Ms Holloway's Garden: CINEMATOGRAPHY (my role)

  I agreed to work on this project because it sounded challenging, and I wanted to push myself in the final year and do something I have never done before. I also think it has potential to be visually spectacular if done in the correct way.

Visual Style(s)

  As the film has a number of different locations and scene's, I want each location/world, to have a different visual style. The film starts with the old artist in his studio, where he is depressed and lonely. I will therefore shoot these scene's to match his feelings, in both the colour palette and the camera movements. The colour scheme for these scenes will be washed out and de-saturated. And the camera movements will be slow and smooth, but constantly moving. I will use the tripod, strictly not the rig.

  After this scene, the audience (and Victoria) are transported into the fairy world, within the garden. Where Victoria begin's her quest to defeat the curse. These scene's will be shot on location in Hackfall woods in North Yorkshire, a spectacular location with small stone buildings that are going to be used as the fairies homes. I plan to capture lots of aesthetically pleasing shots to show Victoria travelling through these woods, and to her destinations. I will use the tripod again for the majority of the shots in this location, but with a loose head so that I can move quickly and swiftly with it.

  The third main location is when she arrives at the labyrinth to defeat the curse. This scene is the climax to the film and will be shot at dusk. It will be filmed at the Droid Temple's, also in North Yorkshire, which is yet another stunning location.

  She then walks into the labyrinth entrance, which will be filmed partly in a cave, and partly in the studio. For these labyrinth scene's we want her to look isolated and scared so she will be carrying an oil lantern as the only light source. 

Old Artist's Studio (Beth's Grandma's House)

  The first scene of the film will be filmed in Beth's Grandma's house in Middleton, along with a flashback scene which will occur midway through the film. The first scene consists of the artist drawing a sheep skull in his attic/studio. He then goes downstairs where he looks out of the window into the garden to see something of interest, so another sequence of shots will be inside this room, and then he goes outside into the garden where he meets the fairies for the first time. Green screen will be used in the garden sequences where he meets the fairies. 

Hackwell Woods

  Victoria arrives into the fairy world at sunrise, to the first shots will have the sun low in the sky, and these shots will be wides at the top of the woods, overlooking the whole area. Alia's home is seen in the distance. 

  There will then be a collage of shots as Victoria makes her way to Eva's house, in the middle of the dense woods. By the time she makes it here it is the middle of the day with the sun blasting into the house. They then both set off to Alia's house at the top of the hill, by the time they arrive here the sun is setting, and orange beams are flooding into the home. She is then given a lantern from Alia and then Victoria sets off alone to defeat the sheep skull's curse. 

Droid Temple's

  Victoria arrives at the Labyrinth entrance, which will be the Droid Temple's. This scene will be shot at dusk, to create an erie mood about it. As she enters the temple's, I want a crane shot that will start low as she walks through the doorway, and then rises high to show her walking through them and shows how grand they are. This Extreme Long crane shot will go as high as possible to make her look more vulnerable.  She looks around and then enters the main entrance of the Labyrinth. The camera stays outside the Labyrinth as she disappears into the darkness. 

The Labyrinth of the Sheep Skull

  This scene will be shot in 3 different locations, one location being a cave in North Yorkshire, which is a risk as we have not been there before. Another being the studio space that we are renting for the project which I have full control over the lighting etc. Ideally I want to do the majority in the cave as I want to pick up the details of the rocks etc in the place, and in the studio we would have to light it for that only Victoria was lit by the lantern. We are also going to try and create shadows of creatures onto the walls of the labyrinth. The third location for this Labyrinth scene will be a surreal shot of her drowning under water, we are currently looking at the best place to shoot this because ideally I would like to be able to light this myself but as we are working with water this may be a challenge with all the health and safety to sort out. Manchester Aquatics centre have an underwater viewing point so this may be a good location to do it. 

Voodoo Black (Dubbul 0, Sparkz & Ellis Meade) music video 'Off the Map'

  I have been asked to do a music for local hip-hop stars Dubbul 0, Sparks & Ellis Meade, for their recent side project 'Voodoo Black'. The trio are a big part of the Manchester hip-hop scene, and have collaborated numerous times with the likes of Mouse Outfit, Black Josh, Dr. Syntax etc.

