My First Time Lapse

Here is my first attempt at shooting a time lapse using my new Panasonic HDC HS-700.

Movie Review - BOY

Boy is a wonderful trip back to the 80's, set in Waihau Bay, New Zealand, full of complex and wonderful characters. Writer/Director/Star of the film Taika Waititi opens the film with a hilarious introduction to who Boy is (played by the magnificent James Rolleston) and his facination with the King of Pop: Michael Jackson. Throughout the film homage is paid to the King of Pop in just the right amount, always bringing a laugh out from the audience.
As soon as the intro is over the movie sucks you in as this poor Maori kid reveals his life to you and the people around him. Firstly the school and his school mates are brought into focus revealing a shy but gutsy kid, who does indeed love MJ and his dance moves. From there you are taken to the house he lives in with his brother Rocky and 4 or so other 'cousins' with Boy looking after them all and cooking for them while their Nan is away. After establishing the maturity, complexity and cuteness of Boy, the film takes a new turn as a car slowly drives down the driveway of his house to reveal his father is back from prison.
Shogun (or Boy's Dad) is a character unlike any I have seen on a screen before. He is completely convincing as a caring but hopeless father, however, as time goes on reveals himself as more a crazy drug addicted mess with grand dreams and no potential. Boy learns this lesson at the same time you do as a viewer, and that is the key to this film. At no time do you fall out of the amazing world that Boy lives in and the realisation of who Boy is and who his father is comes to you at the same time it does to Boy. The pacing is brilliant, with the smattering of characters always keeping you smiling, laughing or on the odd occasion crying out in shock. One of the most powerful scenes I have ever seen also crops up later in the film where Boy confronts his Dad and unleashes all of his built up rage, made ever more poignant by the light hearted tone from the beginning of the film and beautifully matching the character arc of their father Almein. Or Shogun as he prefers to be called.
In summary the film has everything. A surprising amount of laughs, morality and emotion. Many movies, and especially Australian movies, try to find this balance of shock and awe but none I have seen recently do it as well as Boy does. Once again New Zealand has proven itself the new master of movies and I give this film a solid 5 stars recommending it to everyone in the world!

Morning - My Directorial Debut!

Well, here it is. The beginning of my foray into the world of directing. After many problems with the story and actors canceling at the last minute, we went into shooting this a little confused as to what we should do. After getting through that stressful yet amazing day, we then discovered that the first third of our shots were out of focus prompting my group to feel that utter despair our tutors told us to expect in the editing process. However, after three edits of the film and finding ourselves still struggling we came across some royalty free music entitled: Silent Movie Sound. An epiphany struck and after some lateral thinking from all the group with titles being used and funky transitions in place, we had come out with something that satisfied all our requirements.
I feel that our group really learned a lot during the course. Simply because of the problems we had putting it together and that we still came out with what we thought was a funny movie with a gag ending involving a man who is unlucky in love getting unexpectedly lucky. Those were our requirements and the fact that we reached them in a very different way than intended only led us to better understand the real power of film. I cant wait to run into more trouble and see what happens next time...

Rainy Day...

This short film was probably the trickiest film to shoot. We had some outside shots but thankfully the London weather stayed nice for all of them. We were allowed to use the outside of the LFA for this too, however an entire year from a local school arrived at one point on an excursion which made everyone shake their heads at Murphys Law. We then proceeded to move in doors and use the LFA's reception, corridors, stairwells and other rooms. Shooting in a stairwell designed for single people to walk up and down was quite a challenge, especially as it was white and trying to get the lighting to work correctly without shadows being thrown around of people, or the light stands! Still I think it worked out great and I got to be runner on this one. The part where the cigarette is doused with water was done by yours truly. What a shot from throwing water out of a water bottle lid!

Cleaned Up!

This is the short film we did at the London Film Academy called Cleaned Up. It was great fun to do this one as our Director was a stand up comedian and had quite a bit of experience with being on stage and writing. He had planned the day down to the second and amazingly we finished a few hours before the end of the day! I really like the 70's low budget horror shots of the lady in the door and think the whole short has a great feel to it. My role for the day was as focus puller, which amazed me as I did not realise the person in control of the focus does not look through the lense. Still, it came out great and definitely got a round of applause on our screening night.

Other Films I'm Into

Check out some of the other short films I've found on youtube. There's thousands of them!

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Welcome!

Welcome to Perspective Productions! My aim is to provide a show reel of what Perspective Productions has done in the area of creating films of all shapes and sizes over the last few years. I have currently worked on editing some of my travels into mockumentaries aswell as 3 student shorts made during my time at the London Film Academy.

I am currently based in Adelaide and plan to work on more projects over the coming years. Please post a comment if you are looking to work on something yourself or if you are currently doing so, I'd love to hear about it, as would people who visit.

Lets try and build up a stronger film community in South Australia!