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Tag: Cinephile

  • Short Film: “Hiding Place” – Phillip Bloom

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to share with you a short film that was quite secretly recorded by DP, director, film-maker, and all-round cinematographer – Philip Bloom.

    This video grabbed my attention as Bloom was able to create quite a beautiful short piece on the London Eye by using the comparatively discreet BMD Pocket Cinema Camera. He says of the endeavour, “The London Eye is ridiculously strict about what you use camera wise in the capsules. Multiple lenses, tripods, video camera are a big fat no…”

    So why did that strike me as being note-worthy? Well, it reminded me of correspondence that I had with an Australian ABC News camera operator a few years back while I was media manager and producer at NSCC. He wrote, “Practice, practice, practice! The main difference between professionals and amateurs in this field is no longer good or bad equipment, but the skill level of the team… [We] were never satisfied with our level of skill. We were always looking for continual improvement. And this simple principal applies to every area of video production: editing, camera, sound, lighting, scripting, presenting…”

    For me, this clip reinforced that point. Even though Bloom was only able to use a BMDPCC (compared to his standard film-making fare), the final result is still stunning. His skill-set was able to take some humble equipment, and massage a create a wonderful video. As such – my hope is that it encourages you as mush as it has encouraged me. Let us keep going, let us keep practising, and let us keep getting better – regardless of the equipment we can get our hands on!

  • Video Montage: Psycho Close Ups

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to share with you a video montage that was compiled by a Canadian film enthusiast who goes by the pseudonym Roman Holiday.

    In this piece, we’re taken exclusively into Alfred Hitchcock’s use of the close-up in his classic film, Psycho. I love it! Close-up action gives us more details, and can take us into the mind of a character, perhaps more than any other shot! In real life we only let people that we really trust get THAT close to our face (mothers, children and lovers, usually), and we will also only get that close to an object if we’re intent on finding out more information about it.

    A well orchestrated close up shot can easily become quite a powerful visual effect in itself. Of course – Hitchcock was the consummate master of visual story-telling: so I hope you enjoy this montage of his work as much as I did.

  • Video Essay: “How to Do Visual Comedy” – Zhou

    Continuing my new series of resource links – to video essays, cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to share with you another video essay: this time it is a clip created by a great cinephile by the name of Tony Zhou. He has a great cache of stuff – and I will definitely be sharing a bunch of his material over the coming months.

    In this particular example from 2014, Zhou walks us through the comedy styling of Edgar Wright. And as noted in a previous blog post, “… [this is] a fun and informative video essay, which not only celebrates the work of director Edgar Wright, but explores how he uses cinematography to take advantage of as many comedic opportunities to as possible.”

  • Video Essay: On Scorsese

    I love media – and I love discovering the work of others who share this passion for film and television too! And seeing as I haven’t had a consistent stream of blog posts for a long while – I have had an idea: with this post I shall begin of a series of resources links: predominantly these will be links to video essays, cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like. Clips and information that I have personally found fascinating as something of a cinephile.

    To begin then, it was very exciting to stumble on this short video essay by Milad Tangshir that explores some of the visual dynamics that have been reused by film maestro Martin Scorsese in his student film, ‘It’s not Just You, Murray!‘ and his blockbuster ‘The Wolf of Wall Street‘ some 50-years later. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.