All in all, it still feels like early days – we feel like we’re just getting started!

Taking a step aside for a moment – something more exciting for my personal life – my gorgeous girlfriend Jordan has recently shown an interest in Photography and has asked me to slowly teach her a few things. Above, the gorgeous girl herself along with two of her first shots which I particularly love! She’s got a lot of potential and I’m looking forward to seeing her artistic side find herself.

The same day Jordan’s shots were taken was a day, Jacob and myself, hired out a few new toys from my work and went for a day trip into the countryside to have a play. Mikael & I have been experimenting with the idea of tilt-shift for a longterm project we’re working on and up till this point, we had been faking this popular effect in post – so I hired my dream lens, the 17mm Tilt-shift, and took it out purely to learn how it works. All I’ll say is – it’s not easy, you have to make a lot more decisions in camera, when it works well – it’s amazing and when it doesn’t – it’s really bad!

The following night, I went into the city with Jacob and Nathan for more experimentation. They were both distracted testing out the new Canon 5D Mk III, while I just kept hanging back playing with the tilt-shift. The city lights, water reflections and the night atmosphere made a great combination.

The following day, our church had a full day of Baptisms. This is a Christian ritual where people dedicate themselves to living for Christ and uses the symbolism of being dunked in water to represent dying to their old selves and raising into their new life with Jesus. Our church has a pool at the back of the stage and has a live camera stream onto the main church screens. I thought this would be a fun opportunity to utilise the tilt-shift effect, so just from my seat I snapped away and found some interesting results!

Time continues to fly past and it’s already been two weeks since we hired out the tilt-shift and experimented. One last tilt-shift test we ended up doing over this Easter weekend, was a test shoot for the Narrative Mikael & I are busy working on. Let’s just say stop motion meets real life. See what you think!

The Kind Sirs together have also recently bought a new camera. The new Canon 5DmkIII. I’ve already been busy shooting a couple corporate gigs since we got this and between work, haven’t had much of a chance to play – until the past weekend. While Jordan had a meeting for a camp she helps run in a few months, I went for a little peaceful wander and had a play with some of the deeper functions of the camera and shot some random shots.

Going back to the Summer of 2010, Mikael and I had only known each other for close to a year as classmates at uni. We were unsure of working together and we both seemed to tread carefully around the other. Mikael’s script, ‘Red Riding Hood’ based believe it or not on ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ was written as part of our Adaptations class at uni where we had to Adapt one of the classic fairytales into a film.

Without wanting to put too many words in front of the film, Mikael’s interpretation of the fairytale is a little dark and moody but I feel it touches upon such a powerful topic, in such a beautiful way. Mikael’s synopsis, Ruth gradually comes to grips with the state of her life and her relationship after realising she was manipulated into having an abortion.

Pre-production begun, and Evan joined the picture coming in to audition. More focused on writing and directing himself, but always keeping his eye out for other directors work which stood out to him, Mikael managed to catch his eye. Evan made the cut, and so our first film as a collective had begun. Kind Sir’s, we were destined to become.

So I had the job of Cinematographer and to a lot of degrees I feel that during this piece, I was still very unsure of myself. I felt I was still learning the craft and felt that I would often second guess myself, particularly with lighting decisions. Either way, it was such a big step in my journey, mistakes I needed to make on set that never need to be made again, shots I am proud of to this day and shots that still today make me cringe.

I’m also very conscience of what others around me think and having Evan, an actor on set who knew his way around set as a director, left me, a tad on edge. I really like to look back on this moment and remember what it’s like, but the past few months the three of us have been getting together, slowly making plans for our collective and it has been great getting to know Evan. Soon enough, he’ll be directing a piece I’m shooting and I might just get taken back to those moments, when I completely fear his internal thoughts on set.

As you can see, we’re surrounded by images from behind the scenes of ‘Red Riding Hood’. This was a four day shoot, back to back in multiple locations, mainly in the Box Hill area of Melbourne – indoors, outdoors; we had attacks from bee hives near by and random great dane dogs bolting for an escape from the RSPCA next door to one location. An action packed week!

This was a magical few weeks for Mikael and I. We quite literally were living and breathing the film set which, considering how much hard work was involved, how little sleep we were getting, how hot it was cramped in little sets pumped full of thousands of watts of burning lights and not to mention how little money was in the bank – these were some of the best days we’ve lived!

