into the white: Shoot Them... Shoot Them All...

I have been busy the last month of so. It has been one shoot after another, if not prepping, then shooting, day after day. Lucky Soul music video, Oreet Ashery’s narrative installation, HD Short ‘Florid’, Southall 16mm short ‘Thoughts of Yesterday’”, a corporate, dailies on the Aylesbury doc and now a music video for The Concretes. Now, the job for Lucky Souls was done on a minuscule budget for 2 days and we produced a great video (link below). Me and David have the opportunity now to shoot for a successful Swedish band called The Concretes. Their previous videos done under EMI had fairly big budgets (see link- independent- david levi). But they aren’t signed to EMI anymore and we have no budget. And with complex photography, the idea to shoot on 16mm and 35mm, we have to pull off a miracle, more than the Lucky Soul video. And we have a week to prep. Sometimes, we have to be bold and with enough experience and pure verve, we have to say, ‘yes, we can do that… we HAVE to” against the odds. One of the biggest hurdles is just ‘hiring’ 35mm equipment for free (which would have cost around £3000). I hope JDC will be kind to me, again. Me and David have spoke of giving them a token amount from our own pockets. We have been partners in projects for two and a half years and I have shot all of his student projects. Now that we are shooting music videos, we collaborate a lot on ideas. His work is very visual and relies heavily on the photography. Apart from advising and solving photographic issues, he allows me to input conceptual ideas about the work itself. In this way, the work becomes a fusion of mine and his collaboration. In this way, his work feels more like, ‘our’ work.

http://independ.net/

under david levi

http://mullett.tv/play.html

lucky soul

Florid was shot in Newcastle. Ania, the camera assistant and friend I trained and worked with for about 3 years came with me. We don’t get to work together much anymore. When we were starting out, we did all the time. She was to do Harjinder’s film but got a gig on Holby City (UK TV hospital drama). It was a fun shoot although we didn’t mix with a lot of the crew. For me it was a time issue (lack of). The locations were great yet difficult. The director, James Baxtor, has potential and it was good to work with him.

On the Southall funded short I was getting about 5 hrs sleep a day. I had just got back from Romania on the Monday evening. Tuesday was spent prepping. Wednesday was shooting. We got an Arri SR3 from JDC (I asked for an SR2) and everything else I wish listed for. I love JDC… We had a great crew half of whom I hired. Out of things one recalls from a shoot isn’t the content of the film, it’s the people you work with. It was great to work with Duncan again. He focused pulled (1st camera assistant) for me 3 half years ago and now he is a Gaffer (Chief Lighting Technician) and it’s the first time since then we have worked together. Hu, I have worked with a few times now and he is a great find. Fast, diligent and with all the ‘camera assistant’ demeanor one needs. The Art Directors, Azahara and Anton were great to work with. Azahara especially. We find very few people we click with and she is one of them. We have a dead serious sense of humour. It was great to meet them and we continue to be friends as a completely natural discourse.

I will be updating my work website soon (within two weeks) and the lucky soul video and the PCRF doc will be on there.

Apart from a day shoot for The Shadow and the Aylesbury doc, this week will be concentrating on prep for The Concretes video.