Mirza Sahiban is one of the most famous stories in Punjabi literature, and one whose origin goes back hundreds of years. It is a story that has been told and retold for generations, so when a film takes up this tale and labels it The Untold Story, ears were certainly perking up among the millions of Punjabis worldwide. The traditional story is one of forbidden love, revenge, and tragedy; not unlike many legendary folk tales from the world over, but this tragic ending is a bit notorious, because of a twist at the end that gives the story a part of its name.
There’s a new trailer out for Mirza 2012: The Untold Story. The film is causing a huge stir in India.
We worked with our good friend, and Vancouver’s best kept cinematographer secret: TOBY GORMAN, to create an action-packed big-budget movie look with a skeleton crew of only 4 guys (which includes a dual gaffer/key grip, a best boy, and two swing technicians). We added a tow-generator, and a 6k Par to supplement the TALCO LIGHTING & GRIP PACKAGE, and that was it.
This is proof that a new era of image-making is upon us. Sensitive digital cameras — tightly knit crew of skilled independent filmmakers — making the most of limited tools — we can create huge budget-like features! We’ve proven this. Watch the trailer above (!).
MIRZA 2012: The Untold Story Theatrical Film Release
Here’s a music video we did with Stephano Barberis, David Angelski, and Ron “Rocket” Williams C.S.C.
Stephano used an actual projector on sheets to get the nostalgic effect of home movies and wanderlust.
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.
This time lapse from the first portion of a 6 day film shoot at VFS with director Michael Chayse — Head of Production for VFS Entertainment — shows what can be done with TALCO’s 5-ton lighting and grip package truck out of the box.
Vancouver Film School’s equipment was booked by multiple graduation projects from the cinematography program. Michael was leading an inter-department collaboration between the school of business and post production code named Project Space Squid, which involved students, faculty, and alumni. The project was based on the sci-fi cosmic horror writing of HP Lovecraft, an american writer from the turn of the century.
Michael needed professional lighting to bring Lovecraft’s surreal Cthulhu Mythos to life.
VFS Entertainment turned to our grip truck to convert an unused space which had no lighting grid into a functioning green screen studio with lights and equipment. We performed lighting services while business management students oversaw the shooting of 5 short films. They were titled: C’Thulhu, Dagon, Dunwich, Erich Zahn, and Rats.
The students are maintaining a comprehensive blog of their progress in post production.
The project was overseen by VFS head of the Entertainment Business Management department, Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin, who also produced a 7-minute behinds the scenes documentary of the production titled, The Interactive Lovecraft.
Further there are some photos taken by a student here.
The VFS press department seems to be on a roll with this project…more will follow.
This music video for Arkadia Picture was shot on 35mm Film on a houseboat in beautiful Sycamouse, BC. Produced by Alex Galanis and Directed by award winning Stephano Barberis with cinematographer Ron Williams C.S.C. The video echos the sentiment, “When life is rough go sit on the lake and put some alcohol on it”. You heard it from Gord Bamford and his band. Happy summer.
The final video for Faber Drive, “You And I Tonight” with cinematographer Danny Nowak C.S.C, Key Grip Mike Branham of Best Film Services, and lighting by TALCO. The video was directed by Colin Minihan of Digital Interference and produced by Shawn Angeleski. Rain Effects by BrantFX.
TALCO returns from 3 weeks filming a movie in Edson, Alberta!
The feature film, BELOW ZERO — starring Terminator 2′s Edward Furlong, horror legend Michael Berryman, and supporting actress Kristin Booth – takes place in a butcher shop where a captive writer (Furlong) gets twisted into dementia when confronted with a deadline he cannot face by his agent (Kristin). Blurring the lines between a depressing reality and a beautiful macabre, the writer’s angst manifests in a gruesome character of his own creation (Berryman) while the writer himself explores a sick fascination with the butcher’s son, a pecular little boy named Golem.
We filmed in a small highway town far from infrastructure which challenged us to improvise. We originally built extended hood rigs on our vintage picture trucks using scaffold pipe and sliding cheese plates, but the gravel roads proved to be too shaky with the old truck suspensions. We had no stabalizers so we ended up building our own process trailer from a flatdeck base, ground up. The night exteriors ended up being a simple task done in a minimalist way using cinematographer Norm Li’s 4k Airstar Helium Balloon Light. A photo of which from us even ended up on Norm Li’s website.