For some extra reading and to hear more about our latest shoot, check out Mikael’s latest blog entry. http://somefellongoodsoil.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/thrillhouse.html

Keep your eye peeled, our Kind Sir Productions website / blog is in development. In the meantime, I leave you with the trailer from ‘Red Riding Hood’.

Until next time,
James Brereton

“Red Riding Hood” – A Kind Sir Production
Written Directed : Mikael Hattingh
DOP : James Brereton
Starring : Evan J Martin

P.S. Just for fun, Mikael & I found this sequence of images a real kick. Here we are discussing some technical film jargon and our hand movements are identical…kinda freaky.

Mikael and I entered ‘Love Is a Many Childish Thing’ into another 7 festivals over December/January and already have heard back from 2, both with great results! The first was the ‘Angry Film Festival’, held on 1st March in Kensington where we found out we’re up against one of our lectures from the uni Mikael and I studied at.

The other festival is ‘Warrambeen Film Festival’, a festival particularly pushing Australian shorts from country based film makers. I’ve only been a city boy for a few years now, but the most exciting thing about this festival is it’s all based in farm paddocks somewhere in between Geelong and Ballarat. In the middle of nowhere, right? But apparently Hugh Jackman is endorsing the festival and we’re up against a film with Jack Thompson in. Kind of scared.

The most exciting thing that this year is bringing is the development of a new production company Mikael and I have started up with our mate Evan, who met us through auditioning and then acting in one of our earlier film projects, ‘Red Riding Hood’. After many brainstorming sessions and beers, we came up with ‘Kind Sir Productions’.

Love to hear your thoughts on the name, under that umbrella, we have already started compiling a backlog of scripts which mainly Mikael and Evan write (occasionally and rarely my scripts will pop up) and we’ll be catching up and pushing each other along to start creating films!

One of the most fun things that has helped keep our momentum strong over the past few weeks is the idea of creating a bunch of ‘Short Shorts’. By this, we mean a short-short film. Something where we don’t take things quite so seriously and where production time is to be kept to a minimum. We’re saving our energy for the big projects while at the same time making sure we’re always creating things.

If you’re not quite getting the idea through my ramblings, we created our first one Sunday just gone. Script was written in 15min, shot over an hour and a half and was edited that night. Love to hear your thoughts…

“Who The Hell Knows”

So I don’t know how many others have had the thought, but back in the day – when films had no sound, and cinema was such a new and exciting thing – a musician sits in the corner creating the mood for the film. I’ve always been so curious to be there and to feel the atmosphere created by a live musician.

So, a few weeks ago I had this experience! Although, instead of being infatuated like people of the time to the flicker of an image in front of me and been blown away by a horse and cart passing on a singular tripod shot for 6 minutes at a time, I was naturally infatuated by the music being created in the room before me!

The majestic Astor Theater in St. Kilda as glorious as it is on its own, housed us for the afternoon as we watched the 1920′s film, Last of the Mohicans. Local Melbourne Indie Duo ‘Invention In Time’, made up of Kate on Marimba and Ariel on Vibraphone along with a number of other instruments; composed and added dramatic sound effects to every moment of this masterpiece.

It was simply a magical experience! As Jacob who was with me said, he got so attached to what was happening, he forgot the music was live. From the sweet melodies from the wooden & steel instruments to the sudden banging and rhythm of drums in the battle scenes matching the cannon fire. Every moment thought out so well, it added understanding to an ancient story – like adding colour to the grainy black and white image, yet so much more.

If I haven’t painted a clear enough picture, I really enjoyed the experience! I also found I learnt a lot – things I consider and want to add in elements into my future film work.

It’s amazing to see how the convention of film has not really progressed all that far. Sure technology has improved and we can do so much more now, but for what these early filmmakers had to play with and the efforts they had to go to, they are absolute geniuses!

Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown, the two directors of the the film created an adaptation of the 1826 novel by the same title. Set in 1757, amidst the turmoil of a war-torn nation struggling for its identity, the British fight French forces which have rallied together with native Indian tribes. Basing his novel on real people who played a significant part in the French and Indian War, history is realistically re-enacted while also telling a deeply moving personal story of individuals.

