Alex de Campi

By the way, here's the first finished music video from the shoot I started this thread for - 6 camera super8 shoot, at 25p: http://www.vimeo.com/5735338 Went with Cinelicious, very happy.

NY-area DoP wanted for spec commercial shoot. Shoot is 2 days, first is background stills, second is HD greenscreen studio shoot with lighting to match background stills (interior of shops/stores). Ad is online only so we can argue about what HD/HDV camera we hate the least. Unfortunately it's another gin n' burgers number as it's spec; I can cover expenses and feed people but that's it. Want to shoot end June/early July; shoot dates are flexible and can be shifted to accomodate DoP schedule, within reason. And yes, before Adrian asks, we have enough to get folks from Philly or Boston, but not any further afield than that. On the very slim chance we win the award/contest for the commercial, winnings will be split equally among all cast and crew.

Hah, no way. I grew up outside Philly. Nice city, but not going back. Long list of dumb personal reasons I have to be specifically in NY, otherwise I'd still be in London.

Do you know, I haven't shot a darn thing in America yet. Keep flying back to London to shoot... oh well, may have a Canadian thing happening over the summer. Things are good but SLOW. Living in Brooklyn, which is a lot of fun but new York is VERY expensive. It makes London look cheap, and that's just silly. As for Cannes, yes, you just enter your film into something called the Short Film Corner. It is *not* competitive (you can enter your holiday films, pretty much) and also is not related to the Cannes official selection for short films. Here is the information. The pass you get is not a full market pass, more like a 'junior' pass but with it you can enter the market and you can queue for seats for the big Palais screenings. A full market pass costs something like Euros300 and with it you get free tickets to all the official screenings that you want to book plus you can get into all the market screenings (eg for films not selected/not in competition). But Cannes' business is mainly about producers selling finished or almost-finished films to distributors (and about crashing parties, drinking rose wine and marvelling at how short famous actors are). It is good for casual networking and for seeing a lot of great films, do not expect much more - and if you can go cheaply one year for about a week, it is definitely worth it. NB: French riviera sometimes not as hot as advertised. First year I went (2005?) it was FREEZING.

At late notice, I am shooting some extra scenes for two music videos this week - all on manual-exposure Super8 (Nizo 4080 / 500T ) Weds pm would be after-dark 'crime scene' shots - WeeGee style setups of a lady murdering a chap in various parts of a house. Just a single wide and single closeup for each mini-scene, and lit only with a front spot plus practicals - to give the idea of (but not the reality of) still-camera flash. Saturday is stop motion work - fun with a clay head, 'plastic surgery' and medical supplies. Locked down camera throughout due to compositing etc. They should be fairly fun, relaxed shoots. They better be, as I have no money left (not that I had any to begin with) and can only offer your expenses plus gin / beer / drink and burgers after the shoots. If you have experience on film/Super8, are available either/both days and are up for this sort of collaborative work, please email me at alexdecampi *at* gmail *dot* com or telephone me on 0790 998 5015. - Alex

Er... I've organised shoots via facebook, chatted with producers about projects on it, got offers of work through it... I hate myspace (there's only bands and whores left on it, and the user interface still redefines 'unfriendly') and twitter seems to be increasingly hijacked as a corporate/personal marketing tool - so I've not warmed to it. I think facebook is great, though.

Lightpress contact: Ah. Oops. I am clearly a spack and not intelligent enough to use the internet. Also, on my 10" screen travelling laptop, the "contact" button falls off the right hand edge of the screen into oblivion. I truly didn't notice it until you all mentioned it - and I navigated all around the stuff at the left and bottom edges of the screen looking for a contact button. ::blushes::

Freya: Hi! ::waves:: Flyingspot is now Lightpress, they changed their name at the beginning of this year. I'll let you know how it goes with Cinelicious. (And Phil, I take your point about colourists but I'm hoping to remotely collaborate with the colourist on a look for the project via the streaming colourcast live thing they do at the beginning of the session. We'll see. Oh, and Here's a link to Cinelicious' equipment.) I also just heard back from Rushes in London, they can do tapeless, but not for Super8.

Unfortunately you all did a 25fps S16 -> SD PAL transfer for me a couple years ago when you were very tied up with your own film work, delivered it late (causing us to miss our broadcast deadline) and then for quality reasons we had to have the whole thing re-done by another lab. And getting communication/responses from you all when trying to book the telecine job was nearly impossible. So although I'm sure this was a one-off issue due to your own heavy filming commitments at the time and a lack of anyone else working in telecine, I fear that for me, it's a case of: Cinelab, never again!

