Sky Arts At Mostly Mozart featuring soprano Danielle De Niese.
A revealing short documentary which goes behind the scenes of this year’s Mostly Mozart festival at London’s Barbican Centre.

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Link to download the video: For iPhone and other MPEG4 players.
{ .mp4 container – H264 video & AAC audio codecs – 480×270 pixels – 14.8 MB }
You can also watch this video on YouTube…

Learn more about Mostly Mozart 2008

This is a cut down version, the full version was a half an hour doc shown on Sky Arts, and included more actuality filming, all shot in High Definition.

SKY ARTS AT THE PLEASANCE

« Comedian Arthur Smith takes Sky Arts on a backstage tour at Edinburgh’s biggest Fringe Festival venue, meeting some well known faces – Lionel Blair, Stephen K Amos, Marcus Brigstock – on his way. »

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Link to download the video:
iPhone, etc. Version { .mp4 container – H264 video & AAC audio codecs – 512×288 pixels – 37 MB }
You can also watch this video on www.skyarts.co.uk/video…

I shot this documentary using my Sony HDW 750 high definition camcorder, shooting 25p. I used my HJ11 Canon superwide angle lens for most of it. It is a great lens for achieving steady handheld, great looking general views (GV) and I used it for the interviews.

The first interviews you see (purple chairs in the background) were shot in the theatre at The Pleasence Comedy Club, which is a big space and fairly dark, even with the house lights up.
I used a Balkar 4 bar, which is very similar to a Kino Diva with two tungsten tubes and two daylight tubes for the key light, it just made the light a little blue, which seemed to work shooting tungsten 3200k.
I used a 2kw blonde (it doesn’t get used very often) to light the background, the house lights did the rest, they worked as a fill and raised the general light level, lens fully open for minimum DOF (depth of field) a fuzzy background.

The other interviews, Lionel Blair, Steven K Amos, Marcus Brigstock were shot backstage at “School for Scandal” rehearsals. I used my “Kino Flo Barfly”, mini soft light for the key, with tungsten tubes (indoor lighting) a “Dedo” through a little pop up diffuser, to soften it, as my fill, and a “Dedo” to light the back ground, it was fairly tricky, as often when you are on location, you get given a rubbish location for the interview’s, but with a little determination I thought they turned out ok, 3200k (B on the filter wheel) and the lens wide open, for short depth of field. I might have used ND 2 (filter wheel) to get the lens iris wide open.

Hope you like it, and found this information helpful, please leave a comment or any questions.

Happy shootin!

Using a set of Zeiss Super Speed f1.3 prime lenses, and a Sony HDW 750 shooting HDCam 25p, I filmed these intro’s. Filmmaker, Mike Figgis, introduces some of the most influential, and groundbreaking films, to be shown on Sky Arts.

Lit with a cluster of ‘Dedo’s’ x3, an HMI ‘Dedo’ which is the blue light in the background, and Bar Fly Kino for the Key Light.
Mike’s glasses were a challenge, and the ‘Porta Prompt’ has tinted glass, which takes about a stop of light, because you have the lens wide open to get the shallow depth, I had to use a fair amount of light.
40 links in 2 days, links being amended on the go by Director Mike Wizeman, and Mike Figgis, I think we did ok, a few clips of the results below.

This is some footage of an interview I shot for Sky Arts using a Pro35 depth of field adapter.

It was shot with a 35mm Zeiss Prime lens, shooting High Definition 25p, with a Pro35 depth of field adapter, the look of the picture really breaks away from video, achieving a shallow depth of field that you would find very tricky using a standard zoom lens, giving a real film like look.
If you would like me to make your interviews like this, please call me on 07970740054

Pro 35 DoF Adapter mounted on a Sony HDW 750 shooting HDCam 25p:

I’ve been lucky enough to film for SKY Movies, Konnie Huq interviewing Feddie Highmore, the voice of the latest Astro Boy blockbuster.

Snow filled the air on, a blustery winters morning Dec 09, we all arrive early, myself, Mark Evans, Lighting Cameraman, Connal Freelan, Sound Recordist Ned, the Director Jackie Negus, and her assistant, the talent comes later, we have 3 hours to rig the room, and make it all look lovely.
We are at the Tavistock Hotel, London, to film Konnie Huq interviewing Feddie Highmore (the voice of Astro Boy) a 2 camera Digi Beta shoot, for Sky.

The Tavistock is a unusual hotel, a has a kind of Boho sheik/ Art Deco style to it, its pretty cool, we get shown to our room….and its not.

Arrghh, is like an eighties Travelodge, if there is such a thing.

Astro Boy Interview The Set

After a lot of deliberation we realise that this is the only space we can film in, we have got to make it look good.

On one side of the room we have some Art Deco style lights, so we take that as one of the backgrounds, the other background is a compromise, but we have a few angles with the wall, which should work. We decide to darken the room as much as possible get rid of the background, then using 2 Dedos with projectors with little gobo’s in them that have a kind of ragged slash design, subtly light, to break-up the background with a hint of light.

We had 2 Kino Diva’s for the Key lights, but had to use a Dedo with some diffuser on one of the shots, as the Kino was a kicking to much on the background.
We make a little viewing area for the Director.

Director Jackie Negus viewing 2 large LCD monitors

Note: this post will be updated when SKY will release the interview on their site.

« ‘Avatar’ stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana dispel Sam’s tough guy image, tell us why kissing Zoe is like making out with your sister and say the biggest lesson learned working with James Cameron is … duck! »

This was shot on location in Claridges Hotel London, a three camera HD Shoot, using Panasonic HDX 900′s, and a mobile studio set up, with drapes and frames etc.

For more info see the ‘Have you heard about the Morgans‘ Post, thanks

Sam Burgess – Soccer AM – 5th Dec 2009
Rugby League England and Bradford Bulls prop forward Sam Burgess is called-up by Russell Crowe.
I filmed this for Sky out in a freezing cold field, Grasshoppers Rugby Club, just behind Sky studios. It was a one man Digi Beta job, I used a 790 with a HJ11 canon lens, Sony Radio mic, 416 boom mic.

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Link to download the video: For iPhone and other MPEG4 players.
{ .mp4 container – H264 video & AAC audio codecs – 640×360 pixels – 14.7 MB }

Watch the Sam Burgess interview on Soccer AM website