Film making

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May 26, 2012 by DavidPimm

Sci-Fi London 48 hour Film Competition

 

Frame grab: Lola Seaton in One is Missing

These competitions are as fun as they are gruelling. In April, I worked with a great team who are becoming a really solid crew (most of the same lot as the Hansel and Gretel shoot) to enter another 48 hour film competition. The same rules applied as with the 48 hour challenge in Exeter, but this one had much more at stake: a feature film development deal. For me, it meant lighting without a gaffer, using a steadicam and shooting a science fiction film on a £0 budget while making sure it looked convincing, all for the first time. Here’s how it panned out. Continue reading →

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January 30, 2012 by DavidPimm

Our Best Days – Frame Grabs

Sophie Wills playing Natasha

To round off the first month of 2012, I shot a short film for director Martina Lopez. It was a one day shoot with a lot of dialogue, skeleton crew and first time actresses, Sophie Wills and Lily Grindrod – both of whom did a great job.

The actresses played two 16 year old school girls skiving off class. So the whole film is set inside a school toilet and largely inside 2 very small cubicles, which presented a tricky shooting environment. There was no time or money for lighting, so it consisted of the practical fluorescent tubes on the ceiling, reflectors and a a bit of jiggery-pokery. The main problem of space and light was solved by removing the doors from their hinges and shooting from outside each cubicle looking in. To simulate the doors being closed, we flagged off the area behind me. For a rough and ready quick fix, it worked ok!

This one will probably be online quite quickly so I’ll post a link once it’s available. For now, below are some ungraded frame grabs from the rushes. Continue reading →

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January 12, 2012 by DavidPimm

Shooting Hansel and Gretel

Slating Hansel and Gretel's approach to the house

Last week saw an overwhelming amount of cakes, pies, chocolate and…maggots. 2012 couldn’t have got off to a better start as I got the opportunity to shoot a wonderful, short adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel. Below I have included some raw frame grabs from the rushes and production photos.

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December 31, 2011 by DavidPimm

Prepping for short film adaptation of Hansel and Gretel

Lighting test for scene where Gretel wakes up inside the cottage

I’m really looking forward to 2012 for all sorts of reasons. I’ll be making the leap into freelancing full time in April and moving to London, which means a lot more camera assisting, as well as aiming to meet competition and application deadlines for my own films. To hit the ground running at the very start of the year, I’ll be shooting an adaptation of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel. The last few weeks have been spent on and off location, preparing for the shoot which will take place from the 4th – 8th of January. At the bottom of this post, I’ve included some stills from lighting tests.

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December 11, 2011 by DavidPimm

Winning the 48 hour film competition

Cast and crew of Team Mosaic Machine

We got some great news the other night – our film, Autumn Leaves, won Best Film at the 2 Short Nights film festival, in the 48 hour category!

It was a genuine surprise to have won. We went into it with the intention to win, but we really had no idea what the competition was like and were fully aware that the finished product was not graded, had a tonne of continuity issues, was missing a lot of fairly important shots that helped the story make sense (we were forced to lose the ‘less important’ shots as we neared the deadline), and that a lot of other things about it were generally very scrappy – so it truly was a very, very welcome surprise. Everyone worked their arses off over the weekend and all things considered, it’s a piece of work everyone involved should be thoroughly proud of. Unfortunately only one of our team could make it down to the festival for the screening, but at least there was one of us present to accept the award! Pete did a sterling job on the stills of the weekend. I’ve included some of them in this post, and the rest you can take a look through on his website.

Rather than run through details about the shoot and bore you all, here are some quick, punchy little things that made the weekend so chaotic, funny, productive and brilliant in equal measure. Stills and anecdotes after the jump.

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October 30, 2011 by DavidPimm

Photossociation to be screened at Two Short Nights

A frame grab from Photossociation

I’ve just heard the very exciting news that Photossociation, one of the short films I recently co-directed and shot, has been short-listed to be screened at Two Short Nights Film Festival 2011.

The film is being shown alongside a wide selection of other short films on December the 1st during the 5.30pm screening. Click here for a full list of the films and screening times. Tickets are only £2.50 so if you’re free and live in or around Exeter, definitely come and check it out. There’s bound to be some brilliant films in the mix as they received a lot of films this year and had to whittle down a shortlist of the ones they wanted to screen.

If you’re too impatient or can’t make the screening, you can also read the blurb, scroll through some stills and watch Photossociation here.

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October 26, 2011 by DavidPimm

My interview for The Blog of Wonder

An aerial view of surfers, by Photographer and Cinematographer, Vincent Laforet

I have a friend from university who writes a really brilliant blog, where she sometimes interviews people. The articles are broad but all have the same focus on the passion or ‘wonder’ that people invest in their interests and/or work. Knowing that I’m quite keen on cameras and that, she asked to interview me.

I talk a bit about some of the cinematographers, photographers and film makers I’m interested in and inspired by, how I approach film making and my plans for the future. As with the blog, I try to offer some helpful advice along the way too. As ever, I hope you enjoy!

Click here to read the interview.

I urge you to read the other interviews too, as they’re all excellent.

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September 14, 2011 by DavidPimm

First shoot days for Silicon Gun

A frame grab of one of the early slates, taken from behind the scenes footage

The weekend just passed saw the start of filming for the Silicon Gun video, which went very well overall. Some things worked, some things were abandoned and some things taught us how not to do it next time! One of the main things when filming something quite complicated like this is to go through the trial and error motions and learn from the mistakes you make. I firmly believe we’ve now got that out of our system!

We had a day of planning and some quick test shots on Saturday which gave us the rushes we needed to make some important decisions that evening for the next day. We decided to shoot the whole thing on a 17mm lens so it’s nice and wide, which makes the whole piece a lot more dynamic and interesting. We also realised that having a large external monitor was absolutely critical, so Ali’s car boot quickly became our mobile video village, which worked perfectly.

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September 9, 2011 by DavidPimm

3 minutes well spent

Porcelain Unicorn is a wonderful example of what can be achieved in such a short time frame on screen.

Produced specifically for the Philips Parallel Lines ‘Tell It Your Way’ international competition, the short film won Grand Prize. The competition imposed dialogue limitations, demanding that each entry must include 6 lines of dialogue:

  • What is that?
  • It’s a unicorn.
  • Never seen one up close before.
  • Beautiful.
  • Get away, Get away!
  • I’m sorry.
I remember seeing an advert for the competition some time ago and it’s just great seeing such a creative use of the dialogue. I wonder if they already had the story in place, or whether it was conceived entirely from the so called ‘restrictions’ of the competition. Regardless, it’s a brilliant piece of film making which you should definitely watch.

 

 

 

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September 6, 2011 by DavidPimm

Location Scouting for Silicon Gun music video

 

Jacob and I looking totally insignificant in front of the set soon to be made famous by the Silicon Gun shoot…and this little feature film thing called 'Sahara'

So I’m currently working with a fantastic group of people brimming with ideas that are being prepared and condensed into music video form for your visual pleasure. These are all going to be applied to a really exciting and ambitious concept that I had while on an editing course recently. At the time, I thought it would be incredibly simple to film and appear much more complicated when watched back. Turns out I was underestimating it ever so slightly! The video will be made for a song called Silicon Gun by the very talented, very loud and always gigging, Kinky Boot Beasts.

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