I recently shot a short promo for ‘Strictly Come Dancing – The Professionals’. The touring live stage version features the world champion dancers from the smash hit BBC TV series as they take to the stage for the first time in the ultimate dance extravaganza!

The brief was to provide footage for news access and for general promotional purposes. I shot the dress rehearsal with a couple of cameras and was able to deliver an edit for them the next day. This is a formidable challenge, but was achieved thanks to the latest technology and a willingness to work long into the night!

I’ll try and get permission to post the promo soon.

Following a question on the Edius forums, I put together this simple tutorial on how to crop your standard 16:9 widescreen films to 2.35:1 without having a ‘letterbox’ or black bars top and bottom. I upload to both Vimeo and ExposureRoom and it is possible with both of these sites to upload a film without the borders. ExposureRoom actually has a feature built in that will allow you to choose your crop when you upload – but I still prefer this method as it means I can use the same source file for all uploads.

Edius Main Window

To begin, mark your in and out points on the timeline. Then either hit F11 or select Print to File from the timeline:

Print to File

Choose the Quicktime exporter plugin:

Quicktime Exporter

Hit Export and choose a filename. Then click the setting button which brings up the Quicktime exporter settings:

Quicktime Exporter Settings

In the Video options at the top, choose settings and adjust your compression settings. This will vary depending on your use. I tend to use H.264 set around 5000 kbits/sec for HD video and will choose multi-pass for best quality exports or single pass for speed.

Quicktime Exporter - Video Options

Quicktime Exporter - Video Options

Next up choose the Size setting and make the following adjustments – select a custom size. My source file is 1920 x 1080, so to crop for 2.35:1 you need to make a simple calculation. 1920 ÷ 2.35. Which equals 817. That gives us a final dimension of 1920 x 817. If you have a different size video then simply make the same calculation by dividing the larger number by 2.35. You also need to check the dropdown for Preserve Aspect Ratio using Crop:

Quicktime Exporter - Size Settings

Quicktime Exporter - Size Settings

Finally, make sure you choose the audio compression you want. I tend to use MP4 at 48khz:

Quicktime Exporter - Audio Settings

Audio Settings

And here’s how it looks on Vimeo:

What will Islington be like in the future? That was the question behind this film for Islington Council. The brief required me to produce a film that was quick, snappy and upbeat and that gave a broad overview of what people in the borough of Islington thought it would be like in 10 years time.

The film had to be shot quickly and I put together a very portable rig for the shoot that enabled us to travel as a 2 man team across the borough. I shot on a digital SLR which is great in low light situations and keeps the whole kit very compact.

Technical Info:

The film was shot entirely on the Canon 7D digital SLR using a Marshall monitor to preview the images. The lens I predominantly used on this was a Zeiss 50mm 1.7 which was extremely useful for the lowlight situations. The sound was recorded on a Zoom H4N recorder and synced later in Edius 5.

This film forms part of an interactive tour of the Energie gym, Forest Hill. The brief was to create an interactive tour of the gym that would highlight all of the facilities available to members. The video will be included in an interactive player that allows visitors to the website to jump from area to area or just watch the film straight through.

My Showreel for 2009-2010 details some of my work to date. All of the projects featured in this reel are viewable in their entirety on the site, so if anything catches your eye, please feel free to watch the full film.

I recently had the pleasure of shooting a short piece to camera for EC1 New Deal for Communities with the BBC presenter Kate Silverton. I have worked with EC1 NDC before – the film I shot for them ‘EC1 Day’ is viewable here.

EC1 have their Pride Awards coming up which is presented by Kate Silverton. I had a short amount of time to shoot this piece with her and this was made more urgent by the fact the sun was rapidly going down.

I shot this with the Canon 7D – one of the new breed of digital SLRs capable of shooting stunning HD video. Clients love the speed and portability I get with this setup, but most importantly, they love the look. It requires a little more work in post-production – especially as the sound has to be recorded separately, but the results are well worth it.