  The video came about through a friend who works for a Manchester based Hip-hop magazine called Urban Kingdom, who have a good relationship with the rappers, therefore putting them onto my friend Alex Choi, who then asked me to be the Director Of Photography on the project. We are not getting paid for this video, but treat it as a big opportunity to get ourselves known in the music world for being able to create good, professional music videos, with virtually no budget, as Voodoo Black are friendly with the majority of the Manchester Hip-hop scene, and their video's can get over 100,000 views on youtube. Initially they said that there was no budget what so ever, but after some negotiating and filling them with confidence that the product would be worth the little money they would have to put in, they agreed to pay for a location.

  The location we have chosen is the bottom floor warehouse space at AWOL studio's, which is perfect for the idea we have. The video will consist of this room being neon lit, with one of the rappers stood in in it, the other rappers will be projected onto one of the walls in this space, as if they are rap battling. As DOP on the project, I have a spefic lighting style that I want to be very present in the film. This lighting plan consists of a neon colour palette, using bright greens, pinks, blues, reds and purples, that will be used to contast each other in the shoot. The projection parts will be shot on location in a studio, and will be projected in monochrome, which is a complete contrast to the neon projection room.

  This neon lighting style that I am going for is largely inspired by Larry Smith's work on 'Only God Forgives

Ms Holloway's Garden - Grad Film (Project Proposal)

  For one of my graduate films, I am the DP on a fantasy-realist film. The film all takes place in a witches garden, Ms Holloway, and we follow the protagonist, Victoria as she has to defeat a curse that an artist cast on the fairies of the garden.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Objective
A short fantasy film that is driven by 3 characters that intertwine through the magical and reality, two worlds spinning together as one. A portal to this world lies in Ms Holloways garden, where fate brings Victoria, a young care worker who embarks on a quest to save the Fairies from the evil curse.
Goals
To create a film of magical realism and fairy tale structure, that develops themes of good and evil, life and death, love and destruction. Cinematography and visual imagery inspired by Pre-Raphaelites paintings and experimenting with visual affects in post production, we aim to bring depth to our scenes.
Solution
The characters will develop their own stories to bring out these themes, the narratives are developed through scenes detailed production design and cinematography to create atmosphere and emotion, exposing the change in mood through the film as it delves between reality and fantasy, past and present.
Victoria brings hope of life to the film, as she is the comforter of death who will lift the curse on the land, in reality she is shot with colours of light blue - uniform, and yellow, which changes to emerald green and gold as she is in the fantasy world. The fantasy world is held under the curse, so dark shadows and vivid green colours the scenes to symbolise the envy and misery over the land.
Ms Holloway, as the old woman is seen in colours of purple and silver. The first scene with Ms Holloway in the garden she has a shawl of purple and silver hair. Her younger self has a palette of purple and orange, as the energetic young witch in the woods.
The Old Artist is shot very saturated, greys black and white. His isolation has caused him to blend into his backgrounds. The development of his friendship brings in colour to his story, as the first fairy Alia is the red fairy, this is the most noticeable colour that begins to seep into the artists life, through the illustrations he hangs on his walls to little things he changes in his dress, red bow ties and handkerchiefs, a new red paintbrush. His life becomes increasingly vibrant, until the day he curses the fairies, where he is brightest in the light of the window, wearing a dark red dressing gown, in a room of shadows and blackness. 

Project Outline

The 3 characters drive the themes as the narrative intertwines through the past and present of both fantasy and the real world. The opening sequence is will set the magical realism style to the film, where a beautiful witch hears the news of the curse on the fairies land. She goes into her cabin and uses her scrying mirror to find out that it is the Old Artist, who has cursed a sheep skull to bring misery to the fairies land. She begins a series of spells to find the saviour for the fairy, and makes a protection pendant necklace that will give the saviour the ability to one day, save the fairies from the evil curse.
The titles run over a short sequence where a young girl helps an injured bird back to its nest. In the nest she finds the pendant, she takes it and puts it round her neck.

