The workshops are on the 19th and 21st May and the Seminar is on the 20th May, which is a breaking a lifelong tradition of never working on my birthday, but as it’s doing something I love you can all take me out and get me smashed afterwards!

All the info you need including prices are on the official website. Click the image below to go there. But hurry! Booking closes on the 30th April and the workshops only have 20 places each. I am pitching these at intermediate level users. People who have already used the cameras but want to maximise their potential.

Philip Bloom and Digital Storytelling present in collaboration with the Norwegian Film Institute and Canon two DSLR Filmmaking Workshops and an evening Masterclass lecture in Oslo, Norway on May 19 through May 21.

World renowned filmmaker and Director of Photography Philip Bloom comes to Oslo Norway to give two full day hands-on workshops and one 3 hour evening Master class lecture on DSLR based filmmaking.

MASTER CLASS LECTURE

The lecture is open to professional cinematographers, photographers, technicians, producers, directors, filmmakers wanting to learn about the possibilities and challenges of the new DSLR based filmmaking workflow.

Philip Bloom will be showing a selection of his short films created with DLSR cameras on the big screen and present on the following topics:

•    Main differences between Canon EOS 1DmkIV, 5DmkII, 7D and 550D for movie shooting

•    In camera settings to maximize image quality in post

•    Lens selection

•    Stabilization platforms and accessories

•    Exposure and shutter speed options

•    Focusing and framing tips

•    Audio

•    Codecs and transcoding options

•    Editing and Color correction

•    Question and Answers

Canon and partners will demonstrate Canon EOS DSLR cameras and supporting gear for DSLR filmmaking on the 2nd floor gallery space at Filmens Hus before and during the break of the evening master class lecture on Thursday May 20th.

Master class participation is limited to the 195 seat capacity of the Tancred movie theatre.Particpiation will be on a first-come first served basis by email registration.

WORKSHOPS

Two hands-on all-day workshops for up to 20 professionals each will be held on Wednesday May 19 and on Friday May 21. The workshops are targeted for video and film DPs and stillphotographers wanting to learn DSLR filmmaking. Canon will be providing a number of HD video enabled DLSR cameras for use during the workshops.

The workshops will be held at Villa Stenersen, a 1938 architectural masterpiece in Oslo.

Come join us and get to see for yourself how DSLR based films look in a state-of-the art movie theatre and learn about the future of filmmaking with Philip Bloom in May!

For more information please email  Director Kim Baumann Larsen at kim @ digistorytelling . com or call +47 415 62 585.

Welcome!

- Kim Baumann Larsen, Angela Amoroso and Eric Hanson, co-founders and co-directors Digital Storytelling

REGISTRATION / APPLICATION:

Masterclass lecture

Date and time: Thursday May 20, 2010 18:00 – 21:00  (Registration from 17:00)

Place: Tancred, Filmens Hus, Dronningensgate 16, Oslo

Cost: 500 NOK

Registration deadline: Friday April 30, 2010

To register send an email with your full name, title, company affiliation, cellphone and invoice postal address to masterclass @ digitstorytelling . com with “Philip Bloom Masterclass May 20? in the subject line.

Workshops

Workshop I: Wednesday May 19, 09:00-17:00

Workshop II: Friday May 21, 09:00-17:00

Cost: 1500 NOK (incl course material and lunch)

Application deadline: Friday April 30, 2010

Application: by email only.

Send your application for participation including your short CV (max 1 page) by email to workshop @ digistorytelling . com with either “Philip Bloom Workshop May 19” or “Philip Bloom Workshop May 21” in the subject line.

Main Partners: Canon / Norwegian filminstitute

Partners: FotoVideo / Video4 / InterFoto

I originally wrote this last year as what you see online is not necessarily a reflection of what I actually do day in day out. It was hidden away on my personal blog and it felt like the right time to amend it and include a look back at some of my older stuff…

Most of my work you don’t see online. I don’t have the rights to show them on the internet or can’t get copies (like my Discovery HD work). What I do post on my website is some of the paid work I am allowed to show, like the two commercials below…as well as the stuff I shot and directed like Life of Crime, Eddie Gibson, Religion and of course my Anorexia films amongst others. The vast majority is my personal work…You can see example of some of these pieces down the bottom of this post. Sometimes people ask me to do what I do with my personal work for them and create something like that, like I did with Legends which you can see later on in the post too.

Shooting in Germany for Discovery

The personal films that you see mostly on my site are my passion, what I do that fulfils me on a personal level. You see, my passion is filming, it’s the biggest thing in my life, for better or worse. I am lucky enough to be doing what I love, so when I get the chance…whether it is to test a new piece of gear or just to capture something that I want to capture I go out and do it. I can be prolific at times when I feel really motivated. I have new bits of gear I really need to try out and the best way I find to try out stuff is to film with them and make something out of it. I adore natural light and try to harness it in the best way I can, I see beauty in everything and try my best to capture that. Much like a photographer does, I simply do it in a moving images way.

