The footage was shot over 4 sessions, at Filton, Hereford, Emerson’s Green and Midsomer Norton Skateparks. The very first bit of footage of Nick was shot by Sam Williams (co-Exotope Rituals writer) and myself  at the very start of the summer. At the time it was planned to be one of many shoots we’d do, to piece together a nice cinematic skate edit to depict the summer skate season. But I never got round to doing anything more! I thought I’d let the footage go, rather than wait until next year when it could potentially get outdated. Who knows I may use it again!

The time-lapsed pieces in the intro were shot using my Delkin car suction mount. They were originally just test pieces used to see how well it held up with my 7D and heavier lenses, but I needed an intro and these fitted the bill. Here is a picture of the setup when I used in San Diego with my lens skirt (ignore the TomTom!):

Kit wise I used my 7D and jag 35 cage. This setup it great for skateboarding, I can bolt on my SmallHD monitor on top, and Sennheiser mic coming off the side. This adds a nice weight to the rig, resulting in a reduction of micro shakes you always encounter when shooting handheld on DSLRs. You can also tripod this rig in seconds which is really handy. A further thing I found useful on one of the shoots was using my counter weight on a bottom set of rails to balance things out. It adds more weight, looks funny and takes some getting used to, but ensures perfect balance in your hand.

Lens wise. There was a few used over the 4 sessions. Most of my own kit: Opteka fish, Tokina 11-16mm, Zeiss 50mm, Canon 70-200mm, and I also used a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 mkII on one occasion which I had hired for a corporate shoot. The lens is really nice, very sharp and the focal length is perfect for skateboarding. Two things I was a little disappointed in; Although the lens is constant aperture, there is a definite shift in exposure when you zoom, not a massive deal for photos but vey noticeable when shooting video. It’s probably the worst lens I’ve seen for this. I also don’t like the size of the front element, it requires 82mm filters?! No thanks. Aside from this, it’s such a solid lens, which is why I’ve just bought one for my 5D, although I went for the mark 1 as the 77mm filter thread is much more appealing!

This was actually the last footage I shot on my 7D, it was a shame to sell it. if I could have afforded to keep it alongside my 5D I would have!

And where there’s a last there’s a first, this edit shows the first footage I’ve shot of FSTL rider Tom Steele. Expect a lot more! In fact, expect something real soon..

Enjoy.

One thing I’ve found with making small budget music videos; the schedules and budget are incredibly tight and it’s always hard to focus on what I like doing best, shooting video. So for this one, I made sure I had a second shooter. This gave me more breathing space on set, flexibility in the edit, a second pair of hands, a chance to really get some interesting cutaways spliced in (one of the key things I wanted to capture with this piece) without comprising time spent on the talent. I called on my good friends James Haddock and Guy Gotto for second cam over the 3 days, and they both did a superb job.

It was also a great excuse to hire a 5D mark II. I’ve used them on and off a fair bit, but this was the first project where I got to use one for 3 days straight, right next to the 7D. I really, really fell in love. So much so that I’ve since sold my 7D and EF-S lenses and bought a 5D mark II and 24-105mm L lens. Needles to say I absolutely adore the setup! More on gear later..

Both Cheyenne (the actress) and Rui were fantastic to work with. Rui is a great guy, he has a clear vision and knows exactly what he wants. It was really easy toget on with him, and made the whole process very smooth.

The video was shot in Bristol and Cardiff/Penarth. I was really excited to visit the one spot in Penarth. I’d heard of the existence of an abandoned council estate nearly a year ago, but never gotten round to visiting. A bit of location scouting the morning before had me really excited, it was amazing!

Credit has got to go out to my good friend Kirstie Jones. She helped out for the 3 days, being a third pair of hands, taking shoot pictures and soaking up the procedures. Thanks very much Kirstie!

Equipment wise, as mentioned I hired a Canon 5D mark ii and 24-105mm L as A-Cam. And my 7D as B-Cam. Additional Lenses were all my own; Zeiss 50mm f/1.7, Sigma 30mm f/1.4, Samyang 85mm f/1.4, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, Canon 70-200mm IS f/2.8 II.
I used my Jag35 Shoulder Rig throughout most of it, with a straight rod setup and my Small HD DP6 monitor (there was maybe one Hague Motion Cam shot in there also). B-Cam was operating off my Manfrotto monopod and 701 head. We also used my LCD Fader ND, and I purchased a Cokin .8 ND to go with my Cokin P holder for B-Cam.