• Ms Holloway
• Ms Holloways story begins when Victoria falls into the fairy world and we are brought into her study
where she reveals her identity, she is the witch from the wood cabin. She looks through the scrying mirror, and sees the young Victoria, naked in the undergrowth with just the pendant charm around her neck. She walks away from the mirror satisfied that she has brought the saviour to the land, but with a sorrow of what is to come. She places the Fairy Book onto the desk and opens it around 100 pages in, to a double page illustration of a woodland landscape. She closes her eyes as her hands cover the page, the illustration comes to life as we move into the world.
• A young woman is walking through the woods at dawn, where she sees a man with easel and canvas set up across the way, painting the scene ahead of her. The two instantly fall in love, but the woman's secret powers restrain her, she had control of life, she was ageless, she did not grow old but remained full of energy and power. The witch had a lot of responsibility in nature to be the restorer of those injured and battled lives that are not ready to go. The witch carried each element in her spirit. She was not meant to fall in love, but here before her, a man who she most dearly cared for. He said this was magic, never had he felt such a feeling. She said that she never knew she could have such a feeling. The two were so lost in each other they would spend days and nights together. The witch forgot about her priorities, the man had forgot where he had come from, although eventually it was time for him to go home, but before he could leave her, he proposed to the witch. She rejected him, as she could not leave the forest, and she told the artist that she could not age, she was born as the protector of nature. The artist was upset, and in a rage he shook the trees and raised the leaves in a whirlwind around the witch and left her. She did not see him again.
• Old Artist
the Old Artist who curses the fairies brings evil to the land, however it is out of the love and destruction that he experienced in his past with a beautiful ageless witch, Ms Holloway, who refused his marriage proposal, which led to his isolation and exclusion from the world. Many years of solitude passed in his dark house at the bottom of the street. He lived a lonesome life, until he met Alia, a fairy who lives in his garden, she gave him the affection he had been so long without, soon their friendship grew, and he met the rest of the fairies that lived in his garden. They became his family, his whole live would resolve around them, but it was always his love for Alia that was strongest. One cold winters day, the Old Artist came down the steps to his fairies, easel, sketchbooks under his arm and a box of pencils and

watercolours in his other hand, he looked old and frail as he began the descent, but he did not see the ice that had covered the steps. He slipped, his pencils flying everywhere and pages of the sketchbook flew across the garden. A choir of laughter sung across the garden, the fairies we're falling apart with laughter at their friend. They did not consider his pain, only the amusement of what they had seen. But the Old Artist never forgot it, he struggled back to the house without a single look back. Alia flew to comfort him, but he batted her away from him, entered the house and never again did he step into the garden. He soon became bitter and ill, his loneliness had brought self pity and despair, again. On his last day, the Old Artist stood at the window in the attic of his house, his small studio space, and looked down to the garden. He picked up a sheep skull that he had on his desk, and his last moments of darkness and misery he poured into the skull, cursing the fairies land to live in his misery. He cursed the beautiful witch who tore his heart to become as old as he, if not in age then in her looks. He breathed the final words of his curse, for if this curse was to be lifted, the one who defeats must die, as it was the fairies that caused his death. With all of the strength he had left in him, threw the skull out of the window and to the garden below. He laid down in the darkness of his studio and drew his last breath.
• Victoria
• Victoria has always felt a strong feeling of compassion and calm to others. She came to Ms
Holloway to help her move comfortably into the home, but when she saw the novel in the study, she was urged to take it into the garden to read. The first page read a poem, as Victoria whispered the words the winds swirled the leaves of the bush around her. A symbol on the page matches the charm around her neck, she holds on to her necklace and turns the page, instantly attracted to the book she becomes heavily transfixed with the novel. The bush begins to twist and twine around her, the branches coming loose and reaching out for her. Victoria is oblivious and carries on, turning each page eagerly. The bush has now wrapped itself around her and in one heave, Victoria falls backwards, as the book flies forwards. She falls down into the undergrowth, shrinking in size as she falls, when she lands she is lost, naked and alone. In the darkness she searches for something to cover herself. A little fairy flies out from the undergrowth, giggling at the naked girl, she takes Victoria to the toadstool, the portal to the fairy world. The little glowing fairy goes first into the toadstool, a bright flash of light bursts out, as a little figure silhouettes beckoning Victoria in. She welcomes Victoria to their home and gives her clothes to wear. They have transported to a woodland, where a beautiful little fort is decorated with the belongings of this little green fairy. Her name is Eva and she tells Victoria that she was destined to save the fairies from the evil sheep skull. Together they journey through the woodland to the waterfall where Victoria will enter the skulls labyrinth, but first Victoria must earn Alias', the red fairy's trust. Eventually, Alia gives Victoria her glow as a lantern to help in her quest. When in the labyrinth Victoria battles the evil spirits that come out at her; the further she gets into the labyrinth, the closer she is to defeating the skull. As she manages to grow stronger the curse gets weaker. Finally Victoria enters the cave where the skull lies, trapped between the rocks and blocking part of the waterfall. She calls out to the skull, the poem that was on the first page of the book, and as she brings the charm to her lips, her breath smokes over the pendent, just as

