Kokiri Nominated for an Award – Exposures Film Festival

I just wanted to say good luck to Dan and the team that created Kokiri. It’s nominated for an award at Cornerhouse in Manchester this Wednesday so fingers crossed by the end of this week we could be an award winning production company.

I’ll let Dan update the news in the coming week.

For more info check out: http://www.exposuresfilmfestival.co.uk/ 

Kokiri screening is on 18/11/09 – 16:30 Cinema 2.

Stephen

Royal Television Society Awards and Channel M Zeitgeist

Last night was the RTS awards and I was lucky enough to be there as part of the camera crew. It was a long day but the behind the scenes knowledge I gained was really great, a lot more than you can imagine goes on behind an event like that.

In terms of the actual awards, it was good to see some amazing Northern talent being recognised and also a great atmosphere of recognised talent putting two figures up to London media. This certainly was a room full of people that is going to make the Media City in Salford work properly.

Channel M’s Zeitgeist picked up an award or two as well which was really good to see, we will hopefully be working with Channel M a lot more over the coming months and while I’m on the subject, check out a program on Channel M Zeitgeist about George Best as I filmed part of it. It should be airing on the 23rd and 25th I believe.

Ok, that’s all from me now, as usual there is more news about jobs we are doing currently popping up on here all the time, so keep updated.

You can check out our facebook site as well if you want news as and when it happens.

Stephen

Rhino Mania is on it’s way…

Hi guys,

On Monday we were invited to a very special night in Chester to document the launch of Rhino Mania; Up to 70 uniquely decorated fibre glass 5ft high rhinos will be placed throughout the city creating a trail set to attract up to 400,000 extra visitors.

Over the next few months we will be completing a series of short documentaries about the project so everyone can keep a keen eye on the Rhinos progress.

For more information visit: http://www.rhinomania.co.uk/

You can find our documentaries (including the Launch Party) at our Gallery.

Stay Tuned

Stephen

New Interview Filmed – Example Magazine

Exclusive Interview with DJ Alley Cat:

Lately we have been working with a brilliant company called Example Magazine.

Who are they?

examplemag.co.uk is the online representation of a generation and scene in manchester. The  musical, social and creative culture in manchester is one of the most vibrant in the united kingdom. EXAMPLE is bringing all of this together in one place. You can check out the site here.

I’m sure the interview we did of DJ Alley Cat will be on the site somewhere soon. But for now you can find it on our vimeo page.

More news and event information is coming very soon, so stay tuned.

Stephen

It’s all here…

Great news!

The last box arrived in the post today containing some handmade support rods from our lovely friends over at Jag35.com! I can’t wait to get some shooting done with this equipment, I am really impressed with the quality of the images so far, and the stability of the build. I will post some test shots onto vimeo as soon as I can.

This means the DOF adapter is finally ready for some serious shooting action, take a look at some pics of the setup below…

Jag35 Hooked up to the Z5

Jag35 on Sony Z5 w/ Rods

Front of the Rig with Dfocus

Side View of Z5 w/ Rods and Jag35

Production Photos

On the mountain with the Panasonic AG-HPX500E

Hi there,

first of all, as I have not done so far I would like to introduce myself. I am Stephen and co-owner of Stake Productions with Daniel. Last year I made a short film called ‘Imagine This!’. With months of organising we finally made it to this difficult location; on top of a fairly big hill. As you can imagine this was quite difficult with all our heavy equipment, two cast and three crew including myself.

So anyway, this is a photo of myself (left) directing Dan Jones (right).

If you would like to see the film, then please check out our gallery page and look for the colourful jacket on the thumbnail!

Here are some more photos…

The wind was icy cold, so well done to Stefan for delivering a brilliant performance when 'ACTION!' was shout out.

Half set up ready for all the scenes in the bedroom

Why have one? When you can have two…

Today we have a very welcome addition to our team, to bring greater flexibility to our workflow we have just ordered a brand new Sony HVR Z5E, to go along side our other Sony HVR Z5E.

I have had a lot of time with the Z5 and it is a fantastic camera to work with, as for a HD camera it has great flexibility in low light conditions, has a great lens, with a useful 20x zoom, and the flexibility to move to a memory card recording unit that just clips onto the back.

We will be using both cameras in all our productions from now on, and will soon be hopefully expanding to use a 35mm DOF adapter as well!

The wishlist has been written…

Well in the interests of eventually getting new and exciting equipment – yes, a nice big 35mm adapter for our main camera the HD Sony HVR Z5E, I have ordered a selection of 35mm lenses, and the very first of which popped through the letterbox this morning.

We are hoping to aquire the Jag35XL 35mm adapter as soon as possible, as it gives great image quality, in a vibrating 35mm adapter, has a selection of mounts, and a good support system. If you are not familiar with DOF adapters and there workings then go take a look yourself – www.jag35.com - it can give such an amazing “film-like” quality to any video that it can completely transform the most mundane shots, into images worthy of the big screen.

The lens that arrived today is a Canon FD Mount 35-70MM Zoom lens, with the great Macro functionality which should make for some very nice images using a depth of field adapter. I have also ordered a Canon FD 50mm lens, suitable for most general use, and as it is rated f1.4 it should be good in low light situations.

The last lens we should recieve is the 28mm wide angle Canon FD lens, which I think could difficult to use as it looses quite a lot of light, but the images from it will hopefully be very interesting.

Hello world!

Hello, this is our very first post on our very first day on our shiny new blog!

Please come in, make yourself at home, and have a look around and explore our new website, any comments are appreciated. Don’t worry I will get your coat, would you like a coffee?

We will be adding lots of interesting content from new videos, to new projects and news so keep up to date with our blog! Hopefully you can get to know the faces behind stake here, I am Dan, pleased to meet you.

Keep in touch,

Dan.