Philip Bloom

As you may know I have both the 82mm $400 Singh-Ray Vari-ND and the 72mm $100 Fader ND. Both of them have been brilliant on this Delhi shoot. They have changed the way I have shot stuff on the Canon 5dmkII

Before I had to compromise on shutter speed or iris to get the exposure I wanter, now I can get it exactly right with 1/60th shutter in and as wide open or closed down as I want more or less. Also the joy is the ability to gently adjust exposure by turning the variable ND wheel on the front of the lens which gives you what is missing from still camera 35mm lenses, smooth exposure change during a shot. With these you can.

I can’t recommend them enough. All the shots came out great. I was finally able to get the shutter and exposure spot on for every shot. Tough with these Video DSLRs.

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I am once again on my travels…this time I am in Delhi, India. Shooting a commercial/ mini Doc for Greenpeace based out of Amsterdam. It’s to go in the ad breaks of CNN, Al Jazeera and National Geographic. The plan is to have a series of case studies highlighting how climate change is affecting different countries and people around the world. This is the first one and it’s all about the effect on the big urban cities.

Lucy Campbell-Jackson from Greenpeace is the director, Prajna Khanna is the producer and I have my twitter buddy Guarav Sharma as my assistant as well as his friend and fellow 5d owner Umesh

We’re here for a week and so far today we have just shot B-Roll. We went into Old Delhi and into the Spice Market. Wow that was pungent! We went up into one of the shops to get a top shot and we walked through where they were bagging all the spices, I actually felt quite dizzy and sick it was so overpowering!

Once again I am shooting on the Canon 5dmkII. Popular camera this…I get asked a lot for it! I like shooting with it, great pics and small, but the limitations and frustrations still get to me a bit. Loved to do some nice timelapse or overcranking but that’s a no go with the 5d. You can shoot stills for timelapse but that’s a pain for the client.

Here are a few frame grabs from today’s B-Roll… (all straight out of the camera, no grading)

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Not the catchiest blog title but it does what it says on the tin!

First off a little history. Am sure by now you have seen my little short film “Sofia’s People”. Something I shot on my way to dinner whilst doing the first F-Stop Academy Workshop in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was just me being obsessive about carrying a camera around with me and the size of the Canon 5dMKII with a simple 50mm f1.4 on it made it really portable.

I was amazed at the reception the film got as it was an extreme version of my “Portraits series” and just a fun experiment. I also rarely shoot handheld for my own projects, I do a lot for my paid gigs but I like tripod shots generally.

To show how popular the film was I was contacted by half a dozen of the people in the film saying “Hey, someone sent me the link to your film and I am xxxxx, thanks so much etc”. It was great to get such a reception. Also being a relative 5dmkII newbie, it was only the second thing I had ever shot with it and the first thing handheld, it was great to get such a positive reaction…

Anyway to cut a long story short, DBB Bulgaria, part of DDB, one of the world’s biggest advertising agencies (they had revenue of over $12 billion dollars last year!) contacted me about 3 weeks ago to say they loved my Sofia’s People film and they had an idea for a commercial called “On Your Shoulder” for M-Tel Mobile phones and they wanted me to come over, Direct, DP and Edit it and also get it finished so it could go out on air the same week! Bulgarians are apparently addicted to last minute projects so this was going to be one of them!

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DDB- Sofia saw my short film “Sofia’s People” and approached me at the beginning of last week to go back to Sofia and shoot a broadcast 30 second commercial for M-Tel with the same intimate feel as my film, but we pre-cast real people. So keeping it authentic, no actors, just the right mix of people for what they are after.

My kit in Sofia

I of course jumped at the chance to go back as I really enjoyed my time in Sofia. The only daunting thing is I am directing, shooting and editing it and only arriving in the country a day before the shoot. I have not had a hand in casting but the people they have chosen look great! The other scary thing is it needs to be finished and ready to go out on National TV in Bulgaria on Friday night as the time is already booked. So that’s a hell of a turnaround!

Also, I will be taking stills of each couple with the 5d for print campaigns, so a great example of convergence here.

It’s funny how what was essentially me just doing some filming on my way to Dinner has evolved into this. As I always say, keep on plugging away. Keep posting your work and you may get a lucky break.

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