I spoke to iLab (I'd done as much research as poss on other threads on this forum and saw them mentioned). Sadly due to their merger with another company, they've decided to indefinitely postpone adding S8 capabilities. Rushes used to have an S8 Spirit gate but I think they got rid of it. Soho Damages has one, but they can't do tapeless transfer - my bete noir with all UK post facilities. I live in the US so NZ probably a silly option due to distance even if the service is amazing which, knowing NZ, it probably is. Oh wait! HDCam deck. No thank you. TAPELESS. DON'T get me started on the extra charges asked by some of the companies above. The PAL HD charge, as noted upthread, makes no bloody sense. Workflow is telecine to at least 4:2:2 HD then edit in final cut. It's all a bit ghetto (as all my work is), because the vision is a lot more fabulous than the budget. Flying Spot / Lightpress have lost out simply by being impossible to contact / not providing an email address on their website. I only have a mobile with me, no landline, and I'm not waiting until like 8pm at night and then using up all my PAYG minutes to call Seattle. I think I'm going with Cinelicious as they are by far the best deal, don't add on silly costs like data layoff fees if you go 4:2:2, and I really like their colorists' work. Lastly, if we're sort of using this thread to make a big list of S8 -> HD facilities, two more US ones: Bonolabs: $715/hr TK and drive layoff fee of $3/minute Mymovietransfer / Debenham media: approx $16 per roll of S8 for SD, $25 for HD (I think, website a bit confusing). Don't seem to ding you for drive layoff.

Eh, not necessarily. Easyjet to Nice is about 30 euro and then the bus along the coast to Cannes. You can get a market pass by entering a short film in the short film corner - that costs about 35 Euro. Then you can get tickets to all the premieres by waiting in line, and sometimes you can go into market screenings if they're not too full/the distributor is nice. The difficulty is finding a place to sleep that is not expensive. If you can crash with friends (or, as some people do, drive out in a van and sleep in the van) it's fine. Or you can stay a distance away from Cannes and drive in every day. Lots of young filmmakers go to Cannes on this super-cheap basis every year. It's a lot of fun, although you may never want to see a bottle of rose wine again afterwards.

I'm shooting a S8mm music video and will have about 2,000 feet of 500T I want scanned to 25p (PAL) HD and laid off direct to drive. This seems impossible in the UK (where I'm shooting) so am planning to schlep the developed reels back to America and try one of the labs there. Does anyone have any experience with / recommendations between the following labs, which to the best of my google-fu are the only ones scanning S8mm -> HD? I'd be especially interested if anyone has experience putting PAL / 25p work through. (I'm being cheeky and mentioning all their published rates, as it's interesting to see the variation) * Cinelicious (do they do PAL?) HD @ $275/hr * Lightpress (ex FSFT) who, super-annoyingly, don't have a contact email address anywhere on their website. Anyway, they're $600/hr for HD scanning then another $250/hr for layoff to drive. 50% off for standby rate. * Pro8mm HD @ $450/hr + $20 extra per hour for PAL * Colorlab - $750/hr for transfer + $300/hr for uncompressed layoffs to drive Let me know any experience you all have with these folks, or any other labs that do HD that I might have missed out. On price alone, Cinelicious is the clear winner - and they seem to do a lot of music videos.

Just to update on this, I got the gig (nothing quite like beating out 21 other directors for the ego!), they needed the video like YESTERDAY which meant the shoot got moved to London (closer to the artist, and where I could use my favourite/usual DP and HODs) and then five days before the shoot the label decided to postpone the video indefinitely due, presumably, to wanting to hold back on marketing budget. And this is... well, it's the biggest record label out there. Sigh. Music videos, aren't they fun? Anyway, thanks to everyone who got in touch - I am very much looking to develop relationships with DPs in New York and Boston as I need to start shooting in America rather than only flying back to London for gigs, so it all comes in useful and I am starting to plan projects here.

See, driving up from NYC I'm totally OK with. Tim - got a link to a reel/website or can you drop me an email so I can get a better idea of your style, etc?

I grew up outside Philadelphia! (Chester Heights)... I know the city well. Sadly, but for Act of God, there isn't likely to be enough snow in late Nov around Philly/Chadds Ford for the look I want. Heck, school only got cancelled for snow days about 2 days a winter, which to my 10 year old self was WAY too few.