February 2012
1 post
January 2012
1 post
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WatchHere’s the latest video from my recent collaboration with UK grime artist Jelluzz. I’m particularly pleased with the split screen footage in this music video; look out for the scene where the girl lights a cigarette by a phone booth - I’d say the two shots almost match up perfectly. The concept of the video is to demonstrate what life is currently like on West Green road, and...
December 2011
3 posts
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WatchXander’s “Requiem for a Dream” video featuring Amzo dropped at the start of this week and has already racked up over 13,000 views on youtube. Here’s the link from my Vimeo page. I shot the video and it really was a fun shoot - Xander has an incredible amount of energy and creativity and brought loads of ideas to the shoot we got to try out, including shooting 50fps for...
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November 2011
4 posts
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Gear Review: Delkin Fat Gecko Camera Mount
I’ve been working on a short film - Play Rewind Forward - for quite a while now. It’s an improv based piece and that means director Melina Liu is free to add new scenes as talent becomes available and the story develops, giving the film a cool organic vibe. It’s also meant we can experiment as much as we want with the camera work and visual style, which has meant lying in the...
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CrumplePop ShrinkRay X - Free for a week!
I love CrumplePop. Despite having issues with their initial set of plug-ins not playing well with FCP7 (My fault, not theirs, and they refunded me!) I’ve been loving the releases they’ve put out for FCPX, the still much maligned follow-up to their old Final Cut system I’ve grown with and loved. Having people like them come aboard the FCPX love-train has helped me enormously to...
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WatchI recently started working on a series of video projects to coincide with the launch of Xander’s debut EP “Royal Blood”. This first one is a sneak preview of what to expect, layered with the intro to new track “Thesaurus”. I can’t take credit for anything other than a quick re-edit here as the stunning collage-based visuals themselves were created by graff...
October 2011
2 posts
September 2011
3 posts
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5 tags
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August 2011
6 posts
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Film Freelancers Toolkit - Part 1 - Kit...
I’ve been freelancing now for quite a while on and off, making it my full time career following graduation from London Met this year. It’s had its ups and downs so far; I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some huge scale projects with exciting clients and great creative collaborators, alongside smaller no budget films, crafted out of sheer love for the cinematic medium....
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On Directing
For the past five days I worked on a feature film, “The Chancery Lot” for an independent producer who had much of the final piece in the can, but needed to do some pick-ups. With the original director in the States I was drafted in as the shoot director, and an interesting experience it was. Here’s me directing, with the excellent focus puller Jon Pugh behind the camera.
As...
July 2011
7 posts
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63rd Primetime Emmy Awards - My Picks
Ok, so it’s Emmy’s time again and I thought I’d offer my picks. I watch far more American television than I do British, and it’s no secret amongst those who know me that I would give either (both? Not possible? Ok) kidney to write and produce an original show for HBO or AMC (maybe Showtime… if it was Dexter budget). American television just seems to do everything so...
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Kit Upgrade!
This Monday and Tuesday I worked on a corporate shoot that required a lot of panning and tilting combined with a lot of walking around in the unusually hot July sun. I packed my Benro sticks and Weifeng 717AH fluid head, thinking the combination a perfect (and light!) one for the job. The Weifeng head has had a lot of good buzz online, with popular DSLR blog Cheesy Cam going so far as to label it...
Kickstarter - Dying to do Letterman: Kickstarter... →
Great project, great concept, do your part and help back the campaign to get ‘Dying to do Letterman’ into the Oscars sweeps. I pledged, and I’d love it if some of you guys would join me.
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WatchBucket Head - on Virgin Media Shorts. One of my first post-graduation DOP jobs was this cool little project for a Virgin Media Shorts competition entry. It’s a fun film and it’s only 2 minutes, so take a break and enjoy it.
June 2011
3 posts
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May 2011
5 posts
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Work, Work, Work
Thought’d I’d post a little update about the projects I’m currently working on/starting, as it’s shaping up to be a busy couple of months for me so I’m not sure how many posts I’ll be writing in the next few weeks.
Firstly, after next friday I hand in my final research paper as a graduate student at London Met to hopefully never return to adult education...
April 2011
4 posts
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4 Piece Close-Up Lens Kit Review
New toy time! This past weekend over at Vimeo there was a Macro video project. The challenge was to create a video of no more than 3 minutes using only macro shots, with a complete narrative told through the images. A great project and one which inspired me, but unfortunately my only macro-capable lens is a Sigma telephoto that really doesn’t get close enough to anything to be true macro....
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Pre-review: Prestigio E157 HD LCD monitor
Before I get a chance to properly use it and shoot a little video review I thought I’d drop some first impressions of my new ‘E157’ full HD DSLR monitor. As an advisory caution, I’ve labelled this ‘prestigio’ as that’s the only brand name I could find in any of the packaging, and even that was just in a small picture in the manual. You’ll find it on EBay though, here: HD DSLR Monitor 1080p on...
March 2011
7 posts
Cave City Sink: This Movie Made Me Feel Bad to Be... →
I’m not really one to reblog - it seems like a lazy way to fill up your site - but this is just an excellent tear-down of ‘Sucker Punch’. It saddens me to think of the serious amounts of money being thrown at productions such as this while the future of British cinema is still up for grabs. Regardless, click the title above or the link below to read some intelligent and bitingly...
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New Toys/New Skills
Last week I was finally able to take a short break from working on the post for my film, Sacrifice and concentrate on other projects. Our film is currently being graded in two different countries; we have managed to get a studio in Soho, London, to grade us their version of the film (for free!) and a freelance colourist in Barcelona is working on his own take for the look of the period.
Of...
WatchThis is fascinating and really quite beautiful. An interesting method for working with 8mm - I happen to live in a house where one of us has a DSLR (me) and one of us has an 8mm camera (fellow filmmaker Luke Ibbetson) so this might be something we experiment with ourselves one day!
curiositycounts:
The Projector - James Miller transfers 8mm footage using the Canon 5Dmk2 in real time to stunning...
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February 2011
10 posts
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I'm on IMDB, and I'm totally hireable →
So far, only one film credit. But still - it’s a start. And no, it’s not one of those paid-for DIY ‘resume’ pages. It’s the real deal, people. I can only thank NAHEMI for premiering a short I shot with director Adam Grundy last year, allowing its inclusion on the great Movie Database. My next credit should be my directorial debut, Sacrifice - so keep your eyes peeled...
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List of Oscar Winners, 2011 + Inception: An Art... →
So here’s a list of the major Oscar winners of 2011. Thoughts? Opinions? As an aspiring DOP I was very happy to see Wally Pfister take home the statue for his work on Inception. Here’s an anecdote for you from my advanced screenwriting tutor; apparently Nolan’s iron-fisted control over who knew what about the film was so tight that he prevented major crew members from even owning...
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I'm selling a U-Flycam DSLR stabiliser, really... →
Why am I selling such a fabulous bargain item? Because it’s really heavy for me. I’m like, 5 foot tall and have dainty little hands (perfect for a DSLR DOP reaching those little buttons and click wheels - terrible for carrying stuff). It’s great for stabilising shots for your average human/cinematographer, but I’d like something with a bit more support.
But also,...
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