Lighting wise, exteriors were mostly natural and a reflector board. For the club scenes I hired a set of 3X 150W Dedos, and a Kinflo. All were blue gelled. For the night exterior I use my 160 LED panel, bounced off a reflector board for backlighting subjects.

I found the Image Stabilisation on the 24-105mm absolutely essential on this shoot. Where there wasn’t budget for a track and dolly, and the most exterior surfaces too rough for any kind of DIY wheel setup, I shot 90% of this walking round with my shoulder rig, 5D and IS on the 24-105. I dabbled with CS5.5s Warp Stabiliser, but the CMOS distortion on DSLRs is simply too much at times, and post stabilising just makes it worst.

There’s no way I could’ve shot this style without a lens with Image Stabilisation. And that’s why I chose it with my own 5D mark II. Although the 24-70mm has a faster aperture, it holds little value when compared to the IS of the 24-105, accompanied by a fast prime.
The reach of the 24-105mm L is superb also, such a useful focal range. That’s something that was never available on cropped sensors, a really good standard lens for video. Both the Tamron (17-50 VC) and Sigma (18-55 OS) examples have poor focus rings for video, and Canon’s 17-55mm isn’t much better.

Anyway in summary it was a great shoot, and how the weather held up so well for the whole weekend was a miracle! Hope you enjoy the video.

It’s always tricky shoot both video and photo simultaneously. Whilst the 7D is great at shooting both, It’s equipment and information overload if you want to shoot both aspects properly. As a result, the photo side took a bit of a backseat, and I was only able to get a few decent shots in the short time span.

Will brought along his GoPro, which I was really keen to get some B-Roll from. We had various mounts which we used to get shots from the chest, bars and stunt pegs. I brought along my Hague DSLR motion cam also which I haven’t used with any of my projects yet. It lent itself well to the stuff I got of Curtis on the fun box at the end.

I’ve realised writing these last three blogs that I really really need to take shoots pics! Next time, I promise!

We shot the promo at one of his wedding gigs, in the welsh valleys. It was fairly hectic shooting around him as he works as he moves so fast! A steady arm would have been prime for this shoot. But my Hague DSLR motion cam hadn’t come in time, so I was left frantically running around attempting to get as much movement in frame with my slider as I could. My monopod was a bit of a life saver here also.

Enjoy

I shot this on my Canon 7D, mostly with my Tokina 11-16mm and a Canon 24-70mm L. I’d recently bought a Konova Slider also, so this was a good test for it. It’s not bad for a cheap roller bearing slider, a little wobbly at times but if your careful you can get stunning results. However I’ve recently tried out a Cinevate Atlas slider, which is a serious bit of kit. Puts the konova to shame!

Really enjoyed making this video, we had a surprisingly long stint at filming in the car park, and left on our own accord without getting kicked out!
Had I more time to plan, I would’ve sourced some decent lights for the garage shoot. As always it was a ‘make do with what have with no time’ situation.

Filmed on my Canon 7D with jag35 shoulder rig.

Enjoy.

We Keep On Partying was made back in January in Cardiff, and Take it Back was shot in Abertillery in April.

Both shoot were shot with no resources or planning! Both on my Canon 7D and Jag35 Shoulder Rig. Thanks to Tom for helping out on the Cardiff shoot.

I’ve been making videos for close to 10 years, and 7 of those years have been out with mates, skating, rolling, chillin’. It’s what ignited my passion in filmmaking, and what I plan to carry with me throughout all my work.
Sam Williams is a good friend of mine, and our decision to collaborate on a music video was nothing more than a chat over a few drinks. Looking at it from this perspective, it was a video made on no budget, with very limited resources.

With both myself and Sam living over a 100 miles away from each other, it was also a task coming up with a shooting schedule. The decision was made early on to use a concept that could benefit from our position. Using a POV technique, it meant we could potentially shoot at the same time, in different locations and wouldn’t be tied down by a presence of a singular protagonist.

There are lots of POV videos out there, and we have to give credit to work of Saman Keshavarz and Justin Gurnari on the Cinnamon Chasers Luv Deluxe video, as well as all of Mike Manzoori’s cinematography. With POV being an established technique, it also meant that there were many online theories of making the best rig for POV shooting.