water begins to pour through the wholes of the skull. The cracks in the skull spread deeper and the water gets stronger until it shatters into pieces and the water flows full force, the curse on the land has been lifted. However Victoria is trapped, the only way out is where the water is pouring from, the burst of sunlight highlights the waterfall, the beauty of the water shimmers around Victoria, now underwater and swimming up to the top, she begins to drown. But watching down from her study, Ms Holloway is casting her last spell. A spell of sacrifice, as she is about to pour her life into the young Victoria to save her from the death that the curse has drowned her in. The spell completed, Ms Holloway drops to the floor as Victoria is reached out for by the fairies. Victoria falls out and tumbles onto the lawn of the garden. She goes back inside the house, searching for Ms. Holloway, who she finds on the floor of the study, her hair dark as the sky and her face as young as the first day the Artist had set eyes on her. The book laid still open on the desk, a new chapter of the book that was illustrated with a woman dressed in a cloak of emerald green and gold, the new witch.

Live 6 Nations (Working for the BBC)

  In the summer I am working as a steady-cam assistant/focus puller on the Commonwealth Games, in Glasgow. This entails me having a wireless follow focus, and following the steady-cam operator around, pulling focus for him. Over the weekend I went to Edinburgh to shadow his current assistant and learn how to do it in preparation for the summer. The event we covered was Scotland Vs France for the 6 Nations Cup. 

  Saturday was a long day, I had to be up at 5 to get the train for 6am at piccadilly, I would arrive in Edinburgh at 9.30. The rest of the crew had been there from the day before rigging the stadium and sorting all the equipment out. When I got their, Howard, the steady-cam operator, took me around the site and showed me where all the individual camera's are and the directors station etc. There were about 20 camera operators at the event, all of which have specific roles, including the high-speed camera's and close-ups etc. He then showed me the steady-cam and follow focus and showed me how to use it and what would be expected of me. At around 12, the director sent everyone to their stations and had a test of everything to make sure he was happy with the positioning of everything and if he wanted to make any tweaks to the setup. After this we had dinner and waited around until we were live on air. As I was on steady-cam, we had to be at the front entrance to capture the team coaches coming into the stadium, it got rather heated when a camera op from an independent French company was getting in the way of us, he was told to stay well out of the way in future. 

  After the teams had entered the stadium we then headed in to our positions so the start of the game. I was observing Howard and his assistant to see where they stand in correlation to one another and what other roles the assistant picks up. At half time we swapped over and I had control of the follow focus for the first time. The pressure was on as it was my first time using the device and the game was being aired on BBC in front of millions of viewers. I picked it up quickly and was fine with it. 

  As the operator moves around quickly, I am not able to see the monitor very often to see whether its in focus or not, so instead I am forced to focus from distance. The follow focus has markings or yards on the device to I have to estimate how far away the subject is and focus using this method. On a sunny day like it was on saturday, this job is not too difficult because the aperture is quite high, but I could imagine in a dark location is would be more difficult as we would be forced into shooting on a low aperture such as f1.4 or f1.8. 

  I can't wait to be a part of the BBC team in the summer for the commonwealth games, and the pay will help me buy more film equipment or a car and driving lessons. 

PEASANTS (Grad Film)

  I am the Director of Photography on Elliot Taylor's graduate film. I am looking forward to shooting this project as the story suites my preferred style of shooting. This style is a handheld, voyueristic look, which creates realism within the piece. I am shooting this film on the Canon C300, which I am hiring from Calumet, along with some specific lighting I need to create the look I want.