See for yourself:

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There’s an interesting debate taking place online at the moment about the very nature of the word ‘film’. What constitutes a ‘film’? Now that the majority of people technically shoot video, is the word still valid? With the advent of mass user generated content drowning the internet, what delineates a film? Is it all not just content?The fact that this debate is happening across various websites, forums and social media channels is in itself a thoroughly modern phenomenon and indicative of the way things have changed.

When is a film not a film?

To answer this question I wrestled with various definitions. Then I actually started to reflect back on my own personal journey, my own history with various cameras, films and film-making to see where that would lead me…

It starts for me in 1977, when I was 5. The Polaroid company introduced the Polavision cine camera which brought to the world of cine film-making the instant imagery that Polaroid had pioneered with the Land camera. My Dad bought one of these for the family and it was our first foray into the world of film. The camera was small, light and easy enough for a child to operate. Uniquely, it took plastic cartridges that once finished were placed into a large TV like viewer for processing and several minutes later, the film was ready and could be watched on the screen.

There was no sound and the images were often dark and the colours muted, but to us this was magic. The fact that you could watch yourself on-screen was so new and exciting it didn’t matter about the quality of the image.

The cartridges were limited in length to about 3mins and there was no facility for editing, which meant that all cuts were done in camera. Our favourite trick would be to film someone – stop the camera and have them run out of shot – then start filming again. Boom. Disappearing person.

This was like hi-tech special effects for us and we spent most of our time working on more complex versions of this same stunt.

Looking for more challenging scenarios, we attempted little sketches or even a bit of narrative – recreating silent movie moments, TV sketches or shooting tin cans off a wall by yanking them with threads from behind.

But despite the fact that these were all being shot on  film, we never referred to these little pieces of history as ‘films’. The term we used and that everybody seemed to use was ‘Home Movies‘.

Not long after the Polavision, VHS and Betamax became prevalent and as a result, our Home Movies became Home Videos. We got a large Olympus camera recorder combination. A separate camera with a ‘portable’ VHS recorder carried on your shoulder.

Suddenly we could record forever. We could have sound, better colour and we could watch the tapes back immediately in our VHS video player that sat underneath the TV.

As a result, the camera became ubiquitous, and for a period of time we never had a family event without recording everything – birthdays, fireworks, Christmas. Family arguments, games and music. For some reason, the fact that it was so cheap and easy to film meant that we actually experimented less. We didn’t censor – we just shot.

Then we took the three hour long tapes and put them on a shelf somewhere and forgot about them.

Our school had a camera much like the Olympus, and it was with this that I made my first outing into the world of film-making. My friend Jake – who is now a very successful director/editor, decided to shoot a short horror film. Inspired heavily by the likes of Sam Raimi we set out as a small team into the woods and shot a short film in a day. Editing everything in camera – jump cuts, fight sequences – tricky stuff.

We watched the film the other day – up in his edit suite in Soho. We had a good laugh about it, but I think we’d both say we were proud of the effort that went into it. Trying to tell a story with nothing more than images, sound effects and music was difficult. But it kind of worked.

After the VHS cameras we moved into VHS-C and my family invested in a Panasonic MC30 VHS-C camera. The combined camera and recorder giving birth to the word – Camcorder. The size of the camera meant it came everywhere with us. Holidays were never complete without it and we have a great library of memories as a result.

But my interest in getting that camera was different. I knew the picture quality was going to be higher than anything we had seen before and I wanted to use it to make films.

There was seemingly never a shortage of people who were willing to join together and take part in the film-making process – standing out in all weathers, working late and through the night. There was no post-production process available to us, so we still cut everything in the camera. But when the film was finished shooting, we could all gather together and see the fruits of our labours.

This was a great period of time. Joyful experimentation – unburdened by technicalities and freed by the simplicity of the process.

Eventually, I left school and went to work in a London department store specialising in photographic and video equipment – my experience with the Panasonic camcorder being the selling point that got me the job.

I was suddenly immersed in a vast world of new video technology. A format war was raging between 8mm and VHS-C tape. Cameras were getting smaller and smaller and more features were being added every week – the ability to fade or add titling. Automatic focus, white balance, exposure – automatic everything. It was a boom time for video, as everyone jumped on the bandwagon.

8mm and VHS-C eventually  gave way to Hi8 and SVHS-C. More picture quality. Broadcast quality! (A phrase I would hear reiterated for many generations of camera to come).

