Top Ceiling S1 E1 – iPhone Film of the Year Magic Bullet

Today we launched the pilot episode of Top Ceiling a web series concept. Wendy talks about Magic Bullet that won Best Film at the iPhone Film Festival.

Written by: Wendy Gumede and Humphrey Bande
Shot, directed & edited: Humphrey Bande

Editing live TV and for a live audience

Today was a special day as the country holds a national memorial service for tata Mandela. 

I was privileged to serve as part of the team running a parallel memorial at His People Church at N1 City, responsible for capturing the live TV feed from the official service and creating small highlight clips to air minutes later at our service.

Was so grateful for Yolisa who came to assist me with this. What an experience and everything worked brilliantly!

A small service to bid a legend farewell. Goodbye Madiba.

 

 

Our iPhone movie trailer

So excited that the film we shot on the iPhoone 5 using DSLR lenses is nearing release.

Check our Facebook page out here for more info.

Magic Bullet: Behind the Scenes (Day 3)

Tim our DP working with the iPhone 5 with a SLR adaptor mounted on it.

Hillary & Mellissa our awesome Make-up team

Watching footage after a stunning performance by Odelle De Wet

The legendary Sue who catered for the production

Errol framing while Sean Cameron Michael rehearses with Sandra Jorge

My homemade doorway dolly in action

Magic Bullet: Behind the Scenes (Day 2)

Photos from the second day of shooting Magic Bullet short film

Day 2 was at my place. Here we are shooting in the bathroom.

Brilliant acting by Mehboob Bawa & Sandra Jorge 

Errol and our AD Wendy in action

A 4 bank kino squeezed in the bathroom

Shooting a film with the iPhone SLR adaptor

Errol at my place testing the iPhone SLR adaptor by Phocus with my 50mm f1.4 mounted.

Yes, it is real! You can shoot shoot 1080p video with a DSLR lens. I’m super impressed and looking forward to shooting Errol’s short film with the iPhone 4 next week using this adaptor.

Photo: geeky-gadgets.com

We’re using Filmic Pro to lock exposure, white balance and focus.More on this next week.

Shooting a film  like this is going to be a South African first! Check out more  about the film here

Editing an Awesome Poem I shot on Video for a Friend

I shot Wendy’s poem onto video this week. It was a simple one light setup…well I also used a desk lamp as a catch and rim light although it barely worked.

I have a feeling that Wendy’s poem is going to hit home for a lot of people. I’m hoping to release it tomorrow.

On my side this is the first project where I’m having someone compose a song for a clip. Quite excited to see how it turns out.

Thanks to Thato for doing the sound recording.

Here’s the finished video:

On the set of Watchmen on the Wall TV show

Two weeks ago  I had a chance to be on the set of Watchmen on the Wall, a TV show that addresses issues of morality and values in South Africa.

As a filmmaker this was an incredible experience to see first hand how a TV show is run but it was even more special because the show they were filming on that day.

On this day Errol Naidoo, who is the founder of the Family Policy Institute, was addressing the recent event where ICASA (the government broadcast regulator) granted TopTV the go-ahead to air three hard-core pornography channels. So the show was addressing the implications of this decision on women, children and the moral fibre of the country. In 2011 ICASA turned this application  down stating that “women’s rights to dignity far outweigh TopTV’s  rights to freedom  of speech” and it it’s

Errol Naidoo – Family Policy Institute

interesting to see them turnaround and now and grant the licence.

Hettie Brittz on a Skype call with Errol

Dieter Lubbe the director & editor of the show and runs camera.

My good friend Mario Brown is one of the show’s 3 cameramen.

Henry Fisher is the assistant director and is  responsile for the set – i.e. he built it! He also made two clappers and gave me one…literally a legend!

Oh yes, Henry handles the make-up as well. Legend!

Naturally it was great to see their film gear including this Sony XDCAM EX below and two Canon XF300 broadcast cameras.

Moments before the show with co-host Ps Mitchelle Links

I managed to shoot a few behind the scenes clips and will be posting these up soon. In the meantime, here is the full episode from Errol’s Youtube channel:

It’s encouraging to have people like Errol taking on this fight. It left me further encouraged to use whatever I have to make an impact now.

Building our own virtual set

We’re busy putting together some ideas for future shows on the Youtube channel. Right now we’re brainstorming a look-n-feel for the video blogs.

In this rough version the idea is to take photos of our camera gear on a green screen and composite everything in After Effects to create a virtual set. It’s still a bit empty and I might need to stand a bit further back from the camera…?

Filming the Fire& Light Conference

Because this year’s event is being captured and edited live there was no room for error and I was super proud to see Sakhile & Wendy ninja it!

There’s nothing quite like the adrenaline of doing a live event!