Over the weekend two of my good friends got married and I decided to create a short film on the day of their wedding. The film gives you a brief insight into their life, and their beautiful relationship.

I decided to steer clear of a cheesy traditional wedding video and create something a little more personal. I filmed this on the trusty 5DMKII, with ZoomH4N sound recorder, edited in FCP, Soundtrack & Magic Bullet. (Around 3 days post) My girlfriend Bel Jones photographed the wedding too. A huge congratulations to Grace & Elliot!

Panasonic HVX 202
Juicedlink 454

A few months back Skyline approached me & asked if I’d like to create a promotional video for mountain biking at their resort. It’s always a hard balance working to a clients needs whilst trying to create a piece that is interesting to watch. I used Kelly Mcgarry as the face and talent and opted for something a little different. Kelly opens up with some dialogue followed by a short visual narrative of Kelly riding the trails ( with and without friends ) throughout a day.

There was a tonne of broll & out takes so we also decided to cut together a behind the scenes video which is featured below. We’re all really just a bunch of goofs. Enjoy!

This incredible documentary PressPausePlay is definitely worth loading up during the day and watching after work. It features several iconic figures within the world of arts and media sharing their thoughts on questions that we are faced with every day. We’re living in a crazy digital era, and I bloody love being in the thick of it. I hope this doco gets your brain tickin!

Whilst I was at XGames I sat down with the lads from Vimeo. They included a small interview with me in this great behind the scenes vid from Winter X. It was a crazily busy week, I’m now back in New Zealand and gearing up for a lot of work!

The day before I flew to the states, I had a fun day filming this episode of Diaries Down Under with Ben Ryan. We were dropped at the top of the Remarks and had a 18km decent to the pub! I packed my Fstop Satori with all my DSLR kit and rode the trail with the boys. Epic day!

I managed to upgrade to business premiere using my airpoints on the way over. Definitely worth it!

Nick Draxl – Atomic Team Manager

One of our favourite breakfast cafes on Main street in Aspen.

Bruce Wells

Josiah James bought a Leica M9. Huge camera envy.

Elias Ambuhl – Slope Course

Same day turn around video coverage from the first day of practice. I filmed some of this.

Josiah James Wells owning the gnarly top feature on the slope course.

48 x GoPros Synced up for some Matrix shooting.

Nick Draxl & Mark Vonroy.

Slope & Pipe Practice Vid update


Andreas Hatveit heading into Slope Finals

Andreas Hatveit claiming 3rd in the Slopestyle. Could you be more stoked?

Dre with his Bronze!

Fabian Weber

Elias Ambuhl

Bobby Brown

The new Atomic Punx

Elias Ambuhl, practicing Big Air in the puking snow

Jossi Wells threw down claiming 3rd in the Big Air. So good to see Joss back on the X Podium

When I was shooting Joss on the podium, he threw his helmet into the crowd. Somehow it landed at my feet. Win Win!

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I recently bought a Canon 100mm Macro F2.8 L IS lens & a Zoom H4N audio recorder. I shot some tests with the lens and audio recorder in an hour with a Canon 5DMKII & my girlfriend fishing at the Clutha River in Wanaka, New Zealand. This is the raw audio and picture. I look forward to shooting with this kit more!

Sadly, we didn’t catch a fish.

The Set Up. Small, light & easy to use. Beaut!

The first aspect I’m going to cover is Production (With a little Pre Production) followed by Post Production & Distribution.

Concept Development

Notes line the walls in my office with concepts for the Doco. I’m a visual learner and found it very helpful sticking these up.

WOW the Doco was born after producing 2 years of Winter of Wells episodes. We were looking for the next step and producing a feature 52min documentary was the goal. I locked in to the documentary at the end of December 2010 & by early Jan 2011 I was on a plane to USA to start shooting. With the documentary needing to be completed by October 2011, it left exactly 9 months to get everything done, which was very tight for what we wanted to achieve. Every possible concept for the chapters and themes of the documentary changed hugely as the year unfolded. So many of my plans went out the window, as all four of the boys got seriously injured during shooting the Doco.

Byron found himself in a stretcher on a few occasions whilst we were shooting. All part of pushing the sport!

I think the biggest skill in directing documentaries is being able to adapt to what is happening in front of you, and build story lines on the run. A lot of the golden moments happen when you least expect it, so being there with a camera on you 24/7 is vital. Every concept I wanted to include in the film was run by the client and the family which generated a huge amount of paperwork, which was yet another unexpected challenge as I had to communicate every idea in between NZ/USA & Europe. The time differences alone made things challenging.

