Chemicals and Light

I have been wanting to get some of the portraits of Tom and Hugo shot for Last Ride blown up and framed. As they were shot on medium format (Grieg brought his old toy Holga along) I was really keen to get them enlarged optically and printed old school stylee on fibre based black and white paper. I found a printer called Asko at CPL here in Melbourne. Asko is an artist in his own right. Carrying on the tradition of darkroom exposures, hand burning and dodging, and hand chemical development. What was once an essential photographic service (Asko told me in 1988 the company he worked for developed over half a million dollars worth of black and white prints!) is now quite a specialist area, as everything image based is in the realm of the computer. It was very cool to visit him in his dark room and see how the prints were coming along. The potent smell of the chemicals taking me back to my uni days spent in the dark up to my neck in developer.

The prints are quite large, I'm getting some 24inch x 24inch and a couple 34inch by 34inch. I'll post some framed shots when they are complete.

iPAD

5D in tha House

A quick link to a great interview conducted by Phillip Bloom with Greg Yaitanes, Executive Producer and Director of US TV show House. Which has just shot it's entire season finale on the 5Dmk2.

The interview is about an hour long and goes into quite alot of detail into the whys and hows of shooting one of the most popular TV shows in the world on sub $3000 DSLR camera. To shoot with the 5D (and the cameras that will soon follow) is no longer a decision and discussion based around budget, but one about creativity, control and creating a working process that most filmmakers have been dreaming of. Myself included.

I have never watched House, but I'll be certainly sitting down in front of the TV to watch this ep.

7Delicious

I'm totally amazed by the music video below. Over 8 minutes long and beautifully shot on the Canon 7D. Have a look at it, it's stunning. And it was shot with a CREW OF TWO people. One being the singer! On a camera you can buy for around $1500. Epic!

Small crews, small cameras. Less fuss, less logistics, freeing you up for so much more actual film making! I find this kind of thing totally inspiring for so many reasons. Some of which I'll go into more detail when I post the 'Sound Maker' film here (hopefully in the next week or so...)

Along with the minimal fuss approach to the filming, what these guys have done so well is choose great (public) locations, that are already lit and look great. This is where the Canon 7D / 5D's excel, in low light. So not having to use expensive film lights, opens up the possibilities, everything out in there in the perfectly lit city is ready and waiting to be utilised and pre-lit location. That said, the sequences shot in the snowy / foggy forest are equally amazing!

Here is a brief 'making of' the 'Break My Soul' video. And a few more details here.