BMCC City Test

I recently spent an evening wandering the steets of Melbourne with a Black Magic Cinema Camera.  I'm interested in how the camera performs in less than ideal settings, night shoots, available light etc.  Overall i'm excited.  The 13 stops of dynamic range allow you to shoot in conditions that other cameras (i'm looking at you dslr) would struggle with.  In a doco situation where you may be moving quickly and not always be able to 100% nail your exposures, this increased latitude is going to help dig you out of a few holes in post.  That's right....fix it in post....I said it

Music is "Pianoforte" by The Animators, taken from "The Old Dog"

http://theanimators.bandcamp.com/album/the-old-dog

Quick & dirty BMCC Test

I finally got my hands on a Black Magic Cinema Camera today.  I'm bloody impressed with  it so far.  12 bit uncompressed raw for 3k is enough to make you ignore the ergonomic nightmare of the body.  I'm shooting a small project with the bmcc tomorrow morning, but i was itching to put the camera through it's paces.  In stepped Chris from Z Media Group, who offered to throw my pushie in the boot and drive me home so we could capture some night footage.  Below are some graded stills from the uncompressed output.  They were shot between 400 & 800 ASA on a canon 16-35 L.  It's on odd beast of a camera but I'm excited about its potential.

Melbourne Skyline Timelapse

Here's the view from the Eureka Skydeck.  Currently working on a new project featuring a lot of time-lapse.  Shooting time-lapse in the balmy days of summer is a bloody good way to pass the time.

Creepy Horse Mask Starring in "We, not the Giant"

It's done and dusted.  Last Night was the launch of a Film Clip i produced for The Animators called "We, not the Giant"

The ghosting effect surrounding our two protagonists was created using trapcode mir which if you haven't had a fiddle is well worth checking out.   

If you have a hankering to download the tune and load it up on whatever portable/ non-portable new fangled music device thingy then you can find it as a free download at www.theanimators.bandcamp.com

Film Clip Teaser

#1 reason not to bring your horse to the office...they spook far too easily

Helicopter Shoot

A 5am call is rarely fun in anyone's books, particularly a 5am call that requires you to leave the house at 1am to be at the location on time.   However if that call involves boarding a helicopter to shoot stills and video over the Crosscut Saw in the Alpine National Park as dawn breaks, you will hear no complaint from me.  I'll probably show up the next day on the off chance we can go up again.

Here's a snippet of what we shot. 

A big thanks to Matt Korinek (below) for volunteering his time shooting stills whilst I did my utmost best not to get overexcited and fall out the side of the chopper, xdcam in tow.  Thanks also goes to John Martins Logistic Solutions and Hema Maps for providing support to get the whole affair off the ground and David Blunden from Alpineheli for getting us safely back on the ground.  And finally to Beau Miles for pounding the footpad in the dawn light, although between you and me he'd probably be up there regardless.  I half suspect he's still running...If anyone sees him tell him to get back to the edit suite, we've got some cracking footage to work with

Melbourne Music Week

Occasionally i remember that my DLSR actually takes photos as well as video 

Here's a couple of production stills taken on behalf of Steve Ward for Melbourne Music Week

Destruction

I'm working on some destruction effects for a new film clip and I've come to the realization that my inner child is having the time of his life knocking virtual structures over

Older Work

I'm digging up some older work and thought i'd share.  The video below was made for the launch of a risk management software company.  Pan Software was a great client to work with, they had a fantastic sense of humour and were willing to poke fun at themselves and the industry in order to promote the benefits of their product.  Sometimes corporate work doesn't always have to be "corporate" and having a bit of fun can serve to strengthen the message.

New Work

Here's a couple of frames from a new Film Clip i'm working on.  Just testing some ideas out at the moment.

Animators @ The Butter Factory Feb 2012

I got a call from my mate Dave, from THE ANIMATORS,asking if i'd be interested in dragging a camera down to the Butter Factory and shooting their live show. Being somewhat a fan of the band as it is i said "why not" and whilst i was at it why not bring a bunch of cameras and drag Paul Hughes along for the ride

You can check out a clip from the show below

The video was Shot with 4 Sony EX Series Cameras, 2 Go Pro HD Hero 2's and one lonely Go Pro HD Hero 1,  As you can see below the HD Hero 2's perform far better in low light that then they seemingly have any right to, considering that the EX Cameras were mainly wide open at up to 6db of gain.  You can clearly see the difference in performance with the HD Hero 1, although to be fair, it was placed in a fairly challenging situation 

A a big thanks to Beau Miles for running a cam on the night plus Corinne at Fire Films and Maz at Angry Turtle Productions for supplying cameras for the shoot.  If Overdrive rocked your boat than you can grab it and more at www.theanimators.bandcamp.com/

Paul Hughes Tropfest 2012

It's Tropfest time again and this year I have an even better reason to drag my tukas down the the music bowl for gander at this years crop of short films.  A good mate of mine by the name of Paul Hughes shot one of the finalists, The Unusual Suspects.  To celebrate, we spent the day updating his showreel and changing the covers on my couch.  In hindsight maybe we could have just gone to the pub instead, but that ships sailed.  Regardless check out his new reel below.

Untitled from Paul Hughes on Vimeo.

VIMFF 2012

If you are currently floating around Vancouver with nothing but time and your hands and 20 odd dollars burning a whole in your pocket you could do a lot worse then heading on over to the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, Feb 10th to 18th.

While your there check out a film i edited by the name of Africa by Kayak, in which a local character by the name of Beau Miles attempts to travel the southern half of Africa by sea kayak.  It's a rollicking good tail which i vicarously enjoyed from the relative safety of my edit bay.  If you've got a taste for salty adventures then be sure to check it out. 

Kessler cine slider oracle tests

I'm down at the kubik installation with Paul Hughes testing out the oracle cine slider. Turns out there's a lot of bloody vibration out here on this bridge. I guess where going to find out the hard way how much we can get away with on this 16mm lens

Rooftop Run Update

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on the Rooftop Run project.  I've whittled down about 24 hours of footage down to a solid hour.  I find that this is both the most difficult yet enjoyable part of a project.  It's where you really solidify the story.  Every cut is important and even the smallest decision can have ramifications for the entire piece.  It's also where you often have to cut your favourite scenes.  No matter how hard you try to fit them in they just don't work.  Personally you love them, they look amazing and provide some different insight, but when you look at the cut as a whole they just don't bloody work.  So you cut them and move on.  No matter how good the the scene may be, no matter how much afinity you may have that particularly piece of footage, if it doesn't work then get rid of it.  The work will be stronger for the decision, no matter how much you may curse yourself for not being able to make that one scene work.

Anyway here's a recent trailer for "The Rooftop Run".  Music is "Welcome Home" by Radical Face.  Check them out here www.radicalface.com.  I've also included footage from a previous Beau Miles epic, Africa by Kayak

Big W FAshion Show 2011

Here's a bit of a look at some background animations I created for a recent fashion show in collaboration with the venerable Chris Zidanski of Proeye TV

Sports Tonight Interview

I managed to unchain myself from the Edit Bay for a few hours today and catch up with Beau as he was being interviewed by Channel Ten for Sports Tonight.  However I spent most of my interview glued to the laptop pulling out relevant bits of overlay for the piece as the interview progressed.  Good times.