The "He took his skin off for me" and how to feel young on your birthday post

Last weekend was my birthday and I'm getting old now......

Nah only joking! I'm not one of those people that moans on about getting old, I still feel like I'm 23 and that's what counts. It also helped that I spent my birthday taking pictures or a skinless, bloody arm and then spent the next day checking out the cosplay action at the London Comic and Manga convention. Those are guaranteed win's to help you feel young.

But what about the skinless, bloody arm I hear you cry?

If you follow me over on Twitter and Instagram then you probably know what I am on about but if not then let me enlighten you.

The director of 'Dinner and a Movie' Ben Aston is now working on his LFS grad film, starting with a test shoot for makeup. The film is an adaption of the short story 'He took his skin off for me', written by Maria Hummer and heavily features (yup, you guessed it) a skinless body.

The test shoot was in a disused old peoples home in west London with plenty of space for the makeup team to do their work and camera crew to get busy as well. Most of the day was spent applying the fake skin (well, mussels and tendons actually) and getting it to look right. The filming it's self only took about an hour with the aim being to see how convincing the flesh would look on camera.

Let's just say that it looks convincing enough OFF camera. Just see for your self........

Stay tuned in to this film over on the Facebook page because it is going to look amazing.

If you like the amazing makeup work then check out the amazing people who made it happen bellow 

http://www.theclownspocket.blogspot.co.uk/

http://hermespittakos.tumblr.com/

There will be a Kickstarter campaign launching very soon so you can go and show your support for new film talent. 

Ealing Studios & Tony Benn

Ok so the post is a day late, I'm a busy guy. What can I say?

This week I was contracted for two days, shooting unit stills over at Ealing Studios.
It was on a feature documentary about the life of Tony Benn, the retired MP and old school member of the Labour party amongst numerous other titles.
During his career he was, as he would put it, a sign post and not a weather cock. Sticking to his views and beliefs even if it caused him to become unpopular in certain circles, whilst others went with whatever the current popular opinion was.

Whatever your political views are, it is always interesting to sit and listen to the stories from a person who was actually there.
The film is also very much about the man himself as he tries to explain more about how his political position and vilification in the media affected his family and home life. He spoke of his regrets and of his life now.

It was a very interesting set to work on and an honour to meet him.

The documentary is called Will and Testament.

And to add the extra cherry on the top we were shooting on stage 2 of Ealing Studios.
Ealing is the worlds oldest continuously working film studio in the world!!!



Until I get clearance to post any production shots, here are my personal geeky shots.

Enjoy.............

Me, geeking out in front of studio 2.

Up on the grid, way about the sound stage floor. Its is one seriously cool looking grid.

You can really see how old the studios are and can only imagine who has been up there over the years.

Another for my pitch black collection.

Wrap day group photo of the whole team (minus me) with Tony Benn in the middle.

Photo Nibbles

So you have obviously noticed that the blog has been a bit quiet here?

Hopefully you have also noticed that I have been busy working on my photo exhibition "Step Into My Office"?

But also I have been keeping busy with shoots here and there so all in all I haven't had much time to sit down and out a blog post together. Im not a huge fan of just sticking up any old thing just for the sake of it.

Well here is a little post of some recent bits of work for you.

Firstly we have a little taste of the unit stills I shot for the film 'Greater Things'

Michael Johnson and Marius Zaromskis talk to the director about the next scene

It was good fun to work on this film. We were shooting in a studio in Greenford and had a full size boxing ring set up inside plus stadium seating for a crowd of extras. Add to the mix a whole load of smoke, moody lighting and two amazing MMA fighters and you have the recipe for some really nice shots.

More of that to come once the client clears the work.



On a less dramatic note I was shooting a Zumba class on Monday for promotional material.
The class was in St.Johns of Hackney. A church that I have sat out side on many occasions but had never set foot inside. Its huge and amazing with a gigantic pipe organ stretching up into the domed ceiling.

Before the class started I had a quick nose around and shot these.

Until next time folks.

And don't forget to check out the exhibition at one of its up coming venues.

The Arsonist

Well, I'v just finished editing the stills from 'The Arsonist'

Sorry to the 'Dinner And A Movie' crew, you will be next. I only did two days on set with this one so it was allot quicker to get it all finished. It was all on set and shot in two different rooms. We have the boiler room complete with dodgy electricity switch board and beautiful green walls and also we have the living room of a council flat.
Very cool sets I must say and I have learnt to expect nothing less from the LFS students. We even had two goldfish staring in the movie (they were not harmed blah blah blah disclaimer ;)

The boiler room scene was technically the title scene as it involved a bit of sabotage and arson. That was pretty fun to watch as we had a flame bar on set. A gas fed bar wrapped in cloth that could be lit and then adjusted to give a wall of fire. I wasn't able to get many shots though due to it only being lit during the takes (health and safety and all that) Still, it was a good fireball when they first lit it that made pretty much everyone on set jump.

Anyway, here is my pick of the bunch. The final edit was about 200 images.

Enjoy

               I love these near pitch black shots. I think I'm going to put together a set of them