Videographer/Director/Editor

Shot on location in Hastings over three days (plus pick up shots in London), this video represents some of my most ambitious work to date.

The aim was to create a dreamlike world that seems to hide in plain sight amongst the mundane. Old world exoticism meets "Wicker Man-esque" small town pagan tradition.

Intentionally, the camera rarely ever focuses on it's subjects. It could be the delusions of someone dazed and drugged, or it could be the final hallucination of someone drowning at sea. The challenge was to achieve this out-of-focus look in a way that looked organic and artistic, rather than accidental and amateurish.

To create the drifting, ethereal plane I used an unorthodox focusing technique, tilting the lens at extreme angles to the camera body in order to manipulate the focal plane. This not only gave an effect similar to tilt-shift lenses but also allowed light to directly hit the sensor, somewhat emulating the flare often found on vintage Super 8 film.

Drones with GoPro cameras were used to capture the sweeping crane-like camera movements in both interior and exterior locations.

While I tried to create much of the special effects in a practical way on set, later in the editing process I made use of many digital VFX techniques. I composited ash, dust, additional light leaks and other imperfections into the frame and also used keyframe animation to create digital camera movements, kaleidoscope effects and ghostly trails.

When grading, I created a colour palette of greens and golds, which aimed to give the footage an exotic antique feel and used film emulation to add realistic grain and characteristics to the image on order to lend the image a more filmic quality and appear less digital.