So it’s been a while. It was a busy September and an even busier October.
Filming all over the North west does that to you, but that’s all to do with work, no time for play sadly. Getting the time to do personal projects as been few and far between in the last 2 months.

I’m now working at Fuzzy Duck Creative, it’s a great production company based in Manchester, England. They also have a webtv, check them out sometime.

http://www.filmannex.com/webtv/FuzzyDuckCreative

First of all I want to thank Film Annex for featuring me back in the summer, it was a nice surprise but most importantly it was a nice boost. Films aren’t going to fund themselves after all.

In late September I finally got a chance to film “Rest”. It is a short poem/micro film, that really is just something a little different for me. It was the chance to finally work again with actors after what has seemed like an eternity, to shoot some beautiful visuals (and play with a new camera *cough* Red Scarlet *cough* and most importantly making something that has a message/theme that I believe people will appreciate.

Shot of the Peak District:

The Idea:

It came about during my trip back home and talking to a good friend of mine. A verse in the Bible Matt 11:28 kept ringing around in my head. The idea of people being weighed down by the cares of life. So why not people walking down the road of life carrying what appears to  be their “burdens”. For me it was a simple enough idea. Then arose the chance to film in the Peak District (In Derbyshire, England) once again. I filmed the ending scenes of “Run” there back in 2009 (my days does the years go back quickly). So a simple shoot, or so I thought, 1 day, outside in the summer sunshine, what could possibly go wrong...

(Photo Courtesy of Jon White)

(Photo Courtesy of Simon Hill)
As we all know, England and sunshine almost never EVER mix but this film was going to be shot, for better or for worse, on the 30th September. So we powered ahead with the shoot. The rain was scheduled to hit us, BADLY, in the mid afternoon. So we were on a tight schedule from beginning to end. Good thing I had an AD I could trust. Andy Salamoncyzk did a great job, we got everything shot (even though I added in a shot or two), had a big lunch, stopped cars, kept a crew of 14 people happy and most importantly, kept me happy.

Check out his web tv by the way when you get the chance:

http://www.filmannex.com/webtv/andy-salamonczyk

To be perfectly honest, the bad weather was perfect for the theme of the film, it just added that extra depth that the visuals needed. No amount of art department or post production could paint the skies a more depressing gray and no smoke machine could have made a windy mist as epic as Mother nature did that day.







The crew and cast did a great job, I couldn’t have chose a worse place to film an exterior, but they all handled it well and I did a great job keeping everything flowing fast.

There is a great satisfaction you get from being Director/DP , but I wouldn’t recommend doing it if your film has dialogue. I don’t think you will be able to really pay attention to the dialogue/performance or framing/image as much as you could if you left the role to another person. That’s just what I think, I know the likes of Gareth Edwards and Steven Soderbergh will tell me otherwise.


Of course I couldn’t do this post without blabbing on about the camera we used. FINALLY I got to film something on a RED. Yes a camera doesn’t make a film, but it just felt like a PROPER camera. It produced a great image, was rugged and with stood some wet and windy Peak District weather.

So why did we choose the Red Scarlet? Simple, I wanted to film in Vari Speed and I wanted to film everything handheld. A 7d can do up to 60 fps, but the rolling shutter made walking behind subjects with a camera just stupid to even attempt (in my opinion of course) and of course the 7d only does that in 720p, a bit too low res for me.

We shot most of the film at 48 fps per second. We could go up to 60 fps, but you would be sacrificing even more of the field of view (as Red Cameras crop into their frame when doing higher frame rates). At 48 fps we were able to film in 3k,That’s almost 3 times the pixels that are in 1080p. Crazy!!

Obviously anything for the web that’s over 1080p is overkill ultimately, but having that raw high resolution video and then down converting to 1080p is a bit like shooting on an 1080p HD Camera but the end product is going to be on SD Broadcast, the image is just that bit sharper. It does seem like overkill at the time, but it’s great for archiving. I mean who knows, in 10 years I might need a shot of a guy in a suit walking on a road in the middle of nowhere.

The camera did great, however make sure you have at least 6 v locks to spare as it eats batteries, especially when doing high speed. It’s heavy when everything is rigged on it. However there’s something sexy about handheld with a heavy properly balanced shoulder set up, it just gives that clean handheld feel. I have got to say I can’t wait till we next get a chance to use it. Make sure you also use a Tripod with a fluid head that can take over 20 kgs, that is a must.

I don’t want to reveal too much about the film at this point, but hopefully the stills have (in Roger Moore’s voice) whet your appetite.

Stay tuned for a little teaser coming on Monday.

 

 

 

(Photo Courtesy of Simon Hill)

(Thanks guys)