I was on an Air New Zealand flight recently, and as we were boarding this clip was playing. The boys around me were all staring at the screen, the flight attendant commented 'If only you would pay that much attention to the safety video!' The irony was that as the DP I was responsible for the images!t if it is disabled in your browser.

Produced by Fish n Clips, the video was Directed by Sally Tran. This was our first project together. After this video we went on to shoot a short film called "Toi La Who" in Wellington. The film is not out yet, but it again showcases Sally's unique visual style.



We shot the Red Lips video in Auckland on location in one day. We used a Red One camera from Metro Film, and I was lucky enough to have Alex McDonald as my Steadicam Operator.



Spencer Locke-Bonney was my Gaffer and we made full use out of his fantastic combo truck. The art department and wardrobe were also instrumental in the look that we achieved, along with Sally's great choreography.



I find having a decent digital stills camera on set really helps me with my exposures. I have pretty much replaced my spot meter with a Canon 5D2, and a Zeiss 50mm prime. I am now setting the exposure using a combination of incident meter, stills camera, HD monitors, waveforms and histograms.



For this video I went with classic beauty lighting. Using big soft sources inside and a lot of daylight control outdoors. I used a little diffusion on the lens, and the grading was done at ToyBox.

I was lucky enough to be the 2nd Unit Director of Photography on this Carlsberg commercial for Shoot NZ.is disabled in your browser

The commercial was Directed by Daniel Kleinman from Rattling Stick. Danny is the most awarded Commercials Director in the world, and he was fantastic to work with. I am a fan of his work, and it was great to be on set with him.



The Director of Photography was Stephen Blackman. He shot the aerials on a Red MX using a Super G.



The rest of the spot was shot on 35mm film. My shots were all on the snow, I used an Arri 435 with Angenieux Zooms, Kirsteen Green was the Focus Puller.



We shot on the Earnslaw Burn Glacier during summer. It was kinda odd to be in the snow in the middle of summer, but seeing the finished commercial made it very worthwhile. It's been a while since I have shot film in the snow - and I really enjoyed it!

Barbara Williams from Shoot New Zealand put Director Darren Simmonds in touch with me. Darren is based in Wanaka, and wanted to make something special for his client 1791 Diamonds.


Paul Wedel.

All of the effects were achieved in camera. The only color correction was a very basic levels adjustment. The film was edited by

I used my Sony EX3 with Letus Lens Adaptor various Nikon and Zeiss Primes and recorded it all to my NanoFlash. Darren loved the picture on my new Sony PVM-740 Monitor. The picture is very accurate and allowed us to make fine adjustments in camera.



Darren chose some stunning locations and we scheduled the day around the best light.



I worked with natural light outside, adding a little bit of smoke to this setup - we calculated the sun position and used it to our advantage rather than working with large HMI's.



The bathtub setup was shot on the Canon 5D2 along with some of the other low light shots that we filmed in Wellington.



With the Wellington shoot we carried on our policy of filming at dawn and dusk. This setup was at 5.30am on the top floor of Wellington's tallest building. This was organised by Film Wellington along with The Museum Hotel, which pulled double duty by being a great location and a wonderful place to stay!

Overall I am very proud of this mood film. I am proud that we achieved all of the effects in camera. I believe that Darren is a hugely talented director and I look forward to working with him again soon.