As the cameras advanced, so did the accessories that were available for them. And a lot of these accessories encouraged shooters to become much more than ‘home movie’ makers. Fluid tripod heads, wide-angle adapters. Mixers that allowed you to combine two cameras. Mixers that allowed you to do basic colour correction and add effects! Strobing, mosaic, freeze frame – cutting edge effects…

I remember when we first got a Steadicam Jnr in and I rushed to unbox it and set it up with a display camera. I revelled in any opportunity I had to demonstrate it.

With this ready access to more equipment I shot more little films. I used the Steadicam on a short  – now shooting with a Yashica branded Sony Hi8 camcorder. We took the shooting so seriously that we actually went back and reshot a scene when it became apparent that the boom ‘operator’ was visible in a reflection.

Those early days of experimentation were fearlessly brilliant. Everyone gave up there free time to try their best to make a coherent film with a good story. None of us truly knew what we were doing – but we were making films.

This was all pre-internet. So the only audience for these films were your friends and family. Anyone you could persuade to sit down in front of the video and watch. I entered a few amateur competitions, but that was it. It was about the experience and the thrill that we could do it.

Cameras continued to advance technically. HI 8 and SVHS gave way to DV and with every generation we came closer and closer to the look of what we saw on TV. Then with the DVX100, with its 24/25p and cine gamma curve, we were able to shoot what looked like film.

And then came the HVX200.

This camera changed everything for me. For many it was the DVX100 but I missed this generation and went straight to the HVX200. All of the brilliance of the DVX100 but with HD.

This period of camera ownership was defined by one thing – the internet. I was able to find out everything I could about this camera prior to buying it. Never before with any camera purchase was so much information available. By the time I bought the camera I knew everything about it. What it could and couldn’t do. How sharp it was or wasn’t, how it compared to just about every camera you could imagine. How it performed in every manner of situation you could think of.

This persistent scrutiny gave birth to the online ‘camera test’. People posting short video clips online only for the rest of the world to analyse every pixel. People’s pets, back gardens, girlfriends – it didn’t matter. Like me everyone wanted to know how good the camera was.

Not long after this, the emerging 35mm adapter world really took off. I had been aware of some of the early 35mm adapters – but not paid them much attention. Now, in combination with the HVX200 and the new Sony EX1, they become much more practical.

I bought an SGPRO and shot some corporates with it – because now, I was making a living from shooting. Adapters improved, and online interest in them grew and grew until people became rampant about them. How to use them, which was the best one, what accessories did you need. The fact that you now had control over depth of field resulted in an endless parade of films with an array of various shallow depth of field shots.

Throughout all of these tests and analysis the persistent question was – How much did it look like film? This became a crucial point. Everyone was obsessed by how much it could look like film.

And yet, people weren’t really making films…

My entire camera owning career, from cine to now had been about making films, but slowly it had become more about how to make it look like film. But now the technology was there to ensure that everything really did look like film, nothing else seemed to have changed. People had been driving so hard to get to this point, it seemed like no-one knew what to do once they got there.

That’s not to say there weren’t some people out there doing great things, because there were – but the majority of people seemed to just be shooting tests. To the extent that this became a new genre. An acceptable form of work. These are just demonstrations of various camera techniques, yet people began to critique other people’s ‘tests’. They were lauded, imitated, elevated.

And the power of the internet is such, that it affords you instant feedback. This can be a great thing – I have a couple of short films online that were improved and shaped by people’s feedback. I have been encouraged to examine further aspects of my work due to viewers reactions. But the speed with which feedback is possible leads to a desire for instant gratification.

Shoot something in the morning, slap some music on it and bang. Plaudits by the evening.

I know, because I did this with the Panasonic GH1.

As soon as 35mm adapters came, they went again. Replaced by yet another step towards the ‘film look’. Smaller, easier, cheaper cameras. The birth of the DSLR.

I shot my ‘beauty’ film test and got it up online fast. I bought it in Hong Kong and knew it would be one of the first tests on the net.

It’s my most watched online video. By a long, long way. Not my most recent drama short. Not the short I actually shot in S16mm film. My camera test.

