Last Sunday I was Director of Photography on a short film co-written by and directed by Joe Shaw<\/p>\n
It\u2019s my first proper drama that I have shot. I did the Trench docu-drama but that was for a museum. This is a proper film.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about a young man who confronts a priest and his demons at a train station. It is currently untitled. I have called in \u201cConfession\u201d for my myself and for the blog purposes.<\/p>\n
We had hoped to film in Dungeness as Joe had liked my short there, but it was going to be too expensive. So he found the now derelict Folkestone Harbour station and got it at a steal. It was perfect. Visually interesting and few people. It was a bit noisy, with the road, planes and seagulls but our hugely competent sound mixer, Steve Thomas,\u00a0 did a brilliant job .<\/p>\n
I shot it on the Letus Extreme and Sony EX1, using my 17-35mm f2.8 zoom, fast becoming my favourite lens, 50mm Zeiss f1.4, 85mm Zeiss f1.4 and my lovely 100mm Zeiss f2.<\/p>\n
Originally we were to have a focus puller but in the end that didn\u2019t happen so I did it myself. Quite a challenge with the shallow depth of field, but I did OK. It wasn\u2019t always spot on every single time, but pretty close.<\/p>\n
I also used my Marshall component monitor and my Wally Dolly. The tripod a Vinten Vision 11 head on Fibretec legs. I also used a hoodman on the LCD.<\/p>\n
The sound was recorded separately by Steve on hard drive and DVD, keeping both radios separate as well as two booms. I also recorded both radios on my camera.<\/p>\n
I absolutely loved doing it. I was a little worried as my narrative experience is practically zero and I have a few projects coming up so I was really hoping to enjoy it and more importantly do a good job! There were a lot of people there hoping I wouldn\u2019t cock up!<\/p>\n
The two actors were Stephen Fletcher who played David and Robert Duncan who played Father Jerome. Their performances I thought were absolutely breathtaking. It was a cold, windy day and the colder they got the better they were!!!<\/p>\n
Huge thanks to Mark Dawson of londonmarkfilms.co.uk again for his great photos, he shoots great moving stuff too!<\/p>\n
See the film here.<\/p>\n