So how do I classify my personal work? Do I call them films, videos? To me they are films, as film to me doesn’t necessarily have to be narrative, have a storyline or deep concept. It can just convey an emotion, a feeling and that is what I like doing the most, as often this emotion or feeling conveys a message in itself. What that message is can be up to you, it can be open to interpretation. But I hope my work can sometimes bring a feeling of positivity to a world filled with a lot of negativity. They are often refer to as mood pieces, but I try to capture a moment, a feeling, a place in a series of images.

Stills photographers like Martin Parr, someone I only discovered a year ago (not that I am comparing his genius work to mine) captures people beautifully and naturally, something I love doing. Like him, I find richness in people’s faces, something that I believe works in moving video not just stills. I love to capture the world around me, people, places, objects, from my perspective. Not necessarily one that you share. But it’s how I see it, very often influenced by my mood at the time or inspired by something or someone I meet. It’s hard to put into words. That’s why I do it with my films! Another indirect influence is Ron Fricke, of Baraka fame. I shamefully admit I only discovered his work around 18 months ago after someone said my stuff reminded me of Koyaanisqatsi. A flattering and undeserved comparison, but very flattering all the same.

The Canon DSLRs have recently given me the chance to be really spontaneous in what I can capture, much more like a stills photographer. I kept my films Venice’s People and Miles Away handheld to emphasize this rawness of “capturing the moment”. It won’t stop me doing more considered classical pieces. I love nature and landscapes as much as I love people. The feeling I get when I make something that I really feel captures what I set out to achieve is a high no drug can replicate and when I saw some of my work on the 44 foot Stag screen at Skywalker Ranch I was dumbstruck. I never thought I would have this moment. After all these are personal “works of art” that I share but never expected to be embraced by some people so fully.

My goal with this website originally was purely to showcase my work and get work. Somehow, it has evolved into something much more. A place to share information. More importantly to me, my site has now become a place that inspires people to go out and film. To pick up their cameras and capture life as it is, go and make narrative films, film a documentary about something important to them, to push themselves more. This is what I am proud of the most.

I have started doing more and more speaking engagements and workshops, where I get to share my work and thoughts with people in a less virtual environment. I will be doing a number of these over the comings months. Already lined up are workshops in Boston, Oslo, Toronto and Tampa.

Oh and if I don’t reply to your email or question on my site or vimeo (email me rather than send using vimeo, it’s easier for me to reply), send it again. I get a lot and sometimes miss them but i always try to reply in the end! I try my hardest to help as many people as possible, even if it does take up a huge amount of time.

Peace, and keep shooting!

Oh and do read my website ethics statement here if you get a chance…

Need...sleep...

Examples of commercials

NT LIVE: Shot on EX3 and Letus Ultimate

Greenpeace: Voices of change. Shot on Canon 5DmkII

Examples of my raw handheld work

Venice’s People: Canon 7D

Monarch’s “Miles away”: Canon 5DmkII

Examples of more classical personal work

The Echo: Sony Ex1 and Letus Extreme

Alone in Tokyo: EX1 and Letus Extreme/ Ultimate

Sky: Canon 5DmkII, 7D, GF1

A day at the races: Canon 7D

3 Seconds: Sony Ex1 and Letus Extreme

Salton Sea Beach: Canon T2i/ 550D

Love from Southend: Sony EX1/ Letus Ultimate

Prague: Canon 1DmkIV

Legends: Sony EX1 and Letus Extreme

Life of Crime Examples

Jimmy Nicholson: Sony F350, JVC HD201/ Brevis 35

Bruce Reynolds: Sony F350, JVC HD201/ Brevis 35

Religion series example

Buddhists: Sony F350

Anorexia series example

Anorexia Part 2: JVC HD 201/ Brevis 35

Something from a while back!

If I were Prime Minister…Sir Andrew Green: Betacam SX

Sir Andrew Green from If I Were PM on Vimeo.

If you haven’t come across “Storyboard Composer” for the iphone yet then you are missing out. It’s a genius piece of software that is truly revolutionary, that is why I voted for it the “2009 Best App Ever Awards”. I have most of the competition nominees and they are great but not as unique as this and for anyone into filmmaking it’s a great tool and an absolute bargain.

Click on the link here to go to the other nominees and also where you need to vote, if you want to vote for “Storyboard Composer”

Have a look at the videos below to see how cool it is…

Hitchcock Mobile Storyboard Composer from cinemek / Hitchcock on Vimeo.

Hitchcock is the first of our suite of iphone apps. it is currently available in the iTunes app store. http://www.itunes.com/apps/hitchcock In case you are curious, this is how it works.

Cinemek Hitchcock Demo from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Filmmaker Richard Jobson in association with The Flash Centre are hosting the first Convergence conference in London.

This is from the press release:

Converge.One is the first in what will be series of events presented by the people who matter most; the creative community. 

The economic challenges faced by modern cinema has found some salvation in a new technology that defies budget and delivers an artistic freedom that has long been lost to the accounts department.

