Video: Behind the scenes at the Almeida Theatre

Before sets have been built and costumes designed there usually isn’t much to help promote upcoming theatre productions – which means creating a buzz before they launch is tricky.

So the Almeida Theatre in London has been commissioning me to produce behind the scenes films to help promote upcoming shows.

These have been quite demanding shoots, learning to work with a small footprint and minimise disruption to the directors and actors in the room.

As with all shoots it’s about getting the footage you need for the edit – capturing a sense of what’s happening in the room as well as the themes of the play in rehearsal. The location set-up is often only seen on the day of the shoot – meaning I’ll make a very quick assessment and mental shot list as I walk in.

Access to the rehearsals can be anything from 20 minutes to an hour – which means there are strict time limits to capture enough footage – this is stressful, but it also forces me to be efficient.

It also means that shoots are usually handheld and dynamic, with lots of camera movement to help emphasise action. During the shoots I’m quite procedural, using my mental shot list to make sure I get a range of close-ups, mids, wides – camera movements,  detail shots – and slow motion – all of which I know I’ll need to make a compelling edit.

Interviews and access to the actors is also very limited – so quick decision making in setting up the look of these is vital. These pieces are used to promote upcoming productions, so getting the key sound bites that really sell the production and describe the tone of the play is vital.

The edits themselves usually start with music selection – which is how I tend to approach most edits –  so finding the right track can take some time before cutting even begins.

Grading is also another useful way of communicating the tone and language of the production, for example with the Tragedy of King Richard II, I chose cooler colours to emphasise the starkness of the play’s content.

I’ve really enjoyed working with the Almeida because they’ve been very supportive in producing adventurous work – something that not all organisations have the confidence to do!

Video: Praying Mantis | National Insect Week

I was recently comissioned to produce a short film for National Insect week, working with the Royal Entomological Society and presenter Dr Tim Cockerill. It was an absolute blast to shoot and a wonderful location, filming inside the colourful bug houses of insect breeders Janice and Graham Smith! I think I may get one as a pet!

Check it out below.

The bug houses had a lovely mix of diffuse light and the tank lights provided night back-lights for our presenter Tim! We shot this on a Sony A7s ii using mostly Canon L lenses, the macro was shot on a RED Epic.

We also produced some shorter social content for FB / Insta, we optimised the content with text and by outputting the vids in a 1:1 square ratio.

One of the examples below!

Experience Composite (Video Commission)

What is in the contents of your head at the moment of the beep?

This film was commissioned as part of a residency within the Wellcome Collection’s Hubbub Group and exhibited at the “Rest & its discontents” exhibition at Mile End Art Pavilion, London October 2016.

Using playful imagery the film presents a collection of short vignettes that explore the strange and often abstract nature of our everyday inner experiences.

The experiences were documented through a process called descriptive experience sampling (DES), a technique developed by American psychologist Russel Hurlburt that aims to document inner experiences – the thoughts, feelings, sensations and bodily experiences that constitute our everyday consciousness.

Participants of DES wear a small beeper which sounds randomly throughout the day, at the moment of the beep, individuals are instructed to note down the exact contents of their experience (this could include internal monologues, physical sensations or visual imagery).

Follow up interviews tease out the information of the experiences and distill them into short summaries. These so called “beep summaries” provide wonderfully vivid depictions, almost like a dream diary, for seemingly mundane everyday experiences.

Using material gathered by several members of the Hubbub team, this film translates and re-interprets the contents of the beep summaries, referencing the distortions and adaptations that occur when we try to conceptualise our inner experiences with others.

The film was shot over the summer of 2016 on a Sony A7s. I used old M42 lenses to help give the piece a faded, dream like quality – which was further aided by adding film grain and muting the colours slightly in post. Most of the portraits were shot on an old Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens which has a beautiful vintage bokeh, which is full of character and lacks the somewhat clinical precision of a modern lens.

Find out more about the Hubbub Research group here: hubbubresearch.org