Michelle Tofi

Early this 2012 director Jon Walton, a crew of camera folk and...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:30:17 +0000

Early this 2012 director Jon Walton, a crew of camera folk and myself as DP took charge of a spacious recording studio in Surrey to shoot a live session with self-proclaimed “vicious skiffle” band, The Jude. Here’s the first track cut from that session - ‘Les Filles Francaises’. I’m happy to report our original music video for this track has now gained over 10,000 views on YouTube, but it really comes to life here in the live setting.

Here’s the latest video from my recent collaboration with...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:11:05 +0000

Here’s the latest video from my recent collaboration with UK grime artist Jelluzz. I’m particularly pleased with the split screen footage in this music video; look out for the scene where the girl lights a cigarette by a phone booth - I’d say the two shots almost match up perfectly. The concept of the video is to demonstrate what life is currently like on West Green road, and what it could be like in a fantasy world. As always, please comment/share.

Cold Inside is the first of a series of music videos I’m...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:04:32 +0000

Cold Inside is the first of a series of music videos I’m producing for Jelluzz’s new mixtape ‘Navy Blue Days’. Featuring Nathan Hector and Tessa Hart, Cold Inside was shot on 5D MK II in and around Acton and Ealing. I edited the video in FCPX.

To get the whole mixtape you can download for FREE here http://hulkshare.com/wl4zq8obgubm and here http://www.downloadamixtape.com

Xander’s “Requiem for a Dream” video featuring...

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:20:51 +0000

Xander’s “Requiem for a Dream” video featuring Amzo dropped at the start of this week and has already racked up over 13,000 views on youtube. Here’s the link from my Vimeo page. I shot the video and it really was a fun shoot - Xander has an incredible amount of energy and creativity and brought loads of ideas to the shoot we got to try out, including shooting 50fps for most of the piece on 550D, then time-remapping in Motion’s Optical Flow in post. I hope you enjoy the video!

I’ve been collaborating with Jelluzz on a series of videos...

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:54:33 +0000

I’ve been collaborating with Jelluzz on a series of videos for his upcoming mixtape Catch Me if I Fall. It’s been a great opportunity to get more familiar with FCPX, which has become my go-to edit suite for music videos (I’m still using FCP7 for narrative film & corporate work, and probably will for the foreseeable future). Here’s a screenshot of the edit suite in action, cutting a split-screen based video that I hope you’ll all enjoy. Watch out for it soon…

Gear Review: Delkin Fat Gecko Camera Mount

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:17:10 +0000

I’ve been working on a short film - Play Rewind Forward - for quite a while now. It’s an improv based piece and that means director Melina Liu is free to add new scenes as talent becomes available and the story develops, giving the film a cool organic vibe. It’s also meant we can experiment as much as we want with the camera work and visual style, which has meant lying in the grass while parkour kids leap over us, and attempting to attach cameras to mobility scooters as make-shift dollies. That’s where this guy comes in - the Delkin Fat Gecko Camera Mount.

The Delkin Fat Gecko is a standard suction cup based camera mount that features two adjustable suction cups, rotatable to fit a curved surface. Attached to these is an articulating arm and a rotating camera base with a standard 1/4 tripod thread that should fit most cameras, or even a quick release if you’re daring enough to try that out. I took the above shot with the Delkin mounted to a side window, shooting straight at the passenger wing mirror. Admittedly, my mirror needs a clean!

I’ve used mounts before but never with my own camera. For example this Hama Car Camera Clamp Support (Universal) is remarkably more expensive but when I used it the design felt cheap and unsupportive, and there’s no way I’d have let my own kit sit on the bonnet of a car attached to it. The Delkin on the other hand, with it’s unique locking system and double suction mount just feels a lot more sturdy, and for a little over £50 it’s a great bargain. Not a driver? Not a problem! The day I got mine I mounted it to the front door to get some weird birds-eye perspectives. Because the Delkin articulates you can pretty much stick it anywhere with a flat surface and get an interesting angle of view. I just used mine for a timelapse sequence in a music video I’m shooting/directing so hopefully I’ll be able to share some footage with you soon. In the meantime, grab yours here: Delkin Fat Gecko - on Amazon.co.uk.

CrumplePop ShrinkRay X - Free for a week!

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:03:58 +0000

I love CrumplePop. Despite having issues with their initial set of plug-ins not playing well with FCP7 (My fault, not theirs, and they refunded me!) I’ve been loving the releases they’ve put out for FCPX, the still much maligned follow-up to their old Final Cut system I’ve grown with and loved. Having people like them come aboard the FCPX love-train has helped me enormously to embrace the ‘X’, and with a killer promo like this one you’d be mad not to give them a go.

