Here it is:

I’m pretty happy with it, considering I had to use old footage from previous years, some of which I didn’t shoot and was on lower quality HD cameras. And the fact that my laptop is getting pretty old now, I think it’s got arthritis or something!

Audio track was from http://www.abesaudio.com/ based in Victoria.

Hope to see it play on Channel 9 in the next week. Simple CSA.

There, I filmed some young riders in the Preliminary Horse 1C and 1D at Arena 1A and 1B, Sponsored by the McCarroll Group.

Below is a shortened sample of what I filmed.

On the day, I managed to film the following riders and their horse:

Preliminary Horse 1C

Preliminary Horse 1D

If you would like to purchase a DVD of your test, please email me at bernardlau@silverkottage.com.au or call me on 0413 593 838.

A DVD is $35.00 plus postage and handling (around $3 in NSW).
A digital copy of your test is also available at the same price.

During May and June, Sydney takes Paris’ title of City of Lights. This is the Vivid Festival, a festival of lights, sound and art.

The light installation are projected onto iconic buildings on Macquarie St and then the Sydney Opera House.

Something I’ve learnt when doing this timelapse is that:

1. Timelapse takes long… if you invite friends along, make sure they have something to do, or else they’ll nag you to leave.
2. Shooting at night is hard to focus, even when you digital zoom.
3. Bring extra clothes and an mp3 or video player, it’s gonna be a looooong night.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my timelapse of Vivid Sydney. I might ad some additional shots of sundown as you could see, the first shot was really quick… I only got to the location at 4pm and the Sun was going down already…

More timelapses to come!

This time, it’s Mortal Kombat. But unlike the Street Fighter fan films that I posted a few weeks ago, this is not a fight demo, but more of a prologue to a feature film.

Directed by Kevin Tancharoen and written by Oren Uziel, the rumour is that these two have approached Warner Bros with this short as a pitch for a reboot of the film that Paul W Anderson made int he 90s.

Check it out, starring Michael Jai White (played Spawn and also the guy that wanted The Joker dead or alive in TDK):

As you can see, the film has a more real world setting with references to Mortal Kombat characters. The style actually reminds me of Max Payne. And I’m guessing the reason for this is the influence of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films.

But don’t dispair, as Tancharoen has been quoted as saying his vision of Mortal Kombat will still have super natural elements, fatalities, and a universe where multiple worlds exist, similar to Harry Potter.

Will we see this film in 2013 as IMDB suggests? Only time will tell. But I’m sure hoping it does!

Outer World Ninja fued duking it out in the Mortal World? SWEEET!

I think the first time I stumbled upon his youtube channel was when he had the Street Fighter game, which I blogged about a long while ago.

Over time, he’s come up with other cool stop motion clips, Iron Man vs Bruce Lee is a hit, but I thought Bumblebee vs General Lee was cooler.

Well, here is his latest creation and this time, it’s in CGI!

Iron Baby, pretty cool eh?!

Time and effort pays off and I reckon Patrick will go pretty far with his dedication and skill.

There were many romantic and funny moments of the day and there were so many children around, it was cuteness overload. But words can only do so much, so here is Thao and John’s big day, a Same Day Edit shown on their night… again, I would say Santo is one crazy editor, putting footage in the edit that was only shot 30mins prior to being shown!

Did you like that?

Well, that’s not the only Wedding this month. Earlier in May, we shot Lillian and Andy’s Wedding. The ceremony was at the visually spectacular, McMahon’s Point and the reception was at the Shang Ri La. Again, we showed our footage at the reception to a crowd of over 30 tables! Enjoy.

Hhhmmm, seems like Same Day Edits are very popular! And it’s all because of excellent teamwork and an editor that can create an emotional story with the footage he is given. A lot of people can edit, but not many people can edit with meaning into it. I’m starting to not like the term Same Day Edit, or SDE… I think we have to find a nicer name for it so people won’t have to ask us to explain what it is, even though it’s obvious. Maybe something along the lines of “Instant recap” would be better?

Busting Final Cut Studio’s balls.

What does this mean? It means us Canon SLR users can pull footage off our memory cards and edit straight away! This means no more waiting for footage to convert to a more stable codec, which usually takes twice as long as the original footage shot.

