Where It All Began

Where did it all begin? What made me become a photographer and a film maker? 
Well my Grandad was a professional photographer who was also in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and my Father is a keen amateur photographer, so they both inspired me to this path. However that was my photographic background, what about my video beginnings. Well they really started in 2006, in Berlin with a family holiday. 
For Christmas the previous year I was given a Casio Exilim camera which had video capability. I did some short little videos on it, but mainly took pictures. In 2006 my parents moved to Berlin for a year and me and my elder brother visited them on occasion so during the summer of '06, we went over for a two week summer holiday and I decided to use the video on my camera and see what I could shoot. With inspiration from music videos, documentaries and sporting videos I decided to make a sort of video diary of my two weeks and then once I returned to the UK I edited into a little film. Here is the result - Berlin Holiday Movie 
I would be interested to know what you think. Obviously the quality isn't great and the editing is very simple, but what are your thoughts on the structure and story? 
I recently found my Exilim again, unfortunately it no longer works and I was going to throw it out, however my Dad persuaded me not to saying that it had great sentimental value not only to me, but to him. It was the starting point of my career really and shot the video which we as a family can sit and watch to reminisce about out time in Berlin. 
The other reason I wanted to show you this is to show (hopefully) that it doesn't take top of the range expensive equipment to shoot a film that has substance and matters to people. 

I will be shooting the majority of my film "Why Do We Do It" on my Pentax K-5 digital SLR camera, which I used to shoot the 'American Football Test Shoot' as well as a Go-Pro Hero 2 to get some shots from different angles. These are expensive cameras that shoot full HD and I will be taking both to Silverstone Circuit this weekend for the Santander British Grand Prix, however, to prove my point I will be shooting a video of my weekend on my iPod. Their are some great apps now fr shooting and editing video, so I will use ONLY my iPod! Stay tuned for the results of that next week.

So I am only now two whole days away from beginning the shooting of "Why Do We Do It" at Silverstone. There I will be shooting mainly cutaway shots for the crescendo scene at the end of the film, however it is still vitally important footage, as the atmosphere at Silverstone is electric and I really want to portray that! I will be updating you with pictures, videos and over social media all weekend so keep up to date on all my outlets to see how it's going!    

Below are a few links to videos I have shot using different equipment as well as a video by my directing assistant Graham Taylor. Please go and take a look and let me know what you think.

Berlin Holiday Movie

Go-Pro BBMF

Graham's Go-Pro



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