Thomas English

ITV Idents – Windy Beach and many others

admin — Mon, 06 May 2013 09:22:29 +0000

Steadicam isn’t great for the wind so for my favourite of the ITV Idents we shot recently we pulled out every trick in the book. Kenyon Gyros, Antlers, wind-nets and a white knuckle ride against two massive car engines wind machines. Easysily strong enough to knock you over. Directed by Sonja Phillips and DoP’d by Olliver Schofield this is my favourite ident:

Idents are a fun form of filmaking. Making something that looks easy and natural that also offers a vignette on lives. We shot a bundle more this week. All DoP’d by Ollie Schofield and Directed variously by Sonja Phillips and Ray Dunlop. Another of my favourites is the bowling alley Ident by Ray Dunlop. The camera had to fly smoothly over the bowling gooves as a hommage to the “Big Lebowski”. I had to Steadicam off a matador dolly balanced and reaching right off the edge in low mode. Luckily Lami Okrekson, our 2nd AC, served as a perfect counterweight the other side of the matador to stop it tipping over.

Here are some of the other idents I did Steadicam on:

Debenhams Designers

admin — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:52:47 +0000

Myself and Dale Rodkin tagged teamed Steadicam on this set of Debenhams commercials for director Paul Barulis and DoP Dan Holland. Dale got to shoot all the lovely wide stuff with pretty girls on various beaches and outdoor locations in South Africa and I got to try and VFX match is shots for cuts for all the fiddly wide to macro-esque shots in a set of east London warehouses whilst it rained outside. After the shoot I got a parking ticket and discovered my central heating had broken and Dale probably chilled on the beach eating Ice Cream whilst trying not to spoil his appetite for the lobster dinner he was going to have later with his wife…. I had a Turkish shish-Kebab.

Here are the adverts…

Alpines – Lights On

admin — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:51:56 +0000

Music video for the Alpine Directed by Ryan Hope and DoP’d by Tony Miller. This involved a lot of very long tracking shots with the AR rig used extensively to go from high mode to low mode in one shot.

Eristoff – Prowl

admin — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 10:34:59 +0000

A wolf’s POV running through the streets at night for this commercial we shot in Romania for director Chris Hewitt and DoP Chris Sabogal. It involved a lot of running with a Steadicam, Alexa and Master Primes. The big crowd scenes we did on a Rickshaw or hanging off the front of a speeding car but a lot of the fiddly pavement and stair scenes I just had to run it. Constantly using a searching frame rather than a straight cinematic frame. A few shots we also did on the AR so the camera could jump over stuff.

“Hertz” a film by Vicky Lawton

admin — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:27:55 +0000

Vicky Lawton, the creative director at Rankin Films, directed this short for Panasonic to show off their new GH3 camera. A tiny little body that packs a punch way above its weight with respect to sensor quality and data-rate. I was asked to operate the AR (now upgraded and renamed to the Omega-Revolution) and Tony Miller stepped up to the challenge to DoP on the little camera. We managed to set the camera up ok with a little testing and the hotrod PL mount adaptor. The opening shot of this film which is then shown in my making-off is a classic demonstration of the powerful abilities of the AR and Omega-Revolution aka ΩR.

Toby Kebbell did a great job at playing the part of the tormented prisoner.

Epson Corporate

admin — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:54:06 +0000

Epson Corporate we shot on the AR rig with talented Sy Turnbull DoP ing and Rollo Hollins in the directors chair.

ITV Idents – Boxer Ident

admin — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:10:26 +0000

I have been shooting a lot of ITV idents recently as part of the big ITV rebrand with DoP’s like Chris Sabogal and Oliver Schofield and Directed by Sonja Phillips and Ray Moody. I did like 20 odd this past week alone. Here is a little taster one I did with Chris Sabogal and Directed by Sonja Phillips.

Plenty more to come.

Utopia

admin — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:38:12 +0000

For DoP Ole Birkeland; Alf Tremontin and I got to do plenty of Steadicam on this cult series “Utopia” but this shot I got to shoot is truly awesome! The car crash itself was shot with a RED epic in the back of a car and genuinely crashed as you see on camera. I was then tasked with reaching the MK-V AR rig into the middle of the car and matching the crash cams frame for a VFX takeover. Then trying to pull the camera out of the car smoothly and covering the gruesome shooting sequence in one take whilst making full use of the AR’s considerable boom. The final takes with squids the camera went far wider and far lower.

We had the door removed from the car. This making off is from one of the rehearsals before we started using live blanks; hence the silly safety specs.

We had the door removed from the car. This making off is from one of the rehearsals before we started using live blanks.

EQUIPMENT

admin — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:36:50 +0000

I use a variety of equipment from different suppliers including MK-V, Optical Support and Steadicam Tiffen. Cameras are supplied by facilities companies like Favarental, Panavision, Arri, Take2 or Focus 24. Occasionally I will subhire in a camera for your job but generally I will use the camera already provided by production. Steadicam quotes do not include camera rental.

Benenden Bubbles

admin — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:26:06 +0000

Directed by free thinking radical Cosmo Wallace this advert for Benenden challenged everyone. The now famous DoP Mattias Nyberg wisely chose to shoot using myself on the MK-V AR rig and summoned every bit of lighting ingenuity to shoot this commercial in a torrential downpour. You see after the first few shots, which happened in glorious sunshine, the weather turned for the worse. It turned so bad and uber miserable we all nearly cried. Mattias got the easy ups out, massive silks and giant lamps and really did a stunning job at making the whole advert look sunny.

The head spinning is off course done with the MK-V AR head spinning gizmo unit:

And I wore waterproofs.