Litter in Dublin, wtf!!!

Walking through Dublin today, all bins full and litter on the streets as a result, it seems to me that t.e town council are total douches i mean do your job and keep the bins empty i mean wtf!!!

One last night

one last night tonight with all the FÁS trainees, heading out in Dublin, should be fun, this time next year god knows where we'll be, i hope we'll be all well on the way to realizing out dreams with any luck! i think their well within our grasps now!!!

FÁS over!!!

FÁS is finally over, a great year, learned a lot and look forward to learning more ont he job, late night last night, today so will put the rest of the learning on hold until tomorrow at least when ill be less nostalgic and pensive!!! heading to Dublin for future major film director Eamonn Norris's 30th Birthday! he'll be directing the remake of the incredible Hulk in 2021 and he'll be casting me as Bruce Banner, cant wait!!!!!!

Dylan Knapp, the cgi king!

Finished inserting special effects into the penultimate scenes of "mccarthy" today, our go to guy Dylan spent a part of the last 2days doing them, stay tuned to this blog for his tutorial on it, coming soon!!

Different stages of film production

Currently at a lecture in tralee IT about the different stages of film production, covers how to get investment, how km generate cash flow by things like Merchandising product placement etc. Interesting stuff!!

The End Is Nigh!!!

Well the year that is, is quickly becoming the year that was, that is for the trainees of T.V. and video production in FÁS, Monavalley Tralee at least! and what a year it was, I cant say I'm surprised though, I did a fas course before and i can honeslty say that like this one, it exceeded any of the tutelage that i ever obtained in college! and withing a much shorter time frame i might add! The equipment we had access to was mind boggling and ouy course instructors were amazing, more then will to donate their time, how ever much of it you'd require, i know one could argue thats there job but to do it without grudgery or destain on such a consistent basis really is, in my book at least impressive, also a word about us! the trainees, we've gotten to know eachother pretty well, and it hasn't all been flowers and cotten candy BUT without a doubt the high's have more then exceeded the lows and as a group i have to say that the dynamic was excellent, the team ethos and the willingness of everyone to pull in the same direction made it a pleasure to attend this course every day. On a final note, i would say that ANYONE looking to gain an education in camera work, tv/video production or anything in that genre this is a one stop shop for that, anything else is second best, FACT!!!

Presidential awards

Filming in maynooth today and tomorrow for the presidents awards, This guy is Eoin Kenny, He partook in the presidential awards program and found it a real positive in his life to date, As the program has certain criteria Eoin learned the Cello to satisfy part of it, we filmed him playing a piece and its going to be intercut with the interview we recorded by editor Fred O'Connor, should make for a really nice piece when its done!

Feeling Hungry?!

Check out his video made by Judie Russell, a friend of SproketFILMS possibly the best edit of its kind I've seen from within a very talented spectrum of individuals that I've gotten to know within the past year, while watching it, to me at least, it becomes very apparent that ABSOLUTELY every single individual shot was planned to perfection, there are no "by the way's" or "also gets" in this video, each individual shot was planned before hand, for that reason alone this video blows me away, planning is SO important, difficult (to do well) and many times underrated by many, this video show's planning in its edit, its obvious to me at least to see the amount of planning that went into it, EXCELLENT VIDEO in my humble opinion, hmmmm now I'm hungry, must pop out to buy some jam!! For those of you that are interested i believe it was shot on a canon 5D, well done Judie and your team! https://www.youtube.com/user/judierussell

The RED versus the Arri Alexa versus the Canon 7D, Let the battle commence!!!

Check out this interesting article comparing these three really hight spec cameras, from i personal point of view id love to know why the canon 7D a relitevly low spec dslr is being compared to two cinema cameras but people are stupid i guess!! The RED Epics big boast is that its able to produce 5K images, something the Alexa isn't able to do, however the have some pretty interesting counter arguments on this topic, have a read and see what you guys think!!!!
http://www.theblackandblue.com/2010/12/31/red-epic-vs-arri-alexa-vs-canon-7d/

An Insight into film Director Chris Nolan, not a sproketfilm but still good!!

Now that you've had a sneak peak of our forthcoming web show McCarthy check out a review of a mans works that could only inspire us,  click here to gain an interesting insight into Chris Nolans Artistic Direction when making his films, this is a review produced and edited entirely by Fred O'Connor, a close friend of SproketFILMS.

