I just shot a short promo piece for writer/director James M. Russell that he is using as part of a funding package for a much larger film. The piece features actor John Billingsley (24, Enterprise, CSI) talking to the camera about his son, who has committed a heinous crime but has just been released from prison. While John is talking a man with a molotov cocktail is slowly approaching from the background without John noticing.

We shot at a studio at Filmport in Toronto. The setup was lit with a 5K through 216 (with a jerry rigged setup after one of our Chimera poles broke!), backlit with a 2K, filled in with a 1K soft and eyelight from a mini Litepanels.

Gaffer was Chad Roberts and Best Boy Bob Ireland. It was good working with both again who I haven’t seen since Team Epic earlier in the year. Thanks to James and Sound Recordist Jeff for providing the pics.

Me shooting a molotov cocktail insert with stuntman Eric.

The crew and John Billingsley.

I recently got involved with the organization School’s Without Borders and participated in their Blitz Filmmaking camp, mentoring local youth by teaching them filmmaking skills.

The on-going program is setup as a really quick crash course teaching participants the necessary movie making skills in order to make films pertaining to a certain theme. This particular Blitz event was about showcasing local art based organizations and groups. Members from the various groups came to Blitz and made films highlighting their own groups mandates and agendas as either an outreach or fundraising tool.

It was a great experience to see everyone get excited about making their own films and being able to give back just a little was really rewarding. It was also really great to bond with the other filmmaking mentors (aka E.P’s, aka Executive Producers) and see the participants visions come to fruition.

Thanks to Kate Fraser, the coordinator of the event, my felllow filmmaker mentors and congratulations to all the participants on a job well done!

Here are some pics I snapped of some of the participants and EP’s hard at work:

Shot a live performance documentary, a couple of weeks ago, for Director Winston Hacking on Toronto based band Ohbijou. We shot at the bands tiny little house in Bellwoods. We had 5x DVX100’s running to capture the event which also featured 2 other acts by Timber Timbre and Bocce. All 3 had amazing performances and visually we captured some really great stuff including Winston’s background video projections of coloured light and textures which shone on the performers.

The project was funded by Promofact and should be completed by late September.