Michelle Tofi

I’ve been meaning to update my showreel for quite a while and yesterday I finally found the time to do it, ahead of a busy week shooting a short in collaboration with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda).

Showreels are difficult things to compile for a number of reasons. There will always be clips you reuse, reel to reel, because they’re particular favourites or special to you. That said, each new one cut means dropping older shots to make way for newer work - a showreel can’t run too long because who has time to watch five minute reels when sifting through potential hires?  There always have to be sacrifices in how you present yourself, and for this one the longest chunk in my reel comes from the first feature I shot as DP - ‘In Two Weeks’ directed by Andy Amadi.  That means I’ve had to lose a little of the corporate and live event jobs I’ve done, so the reel is essentially film and music video work, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

The final frustration you’ll hear most often from crew cutting showreels is the inability to use footage that hasn’t been released, or approved, or that you signed your rights to away. I would love to be able to show some of my work on a couple of other projects from this year - not least from my second feature as DP, ‘The Watcher Self’, but I also don’t want to spoil those projects ahead of release.  When the time comes, I hope the wait is worth it! So for now, please enjoy my current reel for 2012!

The edit for Amzo’s ‘Spotlight’ video is almost done, so here’s a few frame grabs to give you an idea of the highly stylised look we went for. Very much looking forward to sharing the final cut.

Bucket 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. 

I'm selling a U-Flycam DSLR stabiliser, really cheap. →

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, I’ve gone up in the world. I’ve bought a much better shoulder rig/rails system that is on its way from the US as I type, so I really don’t need this any more. I’ve not been using it much anyway since I’ve not been doing a lot of steadicam type work - my films have recently required handheld shots that tend to look more handheld than gliding. I also plan to (maybe, hopefully, one day) pick up this beauty Glidecam HD 2000 - seriously, watch that video and try not to crave one. That thing looks amazing for the price. £350ish? Bargain. 

So anyway, here’s that link again: Buy my DSLR steadicam! Tell your friends. Discounts for mates! Not really!