Mirza - The Untold Story
Here’s a trailer to Mirza – The Untold Story, a punjabi film we worked on last year over a two month period.
Release Date: April 6, 2012
Starring Gippy Grewal & Mandy Takhar with Rahul Dev and Bunnu Dhillion. Music by Honey Singh.
The director, Baljit Singh Deo, wanted to create a Punjubi film with a distinctly North American large scale production value feeling. He wanted to set new standards for Indian films overseas. Principal photography was in Vancouver, BC.
We had a challenging time creating that big budget movie lighting with a minimal crew and no budget for pre-rigging. We worked closely with our good friend and cinematographer Toby Gorman to use large sources, carefully shaped single sources, and strategically placed background lights. We used condor lighting where possible for our night exteriors to save time and manpower because we had minimal time for setup and turnarounds to rig smaller lights. Throughout the show we carried a pair of 6k PAR’s in addition to our base lighting package, slush truck, and a tow generator.
Filmed on Red Epic. Produced by Inda Raikoti & Aman Khatkar. The movie has been getting a lot of attention overseas because of its cast special appearances, and non-conventional Bollywood production ways.
Our new Modern Studio Equipment “hostess tray” style side mount in action on a Dodge Viper Powered SRT-10 Ram. We’re in beautiful Kelowna, BC at the moment on our third feature with the ever popular Vancouver based independent cinematographer Norm Li. It stars up and coming english actor Luke Goss previously known as part of the brit pop duo Bros. It is directed by Justin Donnelly from TV The Troop.
Modern Studio Deluxe Hostess Tray on "Pressed" set with Norm Li
… yes we are way behind on our posts — !
Contact us if you’d like to rent our car mounts or find out more about flying Norm’s lighting balloon.
We are pleased to hear from Rugged Media the aboriginal short film “The Cave” by Writer/Director Helen Haig-Brown of the Tsilhqot’in tribe has been selected to screen as part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Top Ten (TIFF).
Set in 1961 in the Chilcotin Territory of Western Canada, The Cave recounts the story of a bear hunter who discovers a secret portal to the spirit world. This beautifully crafted film provides a powerful cinematic rendering of an authentic Tsilhqot’in oral story.
Helen Haig-Brown is an award-winning Tsilhqot’in director, director of photography and teacher who is in love with experimental documentary filmmaking. The Cave is her first dramatic film. She resides in her traditional lands in the interior of British Columbia.
The Zombie Flu reaches Vancouver with a recent horror film,
H1Z1, by director Tim Lok.
We filmed extensively in the forest out on Pipeline Road with a few scenes around downtown Vancouver.
Shot on RED Camera by DOP Randy Che we had to maximize our production value with minimal equipment for what was predominantly a night exteriors shoot.
The production was self-funded by the director. We couldn’t afford condors or use any of the typical large area lighting we would have wanted. Instead, we pulled it off with a 12k honda diesel “hog” generator, a couple of 2.5k HMI PAR, 1k JEM BALLS, and some 750 watt SOURCE FOUR PARS.
The heavy fog was accentuated by backlight/crosslight from our HMI. The campfire fill was a poor-man’s helium balloon light. It was created by suspending the Jem Balls above our campsite location on a giant 30′ menace arm/mambo combo built from schedule 40 aluminum pipe joined together with a Modern Studio Equipment boom kit. We could have flown the Jem Balls with rope and pulleys from the trees, but the menace arm allowed us to easily reposition the light close to our frame for coverage and was quicker then climbing up in the trees to set ropes (we had to wrap and return to the same location over several weekends). The lanterns radiated outward from the centre of the campsite creating a warm glow from the set and leaving lots of shadows on the outside.
We struggled for exposure on our background from our 2.5k HMI (we needed at least a 6k for the area we were trying to light) so we had to fill in the near background in places with the Source Four Pars. They were punchy enough but had to chase the camera around depending on which direction we looked.
For scenes that took place without a campfire we raised a 6′x6′ Bounces into the air and filled it with an HMI so the fill would be more directionless (emanating from above the camera, rather then glow outward from the center as it did with the lanterns.
These sweet photos were taken by stills photographer, Mike Mander of sublimephoto.
A Persian story comes to Vancouver: Iranian Director, Ellie Fox, has posted new stills from her upcoming feature length movie, ‘Under the Apple Box‘ which has completed principal photography in Vancouver, British Columbia. We filmed approximately 20 days in total.
The story takes place in present day Vancouver where a photographer explores a dark past as an orphan girl struggling to make a living with her nanny in Iran.
The girls innocent exploration of art and beauty clashes with Muslim culture and threatens to ruin everything around her.
We have been assured, a new promotional website is soon to follow. In the mean time we have updated our gallery posting on the film with the new photos.
Update: Principal Photography is complete and new photos have been added below.
Here’s a few photos following the first weekend of shooting the second half of Persian Director Ellie Fox’s feature length film “Under the Apple Box“. The first half of the film took place in present day Vancouver but the story is interwoven with a dark past following a young girl, Leila, who grows up in Iran as a non-muslim orphan captivated by the seductive imaging power of photography — during events preceding the Islamic Revolution – known as the ‘birth of the muslim nation’ — where the child’s innocent exploration of artistic photos leads to a controversial judgement and subsequent exile from the muslim world.
For the second half of the film we have been working primarily with Persian and other middle-eastern child actors. Cinematographer Randy Che operates his privately owned RED Camera with Zeiss Super Speed Prime MK2 lenses. We use Tobacco filters on the lens and water based haze from a Radiant Hazer with strong window light sources to create the sunny yellow tones of Iran while on location in typically overcast Vancouver, BC.
The film showcases authentic clothing and decorations which the director collected on her recent return trip to Iran following 15 years of exile. We have been particularly Impressed with child actor Jane Lowery who is making her acting and feature film debut as the young Leila.
Working with young children is nothing new for Director Ellie Fox, who’s short film, ‘A Flower In The Sand’ screened in the 2005 Cannes Festival Short Corner Selection.
The gallery for Under the Apple Box below will be expanded as more pictures are posted from the “Iran” portion of the shoot. Most of the photos below take place in “Vancouver”.
TALCO first met Tony Dean of Red Rad Motion Pictures on a small Granville Island Market shoot for director Attila Luca. We have been able to follow Tony’s development of of his RADcam – Rapid Aerial Deployment Camera System now for several months and it is looking quite impressive. It is innovations like these combined with emerging technology such as the RED camera which is bringing independent filmmakers one step closer to their dreams. Tony has been around the indy scene in Vancouver for a long time now and it is hard to imagine anyone better equipped to deliver innovations at this level then Tony who has built his whole business around them. Look for the Red Rad ambulance / camera truck on sets near you- nice!
Tony Dean's Rapid Aerial Deployement camera system by RED Rad
