Development shoot for the documentary
MICHAEL SHANNON MICHAEL SHANNON JOHN

Nadia and I shot this video for the lovely guys in Two Hours Traffic for the song “Amour Than Amis”, which  just received its exclusive online launch on Artist Direct and has since also been featured on Exclaim. Look out for it on MuchMusic soon.

You can read more about the project, process and related press here. The awards air Sunday, March 3, 2013 at 8pm on CBC.

I am incredibly happy for my friends Matt Johnson, Evan Morgan, Jared Raab, Matthew Miller and Josh Boles of Echo Pictures Pictures for premiering their feature film THE DIRTIES later this month at the Slamdance Film Festival. I got the chance to do some additional camerawork alongside Jared back in 2010 on this project and it was a really inspiring and thrilling way to shoot: vérité on HD camcorders, and in the mindset of high school media arts students behind the lens capturing the horrors of bullying and the ups and downs of teenage infatuation.

See the Echo Pictures Pictures website here for more details on this tremendous film, additional press and screening times in Park City. Check out the link at the top of this post for IndieWire’s review and the official trailer.

- Leonard Cohen

I am very proud to be part of an incredibly smart, heartfelt and inspiring independent feature film going to camera later this month. Director Kate Johnston and I have been working hard at scouting some remarkable locations in Toronto’s Cabbagetown, Ward’s Island and other pockets throughout the city for what will be a beautiful film about romantic love, friendship, mothers and daughters. The plot’s central love triangle features Kate Trotter, Christine Horne and the film’s own brilliant producer and co-writer Shauna MacDonald.

I’m very excited to capture this project on the RED Scarlet and work with some of my favourite people in bringing the cinematography to life for this project. Many thanks must already go out to PS Production Services for coming on board to help us bring this story to the screen.

2012 was one of those years that leaves me feeling full of appreciation for life and work and the people I do it all with. What’s beautiful about a life in cinematography is that it can really take you anywhere, and I am very grateful to everyone who trusted me to bring their visions to screens both big and small. From the glorious heat of Jamaica in January to the subzero degree temperatures of the Canadian Rockies in the fall, it was an inspiring year of shooting, fun and celebration (because it also happened to have been the year I got hitched!). Thank you to those of you who made 2012 so memorable.

It is a privilege in this type of work to come across individuals who are not only compelling enough to document on camera but who can also change our lives on a personal level. People often ask me to recount stories from the road and I am usually compelled to tell a story from my experiences on Deadman, but the trouble is that the stories of Deadman – the place – are much more than simple anecdotes. Deadman is where I met Gerald and Norma, and it is where my creative process and perspective on life finally intersected in a way that still resonates in everything I do.

I met Gerald and Norma while I was shooting the documentary Deadman, Chelsea McMullan’s first with the NFB, outside of Kamloops, B.C in the spring and summer of 2008. I was 23, eager to immerse myself in a different environment and ready to leave the city in pursuit of a place that was expansive and inspiring. Gerald, his wife Norma and their children Jay, Noreen and Onions spent a lot of their time with our crew of three while showing us the ropes in the parched and rugged landscape of Savona. They took care of us, ate with us, sang with us, camped with us, helped and supported us tremendously while also acting as subjects in the film. It became clear that the relationship between filmmakers and subjects need not and cannot be rigid or impenetrable, but rather that everyone involved had a chance to form a real friendship. When we finally left at the end of August that year, Gerald and Norma gifted each of us an eagle feather, a high honour, and as they smudged us one last time I took in the smell of the sage and felt extraordinary gratitude for having met them.

Gerald passed away this week, and I am reminded again of the comfort and peace of his family’s home on the Skeetchestn land in British Columbia. I am reminded of how lucky I was to have known Gerald and to have learned from him creatively but also spiritually. He taught me that life is a delicate balance of mental, spiritual, emotional and physical wellbeing, and that the four need to work in unison, “like the wheels of a car.” I am reminded that there exists a place in the world where if you sit at the top of a certain hill in the middle of a valley in Vidette, where the rocks of an ancient Medicine Wheel still peek through the grass, you can indeed hear what sounds like a chorus of hundreds singing in perfect harmony for just a moment at sunset – the centre of the universe, Gerald told us. I am reminded of the honour it is to do this work and to have the opportunity to meet people who have the ability to enrich our lives so profoundly – that is, if we choose to immerse ourselves beyond our cameras and really listen to the lives we are photographing.

Lilia and Ferdinando’s elegant and poetic filmmaking sensibilities translated into a visual language of carefully composed static frames and slow, contemplative camera movement. In a film that’s a thematic blend of nostalgia, heartache, celebration and resilience, this was the perfect interpretation for five stories that range in narrative and emotional tone. I am eager to celebrate the film’s premiere as part of opening night at the Moving Image Film Festival in Toronto this Friday, November 2nd at the Royal Cinema. Screening times are below.

Friday, November 2nd 2012 at 11:30pm the Royal Cinema on 608 College Street West, Toronto.

Sunday, November 4th 2012 at 9:30pm the Annex Live on 296 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto.

Very proud to have shot this spot for the World Wildlife Fund with director/producers Will and Jamie at Aircastle Films – alongside the two of them it was a pleasure working with the creative talent over at John St. again to bring this project together.

Special thanks must go out to Mikhail Petrenko for providing us with some truly adorable close ups on B Cam, and to Tony Smith and Max Putintsev for the fun we had lighting this dream location, an architect’s home in Toronto’s High Park neighbourhood.

Reblogged from SIX NINE THREE: