David Kilpatrick – Future Trends – from BJP article 11/11/09

On the subject of Videography a great article I came a cross in the BJP 11/11/09 makes for very thought provoking reading – nice one David…………………

David Kilpatrick finds camera makers trying to cram in video capture and ever more advanced in-camera features into smaller, lighter bodies. So why is he harking back to his five-year-old bridge camera for answers? Convergence is the key word if you’re talking about DSLR development. The old 35mm format converges with digital medium format backs in resolution; medium format begins to acquire wider lens choices and more 35mm-like ergonomic; stills get high quality video functions; video rigs become able to shoot still frames. It can only be a matter of time before a rollfilm format back appears offering eight million pixel video, tomorrow’s equivalent of IMAX 70mm, and someone shoots a movie using a vintage Hasselblad. Might be a long time, though …Meanwhile, Nikon has discovered that using its Motion-JPEG encoding does (as I observed when comparing earlier Nikon and Canon video clips) produce a much sharper frame by frame rendering. As long as the shutter speed has been kept fast enough to freeze action and the ISO is not boosted to an extreme, Nikon video footage can be used to make half-page tabloid pictures. It’s the sharpest and most detailed freeze-frame video on the market, and with the new full-frame D3s it is exploiting this advantage. Traditional video wisdom says that fast shutter speeds are bad. They create jerky action, where slightly blurry movement at around 1/60s or so looks more natural. The press will not heed traditional wisdom; they want every frame of the video to be like a good still shot. Canon has followed by enabling total control of aperture, shutter and ISO settings in video modes in the EOS 7D. The compression is stronger than Nikon’s and the MPEG-4 frames do not have anything like the crisp look, but they are bigger at 1920×1080 pixels and they too will print perfectly well at half page size.

Both makers are clearly heading to convergence of still and video in a future DSLR generation. One day your TV will output sharp A4s from video frames on its built-in printer. An Ethernet link is already turning many new TV sets into a web browser and multimedia player, and the need to print out follows from that. You won’t even have to upload media files. Just put the camera down near the TV, pick up the remote control, and view anything you have shot – still or video. Today you can do it with a USB cable. Tomorrow, it’s going to be wireless.

 Read the rest of this excellent article at: http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=870857

Assistants only the very best will do!!

Stuart my number one assistant considers the strength of the Dino lights we are using to light a 30m sq metal floor raised 6 foot – That we will shoot the cast of Sunshine on – To be comped together as the surface of a space ship.

Dino lights operate in banks of 8 and in rows of 4

Strobe light wall onto a 20 metre silk to create the effect of the artists walking out of a light tunnel

Just some of the gear on one of my shoot for Sunshine

The rest of the gear on the Sunshine shoot and the 100 foot sound stage we used as studio……………………

The importance of  excellent quality assistants can never be under estimated. When one works at the level of photography that I am often engaged to under take, namely marketing shoots. The level of responsibility is huge and that responsibility is shared on my part by the confidence I have in the team of people that work WITH me. In the first instance that is a camera operator whose job it is to manage the images on a high res Hasselblad camera, change lenses and ensure everything is working smoothly, next is my number one lighting technician who must be proficient with a wide range of strobe lighting and all the various accessories, soft boxes, snoots, grids reflectors and attachments that we use on a shoot, next is his right hand man who will work with him putting together the component parts. Then there are the two film lighting technicians that I use to oversee the powering up and management on the continuous lighting that I use on poster shoots, they are very knowledgeable people able to mould and control light in a filmic way. All this team are professional in their own right and have amassed their knowledge over a number of years and a good team such as the one I enjoy are able to work collectively with me as one, second guessing what is coming next. This is what makes a successful shoot and is reflected in the results.

Sherlock Holmes – Web Site

Sherlock Holmes has got their web site well and truly up and running looks fanatastic. http://sherlock-holmes-movie.warnerbros.com/  And they have a face book page as well……………………. http://www.facebook.com/SherlockHolmes

Edit,edit, editing, edit, edit how to?

Edit,edit, editing, edit, edit how to? It keeps coming up over and over again, funny how when you ‘pick up’ on something you keep noticing it, or you are conscious that people keep mentioning, well recently for me it has been editing. Editing photography for me is all about an educated eye which does take time to acquire and comes only with practice and a healthy interest in looking at images in, books, magazines at exhibitions and so on. Occasionally you pick up on articles and snippets of info on how people edit. If you are lucky you spend time in the company of the masters –  PHOTO EDITORS -, at either agencies or national/ local press.

