Director. Writer. Producer.
One of the last true greats of American cinema, Sidney Lumet, passed away today at his home in Manhattan, aged 86.
His first feature ‘Twelve Angry Men‘ is not just one of my all time favourite films, but a masterclass in how to tell a compelling and meaningful story without the need for expensive locations, elaborate set design, unnecessary camera movements and cliché ridden over-scoring.
Celebrate his films. Tell everyone about them. Just don’t mention ‘The Wiz’.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Super Moon!
Between exploding Japanese nuclear reactors and Allied airstrikes on Libya, you could be forgiven for missing the news that yesterday, The Moon was at its closest, biggest and brightest in almost 20 years. The above is my contribution to the astrophotographic cannon of this ‘Perigee Moon’, aka ‘Super Moon’.
More info from NASA here.
© 2011, Paul D. All rights reserved. Moral Rights Asserted.
Last week, the UK’s biggest still photography expo, Focus on Imaging, took place at the NEC in Birmingham. In between meals with major manufacturers, I managed to find time to circumnavigate the event floor, play with some gear and have a few interesting conversations.
The star of the show was, without doubt, the Fuji X100, which is both smaller and lighter than I had anticipated. Furthermore its EVF, whilst not perfect, is perfectly useable and seems to work well in conjunction with its optical viewfinder. Fuji were surprised by the sheer number of people with DSLRs saying they want one as a second camera. They were also surprised that the three most requested features (for a future version) were interchangeable lenses, 1080p video and an articulated monitor…which they seem to have heard loud and clear… Continue reading “Focus on Imaging 2011”
Last weekend HDSLR guru, Vincent Laforet, held a weekend long workshop in Seattle, that was hosted (and streamed live on the net) by Creative Live. Since it was Laforet’s short film, ‘Reverie‘ that opened my eyes (and those of several million others) to the possibilities of the Canon 5DmkII, I was fascinated to watch as he took a small group of aspiring filmmakers on a journey through the shooting, editing and completion of a short documentary and onto scripted drama with professional actors, using HDSLRs. Continue reading “HDDSLR: Moving From Still to Video with Vincent Laforet”
With our first shoot complete, the next step was to get the relevant footage to (evil) puppet master Mike Quinn, in The States. Mike is one of the best in the biz, having worked on everything from The Muppets to the Star Wars series (in which he played Nien Nunb) and thanks to his enthusiasm, passion and commitment, what had started off life as an idea for a horse singing ‘do-si-do’, had quickly snowballed into a mini puppet epic. Continue reading “The Making of Thomas Dolby’s The Toadlickers – Part 2”
© 2010-2026 Paul-D.TV All Rights Reserved. Moral Rights Asserted.
