"Byron" the crew with a rebel!

On the 16th of April I went to Malvern for three days to film a short western. It was a very small production with a crew of three and two actors. The crew being Luke Massey (DOP), Mark Kendrick (sound) and my self (AC & Gaffer.) I met Luke and Mark on the Warhouse, which was a feature I did last summer which Luke wrote and directed and both he and Mark are still hard at work on the edit as we speak. The actors were Jefferson Hall http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2131630/ and
Al Weaver http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1632403/

Luke called me about this job a few months ago telling me he wanted to test some new equipment for the production company. I had no idea that we would be actually shooting a short until about a week before we started, but I think it's a much more fun and probably better way to test equipment by using it in actual production rather than just testing it on random stuff. The new equipment we were testing was the Canon 550 D camera, or as it's called in the states the 550 Rebel t2i (a far cooler name I'm sure you'll agree.) Luke wanted to test this camera with the standard 18-55 zoom lens that came with the it, and as small a lighting set up as possible. We only took two lights, an Arri 650 and a 300 to be run off a small generator. Luke's plan was to push the cameras in camera settings as much as possible particularly in low light situations. Hence the minimal light set up.

The script was written by Jefferson Hall who played Byron. It was a great script, that could have been the end scene in a spagetti western. Both actors were great, I was genuine shocked by their performances on several occasions. I was also very impressed by Jefferson and Al's make up skills! Because of the small crew we had a great working atmosphere which made for a very fun weekend.

We filmed in the dark, at dawn, in the sun and the camera proved to be fantastic in all lighting conditions. The images looked great, fantastic colours and very deep blacks. The size of the camera and using the zoom lens made changing shots super quick and easy. I think it is a fantastic camera especially for the price (£700 Inc VAT.) One I'm sure I will be using a lot in the future. For a more in depth review of this camera have a look at this link http://philipbloom.co.uk/2010/02/26/first-thoughts-on-rebel-t2i-550d/

Below is an ungraded still from the film to give you an idea of the image quality. Pictured Al Weaver.