I shot this over a couple of hours on a rotten windy day in San Francisco. It was filmed at Sutro Baths ruins.

The opening shots of the frothy water are straight out of the camera with no colour correction, real black and white, the light flickering is all natural light.

The “alien” cave shot onwards is all graded with Magic Bullet which you can get 20% off with code bloom 20 at the redgiantsoftware checkout.

Music is by James Newton Howard from Lady in the Water.

I will have some of these shots up soon with natural sound recorded with the Holophone Portamic Pro 5.1.

I used the DP slider for the dolly shot. Review coming soon.

5DmkII conformed to 24p and also Twixtor plug in used.

Lenses. 14mm F2.8L, 50mm F1.2L, 100mm Macro F2.8L, 90mm F2.8 TS, 70-200mm F2.8 IS

Sea from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Photos all courtesy of Sara Collaton

It’s the end of my Dubai shoot. We haven’t got everything in the bag so I will have to come back at some point to finish it off.

One of the best things I did whilst here was move hotels on my own money so I could have a killer view to do lots and lots of timelapses. I moved to the new Atlantis Hotel on the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. Initially I was on the 4th floor and here is what I put together of some of my timelapse tests last week.

I showed them to my producer and he loved them, I said it would be much better if I could be higher in the hotel, so he made a couple of calls and I got moved to the 18th floor where the views were spectacular.

I also went out and did some other timelapses, from the ground looking at the same buildings as i could see from my room. Of the world’s most expensive hotel, also some of and from the world’s tallest building.

Both my 5DmkIIs and my 7D were used as was my Lumix GF1 which was used for a large number of the shots in this piece including the star timelapses.

I was mostly in aperture priority mode. The second shot was done over 24 hours from my balcony and the camera took a shot every 15 seconds. The others varied between 1 second and 4 seconds. Mostly AV mode but the shot of the Burj al Arab and the one from the top of the Burk Khalifa I had in manual so when it got dark it looked dark.

When shooting timelapses I find I tend to throw away about a third of them as they don’t quite work. But I am getting better, learning from my mistakes. After all it’s only by making mistakes do you improve! I am using a plug by CHV for FCP called Long Exposure which evens out some of the flickering. It’s very cheap. I also graded this strongly using Magic Bullet Looks. Don’t forget you get 20% off of MBL from Redgiantsoftware.com by using the code Bloom20

Lens wise I used the 70-200m F2.8 Canon. 16-35mm F2.8 Canon. 24mm F3.5 TS Canon, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, Panasonic 20mm f1.7, Olympus 17mm f2.8, Canon 24mm F1.4, Sigma 10mm Fish Eye

I mostly shot aperture priority mode to cope with the light change Sometimes in manual. You don’t need expensive cameras to do this. The GF1 is a cheap camera and there are even cheaper ones out there like some of the powershot series with built in timelapse. It’s great fun, very boring to shoot but ultimately the most rewarding.

GF1 in action

Shooting on the world's tallest building

The world's most expensive hotel!

I must say that I really had a lovely time here. I enjoyed Dubai much more than last time. Big thanks to all the crew. To Arun, thanks mate despite the accident! Ryan, Elie. To Ian for hiring me again and to Graeme for being the jolliest man I have ever met.

I want to dedicate this film to Sky Vasser, daughter of my friend Vanessa Vasser whom I worked with on “Nightshift” who died at a tragically young age. I only met her a handful of times but she had enormous personality that I will never forget. My thoughts are with you Vanessa.

Sky from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Filmed in Dubai over 5 days and nights.

Shot on the Canon 7D, 2×5DmkII and one Panasonic GF1

Made in memory of Sky Vassar who died recently at a tragically young age.

Thanks to Media Prima and Talkabout Media

I have just got hold of 720p versions of the 3 spots of “Voices of Change”. The commercial I shot in India for Greenpeace using the Canon 5dmkII. Lucy Campbell-Jackson has also told me it will now be shown on more channels than originally planned reach an audience of 950 million. That’s pretty cool!

Thanks to Greenpeace for letting me show these. Here is link to blog with more info.

So here they are the 90,60 and 30 second spots.

Greenpeace: Voices of change. Shot on Canon 5dmkII from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

©2009 Greenpeace
Directed by Lucy Campbell-Jackson
DP Philip Bloom
Edited by Daniel Bird
Graded by Rob Chiu
Sound design by Ben Lukas Boysen aka Hecq.

Greenpeace: Voices of Change 60sec 5dmkII from Some Like It Shot on Vimeo.

Greenpeace: Voices of change. 30seconds Canon 5dmkII from Some Like It Shot on Vimeo.

Well simply because this was filmed for a segment of my new “shooting video with the 7d” dvd that is coming out in a couple of weeks. It was about how to record sound separately using the Zoom H4n and a Sony wireless lav.

Graded with Magic Bullet Looks which you can get twenty percent off when using code BLOOM20 at checkout

It is simple the lovely Von Marie Donato reading a short text (used by Charlie Sheen in Platoon!) and me filming her from a number of different angles.

I used the 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.2, 70-200mm f2.8 and the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 which was used for the pseudo “jib shot”

I left the zoom recorder running whilst I did all the different shots and used pluraleyes to sync it all up automatically.