That’s an easy trap to jump back into. Why would I sweat over another script and the balls-ache of getting a crew together for no-one to see it. I could just wait for the next new camera to come out, try to be one of the first online with it and bang. I’m a hero.

How many videos did you see when the Canon 550/T2i came out that professed to be The First… First ‘real’ film. First ‘production’ model. First ‘lowlight test’ etc. etc.

And the manufacturers are smart to this. They now hand out pre-production models for people to shoot on. A mixture of art and commerce that raises some serious questions. These ‘testers’ might mention negative points in their reviews, but they sure as hell aren’t going to shoot anything that looks bad. They’re artists. They want their work to look good. They’re not technology writers testing a new product, or arts reviewers giving an opinion on a new piece. They know that they have a shot at getting an early camera test online and driving a massive audience to them and their work. And that means recognition and subsequent business.

There is no incentive to shoot the stuff that looks ugly.

So are these films? When exactly is a film not a film? Well, the truth of it is, you can writhe through every determinant you want, but like art if someone want to call a piece of work a film, it is one. It just is. Doesn’t make it a good film, but nevertheless it becomes a film the moment someone says it is.

So where does that leave us?

We stand on the brink of a revolution in film-making. The bar for entry has been lowered to the ground. The differentiating factor from here-on in is story. Because I believe that the greatest purpose for film-making has, and always will be, as a vehicle for telling great stories. Fictional stories, true stories it doesn’t matter – narrative, documentary, corporate, wedding – they are all about telling a good story. We have a collective responsibility to use the tools available to us to tell great stories – to remember the fearless kids inside all of us who were enthralled by the magic of film and not the equipment behind it. If you have a great story, no-one will question if it’s a film or not, no-one will worry about the camera that shot it.

We have a world of possibility in front of us. So let’s seize it with both hands and together commit to being better.

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A couple of months back I shot my first paying gig with the Panasonic GH1. The film was for the UK’s Premier Latin Music and Dance Festival in Southport called Salsa Kingdom. The make up of the film is a mixture of promotional shots and interview pieces.

I had already shot quite a bit on the GH1 and I knew what it was capable of and also knew about its limitations. There has been a lot written about the GH1 and the performance of its codec. In my experience, when shooting in 720/50 the camera performs very well and the codec is pretty robust. There is more of a problem with the 1080/25 setting. One of the situations which can cause issues is fast movement – either of the camera, or of the subject in front of the camera. This movement becomes too much for the camera to deal with and for small moment the codec breaks down and produces what people are referring to as ‘mud’. This mud is a slight blockiness or pixelation of the image. This occurs more readily in 1080/25.

The 1080/25 mode is still great – as long as you are aware of the limitation. My Thames Barrier film got a lot of views online and sparked a lot of interest in the camera and this was shot nearly all 1080/25. (The slo-mo stuff was 720/50).

Weighing everything up I decided the camera would be a good choice for the shoot. Although I knew I would be shooting fast motion, I wanted to shoot 720/50 as this would give me the option later to slow down any of the dancing footage.

Having made my decision, I thought I should explain my decision to the Producer of the event who had hired me. Shooting on DSLR’s is still very much in its infancy and there is a risk that people will wonder what the hell you have turned up with. I told him that I was going to try something a bit new but not to worry! He had seen my reel and hired me because of it, so to his credit he trusted me. I’ve seen a lot of people chatting online about this dilemma – the suggestion being that clients will take you more seriously with a bigger camera or wonder why they are paying you so much if you turn up with a little DSLR. It think there may be some truth in this – but if you manage there expectations up front I think there should be less of a problem – especially as DSLR’s gain more popularity and more importantly once people see the results.

Another factor in my choice of the GH1 was light. I knew I would be shooting in low light and this is where the DSLR’s are king. Combined with a set of old Canon FD primes I knew I would be able to cope with some very lowlight situations. Something that my other camera – a Panasonic HVX200 would have struggled with. I spent a long time in post on one production having to de-noise a ton of footage as it was shot run ‘n gun in very low light and the resulting image was very, very noisy. Not so these DSLR’s and for me that was the deciding factor.

