2012 Philip Bloom Ric Creaser Filmmakers Workshop – Melbourne from MelbourneDSLR on Vimeo.

A preview teaser of what’s on offer at the Philip Bloom and Ric Creaser filmmakers workshops currently being run in Australia and New Zealand and presented by Rode microphones. Go see them.

In Just 2 weeks, I set off for the almost 6 week trip to Australia and New Zealand for a mixture of workshops and shooting.

The workshops are in Melbourne, Sydney, Byron Bay, Perth, Adelaide and Auckland. They are hosted by RODE Microphones and they’re all about DSLRs and large sensor camcorders. I am partnering with Aussie sound legend Ric Creaser who will be doing the very important section on audio. I will be going in-depth with the DSLRs and the new large sensors cameras. I will have with me my new Canon C300, a Sony F3 and my Sony FS100. A great chance to see them and how they feel to operate. You can read more about the workshops by clicking the banner above or here.

Sydney is sold out and there is a waiting list. I believe Melbourne is also close to sold out and the others have a handful of tickets left. So don’t leave it until the last minute to get the tickets!

There will also be meet ups in each city, which are a great way to build the local filmmaking communities. So if the workshop is sold out, you at least have a chance to mingle with like-minded folk. Details of where they will be will be in the page for each city in the Events section of my website.  Mine is a Hendriks and tonic! 😉 If you have never been to a meet up they are just fun. Social gatherings. Below is a bonkers time-lapse video of the Brizzy meet-up. Unfortunately there is no Brizzy this year, just Byron Bay. Please come if you can though. Be a blast.

Philip Bloom Brisbane Meet Up from Daniel Andrew Shelton on Vimeo.

I have some work commitments in Wellington too after the Auckland workshop, so I will be seeing some of the North Island then before taking a trip down to the South Island for a short time. Then I’ll need to get back to fly off to the North Western wilderness of Australia for a once in a lifetime trip. Lots of firsts on this trip. Never been to NZ, never been to that part of Australia and of course I will be visiting the shire whilst in NZ! I am after all a total geek!

West Australian shooter Michael Fletcher has invited me to visit the remote Kimberley region of far North Western Australia, one of the world’s true wilderness areas, because he thinks I spend too much time in hotels rooms in large cities and not enough time getting back to nature. Not true. I often spend time in nice bars too… 🙂

After an exchange of a few hundred emails, Mike has amazingly teed up passage for me through the Kimberleys on the magnificent True North, a five star adventure cruise vessel purposely built to travel the shallow tidal regions of this magnificent coast.

Mike, who has travelled on the True North many times before, assures me that this is going to be a trip of a lifetime with amazing filming opportunities. In fact I first knew of Mike through the videos he made of the trip a while back, which are beautiful. Please check out the one below. Then I got to meet him finally at my RODE tour last year.

True North Kimberley Wilderness Tour from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

Honestly, when he first suggested it, I thought he was joking and when he followed through with the offer I was stunned. It is not something I ever expected to be able to experience, and I know I am damn lucky to be given this opportunity. The scenery as you can see is beyond incredible. An amazing opportunity to put the C300 through its paces and shoot a doco whilst there. The plan is to get to know the crew on the boat and frame their stories with the insanely beautiful scenery. It will be an intimate tale but epic in images…

The C300 itself seems the perfect camera for this. It’s really small, so perfect for filming in tight spaces on the boat, takes the same lenses as the time lapses DSLRs, I do need to keep my gear to a minimum as space is at a premium…and of course the image is just incredible from the camera. The detail you get from it is also going to be perfect for the epic deep depth of field scenery shots.

There are few places you can go which really are away from it all. This is one of them. No mobile phone, no internet!! That scares me… I have barely gone without the internet for a week since I first connected to it with Compuserve back when my email address was 23486321@compuserve.com – catchy.

I will be on the first Kimberley trip of the season departing on the 31^st March from Broome and finishing on the 7^th April in Wyndham. He said this is the very best time to see dramatic skies and the Kimberley’s awesome waterfalls roaring at close range. And when he says close range he means under the waterfalls. It will be stinking hot, but to be honest as it’s way below freezing here right now, going somewhere stinking hot sounds like heaven! I wonder how the camera will handle the extreme heat? Better than the DSLRs I am sure!

All to be shot on the Canon C300 and an array of Canon DSLRs shooting timelapses, I am hoping this will prove to be one of the best experiences I have undertaken, it certainly looks it! I understand there are a few cabins left on the boat, but be aware this is NOT a cheap week away. It would be great to have some fellow filmmakers on board but PLEASE don’t sell all your gear to come on it, as I won’t be giving you my C300 at the end of it! If you do come then, the first round is on me (then you have to carry my tripod ;))

Of course I will share this experience through my film, photographs and over compensating tweeting once I get back online!!

If you want to know how to get on the True North with myself and experience a once in a lifetime adventure check out Northstar cruises website here.