ShrinkRay X from CrumplePop on Vimeo.

Yup, those awesome folks over at CrumplePop are actually giving away the full version of ShrinkRay X - the FCPX friendly follow up to their awesome ShrinkRay for FCP7 - for absolutely free this week. You can read everything you need to over at this page but once you’ve read that price tag, what more could you need to know? It’s already installed on my copy of ‘X’ and I’ve toyed around this morning with some old footage shot on high. So far, I love it. Of course everyone needs to eat so after the 23rd of November it’ll be back to its regular price of $75. Seriously, grab it now, right here.

I recently started working on a series of video projects to...

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:05:46 +0000

I recently started working on a series of video projects to coincide with the launch of Xander’s debut EP “Royal Blood”. This first one is a sneak preview of what to expect, layered with the intro to new track “Thesaurus”. I can’t take credit for anything other than a quick re-edit here as the stunning collage-based visuals themselves were created by graff artists David S. We do, however, have an awesome video on its way to launch the brilliant track “Requiem For a Dream”. Watch this space!

Packing light for today’s job. Of course the boom pole is...

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:54:02 +0000

Packing light for today’s job. Of course the boom pole is separate! (Taken with instagram)

My friend Luke made this excellent poster for a short film I...

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:23:38 +0100

My friend Luke made this excellent poster for a short film I made in the 2nd year of university - Ki No Otokonoko: Wooden Boy. It’s a Japanese language fantasy piece about a girl who makes a strange discovery about her heritage after the death of her father. You can watch it here - http://vimeo.com/11790275 - if you’re so inclined. Or visit Luke’s tumblr, linked below, for his artwork, writing and awesome shorts/music videos

lukeibbetson:

This is another variantion on “Kino”.

Today’s rig: 5D MK II, Redrock rig with cage + top handle...

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 10:08:13 +0100

Today’s rig: 5D MK II, Redrock rig with cage + top handle plus Arri follow focus and mattebox, Zacuto baseplate and EVF, Marshall monitor, 5D externally powered by Diconic HC. (Taken with instagram)

The Jude - ‘Les Filles Francaises’ I hope you guys...

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:20:00 +0100

The Jude - ‘Les Filles Francaises’

I hope you guys will enjoy this black and white music video for today’s single release of The Jude’s ‘Les Filles Francaises’. I directed the photography of this video under the supervision of incredibly creative director/editor Jon Walton last weekend and any French cinema fans amongst my readership will hopefully appreciate the nods to certain classic films of the Nouvelle Vague period. Look out for homages to A Bout de Souffle, Les Mistons, Bande à Part, Jules et Jim, Amelie and (500) Days of Summer! The band were great fun to work with and the single is available from today on iTunes here: Download Les Filles Francaises

A quick update… So above is the awesome video for...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:34:50 +0100

A quick update…

So above is the awesome video for Cypher16’s ‘Lonely Road’, featuring crane work and camera work by me and some excellent other camera guys who gathered last month at Battersea Power Station, 5:45am, to get this video shot in one long and frenetic day. The band were a pleasure to work with and really tore it up, playing live to the backing track without losing any of the intensity you see in the video, despite us making them do take after take to get what the director wanted.

It’s the first of two music videos I’ll be posting here in the coming week or so, having just wrapped shooting on the debut single for The Jude over the weekend - that shoot was absolutely a delight, we had two brilliant actors on set with terrific energy, plus the band bringing a huge amount of creative input to director Jon Walton’s vision. I was DOP on that one and got to borrow the signature visual style of some of my favourite filmmakers to bring the piece to life. I don’t want to reveal too much before it’s released, but it’s definitely going to be one worth waiting for. The single is released next Monday so keep checking the blog to stay posted!

Slidetrack action on the set of @AboveTheBoard (Taken with...

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:05:00 +0100

Slidetrack action on the set of @AboveTheBoard (Taken with instagram)

Just a quick snapshot of actor Emile Clarke on the set of Claudiu Tudor Pavel’s ‘Above the Board’, a journey into the mind of a junkie’s fever dreams, in which he plays a deadly game of Monopoly with a vampire and a magician. This is a short with a real need to exist - it’s going to form the centrepiece of the director’s application to one of the best graduate film programs in the UK. A pleasure to work on, and I can’t wait to see the result.

Film Freelancers Toolkit - Part 1 - Kit Maintenance

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:23:17 +0100

I’ve been freelancing now for quite a while on and off, making it my full time career following graduation from London Met this year. It’s had its ups and downs so far; I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some huge scale projects with exciting clients and great creative collaborators, alongside smaller no budget films, crafted out of sheer love for the cinematic medium. It’s not always going to be well paid work, and it’s not always going to keep you busy full time, but if you enjoy meeting different people all the time, in different situations, telling totally different stories, then it may just be the path for you.