Next up I had to sort out a working rig for the camera. I went to Redrock Micro and put together a rig from various bits of their DSLR support kit. I used a set of rails which had the camera on a raised baseplate with two front handles, then I used their cage pieces to go around the camera with a handle on top for easy carrying and low-mode shooting. I topped this off with the Genus mattebox. The end result was a pretty meaty looking rig that was stable enough to shoot handheld. Unlike the Canon DSLR’s the GH1 has an electronic viewfinder that I was able to use whilst shooting and this made the handheld rig pretty simple to use.

Redrock DSLR setup with Redrock Mattebox

Genus Basic Mattebox

During shooting there were very few issues with the camera at all. It worked perfectly throughout and I was even pleasantly surprised when shooting with the stock lens supplied with the camera. I had some footage I needed to get that was on the street and was completely run ‘n gun. For this, the stock lens’s ability to autofocus whilst shooting made a big difference. Not always perfect and not always quick enough – but good enough to get useable footage.

There were a lot of interviews for this film and for sound I went with the Zoom H4N. This is a little portable recorder that does a fantastic job. It records up to 4 tracks in high quality BWF (Broadcat Wave Format) and will provide phantom power for a boom mic. All of the audio was captured using the Zoom H4N.

A couple of gotchas. First, zooming whilst shooting with the stock lens is for me, generally a no no. It seems that the codec is working with so little overhead that even something as simple as zooming in can cause it to break down. I saw this happen, so my little punch zooms didn’t really work.

Second gotcha may not be a gotcha at all. The ‘mud’ situation. I cut the whole piece together and was very happy with the result. Only when I happened to pause on a particular frame did I notice that during some of the fast dancing, the codec was breaking up. My take on it is this: If the film is compelling enough, if it works and its telling a story, you don’t notice the shortcomings. If you go looking for them – you’ll find them

The client was very happy with the final film. We got some shots they had not been able to get before. We kept really mobile and were able to run around across the town grabbing footage on the fly. For this kind of job, the DSLR is near perfect.

About this video:

Salsa Kingdom takes place in Southport and features the absolute best Salsa dancers from around the world and some of the world’s finest Salsa Groups. Over the course of three days there are workshops, parades, parties, live music and a show – The Magic of Salsa Kingdom.

I was commissioned to make the film to promote the next years event. The brief for the film was to highlight all of the different aspects of the festival and to maintain a slick and snappy look and feel throughout.

The film required a mixture of interviews and footage of all of the varied events that take place over the course of the festival weekend. Some of the technical challenges included shooting in very low light, shooting alive stage performance from different angles and delivering a lot of important information whilst keeping the film nice and pacey.

The final film was delivered for the web and appears on the company’s website as well as their Facebook page and various other social media channels.

Technical Info:

This film was shot entirely with the Panasonic GH1 Digital stills camera. It was shot in 720/50p and edited in Edius 5. I used a mixture of the stock lens as well as a selection of Canon FD primes, including 28mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 100mm 2.8.

Please feel free to contact me to talk about hiring me and my rates etc.

Directed and edited by Joe Shaw

This is the video for the new song ‘Shower Over Moon Street’ by Michael McKell. It’s the single on his upcoming album – also entitled ‘Shower Over Moon Street’. I’ve been allowed to preview the finished promo here.

About Michael McKell:
Michael McKell began his career as a singer songwriter with recording deals with Phonogram, EMI and Warner Brothers. More recently he has starred in the West End production of Tonight’s the Night and is best know for his TV work in Murder Investigation Team and as Nick West in BBC’s Doctors.

Tech Info:
The video was shot entirely on the Panasonic GH1 camera. I shot with a mixture of stock lens and Canon FD primes. ND’s were Cokin P filter system. We shot in 720 for eveything which allowed us the oportunity to slo-mo anything we wanted to later.

The edit was done in Edius 5 and the picture was graded using Magic Bullet Looks in After Effects.

Please feel free to contact me to talk about hiring me and my rates etc.

Directed and edited by Joe Shaw

This is an HD video. If you have difficulty playing it or the image appears to be ‘jerky’, you can turn HD off in the player window.