The core behind Shawshank

I haven’t had the chance to sit down and watch a movie in some time. I decided to go back to one of my all-time favourite, The Shawshank Redemption is definitely one of my top 10. This got me wondering what made this movie, to me, a masterpiece. I haven’t sat down and break down a movie for some time, the set-up, the inciting incident and so on. This surprised me, why haven’t I done this for one of my favourite movies? Not a great deal happens in the movie, action wise (apart from a few scenes, the brutal bashings from the “sisters” and the ending) But What makes it work? I think it boils down the characters, Red, Dufrane, Brooks, the sisters, the warden, the major etc. This is where Stephen King is, King. His characters are without a doubt the most interesting, complicated, conflicted and last but not least, believable. I think Frank Darabont did an amazing job (won an Oscar I believe) in translating the novel to film. He also wrote the green mile, another masterpiece. Frank also wrote on AMC’s “The walking Dead” and was a main writer for the show for a couple of seasons. Back to Shawshank, I always believed that the main character in the movie was, Andrew Dufrane (Tim Robbin’s character) But I believe that it is fact Red’s story (Morgan Freeman) He is the narrator of the movie and he is telling us how he met Dufrane during their time in shawshank. It’s interesting how it takes nearly an hour to show the audience that the main core of the story. The story isn’t about Shawshank or Dufrane, but Hope. The story is about Red, who after spending more than 30 years being (Red’s words) institutelized by the wall surrounding Shawshank, he is able to learn how to hope again. And this would never have happened if he never met, Andy Dufrane. A Masterpiece.

Filmed first wedding.

It has been a chaotic month to say the least. Samuel's naming day, our wedding anniversary and on the 16th I filmed my first wedding.

Okay, from a production side of things what went wrong? Being a wedding there are bound to be mishaps and things going to, well S#@!...It wouldn't be a wedding without one...well they weren't wrong!

SD cards - ...oh boy! What a lesson to learn. In regards to filming in 1080p make sure your SD cards can contain all the information of full HD!. I have a 2x SanDisk Ultra and Extreme (class 10) but when I came to recording the speeches, I used a basic SD card (class 10) (others were full)
Needless to say, I had drop outs and recording crashes (talk about timing!)... lucky I had my sound recorder going to fall back on! The end edit had random cut aways to people of the wedding to make up for the lost footage.
Obviously this was a novice mistake and I one I have learnt from.
I have just bought myself a 32gig Extreme SD card, now I should have plenty of room for recording.

Cut away/extra shots -I had a quite a few shots to choose from, you can never have to many cut away shots etc, specially if you need to cover up bad footage.

Sound - I have a H4N sound recorder that I used for speeches and Vows. Unfortunately the wind blew my recorder over and it didn't pick up the audio of the vows (could here the celebrant but not the Bride or groom, maybe not close enough too)
I have a rode mic attached to my camera, but I wasn't close enough to the couple to pick up the words. I was very angry with myself when I discovered these errors. Another lesson learnt.

Tripod - I decided to go with a Mono-pod for this shoot, and I wish I didn't! There was a bit of wind on the day and holding a Camera with a heavy lens it comes up on the shot. The Mono-pod that I was after wasn't available under short notice, maybe once I have saved some I'll get the one I'm after. (has a stand at the bottom and a handle at the top.) Either way, you can't go wrong with a Tripod!

Viewfinder/Display - This is definitely going to be on my next to buy list. When shooting on sunny days one can not just rely on looking at the display. The glare makes it hard to see if your shots in focus and colour is correct.

Santa, all I want for Christmas this year is The Zacuto Z-Finder! pretty please! Oh and maybe a camera rig...like this one...isn't it sexy?

These are just a few things that came up on the day. Over all I am happy with the result, a few things that need to be worked on, can only go forward from here.

I must say a huge thank-you to Maria for the opportunity, kind words and encouragement. And a big thank-you to Mirtha and Rob for letting me, a stranger film there special day.

Hopefully they are happy with the end result.

That lingering taste

Not a happy post...

Well what a turn of events, not a great start to the week, I assure you that. Monday afternoon, an hour before knockoff time, I was told that this week will be my last week at work. Yep, being made redundant.(due to sale loss) 

One week notice...what ever happened to two weeks?

Talk about a kick in the guts, after 3 and half years...the timing could not be any worse...but when is it ever a good time to loose a job? Yeah, never.

Work is scarce here in the Mount, and unless you have a trade or skills in the food industry your not guaranteed a look in. 

It falls into that good ol saying "it's not what you know, It's who you know".

I've applied for a few jobs here and afar, hopefully something comes up soon.

The last Hot Chocolate at work

What can I say...but wow

Hi all,

Playing around with my new camera and I am beyond impressed. I'll be using this camera for more film making than Photography. Still, that being said I can't get over the quality of the images.

The shots of my mother in law and wife is the type of look that I am hoping for, for my films. I can't wait to play with this some more.

Just need to save some money for a few lenses.

Canon 60D - Oh yeah!

Howdy all,

Can't beleive I just won my first bid on ebay, and it was a Canon 60D $590.00!
What a score! Just a quick post as I am about to head out and test this little baby out!

Stay true, and stuff.

Test footage - Fight Scene with a twist

8 Months ago in a park, far far away. Well not really it was just cross the road from a mates place, any who, I should restart this.

For an age now I have been wanting to make movies, I use to back in the day with my best mate, I wouldn't call them movies, more skits and us being dickheads than anything else. But you know what? Boy, did we have fun. Some of the ideas we had were great! I remember a shot we did before the Matrix made it cool!  Honest!

We didn't have any editing software back then or DSLR either, just a cheap camera. Our editing was done from VCR to VCR and some of it wasn't that bad...ish.

From the earlier days I've always had a camera near by, Just in case I get an idea or see something amazing happen. ( I live in Mount Gambier, and witnessing something amazing happen is like Hell freezing over. It'll never happen ) So if you want something to happen or change, you gotta do it yourself, right?

I've had this idea for years, "The Hit" and well...nothing! Haven't even started it yet! Time, money, having a baby and me being lazy, have prevented me. I have over the months been collecting items, props, making my own Stedi-cam and upgrading my editing software. I now can create, edit movies to my satisfaction. Well hopefully.

So 8 months ago now I got some mates from my martial arts school and got them to help me do a quick fight scene. I shouldn't say quick, filming went for over 2 hours and the end product isn't even 2 minutes long! I only have one camera, you guessed it, many close ups, long shots, I forget how many tapes I went through.. Yes Tapes, the good ol Canon HV40, Will be upgrading to a new camera hopefull in the new year. Anyways It was a grooling process, but my mates had a ball and didn't complain once...Well maybe when Anto head butted the tree, but it's all in the fun of filming!

The purpose of this scene was a test of how long it would take me to film, edit, choreograph  I've never filmed a fight scene before and the process was great! A huge learning curve, It still needs a few tweaks but it was just a test and I'm happy with the outcome.

I have finished the script and now working on storyboards, I don't want to fly by the seat of my pants with the short, specially since I'll have dialogue and more than a few people helping me make it happen. i want to make it as best as I can, and if I think its any good I might put it in comps, who knows.

Hopefully shooting starts at the end of the year, when the weather is warmer. In saying that, it is Mount Gambier after all.

Below is the short fight scene test. Big thanks to Anto and Tez for helping out.