One thing in particular I took away from this film, and found amazing, was the fact that even though this film was in black and white, these film makers had each scene carefully filtered in a monotone colour. This not only helped break up the scenes but the colours were particularly chosen to set the mood and atmosphere. Maurice and Clarence were filmmakers ahead of their time. Even without the ability to film in colour, they forced colour into a black and white world!

Now to learn the secrets – to unlock the power of colour, and of sound!

Invention in Time will use marimba, vibraphone, piano, flutes, drums and percussion to create A brand new sore for an old film – Invention in Time.
Check out their website: www.inventionintime.com

Guess what?

Last night was the Screening and Awards Night for the Poetry in Film Festival. It was a great event and it was absolutely exhilarating to see our film up there on the big screen. To have shared the night with our crew and our actors and their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, even grandparents made the whole experience feel wonderfully complete and special. This was a team effort through and through and we all deserved to be there.

As we rocked up to the cinema and took our seats – I wouldn’t admit it to anybody but my heart was racing. I was incredibly nervous. As I was watching those first few films, which were relatively dark and melancholy, or at the very least aimed at an older demographic, I thought “Oh no… how is my little primary school love story going to fit in with these films? I’m crazy, I’m an idiot!” Ohhhh, that was fun. The nerves only increased when the words “Love Is A Many Childish Thing” appeared on the screen. But everything changed as soon as I heard that first sound of laughter break out across the room. The audience’s reactions throughout the film made it very obvious that people were connecting, and I think that’s a credit to the entire cast – particularly of course, the ever-adorable Isabella and the note-swallowing hero, Per.

George Iskander, the splendid man who played the part of the teacher told us that as he mingled with everybody in the foyer, he chatted with an actor from one of the other films. The actor told George: “I actually voted for yours.” For me, that story just made the night that little bit more touching, and in the end we took out the major award for “Audience Choice.”

My mind went totally blank as I went up to accept the award and make a speech. I wish I could have said a thousand things; above all that I honestly feel very honoured and blessed to have met and worked with all of you.

Thank you for making this happen.

It’s scary to think that this project is coming to a close. It has consumed Mikael and my time quite considerably for around 10 weeks now. Although we’re resting up a little at the moment, it won’t be long until we’re full time into our next invigorating project.

The next thing Mikael and I are looking at doing is a country based film about the struggles of a farmer with the slow yet fast pace of country life. That’s about all I can say on that, Mikael might tell me off for saying even that much… The script ideas bouncing around Mikael’s head are just about ready to jump onto the page and the visuals I have concepts for may already be hanging on my bedroom wall.

I’m moving into a time where I’m aiming to have multiple projects happening and all in different stages. Which means this blog might jump from project to project for a change. I’m starting to have regular catchups with VFX artist and the colourist for ‘Love Is a Many Childish Thing’, Jacob Dyer – we’re having regular games of chess where he inevitably kicks my butt and then researching into some of the classic chess-master games where we’re slowly building visual and narrative ideas for a period piece based in London. That’s about all I can say on that one too, might get told off by Jacob as well.

Even more projects and collaborators jumping on board everyday. If you’re creative, currently based in Melbourne and would like to join in on a project or have the creative ideas to start something fresh – collaboration is the best way to go. If you’d like to work with anyone connected with BlurredVision, send one of us an e-mail and we’ll get the creative juices flowing.

Thanks for reading, love to hear your feedback – If you haven’t already seen the trailer to the ‘Love Is a Many Childish Thing’ short film, have a quick look at it now:

So, I had just gotten back from a short trip to Canberra; I was fresh off the plane, walking through the airport, headed towards the pick up area to collect my suitcase when my phone rang. It was James. My ears were badly blocked up from the cabin pressure and I could barely hear anything beyond my own strangely muffled voice. However, through my tremendously blocked ear, I could make out the distinct sound of James’ barely containable excitement on the other end of the line.

“Our film got in! We got in!”

Now, I’m sure that due to not being able to judge volume properly, that I then began to talk way too loudly – perhaps to the point of yelling – as I stood amongst the crowd of weary travellers.

“Sorry… what!?!” I said, needing to clarify, “We got in?”

“Yes, man,” James assured me, “We made it!”

“YES!! YES!! We did it!!”

The news also prompted some quite unabashed public dancing on my part – had I a spare hand, I’m sure I would have taken the nearest person by surprise for a twirl and a dip. It was just a nice moment.