For me it’s the path I’m sticking with, which leads me to this post, hopefully the first of a series, in which I offer a little bit of my experiences so far to hopefully help any readers out there on their own journey into freelancing in film. Today’s post is about keeping your kit in the best condition possible.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret I learned this week. There’s a tiny little boarded up store near Portobello road market where you can get almost any camera serviced, cleaned or repaired cheaper than any of the high street repair professionals, and far far quicker.

The London Camera Repair centre at first glance looks like it’s never open. Sometimes, it won’t be, so ring ahead (020 8968 5554), but when I went there at 3:30pm on Friday the owner had just opened up for the afternoon trade.

Reviews on google places give you a bit of a hint about what to expect:

“The shop looks like a bomb hit it. That really would cause anyone to question this guy’s professionalism. However, Sigi (he’s Austrian) repaired my Canon on the same afternoon for just 69 quid - less than half what Canon would have charged.”

To me, the shop looks like Steptoe and Son’s - a myriad of broken bits of film and photographic equipment, from splicing tables to dusty lenses, to boxes of tiny springs and aperture blades. Sigi himself will be somewhere in the back, leaning over a magnifying glass as he repairs someone’s most prized possession. If you’re a freelancer who works with their own kit as opposed to hiring, and you only have the one camera, this place needs to be bookmarked in every address book you own. I have a couple of HDSLR’s but only one 5D MK II, and when my camera’s screen popped out of place, getting stuck under the mirror near the sensor ahead of a major shoot tomorrow I was absolutely distraught. I called all of the usual suspects, including my insurance company, and everywhere I went I got a quote of £70-150 and a waiting time of up to 7 working days. Then I found Sigi. He fixed my camera and offered to order me a new screen (the one I have is fine for now, and he happily put it back in) while also cleaning the sensor and the camera body inside and out for a grand total of £38 - and all of that within about 3 hours of me taking it to the store. I picked it up friday night completely relieved, and the 5D is now in better condition than it was when I first picked it up, second hand, from a professional photographer.

Don’t just listen to me though. There are reviews to be had out there and all will tell you the same thing. Sigi is an exceptionally gifted craftsman who lives and breathes cameras of all kinds, and his service is the best priced around town. If you’re relying on your kit to bring you business/pay the rent, you must keep it maintained. Even if you don’t need anything checked it’s worth bringing it in for a sensor clean and a check-up - why wait for something to go wrong? Thus ends today’s lesson. Here’s that address:

72 Golborne Road, North Kensington, London W10 5PS

Maybe I’ll see you there.

Is this the first time a Facebook status has become a full scale...

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:58:40 +0100

Is this the first time a Facebook status has become a full scale viral video? Possibly! Shot and edited with five actors in two locations in roughly 3 hours, Old Spice teach those pesky rioters a thing or two about how to behave in a civilised society. Enjoy and pass it on!

On Directing

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:28:47 +0100

For the past five days I worked on a feature film, “The Chancery Lot” for an independent producer who had much of the final piece in the can, but needed to do some pick-ups. With the original director in the States I was drafted in as the shoot director, and an interesting experience it was. Here’s me directing, with the excellent focus puller Jon Pugh behind the camera.

As someone who generally works in a camera operator/DOP capacity it was great to be directing actors again. We had a lovely cast who put huge enthusiasm into the roles, and brought a lot of freshness and improv to the script.

For the technically minded out there it may interest you to know we shot on GH1, hacked to record data at speeds of up to 50mps, which meant we were capturing super high definition images for what is really a consumer camera. The lenses were certainly not consumer grade, though. PL mount super speed glass was used throughout the shoot; the GH1 certainly looks bizarre with such big pro level lenses mounted on the front of a tiny DSLR body. I’ll let you know if there’s a trailer online anytime soon!

Shooting at Battersea Power Station (Taken with instagram)

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:14:22 +0100

Shooting at Battersea Power Station (Taken with instagram)

“You’ll see me in the spotlight”. Just got...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 21:48:22 +0100

“You’ll see me in the spotlight”.

Just got back from shooting “Mata Hari: Birth of a Spy” for LSD Productions. Nice little short period piece about the dutch courtesan and rumoured spy Mata Hari, who was eventually executed on the charges of Espionage in 1917. The film takes place in Mata’s dressing room, as she prepares for a performance… in one way or another. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the finished film.

Sunset over Bethnal Green, E2. Beautiful! (Taken with Instagram...

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:15:51 +0100

Sunset over Bethnal Green, E2. Beautiful! (Taken with Instagram at Allan McAuliffe House)