When I read as I did the other day about a photographer who when he/she revisits old projects re-selects other images from those originally selected in the first edit as they are stronger, this worries me, from experience the strongest images should always elevate themselves and be obvious to the trained eye at the first and every examination of a collection of work. This is confirmed to me with my own work when I see (un-prompted) other ‘Trained Eyes’ picking the exact same image I did. Yes, their should be a symbiosis between us, other wise who in the world can make an opinion about whether an images is good bad or indifferent?

Reccomeded reading on this subject Pictures on a Page by Harold Evans

Movie Photos – Behind the scenes – Take 2

Movie Photos – Behind the scenes continued………………………                                                                                                                                                  I shoot on 3 High end Nikon digital SLR cameras, currently a D3 with the benefit of its full frame chip and excellent low light ability, a D2x and D2xs (previous upgrades – the best at the time), I have plans to upgrade (as ever!!) to a D3s – the latest D series up grade by Nikon with even better low light ability – which is a definite advantage when shooting on a film set due to the limited light available. DOP’s are recognised for their ability to paint with light or use pools of light on the set, they shoot at wide apertures for the benefit of a shallow depth of field also I am considering a D3x, so that when I recognise photo ops that would make potential posters or do editorial style set ups whilst filming I can shoot at a higher res. This may also lead to me shooting on a D3x in the studio opposed to my current scenario of hiring in a hasselblad HD + monitor + dedicated assistant etc etc etc.. The attraction of shooting on SD cards and being more mobile during the shoot is very attractive but…Money doesn’t grow on tress! And these are all serious purchases which require financial consideration, especially as they are destine to be superseded in no time. What to do?? The constant digital dilemma!! I use a range of lenses prime lenses in my blimp a 35mm, 50mm, 85mm + 105mm (all f2) on my other camera’s I use a 70-200 f2.8 (my favourite lens) and a 17-55. Before digital I was more inclined to come on set with varying film formats, A Pentax 6×7 a maimya 7 a fuji 6×9 (all sold now, as not used since digital kicked in) alas now in my industry film  my work is very out of vogue, this is due to the fact that all the end users of what I produce for example designers and marketing and publicity folk are all 100% digital and only want electronic files. No film please! Which means now the only film camera I use on set is a Hasselblad Xpan due to its natural rhythm with the film format. In order to give an insight into producing images for film marketing and publicity I am going to describe a typical days work on a movie  (if there is such a thing!), the film I have chosen is  Atonement and the Day I have Chosen is Shoot day 57  Tuesday 22nd August this day is so well known in the film making world that it has its own ‘T’ Shirt with the scene description on it.                                                       

Scene 115/116:

Exterior Bray Dunes

A 4 minutes 53 seconds

Steadicam shot

Moving through the

Entire set. Starting on mule tracking vehicle parallel with Robbie, Mace, Nettle and Naval Officer, play dialogue. Move through burning vehicles to line of horses being shot. Move round back of boat (for my Mum) and pass bonfire with burning bible pages wiping f/g. Pan up to sails of boat, wind machine inside hull of boat. Cross the beach to gun placement where we find crying soldier. Reveal Bandstand. Move round choir on bandstand in opposite direction to Mace. Steadicam mounts rickshaw. Move back down centre of street with big wheel centre frame and stunt men hanging off it. Circus horses appear from round corner and gallop in opposite direction to camera. Use round-about to bring camera L-R. Pass under barrel of guns past trucks having their radiators shot out. Finally pan Robbie, Nettle and Mace on to pier and follow over shoulder until they enter bar. Then pan round to reveal WS of beach and continue to end of scaffold pier to reveal steel works between boat and bandstand.

