Video: Behind the scenes at the Almeida Theatre

Before sets have been built and costumes designed there usually isn’t much to help promote upcoming theatre productions – which means creating a buzz before they launch is tricky.

So the Almeida Theatre in London has been commissioning me to produce behind the scenes films to help promote upcoming shows.

The Tragedy of King Richard II

These have been quite demanding shoots, learning to work with a small footprint and minimise disruption to the directors and actors in the room.

As with all shoots it’s about getting the footage you need for the edit – capturing a sense of what’s happening in the room as well as the themes of the play in rehearsal. The location set-up is often only seen on the day of the shoot – meaning I’ll make a very quick assessment and mental shot list as I walk in.

Access to the rehearsals can be anything from 20 minutes to an hour – which means there are strict time limits to capture enough footage – this is stressful, but it also forces me to be efficient.

It also means that shoots are usually handheld and dynamic, with lots of camera movement to help emphasise action. During the shoots I’m quite procedural, using my mental shot list to make sure I get a range of close-ups, mids, wides – camera movements,  detail shots – and slow motion – all of which I know I’ll need to make a compelling edit.

Interviews and access to the actors is also very limited – so quick decision making in setting up the look of these is vital. These pieces are used to promote upcoming productions, so getting the key sound bites that really sell the production and describe the tone of the play is vital.

Dance Nation

The edits themselves usually start with music selection – which is how I tend to approach most edits –  so finding the right track can take some time before cutting even begins.

Grading is also another useful way of communicating the tone and language of the production, for example with the Tragedy of King Richard II, I chose cooler colours to emphasise the starkness of the play’s content.

I’ve really enjoyed working with the Almeida because they’ve been very supportive in producing adventurous work – something that not all organisations have the confidence to do!

 

Video: GAIKA – Basic Volume Combat Sports

I was recently asked by Warp Records to provide production for Gaika’s video streaming show, BVCS. The stream is a mix of DJ sets, live performances and interviews curated by Gaika.

The line-up for the featured episode:

Ikonika
Amy Becker
Tony Njoku
Kamixlo

All the sets were recorded at Somerset House in London and streamed online.

Video: Praying Mantis | National Insect Week

Praying Mantis!

I was recently comissioned to produce a short film for National Insect week, working with the Royal Entomological Society and presenter Dr Tim Cockerill. It was an absolute blast to shoot and a wonderful location, filming inside the colourful bug houses of insect breeders Janice and Graham Smith! I think I may get one as a pet!

Check it out below.

Video: What to do with space debris?

My final film for the Royal Institution features engineer Hugh Lewis and explores the growing problem with space debris. With over 18,000 objects being tracked in orbit and another 170 million too small to be tracked – the problem threatens not only our satellite infrastructure, but the future of space travel as well.

Video: Showreel [2017]

Here’s a showreel covering some of my work over the last few years.

Everyone has a different take on how a showreel should look, I decided I wanted something that was almost an original work in itself. I was interested in re-purposing my existing material and having a bit of fun with the edit, hopefully to catch the eye of whoever was watching it and encouraging them to explore my body of work in more detail.

Music Video: The Wave Pictures – Now I Want To Hoover My Brain Clean

Autumnal Kaleidoscopes

We shot this in Victoria Park in October to take full advantage of the vibrant autumnal colours. These yellows and orange tones were used as a starting point to form psychedelic kaleidoscopes that pulsate and evolve from the movement within the shot. I’ve been really interested in experimenting with different types of framing, particularly presenting multiple frames side by side and playing with symmetry – this also presents opportunity for mischief when the symmetry between frames is pulled out of sync, reversed and distorted.

The track is taken from their latest album “Bamboo Diner in the Rain” – which is out on Moshi, Moshi – I’m really enjoying it – so check it out!

I’ve got another Wave Pictures video coming in the new year – so stay tuned!

VIDEO: The Story of Zero

Here’s a short animation I wrote and produced with animator / illustrator Andrew Khosravani.

The piece is narrated by Hannah Fry and tells the story of how zero became a number. We were very happy about it getting a “Staff Pick” on Vimeo!

The scripting for the piece was tricky, it took several weeks to wrap our heads around the subject and then boil a significant amount of history down into around 3 minutes… inevitably details had to be cut and even after recording the voice-over with Hannah we had to make some difficult decisions to make further cuts. All in the name of reducing animation time – which was significant for a piece like this – Andrew did an incredible job!

Oh and the chapter numbers are obviously all in binary.

VIDEO: Dear Leaders – Myth (Not A Football Song)

Here’s my first venture into music videos – made for a friend’s band – Dear Leaders.

It was actually shot last year, but a busy work schedule delayed the edit until the beginning of this year – they released the track as a single in April alongside the video – check it out below!

It was real guerrilla film making, we had no budget, very little plan or script – just a very rough narrative. We shot this across London, near Green Lanes in Haringey and also in Hackney Marshes, with a lot of improvisation at the locations. I also shot this solo, with only two days to get everything done (the band live in separate cities) – which added extra pressure to the production!

The edit was quite challenging as a result, but eventually I picked a route through the footage, not that the narrative makes total sense… but when were music videos ever the bastion of linear narratives?

I was lucky enough to work with actor Julian Spooner (who put up with two days of masking tape being ripped off his face) – who was great to work with, mainly because he was very patient and took my direction without protest. The band members also make small cameos – see if you can spot them!

It was shot mostly on my Sony A7s and it’s low light capabilities allowed opened up a lot of creative possibilities for shooting at dusk on the marshes.

VIDEO: An Astrological April Fools

This year we wanted to go all out for our April Fools effort, so we decided to make a video to announce this year’s (fake) Christmas Lectures subject and lecturer. You can see the effort below:

In reality, the lecturer featured in the video is none-other than Ri Director of Finance, Michael de Crespigny (at least his name was real) who, may I add, played a fantastic role in portraying a quantum astrologer.

Although we don’t usually make a video announcing the Christmas Lecturer we wanted to create a piece of content that would work for our international YouTube audience as much as those that regularly tune into the Lectures in the UK.

So we set about scripting a piece that straddled the line between nonsense and plausibility, settling on the subject of astrology and making liberal use of the word “quantum” to hopefully pull the wool over people’s eyes.

I’ve written an extended blog piece over on the Ri’s blog.

VIDEO: The Lamp that Saved 1,000 Lives

I recently made a short film for the Royal Institution that tells a story of the miners safety lamp, also known as the “Davy Lamp” – invented by Sir Humphry Davy in the 19th Century.

The lamp was designed to allow miners to safely light their way in the mines using candles or oil lamps – which were previously at risk of igniting flammable gases that leaked from the coal baring rocks, often leading to devastating explosions and large loss of life.

Find out more by watching the video!

This is the first time we’ve explored an archive story through the format of Andy’s Tale’s From the Prep Room series and I really like how the historical narrative is combined with the usual demonstration elements of the series – it’s something we’ll think about doing more in the future.

Riffing off the film’s subject matter, I thought I’d experiment with shooting most of the film in candle light in a pitch black environment – which was made possible by the low light capabilities of the Sony A7s, combined with a very fast vintage lens (Takumar 50mm f1.4). I really love the intimate setting that this creates and it also helped to hide the fact that we shot this in a very dull location (the Ri’s windowless basement lab used for school workshops).

Slow motion footage was captured on the Panasonic GH4 at around 100fps – watching the flames billowing out of the gas filled tube is particularly mesmerising!