Director of Photography

Apple TV+ Original

RED Gemini, VEO 4k, Mavo LF, A7s

I was DOP on the Madagascar episode filming on location in Madagascar across multiple blocks over a 12 month period.  Additional sequences were filmed in UK studios.

Filmed mainly on the RED with low light sequences filmed on the Mavo LF and A7s.

Grip included pioneering motion control and Mark Roberts Bolt high speed arm. 

Focus Stacking timelapse

One of the new techniques we used to focus stacking of timelapse to gain greater depth of field and resolution.  For the Islands episode we filmed Xenopus embryos developing from fertilisation to late gastrula using microscopy lenses on a Nikon Z7, focus stacked to provide the depth of field we needed.

Creating this quantity of data provides a significant problem for post production and to that end new software written with the sole job of automating the sorting of the frames in depth and time, and creating the finished stacked images. All in 8k HDR.

With the new software it’s possible to playback the timelapse both in time and depth, and then select which frames in depth to merge together into the final composite frame. Alternatively its possible to export all the depth slices individually and do a focus pull in the edit with microscopic precision.

It was a wonderful accomplishment and personally meant a lot given during my university degree I did the same thing as part of my research.