Boogie Woogie Pappa (2002)

I have just finished watching "Boogie Woogie Pappa" in which Erik Bafving uses old 35mm photographic images shot by his father. Bafving infuses the images together to visualise the early part of his life and his relationship with his father. Narrated with english subtitles, the images and narration combine to tell the story of being a young child hearing his father play Boogie Woogie music on the family piano. As the film progresses however, the relationship deteriorates as Bafving's father, a workaholic struggles with alcoholism and and eventually commits suicide.

Only 13 minutes long the film is a great example of a short similar in length to that of my minor project plus it uses stills to portray a story in a different but extremely effective method.

We got introduced to some of the kit that we are going to be using at uni yesterday. There was a bit of buzz about the Canon D5 Mark II for its HD video capability. I have been scouting around for examples and found this video which was apparently shot using the Canon. The image quality is brilliant, and I'm now very excited about having a dabble with this little beauty as well!

Little Comets - 'The Isles' from Agile Films on Vimeo.

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

Simply Stunning

Started uni course today at Salford and it seems good, am highly excited about getting going, plus the cameras and equipment look awesome! hopefully will start to step up my game in terms of watching and reading more and more and more... and of course this blog as well as twitter which Im hoping to start really utilising to get as much as I can from this year (and for my money!!)

Watch this space...

Eye of the Leopard

Caught the back end what looked to be a fantastic doc last night, Eye of the Leopard (2009) on National Geographic channel. The narrative followed a solitary leopard, Legadema in Africa for three years from birth, to adulthood. The footage was shot by husband and wife team Dereck and Beverly Joubert who have lived in Africa for over 25 years and have spent the last three years following Legadema. The film captures some truly remarkable and at times astonishing events as the cub's relationship with it's mother fades and Lagadema has to learn skills of hunting and surviving alone. Will defiantly try and check out some more of the Jouberts' work as they have particular focus on the plight of African big cats.