We considered a full frontal helmet with attached camera, and used this technique for much of our earlier scenes. We ran my monitor via HDMI to direct as we shot, but this quickly highlighted a few problems. With the term guerilla filmmaking being quite fitting to our style and choices of location, a big helmet with a camera strapped round it brought a lot of un-wanted attention when ‘on-set’. Instead we found that simply holding the camera around someone was viable method, and meant we could shoot whilst remaining inconspicuous.

Handheld and DSLR are two terms which don’t usually get on. But due to the width of the lens, the usual micro jitters (found with a non stabilised DSLR) were not apparent, and the handheld look really brought an extra element to the style of the piece.

The whole video was shot on my Canon 7D and Tokina 11-16mm. The original plan was to use a 5D mkII and Canon 14mm f/2.8 II lens, as this provides a wider look and stunning quality.
However the 14mm lens doesn’t use traditional screw on filters (or drop in with the screw adaptor) which were used prodminently throughout the shoot. Not owning a 5D meant that shoots would have been constricted to times where we could rent the kit.

The great thing about this video was the freedom aspect. We could film a scene with no resources at any time, meaning we had flexibility over waiting for the right light and weather. No schedule was the best schedule, and this

was only possible because we could operate with no outside resources.
Going back to the use of filters. I used my LCW mkII fader ND in every outdoor scene. And also used a set of Cokin P graduated filters for various scenes.

Using ND is vital with DSLRs. Even with with a low ISO, at shutter 1/125th aperture f/2.8-5.6, you’ll blow out every scene.

11mm on a cropped sensor has a wide angle of view, meaning there’s a 101 chances of picking moire in every scene. Keeping the lens at nothing narrower than f/5.6 helped reduce distant objects alias, as they weren’t in focus (sharp). A wide aperture of f/2.8 was used on all the scenes with his girlfriend, this was to help draw the attention to her. But obviosuly wasn’t a practical way of shooting all of the time as we didn’t have a dedicated focus puller! Shutter was kept at 1/125th. The usual filmic 1/50th can get a little blurry for handheld stuff like this, where as 1/125th gives a more real feel. This is where the ND filter came in handy, as it meant I had perfect control over the exposure, without compromising the aperture and shutter speeds choices.

The Cokin grads were used where ever I possibly could! You can retain so much sky detail with them, creating a high dynamic look. They’re not practical for every situation though, as there’s not a clean transition between skies and foregorund all the time.

Enjoy!

The track called Rituals, and the video be out very soon.

Here’s the trailer!!

The shoot took place at Photo Graffiti studio in Newport. It’s run by Daint and Richie, who are great guys. If you are local to Newport and require any studio needs, these are the guys to go to!

I met up with Tom a month previous and discussed ideas for the video, he wanted a fairly straight forward concept. a clean cut video, multiple outfits, on a white background. We discussed a handful of other elements to keep things interesting, but it wasn’t until on set where we decided to incorporate such a heavy integration with graphics.

There were other ideas featuring a dancer, or friends of Tom to provide more content for the simple concept. But I think we made the right choice with the comic book-esque graphics. This was a great opportunity to work with my good friend Seb Chaloner, and use his highly talented expertise in vector based design. The workflow was fairly straight forward. I sent a load of stills to Seb and he designed me a large two page comic book spread. I then cut and pasted where necessary.

As usual things were slightly tricky on set. I was starved of lighting, and therefore forced to mix colour temperature, but things could have been a lot worse! We got a fair amount done in 8 hours.

I shot on my Canon 7D, with a few lenses. Mainly Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. I used my Nikon 85mm f/1.8 on a few shots (close ups and shoes) as it was new at the time, and wanted to try it out! I also used my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II.

The hardest part about this video was the edit. I’m still experiencing Gamma shifts when using Apple ProRes from Final Cut to Adobe After Effects. For this reason I started doing a lot of the transitions in Final Cut, trying to avoid After Effects at all costs. Before I knew it, I’d done the whole video in Final Cut. Quite an achievement itself, as there’s a fair amount of tracks and pans where simple parenting in After Effects would have been much more effective than multiple layered timelines! Oh well, a testament to the power of Final Cut if you really want to take it that far.

Enjoy!