In the Negative - Fever Dreams Project

16mm film project around the ideas of fever dreams and the surrealness that goes along with the history of black & white 16mm films.

My camera work in the public domain

"The Eternal Man" - Trailer for a 20 minute short dealing with issues of immortality and love.
On vimeo

A short promotional video for "Take a Challenge"

An Interview for LifeLine Projects
Metropolis - Tokyo

16mm film project - Fever Dreams

There's an old myth that indigenous people and tribes thought that cameras captured a piece of your soul when your photograph was taken. What happens to that piece when it's in the camera? What does it do? Can it escape?

A light comes on, revealing a person standing before us.

The light sweeps around the person,

coming to rest at the feet of the person.

The person becomes conscious and looks around.

The person then walks off frame, only to return on the other side.

The person turns away, raising their hands to explore the dark surface behind them.

They push it away and we fly backwards away from the person, making them blurry.

...

The person stretches out their arms as if just waking up.

The void gets lighter as their arms get higher

The person notices the increasing brightness of the void behind them.

The person suddenly drops their arms and with that motion, the lights cut out.

The persons glowing hand emerges from the darkness.

The person raises their hand and explores it's movements.

The person touches their face with their glowing hand, leaving the face also glowing.

The person proceeds to paint their body with their glowing hand

The person reaches through the darkness covering them and tears it away.

The person now glowing completely begins raising their arms

As light grows, the person relaxes

With arms fully raised, the person is lost in the light of the void

Film making - Essential websites

Let's start with a video made by IndyMogul. A group of film makers on youtube dedicated to the bettering of their peers. They don't claim to be the best but what they have learned, they share. A great resource for new indy and budget film makers.

DSLRvideoshooter has gear reviews, tutorials, found videos and news for all things dslr video. They often share the important posts from CanonRumours and Photorumours

cheesycam has a wealth of DIY gear tutorials and cheap gear finds. Their posts cover almost all areas of film making, so be sure to look out for posts about audio too.

Can't afford the cheesycam builds? want a familiar and friendly face to teach you how to make things? I've got two people for you: Knoptop (aka Dave) and FrugalFilmMaker (aka Scott). Knoptop has sporadic (and often humorous) tips and tricks videos. Scott regularly puts out Q&A videos regarding things like his site, builds and general video news. Scott also has a regular series for $1 budget gear he finds (very useful as it often has things you wouldn't even have thought of, like doorstops)

dslrfilmnoob (aka DeeJay) makes really high quality 'news and reviews' posts, making sure to go into as much detail as he can. It is quite common for him to make follow up posts detailing any changes, solutions or problems he finds. He also has a few small products he makes in batches, like the zoomH1 shock mount.

Dave Dugdale is your guide through starting in the dslr film industry. From amateur to semi-pro, Dave brings you along with honest and level headed videos showing his progress and teaching you things as he finds them out himself.

Though FStoppers is primarily a photography blog, it has many behind the scenes (BTS) videos and compiled tutorials that can aid any camera operator (whether still or video)

FilmRiot has been running for quite a while now. Aspiring and talented film maker Ryan Connolly brings regular tips, tricks and techniques from Hollywood with a good dose of humour and production value. The film Riot monday challenge is a great community for new and experienced film makers with weekly or monthly challenges requiring a specific technique or style.

Now for the heavy weights; FreddieW (aka Freddie Wong and Brandon) and CorridorDigital (aka Sam and Niko). Four friends in LA making some of the best content on youtube with their recent web-series' (VGHS and SYNC respectively). Special effects, guns, games and behind the scenes on almost all of it.

I think that list should keep you occupied for a while. The worrying part is, I can go on.

Bristol 10k

Having filmed last weeks 10k for Love Running, I took what footage I had and edited it into a short video.

Project 23 - Final piece

Project 23 - Test shots

(uploading at time of post, video may not show)

test shots with canon 550d + magic lantern
lenses: 50mm f1.8 (the plastic fantastic), 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM
PremierPro CS5.5 and AfterEffects CS5.5

Test shot list:
Tripod as crane shot
Tripod as sweep shot (very shaky)
On shoulder pan left (needs work)
On shoulder pan right
Digital lens flare coming into shot
Digital lens flare moving through frame
In camera lens flare combined with Digital flare + more complex move
Tripod as crane - lean in + digital flare
+Basic colour grading on all shots (small variations between shots)

Script outline:

8 year old girl sits at a table colouring. She sits back in the chair, looks straight at camera and says “I can be whatever I want to be... but what do I want to be?”. She leans back in and continues to colour in.

ALT – “When I grow up, I want to be famous! I'm gunna be a famous singer on xfactor. Just you wait and see”

12 year old girl sat watching kids TV alone. She turns to the camera “I could be famous one day. I could be on TV or in Films or anything. Just look at all the pretty girls, [points at TV] I could be one of those one day.” She turns back to the TV and changes channel. “I wont be though now will I... I'm not pretty enough” [crosses arms and brings up legs]

ALT – “these girls have no talent. I can sing (dance/act) better than them[!] they're only on here because they're skinny and cute...”

16 year old girl reading a magazine (ok, hello or similar). “I want all these clothes! not that I could ever afford half of them... [page turn] I like these shorts, they'd make my legs look so long. They're a bit short though, got to be careful in these” [gives a glance and a grin at the camera]

ALT – “ugly, ugly, gross, nasty, ooh thats nice, nope, ugh.... oh whats the point, I'll never fit into any of these clothes anyway” – notable irony in that

18-20 year old woman walks in to a house looking a bit of a state. Stumbles to her bedroom and falls onto her bed. Still for a moment. Slurs, “what a good night. Got LOTS of attention if you know what I mean.” she rolls over and reaches for a glass that isn't there. “A few went too far but I sorted them out”

ALT – “I'm sick of guys staring at me like I'm a piece of meat. I just want a good night out but all I get is creepy guys groping me while I dance...”

25 year old woman sat watching TV on a sofa. “I'm sick and tired of seeing all these girls wasting their life on all these futile endeavours. Trying to get guys in these awful ways in these horrible places. I just don't understand how it got this way. How did it get this bad? What happened to everybody?”

ALT – “why do these girls think it's ok to be like this? When did it all go so wrong? Can't they understand that it doesn't have to be like this?”

Holiday Havoc

Do something you've never done before.

I have never been on a film set / crew. Dan invited me to be part of the film crew for one of his projects. My job was to record the camera settings and operate the clapper board. It was a very informing day as I didn't realise quite how much work goes into filming things properly.

Gaby was also on set as a photographer and a runner. I lent her my camera for the day and she returned with lots of loverly shots. Here are just a few of them.

Gig filming

I filmed a 'Absent me' and 'the new root' gig on friday night.
Roaming cam is so much fun, quite dangerous though ... lovely shots but being tethered almost got me killed! need to figure out a way of getting live footage on screens without 2 clumsy cables

I'll try and get one of the edited tracks up here when they finnish it.