An Epic Day to Direct

It's not everyday that you get paid to work on something that you're genuinely excited about.  Throw in what is quite possibly one of the nicest houses in the entire city for a shooting location, stunning HD footage captured on a DSLR, a small and enthusiastic crew, and me, as director, heading up the shoot for a concept that I played a large role in developing? Well, now we're on to something!

Ok, so I'm laying it on a bit thick, but the truth is that the project we shot over the weekend holds a lot of potential for the future videos that we might get a chance to create.  It's also the opportunity to broaden the scope and style of our productions and give our client something that we'll both take a great deal of pride in.  I believe they call that a win-win.

While I can't go into much detail at the moment, what I will say about the project is that it involves working with food producers in the region.  And wouldn't you know it, just as many of our successful projects have begun, we prepped for our shoot over a meal at Local on Friday night.

The week up to this point had been a bit of a crap shoot.  I was still nailing out a shot list up until the last minute, and wanting to switch from the HD video camera things were still up in the air about whether or not we'd have a new DSLR to work with in time.  What panned out was actually a pretty exciting opportunity.  After realizing that we wouldn't have the camera in time, Barb found someone who owned one and asked if I'd like to have him as a shooter so I could focus entirely on directing.  This has happened zero times before.

You have to understand that working in a small production company it's a luxury when our roles aren't bleeding into one another.  Having the chance to navigate a concept/shot list/script without my face being either glued to the viewfinder or to a monitor after joining the project in post production was a welcome upgrade.  Creatively speaking, it was actually quite a challenge to wrap my mind around at first, but ultimately resulted in a more eclectic and thorough series of shots. To be involved in this one from creative brainstorming to completion has been awesome!

The sequence we were shooting took place in a kitchen, and through Stream's connections the resulting locale that we decided on could have earned the 'epic' portion of this posts title all on its own.  The home was beautiful, gigantic, and featured stunning views of the river.  The kitchen itself could give most cooking show's sets a run for their money. But on a necessary side note, my car looked right at home in the driveway.

As for the shoot, things went really well.  With Barb as producer, Ross on camera, Julie acting, Lee Anne as production assistant, Jesse capturing what was going on behind the scenes, and myself as director, we had a good mix that made the day fly by. I've yet to preview all of the footage though, so there's not much more I can say at the moment other than that I`m looking forward to editing this one. Fingers crossed that it turns out as well as I imagine it to. A lot of cool things could happen if this campaign takes off. 

Line Art - Drawing on Film (2004)

Of all of the experiments we did in our film school animation class in 2004, drawing on film was by far the most tedious to me.  If you keep in mind that 24 frames equal one second of screen time, it meant having to replicate an image over and over again to create the project - or at least it should have.  

I chose instead to go the completely experimental (and in many ways easier) route, and opted to create a colourful film strip inspired by frequency lines.  I divided my film strip evenly between frames of green, red, and blue.  This was done with a clear strip of 16mm film and pack of sharpie markers. On top of that I drew various lines that would fluxuate in contrast to one another.  The result was as busy as you might expect, but it created a cool effect.  See what resulted below.

Bolex Camera Diagrams

All of the film I shot in film school was done on a Bolex camera.  It's essentially the old work horse of all film school cameras as pretty much up every introduction to shooting uses this versatile 16mm piece of equipment.  After recently purchasing a vintage 16mm projector to watch some of my old shorts, I was reminded of the Bolex diagrams we had to learn.  The camera had to be threaded in complete darkness as to not expose the film, so knowing your way around what wraps where was kind of a big deal.  In any case, I found those original Bolex diagrams in my notes and thought it would be cool to share them.  Someday in the not too distant future I'd like to buy myself a used Bolex and give shooting on film another go.