So, ‘Love Is A Many Childish Thing’ made the cut for the festival and I couldn’t be more proud and appreciative of everybody for making that happen. We’re now in competition with seven other successful entrants. I’m satisfied with having made it, but I guess the next thing to anticipate is any one of the awards. I’m personally psyched for the screening in a little over a fortnight’s time, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the other films and just being a part of the festival. I hope to see as many people there as possible!

In the end, it was a crazy rush to finish and submit the film. We had no money, we were running out of time and stress was high. We needed to record the soundtrack, do the foley and ADR work and we submitted it with literally minutes to spare. We worked through some unholy hours of the night and early morning and beyond to complete it but it was definitely worth it.

Just in case you’re interested… ADR stands for automated dialog replacement, which basically means vocal dubbing. We had george, who played the teacher, come in to record some extra lines. Foley is where you re-record and recreate every human sound in the film. As you can see in the photos, I’m sitting and writing on a piece of paper so to recreate the sound of the character Belinda writing love notes in her school book. Also in the photos you can see James and I working with the talented musician Nathaniel Taylor… or ‘Noff’ as we call him. This was the first time we had ever worked with someone else to create an original soundtrack and it was a great experience.

Lastly. If anybody wants to award James with some kind of gift for his monstrously enthusiastic efforts… anonymously donate him the album “Mylo Xyloto” by Coldplay.

 The final audio mix including ADR and Foley was completed late last week, the film was colour graded and was submitted to the ‘Poetry in Film Festival’ last friday. – But enough rest, we’re not going to just sit back and wait for results, it’s not time to move onto more productions.

I have a bunch of projects in conception with a number of collaborators now, including at least another 3 with Mikael, as well as talk of a documentary project with writer Adelle – a narrative piece on chess with VFX artist Jacob – and an artistic music video with Band ‘No Love For Lexi’ – just to name a few.

‘Love Is a Many Childish Thing’ doesn’t end here, we hope to have a number of screenings and events to celebrate the production. Dates TBA.

Many exciting times ahead. Still with many photos from the production to sort through, but here’s a quick selection from the behind the scenes photographers we had on board; Justin & Jacob.

Until next time,
James Brereton.

James has been incredibly busy lately, both working on the film and catching up on everything he’s had to put to the side in order to make this film happen, so he’s asked me to come by and update everybody.

I’ve just completed the final edit and we really couldn’t be happier with it. Hands down, it’s the best thing James and I have created together, and it’s thanks to the remarkable people we had working with us. We feel particularly blessed to have had such a perfect cast. Both Bella and Per (the two main actors) did an absolutely wonderful job, and I reckon audiences are just going to fall in love with them, which is what you want in a love story like this one.

A nice comparrison – conception to image…

Directing it was a pretty cool process. I’ve never really worked with so many people before, let alone so many children, but all the actors were really great and they took direction well. It was a lot of fun and I was amazed that they remained so patient with us. One of my personal favourite moments was taking our cast and crew photo together and getting everybody to pose like little hip-hop “gangstas”.

The next step is to work on the sound, which will involve some ADR and foley, and latest news with our soundtrack composer ‘Noff’ is that the score is half written, and sounding amazing! We’ll be recording this Monday which will bring the piece if not already – to life.

So there’s a fair bit to do before we submit it to the festival on September 9, but we’re on schedule.

We’ll leave you with some of our favourite images from the auditions we held. Keep checking back for more information!

Mikael

With the sign of rain on Monday, we decided to cram the three outdoor scenes all in on Sunday which meant a much longer then expected shoot day. Hats off to all the actors marathon efforts, especially our main case Per, Bella and Erica who learnt that being the main stars meant they didn’t get as much of a break as everyone else. Top efforts from everyone – the results are showing!

Here’s a sneak peak at an amazing moment we’re going to see in the film:

As you all can guess, this film started many weeks ago – I came to Mikael with the idea to enter the Poetry in Film Festival only 3 weeks ago in fact. We decided to create something short, simple and easy to shoot. We both clearly don’t do anything in halves.

For this festival, filmmakers everywhere are asked to interpret a competition winning poem into a short film. Mikael came back to me with a complex story based in a school. Scared in my mind about the logistics but assuring Mikael we could do it – we both went into full time production mode and after simplifying and lots of hard work and preparation – we’ve have now made it happen.