  The story consists of two main protagonist's, who are on the dole and struggling to get jobs. After a tormenting interview, they decide to kidnap the interviewer and hold him for ransom. The film is a black comedy and this idea does not go to plan, instead it spirals out of control.

  There are 3 main interior locations which involve plenty of thought into how I am going to light, and shoot the scene's. One scene is inside the apartment where the two characters live, one is an office scene where the interview takes place, and another, which is most probably the most difficult of the scene's is in corridor.

  I want the apartment scene to be lit in a specific way. This lighting plan consists of the room being lit by mostly daylight, which will flood into the room. and then maybe a lamp on in the far side of the room, giving off a little light to give the characters some shape. I will use 2 HMI Pro-daylight lights, which will be placed outside the windows of the apartment, shining into the room, with diffusion frames in front of them to spread the light. The majority of the filming that I shoot will be facing towards the windows so that the characters have a strong back light, I may need a Bowen or reflector to bounce some light back onto their faces so that it is not too dark. The character, Joe, is slightly kinder hearted than Pete, so I will light the two characters slightly differently. When shooting Joe, I will make the lighting slightly higher key than the shots for Pete, and the blocking of the scene will consist of Joe being closer to the lamp so that it gives a warner colour onto his face, instead of the cold daylight.

  The Office scene will have a different colour scheme, but these colours will be still cold. The scene will be top lit, and this light will be the only present light in the scene, although I may need to give a little extra light onto Joe's face to make him look less sinister. Elliot wants the scene to have quite unrealistic lighting, in a room with no windows and no exterior lighting shining into the room, the characters will be lit up by the top light which will be directly above them, with little spread, and the rest of the room will be in darkness. I may need flags to block out the  light where I don't want it hitting. The colour scheme for this will be white, blacks, and a slight tint of green.

  The third interior scene, and most probably the most difficult will be the corridor scene. This consists of the two protagonists, Joe and Pete, walking hastily down an office corridor on their way to abducting the interviewer. The scene will be one long tracking shot. For this shot I want to use a steadi-cam, if I can get hold of one. Steadi-cam is perfect for this shot because I need to track backwards quickly as they walk down the corridor, and Elliot wants it so be a smooth, nicely framed shot. The lighting for this scene will be difficult as corridor lights are usually very ugly, and give a green tint off, along with sometimes flickering in camera as they are cheap, slow lights. I could maybe use this green tint to my advantage and integrate the look into the scene as I am using green for the office scene, but the flickering would be a big problem. Once we have a location for this scene I plan to go to the location and test the lighting and shots. Ideally, if there are windows running along the walls, I will light the scene by injecting pools of light coming from the windows, so that as the characters are walking they are coming in and out of the light. I cannot plan this scene too much before I have seen the corridor as it is so specific.

Singing Beauty (Artist Film)

  Singing Beauty is a short experimental artist film which I helped out on. It was directed by MA student Liam Healy, and shot by past student Paddy McGowan. I was Paddy's AC (Assistant Cinematographer) for this project, and was in charge of lighting, pulling focus, and various other duties. The Film consisted of a middle-aged man, in old fashioned 'peasant-like' clothing, in a darkened warehouse singing a feminine song, Mama Cass - Dream a little dream, and then this was intercut with beautiful, smooth shots of the seaside, sand dunes and sea.

  The way paddy wanted to shoot was pretty specific. He wanted minimum shots to be taken, but every shot to be perfect, so therefore we spent lots of time preparing each shot. The location we used was a stunning warehouse/mill in Ancoats. The location was perfect for this project as there were no windows so that we could manipulate the light however we wanted it, and plenty of beams to attach lights to etc. We top lit the subject using a pro-daylight HMI, and spot lit it so that the light was a narrow beam, only hitting the subject instead of spreading over the rest of the room. This looked really nice as his face was coming in and out of the light as he moved, and the light was quite low key. We also used a soft Bowen daylight in front of the character to give a little more light to his face, and also to find a little bit of detail in the back wall of the warehouse instead of the background being completely blacked out, but only very subtly. There were also some large pillar/doorway type things that led to another room. We blasted 3 redheads through these gaps to generate sharp shards of light and shadows on the floor of the warehouse, flooding into the main room, this effect looked very nice.