Producing

A huge amount of time for me is spent organizing and communicating through emails and phone calls! Either in my office or on the road.

Co-coordinating a heli shoot for the Doco. Piers Harding filming behind the scenes. Photo beljones.com

When you start creating a documentary that has so much travel involved based on a family on six people, and you’re working in the snow with so many variables that you can’t control, it becomes a bit of a logistical nightmare. I believe shooting snowboarding/skiing is one of the hardest sports to shoot due to not being able to control the snow, weather and light. All of the boys are extremely busy and on their own schedules which made things more complicated. Most shoots took weeks of planning to make happen. On top of this I was also trying to manage all the accounts and expenses. My phone bills were gnarly!

Shooting

On the road with a lot of luggage. Clothes bag packed with lighting gear, a hard pelican case, my laptop bag, my FSTOP Satori & my board bag packed with tripods and sliders! ( & snowboard of course )

The fun part! I am a camera geek and fizz on getting my hands on new equipment. I used a large amount of different cameras for this documentary. The Doco gave me the opportunity to hire toys that weren’t mine (If I hustled) and also hone in on my own art.

I chose the Canon 5DMKII/7D to shoot most of the Doco. The cameras are small, light and when coupled with Canon L Series lenses they produce incredible results. They definitely have their limitations, but if you play by the rules they are an incredible tool in film making.

Photo: beljones.com
I shot most of the documentary interviews like this. 1×1 foot LED Panel, 5DMKII main camera, 7D second camera, and Panasonic HVX 3rd camera & sound. This proves to be very challenging operating all this kit solo whilst interviewing, which are vital to tell the story of the Wells.

I set up a shoot in the Wells family garage when everyone was back home together during June (A rare occurrence). I took my portable backdrop & hired some Kino lights from Queenstown Camera to shoot a typical family portrait, except the boys were to be holding their skis. This imagery turned into a huge theme for the whole Doco, and was included as the main visual reference for posters etc. I shot the family on black, and created some video portraits which looked very surreal.

Getting cozy in the garage. Photo beljones.com

I had to shoot a lot of scenes in between the skiing to build the story. A big part of Jossi’s history was learning to swim race at a young age, so we shot this scene at the Phyzique pool. I skated whilst shooting 50FPS on the Canon 7D with some Kino lights – Photo beljones.com

Hanging out in more garages. Shooting a scene with Jossi’s motorbike.

Getting innovative with Trent Palmer and Errol Kerr from Copter Kids

One of my goals in shooting the skiing for this Doco was to raise the production standards by using innovative camera techniques. I tee’d up a week shooting at Park City with Byron Wells and I brought in the assistance of the Copter Kids so that we could shoot angles which haven’t been achieved before.  The RC heli opens huge doors, enabling us to position the camera wherever we wanted . The Copter Kids are incredibly talented and were able to achieve any shot I suggested. There rig is set up immaculately and they achieve the best results in the RC world. Check out the Behind the Scenes video below.

Big Toys, myself with the ShotOver heli gimbal – Photo Miles Holden


Myself inside the chopper at the controls of the ShotOver

The ShotOver heli gimbal shoot at SnowPark was one of the biggest highlights of making this Doco. I managed to get hold of this rig for an affordable price & it was worth every penny. It was my first time operating the rig, and within about 20 minutes I had it reasonably dialed. It helped to raise the production significantly. Below is a behind the scenes video from this shoot.

Outside of the big shoots, I work solo on the hill with my gear. I frequently take my ladder dolly to remote locations to shoot. Here is Byron Wells at Snow Park NZ. Photo Fabrice Wittner.

No snow film would be complete without some follow cams. I follow with the 5DMKII and 15mm fish. It’s a tiny rig and if used right the results are good! Here I’m following Beau Wells at Treble Cone. Photo Fabrice Wittner

I also used other cameras such as the Sony EX1 with Duncan Lake, and the Panasonic Af102 with Chris Kirkham.

Chris Kirkham shooting with the Panasonic AF102 and 300mm Canon f2.8. This lens / sensor combo gives an incredible reach and beautiful images.

Sound
Sound was definitely the hardest part of shooting the documentary. I recorded sound on a variety of microphones from shotguns to lapel mics. In the future I will be hiring a soundie for any shoots that have the budget!

I pulled in Chris Kirkham from NZ-Greenroom with some of his sound kit to record a voice over for the documentary intro. Goin a bit loopy after a long day!

That about wraps up my first post highlighting some areas of production for the documentary. If you have any questions fire away, next post will be published next week on post production. In case you haven’t seen it you can download Winter of Wells The Documentary on iTunes here.