales chief executive.
I was asked to film fourteen interviews in all.
George Monbiot
I decided to take a chance and move away from DVCAM and shoot all of the interviews on a Canon 7D.
This was a bit of a risk as the Canon DSLR simply isn’t designed for long form interviews.
However I liked the idea of shooting progressive frame, wide open with a big sensor in an effort to create something a bit more interesting than run of the mill head and shoulder video interviews.
The Canon gave me a very shallow depth of field which enabled me to ‘smudge’ out the backgrounds and get a sense of depth. It would have been very difficult to create the same effect on a traditional video camera. Charlie Beckett
I had a number of problems to overcome during the shoot –
The 7D will only record in twelve minutes chunks (this is due to tax import duties that I won’t bore you with right now!) Therefore I had to choose my moment carefully to quickly stop and restart the recording – tricky when a politician is in full flow.
Sound had to be recorded separately (I used the H4n) and synced later in Final cut Pro. This isn’t a big problem for a crew of one when everything is tripod mounted in one location but as soon as I moved outside and went hand-held, it became difficult – I need to hire a sound person next time! Andrew Pierce interviewed by Gareth Ludkin
Data wrangling became rather stressful at times. Due to the number of interviews and their running time I needed to recycle CF cards constantly. I backed everything up while on set to a laptop and external hard drive and used MPEG streamclip (it’s free!) to convert everything to Pro Res 422. After fourteen interviews I had filled a 1tb drive.
George Monbiot Interviewed by Reeta Toivanen
Using the 7D and indeed any Canon DSLR for long form interviews is tricky. It’s certainly much more complex than a point and shoot DVCam Video camera……….. but the image from the large 1920 x1080 progressive sensor is superb so it’s well worth all the effort. Gareth Ludkin
Many thanks to all of the students involved in the project and to the fantastic Andrew Gurney who managed the whole production.
Please find below YouTube links to the finished interviews, if your broadband is fast enough don’t forget to switch into 720p HD.
George Monbiot
Clare Hudson
Simon Wright
Charlie Beckett
You can watch the rest of the films here. Please note that Multistream filmed the Standard Definition live recordings of the sessions (all vimeo entries). I filmed all HD YouTube entries.
An inspiring talk from the director of TV’s ‘Lost’ and the feature films: Mission Impossible 3, (the brilliant) Cloverfield and last years Star Trek.
This presentation was recorded back in 2007 and is well worth a watch.
Every Friday I post a short film that has really impressed me, this week:
The Third and Seventh by Alex Roman
There are a number of reasons to be excited by this piece of work -firstly it’s an aesthetically beautiful film and really deserves attention. Secondly (and it’s hard to believe) the entire film is CG (3ds Max, Vray, After Effects), and contains some of the most amazing modeling, texturing and light rendering I have ever seen and if that wasn’t enough, it’s all the work of one man – he even wrote the music!
Happy New Year to you all I hope you had a great holiday.
It’s always good to start the year on a positive note, even when talking about Indie feature distribution! – Ted Hope has become a bit of an ‘indie distribution evangelist hero’ for me. After the debacle (more on this later this month) that surrounded ‘Fatigues’ distribution, Ted’s new distribution models are inspiring and I hope to emulate them. Highly recommended.
”Indie producer and blogger Ted Hope (American Splendor, 21 Grams, Adventureland) talks to filmmakers at the New York Foundation for the Arts about a new film culture and infrastructure driven by creators and audiences alike. “We must accept that being a filmmaker means taking responsibility for our films all the way through the process. Building the new infrastructure is the first step towards real media independence” — that’s the gospel according to Ted. ”
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