More Stills from the forthcoming web show "McCarthy"

Hey check out these stills from McCarthy, also the opening premise is as follows:

Ireland, located in western Europe was once the hub of economical enterprise and endeavor but owing to the great economic collapse of 2008 the once bustling economy has been brought to its knees in many sectors by the underbelly of society, its fishing ports act as ideal means of smuggling contraband into a country brought to its knees by the people that are willing to tango to the devil. But this beautiful country is fighting back, The government has employed one man, the eleatest of the elite, No expense is spared in furnishing him with anything he needs to get the job done or getting him where he has to go to do what he has to do,  his name is McCarthy...

McCarthy captured by one of 
Gillens Hinchmen...

Here Agent Hendrix has something to 
say...











...Before he unleashes Hell!!







Hendrix looking menacing here while 
McCarthy looks like he's... doing his nails!







McCarthy admires Hendrix's 
firepower








McCarthy relays information back to 
Pat at Opperation Headquarters








John Gillen, Defiant as ever...











McCarthy in an Awkward situation 











Gillens cold calculated face... 


 

Dreaming, faye boland

Hey guys, as previously mentioned check out this music video, an original song, written and performed by Faye Boland and a 1960's theme video! It was shot in a studio in Tralee, County kerry, to create the 1960's feel minimal lighting was used. this was done so as to spare expense on props that would be costly and hard to get. 5 extra's were used in the shoot also, they were positioned around the stage that Faye sang from, a dolly and track was set up behind them, as the camera was pulled along by the camera assistant the extras appeared as silhouettes watching her sing, this was a really nice effect and put the emphasis in the video on her, the performer, two Panasonic HPX250'S were used in the shoot, as i said, one was on a dolly and track, the other was on a mini jib i.e. a long arm that swings the camera in a soft fluid motion, alternate takes were taken after these shots with the camera of tripods and then cutaways filmed of the extras and things like that, Hope you guys enjoy!!

RED Scarlet camera seminar

Up in clontarf castle doing a red camera seminar, for those of your that don't know the red camera is a very high spec cinema camera! these cameras are fairly state of the art, the red scarlet can shoot up to 5k which is outstanding, this gives a whole new angle to future movie making for example in the movie "girl with the dragon tatoo" they shot wide and later cropped the image down to change the composition, for all the world kind of framing the shot in post rather then when shooting it on camera!...

Glor peanut butter filming

A still image from the glor peanut butter video that we shot, This camera thats in the picture is a canon 305, a sony FS 100 was also used in the shoot, the shoot took under 2 hours and we managed to produce a really nice piece out of it, the crew consisted of two camera men, a director and of course an interviewee, the peanut butter in question is produced in Co. Kerry in Ireland, its gluten free and really really wholesome and healthy, he was thought how to make it in Zambia in Africa and as a result that where he sources most of his peanuts for his product, he says he does this because this is where you get the best quality peanuts.

Hey guys check out this video we shot for glor peanut butter, its produced in kerry, wholsome and natural! check it out! google Glor peanut butter for more details!!! As per previous post on this, Glor Peanut is produced in Co. Kerry, not to far from killarney, in the video we go through all the process required to make the peanut butter to such a high standard, its times like this i wish i liked peanut butter! i might have been able to talk him into giving me a few free samples!!! the packaging is really nice also as you'll see in the video, its a really nice product and he's distribution of it is growing all the time, for more info on the product check out http://www.glorfoods.com/

Stills from the forthcoming show "McCarthy"

 These are stills from one of the scenes of McCarthy
Shot Last week, Hendrix (Right) McCarthy (Left)

 Its a show about a man with a very special set
of skills and who always gets the job done though
sometimes unconventionally...

McCarthy's partner is a Highly Decorated Secret
Agent  who goes by the name Hendrix

Their mission is to bring down a John Gillen
a industrious Drug Lord, untouchable and dangerous
and hard to get to....

Here Hendrix gets up close and personal with some of Gillens contraband.....

Before he expells some home truths and advice to his partner McCarthy! stay tuned to this blog for the finished product and more updates!

McCarthy Pilot Episode!

Having fun shooting the new pilot episode of "McCarthy" a dare devil secret agent  from Ireland of all places, you guys should get a laugh out of it, stay tuned for episode stills coming up soon!! McCarthy is a Macguiver type character, unconventional in his methods and lives in the fast lane, he "works alone" and "plays it hard and fast" he's ground is his head of opperations, Pat, Pat calles the shots from base, In the opening Episode he drops a bomb shell on McCarthy stating that he's next opperation is too dangerous and as a consequence he's been assigned a partner, needles to say McCarthy doesnt take the news well! stay tuned for more updates among other things that we're doing!