The emergence of new Hybrid Digital SLR cameras such as the Canon EOS 5DMK2 and Canon EOS 7D has brought together the two disciplines of photography and movies in an a way that is challenging every aspect of visual language.
The ability to shoot HD with DSLR cameras using an array of prime and zoom lenses has changed the way that film-makers are thinking about their work. After years of being told big is best, we now can see small is indeed more beautiful and better as DSLR’s propel today’s storytellers to think out of the box and find an instant route to their vision. 

Those who make this work will show how they were empowered and inspired to make the best use of these new exciting digital tools. Photographers and Filmmakers will present case studies of their most recent work and break down the idea, the process, and the various tools used to embrace the convergence of these once thought different disciplines.

There will be a “round table” discussion involving both the creators and users of the media showing how this convergence is changing how the industry works.

Students from FDMX will be challenged to make a short film to a brief before the event, edited and shown on the day.

Canon UK will present a short seminar on technology and products that are relevant to the convergence.

The Delegate Centre will have a selection of trade stands showcasing stills and video products from the best known names in the industry such as Zacuto, Marshall, Glidecam, Litepanels and many more.

TIckets are just £50 and are of course limited and the venue is the BFI Southbank at the National Film Theatre 3. You couldn’t get a better venue! It’s on Friday 11th December – 9.30am – 5pm 

Tickets are available here.

Battle for Hearts and Minds Trailer from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.

Hot on the heels of the recent Vimeo iphone annoucement Exposureroom will tomorrow officially announce their iphone support. But I can exclusively reveal it here right NOW. I feel like a breaking news channel…

They have already converted 42,000 video, including all Editor’s Choices and anything uploaded in the past two months which are under 5 minutes long. Every video uploaded will be converted to an iphone friendly version and if you embed the videos on your site using the wordpress plug-in it will automatically detect you are using an iphone and switch to the iphone version rather than the flash version. This will be released by end of play today!

There will also be two version of iphone videos. One for low bandwidth on 3G and one for wi-fi. So that means all your videos will be converted  into HD, Medium, Low, iphone low and iphone high.

The fact that you can embed videos in your site with the wordpress plug in and your iphone will automatically play iphone version is a killer feature…over to you Vimeo for the next move Isn’t competition great!!

The quality is very good. Just click below to watch “Venice’s People” in your iphone. Very impressive quality. I don’t know if Vimeo embeds are going to have the same ability…

This software is essential for all Final Cut Pro users who record audio and video separately or use multi-cam. It’s a magical piece of software that takes ALL the pain out of syncing sound and video together without a timecode and without a sync point! Just chuck everything onto the timeline and it will either sync everything up (as long as you have reference audio on the video) and create separate sequences for each clip or create a multi clip sequence depending on what you tell it to do.

This software has literally saved me hours and hours of tedious work. Check out my little tutorial below of how I synced up sound for the Greenpeace commercial just at the click of a button…

Syncing audio and video shot on 5d and Zoom using FCP and Pluraleyes from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Pluraleyes is now officially released and out of beta with version 1.1 and can be downloaded by going to the website. At the checkout enter the code PB5849 and get 20% off the retail price of $149. But this is ONLY until the 15th of November so hurry. If you are unsure of this software you can download a free trial that lasts for 30 days. But if you like it, don’t wait 30 days until the trial runs out as the discount is only valid until the 15th of November!

There is also a free download of the new Sony Vegas Beta version which you can get here.

For more info and see how incredibly this software is for multiclip even if the cameras are buttoned on and off watch Bruce Sharpe’s excellent tutorial below.

It’t the Foto Massan 2009 show. More details of location and dates can be found by clicking here.

Flash doesn’t work on iphones. Big problem as the decent video hosting sites are all flash. Heck, my own site is all flash!

Well all know Youtube is iphone friendly, but there is some much junk of there! Vimeo, the premiere HD video sharing site,  has just announced the start of iphone support. First off they have encoded staff picks and the HD channel into MP4 friendly versions. Next up will be Vimeo Plus users get it and then we will have an app.

Vimeo announced it on CNET today…with my little “San Francisco’s People” featured.

It looks great on the iphone. To see it copy and paste (or just clink this link to see it) http://vimeo.com/m/#/7260115

Here are some iphone screen grabs from it….I have to say it looks bloody awesome and when we can download videos directly from it even better!!

UPDATE: Due to overwhelming demand the film festival have asked me to do Sunday morning too. I have just found out that all places have gone. Sorry. But, I will be in Stockholm next weekend!

I will be in Cork from Friday at the Cork Film Festival. On Saturday morning I will giving a half day masterclass about DSLR cinematography using the Canon DSLRs. There are very limited spaces so if you are interested you need to book here. Obviously there is only so much I can talk about in such a short time, but I hope to cover all the pros and cons, show footage and let people have hands on with my gear. Both the 5DmkII and the 7D with the Zacuto gear.

I am staying through till Sunday morning, hope to see you there.

I have now set up my Amazon.co.uk gear store to compliment the USA only one.

It contains some of my recommended gear that is available from them.

Click here to go to the store.