  The film was shot on the Canon C300, which is the camera I will be shooting one of my grad films on, so it was good to use the camera again and get to grips with it a little more.

Flix'n'Pix

  After working with former MMU filmmaking student, Paddy McGowan, on his grad films, I have now become good friends with him and often work with him. He invited me to work as a camera operator for a Corporate & Private Events company that he works for, named Flix'n'Pix. The company is run by two young brothers, Adam and Avi, who are a pleasure to work with.

  The majority of events that we cover are either Bar-mitzvahs or Matt-mitzvahs, but we also film Jewish weddings, birthdays & occasionally music performances. Working on these events is really good experience as it teaches me to work quickly and professionally, as we only have one chance to capture each part of the events, for example speeches and the Israeli dancing, and it also teaches me how to communicate with clients and guests, which is an important factor of videography & film. This work also helps fund my film projects and buying more kit for my camera.

  Before shooting my first event, Adam and Avi told me how crazy the nights can be, and that you may have to move people out of the way or sometimes even push past people (politely) to get the shot you need. At the start of the event I was quite shy and reserved, feeling uncomfortable asking people to move etc, but by the end of it I had settled in and was a lot more confident. Now I am very confident in how to approach people in the manner, and can take this learning curve into my other projects/work prospects.

Wreck My Dress

  I have been currently working along side Sitcom Soldiers (who are a Manchester based production company who focus mainly on music videos), in a side project for a company called Wreck My Dress. I first became involved with Wreck My Dress at the beginning of 2013 when I did a 'behind the scenes' video for a promo they did. I then did 2 more behind the scenes video's for the company in the past year, and then recently worked along side Sitcom Soldiers for a live event which featured a collaboration between Key 103 Radio Station and Wreck My Dress.

  The Live Event, named The Suprisal, took place in the centre of Manchester, and was a live proposal, featuring dancers, a live band, celebrities, fire breathers etc. The event was announced on the morning of the proposal, on Key 103, and received the highest ever listeners that the radio station had ever had. In fact they beat there previous record by 250%. The event also made it to third in the top trending hashtags on twitter in Manchester that morning. Word of mouth spread quick and there was a big crowd in Spinningfields (where the event took place) for the proposal itself.

  When we arrived in the morning it was straight to work for me, as I had to go to the hotel where the couple were staying, and film them coming out of the hotel and getting into the taxi. I was only told I was doing this 5 minutes before they sent me there, and I didn't even know what the couple looked like. The directors stressed to me about how important it was not to be seen by the girlfriend, as it would ruin the whole suprise, so I dismantled my rig, taking only my camera handheld, and posed as a tourist, pretending to take pictures of buildings nearby the hotel. I was waiting for around 45 minutes for them to exit the hotel, as they were running behind schedule, and these 45 minutes were tense. I found a perfect place to shoot in between two fences, but a security guard threw me out just minutes before they came out of the hotel. I ended up filming from inside a ginnel instead. When they got into the taxi, the plan was for Simon Gregson (Steve Mcdonald from Corrie) to blag his way into the taxi with the couple as they travel across town to Australasia. When I was waiting for them to come out of the hotel, Simon was doing the same, he was hiding behind walls and pretending to be on his phone trying to be inconspicuous, which he wasn't really doing. Luckily I caught all I needed to on film, so I then rushed across town back to Spinningfields, where the proposal would shortly take place.

  When I got the the event location my job was to concentrate mostly on capturing the band, and people's reactions. The was lots going on but I managed to get all the shots I needed, and many of my shots made the final video. It was a great experience and a real adrenaline rush to be part of this event, even though it was rather cheesy. And its also good to be getting paid for something which generates such enjoyment. We have a few more events lined up with Wreck My Dress in the upcoming months, and I am glad to be a part of it. Although these event's aren't something I want to be doing as a living, it is good experience, teaching me punctuality and how to handle certain situations, and also gives me confidence to step up to challenges.

  Sitcom Soldiers are also good contacts to have as they produce music videos for huge bands all around the world, I have now become friends with the director, Bez, and he has volunteered to help me out with a music video which is currently in pre-production.

http://wreckmydress.co.uk/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtpUYn7wUtA