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A Season To Remember: DP’ing Ren – The Girl with the Mark (Article/Retrospective)

Posted by on Mar 1, 2016 in Articles, Behind-the-Scenes, Featured, Lighting/Gaffing | 0 comments

This coming week the core team from Ren, the fantasy adventure web series I lensed last autumn, will meet for a de-brief. We’ll discuss the challenges of season one and how we can meet those going forward to season two and beyond. And we’ll probably drink wine. So I thought now would be a good time to reflect on what I personally learnt from Ren: Season One, and where I’d like to improve for season two.

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Gender Differences: Creating Masculine & Feminine Lighting in Ren – The Girl with the Mark (Article)

Posted by on Feb 19, 2016 in Articles, Behind-the-Scenes, Featured, Lighting/Gaffing, Specific Projects, Tips | 0 comments

A few days into my tenure as DP on Kate Madison’s ambitious fantasy series, Ren, we filmed a shot/reverse for one of the opening scenes. The scene introduced us to the eponymous Ren (Sophie Skelton) and her friend Karn (Christopher Dane).

Kate described Ren to me as “pure innonence”, while Karn is an older, more worldly character with a difficult past. It seemed to me like classic femine and masculine lighting were called for. Classic feminine lighting is designed to create a soft, flawless, often shadowless face. Classic masculine lighting enhances jaw definition, embraces lines and skin texture and generally creates a rugged look.

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A Car Park in Cambridgeshire: The Making of Ren – The Girl with the Mark (Article)

Posted by on Feb 12, 2016 in Articles, Behind-the-Scenes, Featured, Retrospectives | 1 comment

On March 1st, Kate Madison’s new fantasy action series will premiere free online. Ren: The Girl with the Mark is an ambitious show full of custom-made sets, props and costumes, yet it was made on a crowdfunded budget of just £36,000. We talked to Kate and her team to find out how this seemingly impossible project made it to the screen.

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Low Budget, High Fantasy: Top Ten Tips to Make a Quality Fantasy Series Without Breaking the Bank (Article/Tips)

Posted by on Jun 12, 2015 in Articles, Behind-the-Scenes, Featured, Tips | 3 comments

Kate Madison directs James Malpas (Baynon) on the set of Ren

Kate Madison directs James Malpas (Baynon) on the set of Ren

Many low budget filmmakers would shy away from making a medieval fantasy with swordfights, horses, and a village full of extras, but not Kate Madison. Here is a sneak peek at the show along with some top tips from Kate and her team on how to put a quality epic on the screen.

Kate Madison will be known to many in the indie film world as the maker of the hugely popular Lord of the Rings fan film, Born of Hope. Released in 2009, the movie has had over 30 million YouTube hits to date.

Kate’s latest project is an original fantasy-adventure web series called Ren, about a young woman marked by an ancient spirit and ousted from her village. The teaser trailer for season one will give you an idea of its ambitious scope.

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Lighting & Cinematography Basics: Where to Put Your Key Light (Tips/Tutorial)

Posted by on May 1, 2015 in Articles, Behind-the-Scenes, Featured, General, Tips, Tutorials | 0 comments

What angle the key light hits a character at is a KEY (groan) decision for a director of photography. The lighting featurette [I posted on my site a while back] looked at some of the options, but today I’d like to expand on those with some more up-to-date examples.

Imagine a clock face. You’re looking down on the scene and your talent is at the center with their eyeline to twelve o’clock.

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