Michelle Tofi

Above is the poster for the official UK premiere of my short film, ‘Sacrifice’, written by myself and Adam Grundy and which I directed in early 2011 with the fantastic Bruno Loureiro as DOP, supported by gaffer Sabrina Rivolta and the amazing camera work of operator Marcela Goldberg. It was a real pleasure to work with this team of dedicated and creative professionals, and I would be delighted if any readers joined me at the open screening on the 19th of June.  We will be premiering alongside some truly amazing pieces of graduate filmmaking, including one film that even got Lady Gaga’s seal of approval at this years Cannes! It should be a fantastic afternoon of film, so if anyone wants to come along drop me an email at michelle.tofi@gmail.com

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 again. This is no discredit to higher learning, but more to the fact that we only get so many years on this earth to genuinely create and I’m anxious to get on with it!  After that as some visitors may know I’ll be involved with the creation and production of an original series for Iranian television. It’s a long story, but the company behind it it also has a whole host of equipment for wet and dry hire if anyone’s looking for a brilliant young DOP or a load of camera equipment :)

on the 28th of May I begin principle photography on just the trailer for a new and very exciting feature called ‘The Fifth Horseman’, from Sirius Pictures, and two days later have the first production meeting for a short about infamous exotic dancer/spy Mata Hari called ‘Birth of a Spy’. In July/August I’ll be shooting a short for promising young director Claudiu Pavel called ‘Above The Board’. It’s a film that’s being crowd-funded with some really excellent incentives for investors and I’ll be releasing more info about that as soon as I have it.  

Finally I’m hoping to be directing a short of my own that I’m co-producing with the excellent writer and actor Robert Feldman, who co-starred in my debut as a director, Sacrifice, which we’ve just submitted to Raindance and the Cornish International Film Festival. Fingers crossed!  I had hoped this short would be shot and wrapped by the 30th of June but with my schedule as it currently is we’ll have to see.  The film should be a fairly easy shoot, as it mostly centers around one character and will be told through a blend of photography/stop motion and video. I’m psyched for it. 

As always, if you have a project you’re looking to crew feel free to get in touch. In the mean time, wish me luck! I can’t wait to be able to post from these sets and let you know how the shoots go.

I shot the first half of a fairly complicated music video  with camera assistance from the talented Luke Ibbetson last thursday, with the second half to come in June. I need that month in the middle off - currently my short film Sacrifice is in the final stages of its edit - all of the colour grading was done in-house at Bubble TV in Soho by the extraordinary Steve Gibbs and our score, by Tristram Oaten, was just added to the edit today. Tomorrow we’ll be authoring out our master DVD’s and that’s it - my first completed drama, finished. We got confirmation today that we’ll be in not one but two film festivals in Rio this year, so this is pretty big news for us. I’ve also got an exciting corporate shoot over three days at the end of this week in (hopefully sunny) Cornwall and I’m working on writing a brand new television series that has major interest from a channel with 35 million viewers - exciting times indeed!

So back to the music video. We’re shooting the visuals to Skitzo’s grime track ‘For You’, a narrative about two friends who grow up together and stick together when times get really rough for one of them. It’s a great narrative concept and the young actors we worked with on Thursday playing the two friends as teens were fantastic. One of them, Adam Adebiyi aka Triple A turned out to be one half of the up and coming grime act HGM - seriously skilful guys who spit lightening fast lyrics off the cuff.  With HGM member Krisis along for the shoot it was too good an opportunity to miss and I grabbed my camera at the end of the shooting day to record this impromptu freestyle. Shot in one take and coloured in Looks for Final Cut, I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed filming it!

I’m going to be looking for lots more projects over the next few months so if you have a music video you’d like me to work on or a short film in need of a director/DOP or script polish please get in touch! 

Here’s the teaser for my directorial debut, ‘Sacrifice’. I’m pretty pleased with it, though obviously I’m looking forward to having a more thorough cut available as an official ‘trailer’. Sit back, crank up your headphones to enjoy the soundtrack scored for us by the fantastic Dave Connolly and enjoy! 

List of Oscar Winners, 2011 + Inception: An Art Director's Anecdote →

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 a copy of the script. A friend who worked on the art direction for the film was instead lead into a sealed and guarded room, searched for cameras/phones, and then allowed to sit with the script for a certain length of time, making notes for the art direction on a pad. This story for me brings to mind a certain scene in Citizen Kane… I’m sure you all know which one. Irregardless, I thought Inception’s art direction was breath-taking. 

afternoonsnoozebutton:

• Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)

• Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

• Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)
  

• Best Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

• Best Director: Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech)
  

• Best Picture: The…

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!

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The Ten O’Clock Live studio! (Taken with Instagram at BBC Broadcasting House)

Yes, we went to see the taping of Ten O’Clock Live (a channel 4 show shot in a studio at the BBC). As any filmmaker will tell you, sitting in the audience for the taping of a show is a pretty itchy experience. This show in particular is sent out live, so you’re really expected to be looking at the presenters, clapping along etc, but I couldn’t help but watch the crew interact instead. For example, watching the stage director orchestrate the multiple cameras was really interesting, especially observing the silent tension when one operator dropped his focus for a moment, forcing a cut to a different POV. Anyone wanting to get into TV work will have to get used to this kind of high tension environment, and the ability to anticipate the moves of the other camera operators around you. It’s something I’d relish. Anyone out there looking to crew a new TV show? I’m your girl!

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Full dress rehearsal today with the cast of ‘Sacrifice’. Today was a long tough slog but the scenes are really coming together well and there’s a genuine sense of chemistry between the cast members. As exhausting as this week has been, I’m excited to start filming next Wednesday. Our crew deserves our hard work, let’s hope we’re able to fulfil this film’s potential.

Film Directing 101.1

Well it’s 3:10am on a Friday morning and I really should be asleep. Shooting begins on my ‘proper’ directorial debut Sacrifice in 5 and a bit days, which is pretty scary as I’m still breaking down the scenes into shots. Here’s a tip, would-be-filmmakers: do this earlier! 

My excuse for such tardiness? Exhaustion, mostly. Myself, our DOP Bruno Loureiro and writer/co-producer Adam Grundy really worked incredibly hard in the months before Christmas to get this labour of love off the ground. We’ve been doing the jobs some other indie films would have spread across a team of twenty and I couldn’t be more thrilled to begin to see our work pay off. We’ve also been blessed with some wonderful contributions from our art director/costumier Emma Witter and on-set artist Michelle Sabev. So Christmas we allowed ourselves a rest. It was much needed, but if I had the chance to do it all again I’d have postponed Christmas till some time after next week!

In the last couple of days production has really stepped up a gear. We’ve had our first full rehearsal/read-through, first cast visit to the set, booked all of our studio lighting, dolly, glide-track etc, shot some sound tests with the radio mics and Zoom H4N, practiced synching sound in FCP (thank you, PluralEyes!), steadily received a stream of costumes, props, set dressing etc through the mail and held our first costume fitting. This coming Sunday we have our first full dress rehearsal and then it’s no looking back as shooting begins just a couple of days after, ready or not.

So far is it worth it? Of course, I wouldn’t be trying to get into this career if it wasn’t. It’s been magical. The costumes, the period details, seeing our art director begin building a confession booth (!), the little idea I began with that Adam developed into a whole complete story is really starting to come to life. I can’t wait to share it with you.