BRIGHTON ROCK STARTS SHOOTING

Press release on my new project

BRIGHTON ROCK STARTS SHOOTING October 18 2009: principal photography starts today on Rowan Joffe’s debut feature BRIGHTON ROCK, starring a remarkable cast including Sam Riley (Control) as Pinkie, the fast-rising Andrea Riseborough (Happy Go Lucky and a BAFTA nominee for the eponymous role in Margaret Thatcher: the Long Walk to Finchley) as Rose, Oscar winner Helen Mirren (The Queen, Gosford Park) as Ida and John Hurt (1984, Hellboy II, The Proposition) as Phil Corkery. The eight week shoot will take place in Brighton, Eastbourne and on locations in and around London. Produced by award-winning producer Paul Webster (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice, Eastern Promises) for Kudos Pictures, BRIGHTON ROCK marks the first major production investment by Optimum Releasing, and will be made in association with BBC Films and the UK Film Council’s Premiere Fund. The film has also been supported by the UK Film Council’s Development Fund through Optimum Releasing and StudioCanal. International sales will be handled by StudioCanal, with Optimum set to release the film in the UK, StudioCanal in France and in Germany through Kinowelt. Adapted from Graham Greene’s brilliant 1939 novel, BRIGHTON ROCK charts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish . At the heart of the story is the anti-hero Pinkie’s relationship with Rose – an apparently innocent young waitress who stumbles on evidence linking Pinkie and his gang to a revenge killing that Pinkie commits. After the murder, Pinkie seduces Rose, first in an effort to find out how much she knows and latterly to ensure she will not talk to the police. A love story between a murderer and a witness, can Pinkie trust Rose or should he kill her before she talks to the police? Can Rose trust Pinkie or is she next in line? Writer/director Rowan Joffe’s credits include the screenplays for Pawel Pawlikowski’s award-winning Last Resort and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later as co-writer, and director of Channel 4’s The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall, for which he won the BAFTA for Best TV director. Joffe has decided to set the film in 1964 with its famous South Coast quasi-riots between emerging teenage Mods and older Rockers, which contextualizes Pinkie’s ‘youth rebellion’ perfectly. 1964 also brings the story as close as possible to our own times without corrupting the innocence upon which some constituents of the plot and characterization depend. 1964 was a year after off-track gambling was legalized, spawning more than a hundred betting shops a week opening up and down the country and engendering, paradoxically, a massive wave in organised crime. The Sixties was the era of the great British gangster, the kind of working class hero that the frightened and ambitious Pinkie longs to be. It was also the last year in which the death penalty was actively carried out, the threat of hanging being a crucial motivation in Pinkie’s desperate attempts to get rid of witnesses to his revenge killing. “We’re making Brighton Rock as contemporary as we possibly can because the story feels ‘modern’. It’s too alive, too vibrant and too relevant to be contained in the late thirties, “says Rowan Joffe. “ Any form of adaptation is corruption. And Greene – who lovingly and pragmatically corrupted much of his own work to fit the big screen – would have been the first to understand that.” Producer Paul Webster said, “Rowan has written a formidable script that has attracted a cast that is a perfect blend of youth and experience. The scene is set to make a truly great British gangster film.”

imdb – internet movie database

A recent comment on my blog asked me about credits on films. I wondered why they were asking and why they had not gone onto the IMDB web site to check out the info. Then I thought perhaps a lot of people are not aware of IMDB the internet movie database. So a bit about it……………… IMDB is basically a whose  who in the film business, very comprehensive covers cast and crew writers etc etc etc. All known film titles (blockbusters and art house) a really brilliant resource used substantially by industry related people and journalists but open to the public as well CHECK IT OUT!!!! IMDB

MOVIE PHOTOS – Behind the Scenes – Take 1

A fascinating and informative insight into producing marketing and publicity photography for movies. Alex takes us ‘on-set’ of the Oscar and BAFTA winning film Atonement to demonstrate the wide range of photography required to for fill the brief. 

I specialize in producing images for Movie marketing and Publicity.

These are the pictures that you see as film posters………….

In newspapers and magazines………

And are used for merchandising.

I am contracted full time for the duration of a movie; this can be anything from 10 weeks to six months.

I am on set five or six days a week for 10-12 hours per day.

This results in me shooting as many as 15 thousand images on an average film.

To be Continued…………………

Stills photographer on set Video – Jasin Boland at work

A contemporary and colleague of mind called Jasin Boland (one of the very best stills photographers around) has done a very informative on set video about being a stills photographer with a section on the BLIMP – so for a great insight into the job of a stills photographer take a look at Jasin’s video on you tube here.

Movie Photos by Alex Bailey on Amazon @ Special Price

We have made my book Movie Photos avaliable on Amazon at a special price of £12.99 + postage for a limited period. Signed copies only are avaliable via the dedicated web site at £19.99 + postage this also ships by airsure if buying from abroad which is a more reliable method of  delivery. 

This is the link to Amazon page.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0955933706/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1254845803&sr=1-1&condition=new