Verna

in 2010, I was offered a place at the Helsinki Film School as an Erasmus student. During my time in the film school, I had a chance to observe Finnish film students producing short films. Verna was one of them and I worked in the production to document the process. Here’s the video.

Oil Wrestlers in Tekirdag

In the summer of 2011, I met a very interesting young photographer from Åland Islands. His name was Kenneth Bamberg and he came to Turkey to document oil wrestlers for his next exhibition. Having heard his announcement, (he was looking for a production manager to help him organize the wrestlers all over Anatolia), I gave him a call and told him I would be glad to help. He told he was a recent graduate from the University of Art and Design, Helsinki which was a funny coincidence because I was also there to do my exchange studies the previous year.
While we were in Tekirdag, I thought I might also do some additional shootings to document the event. The result is here but for me the experience was far beyond that.
I miss you Kenneth!

Editing Isea2011 Documentary on Avid Media Composer 6.0

 

Make the Cut is a beautiful book!

Make the Cut is a beautiful book. Not only it teaches you the unwritten laws of film industry, it also emphasizes the importance of making short term and long terms plans in order to keep up with the industry without having a nervous breakdown. And it teaches you how to shine!
The book, in some cases, reminded me how important to be specific about one’s own ideas and dreams. I think this book is not only for editors or assistant editors but for anybody who would like to have a career in feature film market.
Having said this, when I look at the books about cinematography or art direction, very few of them really mentions about career plans and moving in the industry.

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The film industry is highly compartmentalized. It sucks to be indecisive!

Interview with Duygu Sağıroğlu

This is an interview that I did with Duygu Sagiroglu in 29. 05. 2010. He is a filmmaker that I truly admire and he was really kind to give me his time in his office. Here, he talks about John Huston’s relationship with his father and how he helped him to relaunch his career.

I am a Smoker

“The money is not in offline editing.” says the digital artist on the video prepared to promote the Smoke in Mac. I still believe that editing requires a great deal of sensitivity and classical montage has a lot to do with what we are trying to accomplish today whether it is an art project, commercial film or any kind of broadcast. Yet I am aware that most clients nowadays prefer to finish their offline edit at home before starting to work with digital artists who are specialised in post production tools. I also believe that it is now a good time to enchance my skills in post-production and start learning some of the Alias softwares step by step. Smoke could be a good way to start.
I think for students and semi professional filmmakers, videography not only became an opportunity but also the only choice. I have kept myself away from this fact for the last couple of years and I tried to improve myself in other areas in filmmaking. But understanding some essential tools such as reading the scopes in grading tools makes my job a lot easier whether I am shooting or editing.
Media Composer and Final Cut Pro are considered to be as the two official softwares to do offline editing today. I prefer to use Adobe Premiere because I love the way Adobe Link works and I love to move within different softwares in post-production. Yet it is said that in Smoke, the process become one, and you can wrap up the whole project in one software.
My quest on the subject will continue.. 🙂

To see a previous post about Kubrick and montage, click here.

Back to Work!

Filmmaking has its own way.. And I love it in every way!

Squirrels!

I have been editing this documentary the last three months and I have to say that I enjoyed every minute of it. The shooting was done near Helsinki, in a small island and I captured the squirrels using a Canon XLH1 HDV camera. It is a work in progress and as you can see, I am trying to finish advanced color grading for the film. Once I finish grading, I will hopefully start the sound design process. I am still struggling to find a good sound designer, some designers don’t want to take part in projects where there is almost no budget and some of them are just too busy. But I am sure I will be able to come with good collaborators who in the end will create impressive output.
The film depicts the ruthless rivalry to find the best nut ever. I have tried to use low angle compositions in order to represent the camera acting as almost a squirrel. Therefore I expect the sound design to be perceived as from the ears of the squirrels and give the audience the feeling of the depth of a forest.
I have to mention, here, that I have shown this film to my favorite cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema during Camerimage 2011 and he was very impressed by the editing of the film.
I expect to finish this short documentary by the end of this month.
I would like to mention couple of links that I have found very useful during the post production of this film.
Here are the links that you may find useful:

http://www.rhedpixel.com/
http://richardharringtonblog.com/
http://3exposure.com/
http://amigomediallc.com/
http://www.robbiecarman.net/

Feel free to contact me for your comments. I am open to any kind of collaboration to finish this project.

Scenes From a Marriage

Before coming to Helsinki, I never realized that I would go back to my theater days but this time not as an actor but as a filmmaker. I met Carine Ravaud, production designer student from Paris and she was already designing a Bergman play Scenes From a Marriage in Helsinki. She told me that the director would like to use video installations during the play and asked me if I would be interested. My answer was yes without any hesitations.

Next Monday, I went to Helsinki Theater School, Teak to meet with the director. Marcus Groth was directing the play and the next thing I know, we were already in the process of brainstorming.

Marcus was looking for a realistic and natural way of telling the story. The actors were trained to perform in a natural manner and the set design was built in a realistic way. I knew from that moment that at least the introduction video should act to fulfill the set design and extend the idea of home feeling in the mind of the audience.

But to accomplish that, I also knew that I needed elements of tension because the intro scene had a crescendo. I wanted to divide the composition by emphasizing the difference between man and woman and I used objects that can sometimes be dangerous such as knifes and boiling water.

Between the acts, we have decided to use animal couples, Marcus had the idea to show the animals to underline how it is actually easy to be together. For this reason, I spent plenty of time looking for animals that would match what we are looking for. I went to a stable to shoot some horses, I shot squirrels, swans, dogs and fishes. We didn’t really like the horses and the squirrels (although I found the experience rewarding!) and we went to use swans, fishes and dogs. The reaction to these videos by the audience was extremely satisfying. I believe we were able to extend the play with the installations.

To shoot the introduction videos, I have visited a lot of houses. I was lucky since the people in Teak found me couples where I could go and shoot their homes. And in that sense, I was able to see inside the houses of real Finnish people which was also a rewarding experience.

We had ten shows and we had the last play last Saturday on 30. 10. 2010. We had really good reviews which I have shared some of the links with you below. I will never forget the experience, I will definitely miss everybody that I met at Teak during the production. It was a really good opportunity and I feel really lucky to be a part of it. I think the play was a blast!

Below is an extract from the introduction video originally used in the play. Of course the video by itself doesn’t really say much because it was made to be shown during the opening scene where the characters are interviewed by a journalist.

Here some of the articles and reviews:

Website for Ingmar Bergman Foundation

Newspaper/Västra Nyland

On Radio in Finland!

Borgåbladet & Östra Nyland

Newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet!

The photographs above are taken by Niklas Sandström.

Vimeo Page

Hi,

I have decided to use my Vimeo account to share some of the stuff that I did from 2007, so if you want to check it out, here’s the link!

By the way, have you ever had what they call a writer’s block! Well it seems to me that I have had it in my whole life. Today I was thinking about myself of four years ago and I have realized that I still have the same problems today. Which is, trying to do something so desperately but not to be able to find a subject or a voice or to come up with a story or I don’t know what they call. Well I have red and listen to a lot of people and I just couldn’t find any solution. Well if you have any advice, I would be really happy to hear your thoughts.