First two shots were shot at 720p 60p and converted to 29.97 in Cinema Tools.

Below is the native 30p version on Vimeo and below that is the jES De-interlacer 24p transcoded version on Exposure Room. The 24p has some motion blur due to the method I used. I will change this to another version later.

Enjoy.

Girl with the flaxen hair: Canon 7d 30p (!) from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Girl with the flaxen hair: 7d 30p transcoded to 24p

]]> http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/09/25/a-little-short-shot-using-canon-7d-and-shot-in-30p/feed/ 38 http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/09/22/greenpeace-commercial-shot-on-canon-5dmkii/ http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/09/22/greenpeace-commercial-shot-on-canon-5dmkii/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:13:58 +0000 pbloom http://philipbloom.co.uk/?p=5241 This is going out on MTV in the next few days. It’s the commercial I shot in Delhi on the Canon 5DmkII a couple of months back. Shot on monopod, Zacuto rig and Miller DS20 with a wide variety of lenses. 30p.

Check out my previous blog for more info.

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/07/21/greenpeace-90-second-commercial-in-delhi-india-on-the-canon-5dmkii/

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/07/26/tutorial-on-syncing-sound-with-the-5dmk2-and-pluraleyes-for-fcp/

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/07/23/the-canon-5dmkii-a-documentarians-video-camera/

Click here to see the 90 second spot. There is also a 60 second and 30 second spot.

©2009 Greenpeace

Directed by Lucy Campbell-Jackson

Thanks!

Philip

I also used the Glidetrack Compact to give it a bit of movement. I mounted the camera directly onto the glidetrack. It works really well. Very light and does exactly what you need it to do.

Everything was shot at 720p 50p, imported as ProRes LT in FCP 7 and converted to 25p in Cinema Tools for the overcrank.

It shows you just what a great little camera the GH1 is, most people would do little tests with their kids. I don’t have any, yet, so I used the cats which have been requested a few times by people as they appear in many stills of me opening new toys as they are VERY curious. They actually act far more like dogs than cats.

Bert and Percy are the Siamese twins of the title. My old girl Noodle makes a cameo. She is more camera shy and also not Siamese! Sorry if you don’t like cats. I actually have filmed A LOT of dogs in the past year too!

It’s a great lens and I really recommend it, but what I am really looking forward to are some native micro four third fast primes so no need for the adaptor making the camera nice and compact. I filmed for about 20 minutes using just ambient light…not much of it too. Shot at ISO 800 wide open at f1.4

Click the image below to see the video.

It was hard work carrying the gear down there but it was worth it…a really stunning place. 

I took the Lumix GH1 down as well, and my assistant Ryan did some behind the scenes filming that I will post soon. I used the miller Solo three stage carbon fibre legs which are a dream and I will be getting a set when I get home for my Vinten Vision 11 head. Perfect for awkward filming locations like this. Unfortunately the head was a cartoni focus which I still have one of at home. A bit of a spongy head but it was the best they had at the TV station here. 

I was hoping to use their Kessler Crane but it turned out it was a 12 foot one, so not ideal!!

Tomorrow I head out for some more filming…today was a washout as smoke from the big Island volcano covered our Island so the light was awful…at least it gave me a chance to edit this!

Click here to see the film

I was out with my client, Jimit Mehta, taking a look around some spots for filming tomorrow with the Letus Ultimate and EX3 when we saw that the sunset was going to be beautiful…so we pulled over. All I had on me was the little red GH1 and an SLR Gorillapod. So not ideal. But I set it up on the sand, got myself covered in sand and filmed this beautiful sunset. All in 1280×720 mode…

One important thing to do. Make sure the shutter is at least 1/50th or when you come to slow in down to 25p it becomes jerky.

To slow it down open the clip in cinema tools, conform to 25p and it instantly turns it into 25p slow motion. As if you overcranked in camera but even better as you still have sound if you want it. 

The music is actually from an old Twilight Zone episode from the last season in 1964. Check out this link for more info and where you can buy it. I got it from Late Night Tales by Air

I was worried I wouldn’t be able to grade the footage because of the low bit rate but had no problems with Magic Bullet Looks…Check out two ungraded still grabs below.

UNGRADED SCREEN GRAB

UNGRADED SCREEN GRAB

Kauai Sunset: Lumix GH1 Slow motion

NT LIVE is a groundbreaking concept of putting on plays at the National Theatre in London and broadcasting them live to cinemas all over the world via Satellite. 

The first play is “Phedre” on the 25th June with Helen Mirren

This was the first time my work would be shown on the big screen and the first time anything I have shot has been transferred to 35mm film. I have yet to see it in print but soon I hope!

It was shot on the Sony EX3 with the Letus Ultimate and mostly Zeiss Nikon lenses. Lighting was with a mixture of Kino Flo Diva’s and Dedos.

The helicopter shots were shot on the Sony F900. The frame rate for the shoot was 24p. All shot at 1080p.

Mike also edited it and it has an original score. The great John Shrapnel did the Voice Over. 

You can see the, obviously, web compressed version here but do check out your local independent cinema that is part of NT live, like the Curzon chain in London so you can see it in all it’s glory!

Click here to watch the trailer or here if exposure room hasn’t converted it yet!

Photos by and assistant, Mark Dawson. Armin Ruede was also assistant.