It's kind of hard for me to explain to people what I do
because I do so many things.
So I'm a writer, director and a photographer.
So my work is very visual.
"Give This Heart A Pen"
"Give This Heart A Pen" came from a brain storming session I had with my team mate.
He said we should do some original content
and he said Sophia would be great to work with.
And I've been friends with Sophia for years,
we are both poets.
And I thought about her book
called "Somebody give this heart a pen",
and this image of a heart made out of notes
just came to my mind.
When looking at cameras for shoots I'm looking for something that's easy to operate first of all
light, the weight is very important factor and I need it to be fast,
I need to be easy to manoeuvre, it just needs to be straight-forward.
When I first first saw and held the EOS C70, I felt it was a small but mighty camera.
Quite reliable and durable.
I noticed the buttons as well, on the sides, and I thought, "Great they're not spread out too far all over the camera."
I can put my hand around the grip and reach some, the MEDIA button being on top, I love that.
I like a camera that allows me to get into awkward positions,
especially ones that allow me to get into my fly on the wall type of vibe,
and the fact that the screen can come out and allow me to shoot from behind a ladder,
a lot of cameras don’t really offer that versatility and the EOS C70 is definitely versatile in that regard.
Colour is very important to me, especially for this project,
and I needed to make sure that people got the full essence
of all the palettes that we were going to work with,
from Sophia's skin tones,
to locations, to fabric especially.
I've been a huge fan of Canon's colour science from day one.
So when I saw the C-log 3, I was really impressed but also seeing the Rec. 709 LUT on top,
I said "Yeah, perfect."
I didn't have to think about doing too much in post, and knowing that the colour was true
the highlights were kept clean, I think Canon cameras like natural light as much as I do.
So part of the film was to make sure we show not just the dreamy landscapes, but also the grittiness of London,
so night time was a chance to bring a different mood to the table
but also for me to see what this camera could do at the same time.
For once the camera did most of the work, I could be in the middle of the street
without any direct light source and I can see everything. It's amazing.
This is my first time using an RF lens and a whole set of them at that to be honest
It was a really interesting experience.
They were very, just, sharp.
There was a difference for sure, the image stabilisation was unlike anything else.
It's smooth, it's subtle and when I'm watching back the footage as well
you know, I'm sure people are going to watch what we made and be like,
did you use a gimbal for the whole thing? No.
This was majority handheld and that's going to be interesting to a lot of people.
Using the RF lenses was a really great experience for me,
but even better was knowing thanks to the 0.71x adaptor I could bring in my old kit, my old lenses
and still allow it to have a presence on the set and a use.
It doesn’t really stop me from going forward with what I’ve got, but also moving forward with what’s coming up.
Its actually allowing us to have more fun and say there is no lens we can't use.
The film needed to be very mobile, I don't see poetry as a stationary medium,
so everything was going to require movement.
So I thought what is a medium that best suits that?
Parkour! I said "yeah, cool."
And Georgia came to mind because
I'm really big on female representation in parkour.
My first reaction to the 120fps was
how clean it was.
I was impressed.
"Look at that."
"Oh my goodness!"
I could do it seemlessly,
flipping through the camera settings on the touch screen,
from 30 to 120 fps. Easy.
The gimbal side of things was interesting because I wanted to see how this would fit,
and I believe when I was running with the parkour element I was straight in there
the flip screen allowed me to really run with it with at awkward angle so I could see where I was going
and see the shots I could tell that it was in focus.
It felt like a camera that was made, to just go.
The ND filters and the sound recording abilities were two of my favourite things in this camera for sure.
I love the fact that I haven't got to screw a ND on to the top of a lens. It saves me time and effort,
so being able to click through the various stops of ND, beautiful.
Now to do the sound, the fact I'm getting mini XLR inputs, brilliant.
It means that I don’t have to worry about an external recorder, everything can go straight into the camera
and there's no worries about if it was recorded or not.
So the AF face tracking feature on the EOS C70, it just kept Sophia in focus all the time, I was a huge fan of that.
It allows you as a solo shooter or director to focus on what's going on in the shot,
the performances, the subject, without having to worry about focus shifting.
It took a lot work off my hands.
Another thing I really found interesting was the touchscreen autofocus.
I had fun with it, if anything, I had more fun with that feature than I thought I would.
Because I could have a shot that I thought was going to have everything in focus,
and then I said no I want to rack between a bollard and her in the street.
It was just really fun to use.
When I did go into manual focus it felt a lot easier than my past experiences.
You could tell if it was in focus or not with the the box. So if it was green it was in focus,
If it's not it goes white.
So it works with me, still taking a load off my hands.
The first people I would recommend this camera to are solo shooters,
shooting directors for sure, people that work in documentary, people that work in short film
and people that work in music video, this camera is for you.
If you're small crew person, this camera is for you.
If you want to do it all yourself, this camera is most definitely for you.
I think it's a camera that will allow you to think beyond limitations of most cine cameras
and that is a bonus because you don't be limited by the medium that you're trying to tell a story through.