It’s exciting after a huge and exhausting shoot to suddenly move into the Post-Production phase. Mikael has set foot into the editing phase earlier this afternoon and is very excited to aim to have it done by the end of this week.

We also have a composer come on board the project who will be recording with us in the studio later this week. It’s all happening!

I’d like to spend the next couple weeks leading up to different screenings of the film sharing the process we’ve gone through. I leave you with images of Mikael storyboarding. We were running out of time and ended up spending an entire night conceptualising form the script how we wanted the story to unfold through the lens. Later this week I’ll be sharing some of the amazing moments we saw in the auditions and then various behind the scenes photography to follow…

Until then, thanks for sharing the journey.

One day of auditions down and one more to go with great responses so far. Can only get better from here.

Negotiations with schools has gone brilliantly with many potential locations we are still deciding between for outdoor scenes and a massive thank you to Box Hill Primary School for massive support and interest, including the access to use a classroom for our major scenes.

We also have our first investor on board – a huge thank you to my dear mum for taking an interest in the film. All money we have invested will help boost the production values, allowing us to hire better film equipment.

Been so busy it’s hard to blog lately so thought I’d spice it up with a little bit of an inspiration video – this is an old favourite of mine and as we’re working with children on this project, I think its appropriate; I find this to be very elegant and particularly inspirational in relation to what we’re aiming to achieve. I hope we are able to bring the same sense of charm and elegance to the film as this does:

A mixed bag of reactions, some complete rejections, others looking for excuses; but the four Principals who did take the time to talk with me had great interest in what we are doing and most of them look like they’re going to help out in some way.

My favourite Principal was the last school I visited of which I was just about to drive strait past as I felt I had had enough success. Yet she was the most interested in helping out, offering to pass on to each class individually our casting call for kids in the morning and offered pretty much the whole school across a weekend.

A massive step for me, I felt my confidence growing as the day went by. Still lots to organise before this film comes together, so back to the books for me.

Got to film a couple getting married in 3 months time host a brunch for some of their closest friends and family.
They share the passion of cooking gourmet food together and sharing this with their friends.
I shot a bunch of B-roll of them cooking and interacting with their friends – followed by a bunch of interviews about how they met etc.
Was really fun to spend the day with a couple well before their wedding day and they plan on playing this video at their reception. I’ll post it here at a later stage.

My “South Aussie Photography Adventures” photo editing is coming along.
In the mean-time, thought I’d share my Tilt-Shift train video ‘Locomotion’, since I haven’t posted a lot of my old stuff.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Locomotion | Miniature railway running through the Victorian Goldfields.

Music: Chicago by Sufjan Stevens
Cinematography + Edit: James Brereton

As soon as I got home, I’ve been inundated with small projects from work and as a result, it feels like I’m re-entering orbit.
As soon as I find my feet, I’ve got some fun little clips coming and a bunch of awesome photos – particularly from a 100mm Macro lens I hired just for my trip.

// Slideshow corrupted…correction coming soon! //

I have a strange obsession with chess at the moment – currently planning a creative shoot based around a chess game with dynamic lighting and possibly narrative as well as a series of photographs around the theme.

That and being an avid Canon supporter – having fun arguments with photographers over which lenses are better all the time; I find this highly amusing and am tempted to fork out the $10,000US to hire all these lenses for the day!

Check out my latest vid friends! Dewald Hein in all his glory!
This was filmed on sunday as part of the online Vimeo Weekend Project group.

Dewald gives us a sneak peak into the development of his latest game!

Dewald Hein | Games Programmer

Produced, Filmed & Edited: James Brereton
Video Portrait of a talented friend.
Vimeo Weekend Project Brief:
Showcase their skill and their philosophy behind it in a 2-3min video

Checkout Dewald’s site here: dewaldhein.com

The Vimeo weekend project is responsible:
a 2-3min video portrait of a talented friend, revolving around their special skill.
Dewald Hein is my candidate with his awesome game programming skills.
The video is coming along very nicely and should only keep me away from bed for another hour or so.

Check out Dewald’s site and keep your eye out for the video!
www.dewaldhein.com

This short love story pulls at my heart strings, not only wishing for love like this; but for inspired creativity like this, that may too inspire others.

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano

A couple of pencil-outlined birds escape from a little girl´s drawing, leading us through the life she dreams of.