Recent Work
F2 World Cup Squad
This was a last minute job as Director and camera operator. My main focus was the 1 and 2 interview set-up. All of the areas proposed were noisy and crowded, but with a little sleuthing, we found a quiet corner with beautiful natural light pouring in. Shooting on 2 FS7s allowed us to drop the talent right in front of the windows, knowing that we had the dynamic range to balance exposure and create a very strong look. Having another excellent operator with me in Sam Walker allowed us to take some risks with composition, a lot of which was inspired by the location. As soon as we picked our spot, I knew I didn't want any shots to be too clinical or precise, and wanted to make use of the unique look of the building. Staying nimble by shooting handheld, and offering a range of angles and frames allowed the editor the room to really make the piece shine.
nike mercurial / Pro-Direct Academy
This video was essentially two jobs in one- to cover the Pro-Direct Academy's match against Manchester City Academy in The Etihad Stadium, and to act as a teaser for Nike's new World Cup Mercurial boots. As a single camera shoot, it was necessary to take a documentary approach to coverage, but to give it some energy, I shot with a loose, handheld feel with plenty of overcranked footage to highlight the boots and the action. I wasn't in charge of the edit on this job, so to ensure the client had exactly what they needed, I ensured that I had every aspect of the day well covered, as well as grabbing a variety of interviews, match highlights, and b-roll to allow them to create the video they needed. It was also essential that, as the first job I have shot for Pro Direct, that I studied all of their previous videos online to enable a cohesiveness in branding, while still putting my own ideas and style into the piece. Shot on the FS7 and Samyang prime lens kit.
wEST fEST- hIGHLIGHTS
After creating the promo video for this event, I was tasked with shooting a highlights package for it. Again, this was quite low budget, and there wasn't enough available to hire a second operator, and due to the nature of the event, it was impossible to rig a locked off camera, so I decided to shoot handheld to both enable me to work quickly and to get a lot of varied coverage while maintaining an energetic feel to final piece. As the bands were performing on a low stage, and quite close to the crowd, I had to limit my shooting to about three songs per band so as not to distract too much from their performance. I was primarily shooting on a 35mm lens, so I had to get up close and personal to get the kind of shots I wanted, but nobody payed to see me standing on the stage, so it was a matter of getting in and getting out without causing too much disruption. I avoided using an external monitor for the same reason, and was shooting at T1.5 a lot, which left me a little shaky on critical focus (although YouTube's compression makes it look worse than it is- I was sharp eventually!). The lighting design helped immensely for this gig, and made getting a range of shots relatively straight forward, although some of the back lights were older LEDs, and the flicker rate was inconsistent. This is visible in a few shots, but I don't think it's overly distracting. For the edit, I kept it fairly standard, and just showed the progression of the night, following the bands in the order they performed. I had shot of a lot more crowd coverage, but when there is alcohol involved at an event like this, you have to be very careful and make strong editorial decisions in the edit- people who are happy to perform for the camera on the night might be less pleased if they see themselves in the video come Monday morning. Initially we had planned to use a track recorded on the night, but copyright laws put paid to that. The track used is an "AC-DC" styled royalty free song by Mangojamz Backing Tracks ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydwE8q8i_qc ).
Booze and Glory- simple (DoP)
This is the first music video for London/ Italian/ Polish Punk "Oi" band Booze and Glory's new album, Chapter IV.
Directed by Jean Christian Larche, I was brought in as Director of Photography and "A Camera" operator. Shooting on a Canon C100 with Zeiss Compact Primes, the band and Jean wanted an energetic and fast moving live performance. Gaffer Theresa Winkleman designed several uncomplicated yet very effective lighting set-ups, allowing me to get up close and personal handheld movement with the band members over a number of takes, each focusing on a particular band member, instrument, or section of the song. When shooting music like this, I find it most effective to to let the song and the band's energy dictate the camera movement, and felt on the day that handheld whip-pans, sharp focus pulls and big close ups were going to the most effective. Obviously, this has to coincide with both the director's vision and the band's needs, but we were all singing from the same hymn sheet (not literally... Booze and Glory don't do hymns. But maybe they should). A series of passes on the song, along with two additional camera ops getting more creative "lens-whacking" effects and abstract angles (and Jean and Tess' awesome silhouette section), allowed Jean the room to create a very fast paced and punchy edit, that we all believe did the song great justice.
West Fest Promotional Video
Originally envisioned as a completely live action advertisement, time and budget constraints took this video in a different direction. I took the original concept idea (which involved a rocker/ metalhead born in the wrong era watching old vhs videos of his favourite bands), stripped it down to it's core essentials, and figured out what could still work when we focused more on animated bookends.
The event takes place in a new venue, and will be the first time this style of music will be performed there, so it was imperative to show off the decor to potential clientele who would not yet have had the opportunity to see the location first hand. This, coupled with some creative methodology for showcasing bands who have very little publicity material to implement resulted in a dynamic and effective promotional video, quite different form the common fare, quickly receiving several thousand views on Facebook and driving up ticket sales.
Cliona HAgan - Straight To you
This was a very quick turnaround and low budget music video for Irish Country singer Cliona Hagan. After pitching the idea to her and her manager and securing a location, I directed, lit and shot this in under six hours, with a further day for the edit, colour correction and titles.
Men's Shed- Housing Exectutive
This was a short documentary highlighting a social enterprise project in Ireland which is partly sponsored by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. The piece was created to showcase the charity during a gala event, playing on a large screen to the thousands of attendees. As such, it took a slightly different form from a broadcast or web documentary, in that titles and credits were excluded.
For this project, along with lighting, shooting, audio recording and editing, I also conducted the interviews, drawing on my experience in print journalism.
oktoberfest jamboree promo
Having already shot and edited several promotional videos for the Jamboree Music Festivals, I was tasked with creating something different from the usual "Highlights Reel" of previous years. I had been playing around with After Effects animations in my spare time, and I pitched this concept as a low cost alternative to their usual fare. It was a challenging project, and a fairly laborious undertaking, having to first "cut-out" every individual element in Photoshop, before stitching them together and animating them in After Effects, but the final video, which the company hosted on Facebook, gathered over 65,000 views and over 450 comments.
Cliona Hagan - Stuck Like Glue
Another music video for Cliona Hagan, this was shot on location in Bundoran, Ireland. I was brought on to direct, shoot and edit this video, but was not involved in the initial concept or production. Shot over the course of an afternoon during a cold Irish summer, the video was edited and delivered within two days.