That’s right… rub it in Adobe, rub it in…

I’m yet to test out CS5 Premiere Pro, so I’m not sure if editing in H264 would be smooth or not. Then again, I probably can’t, since I’m still stuck with 3 year old technology… base model technology actually… my 13 inch Macbook that doesn’t even have a DVD burner

So, I guess it’s time for an upgrade. What do you think? Macbook Pro 17inch with i7 or a Quad Core 27inch iMac?
Decisions, decisions…

That’s a new idea for Steve Jobs, the iPunch.

On other news, the geek world of the internet has been blessed with not one, but two Street Fighter fan films that doesn’t suck. One by indie filmmaker Chris Cowan testing out his Canon 7D and the other, by Joey Ansah, best known for his bathroom fight scene with Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum.

Here’s both films:

Street Fighter Beginnings End

Street Fighter Legacy

So, what do you think? Pretty sweet action I’d say and if Chris had the budget and connections of Joey, I’m sure the quality of the two would be even closer.

But really, besides from a fight between Ken and Ryu, I’d like to see some story development. Why are they fighting? Why does Ryu wander around like a man with no purpose? Surely if they’ve given so much time in the action sequence, they could’ve added a plot to it. It’s like eating toast with no bread but just the butter.

Oh well, at least it’s still better than the last incarnation of the Street Fighter mythology…

I haven’t seen this, but, why is Chun Li punching? Why does Balrog use a gun? Why is the reason Vega cover his face cause he’s ugly? Why does Chris Klein overacts so much?

Hhmmm, you know what? Maybe I should make a King of Fighters Fan Film, I’ve always wanted to… Oh wait, a feature film is on it’s way! By Hong Kong’s Gordon Chan. Let’s hope he learns from Andrew Lau’s Initial D and make a half decent adaptation.

Oh my… they used the Dark Knight’s score

Ah, you just can’t escape the Hong Kong influenced corniness.

Some say, this is as prestigous as the Oscars…

Then within the same week, I moved out to a new apartment and also, I’ve been slaving away on my best friend’s Prewedding film for a couple of weeks too.

Photos courtesy of www.vlblog.net, Vincent Lai, photographer on the day

I’ve known Vincent and Lisa since my first days at University, studying Computer Science and they’ve been great friends ever since. I had the honour of being Vincent’s best man on his big day and to top it off, as a gift, I made a Prewedding film for them.

The sexy bridal party!

It was great, I haven’t shot a narrative piece by myself since I was in New York in 2008 with my Sony FX1. And now, with my Canon 7D and having full control, I was back to where I’ve always wanted to be, directing.

Without going on and on, here is the Prewedding film:

Being back in the Director’s chair was fun and since I edited also, I really got to fine tune my skills in saying no to footage that we shot. I’d say we had another 3 scenes that did not make the final cut.

Then to top the night off in the end, PaperCranes finished the evening with an awesome SDE. The dance in the end was only filmed 30mins before the film was shown! SANTO YOU ARE CRAZY!

Finishing the night with a tribute to Mr Jackson!

Now you can shoot like James Cameron!

In their line of professional grade DSLRs, Canon has just announced the Canon 3D. Which… shoots in 3D HD. Full specs haven’t been given out yet, but from the looks of it, it should be 1.5x wider than the 5D/7D.

It’s a pity that it’s a dual lens system instead of a single lens that branches to two. But I guess the reason for that is so that people don’t have to invest in brand new lenses… they just need to get a duplicate lens, or shoot the same focal length at the same aperture… with two different lenses.

Aussie Indie Film: Six Lovers

From the film’s website, the synopsis is:

Nathan loves Lucia, who is having an affair with Lorenzo, who is seeing Tom, who has a relationship with Walter, who’s separated from Marilyn, who wants to save her relationship.
Hearts will break.
One will die.
It’s all on tape.
Are you willing to share your innermost secrets?

Seems like an ensemble drama, so hopefully with a tight script that’s written and directed by Laurent Boulanger and produced by Joel Mielle with a strong cast, the film can go places.

Oh, and the film is being shot on the Canon 7D. Which… from what I read, was used on the set of Iron Man 2!

If you want to follow Six Lover’s progress, head over to their blog by clicking here.