So as this is the 300th post on this website in its current format (hosted it like this for the past 2 years) I’ve decided to do something a bit special!

Firstly, the comedy/musical I shot about a year ago called Spex and the City is now available online at the film’s page!

I’m glad how it turned out, and now that the DVD sales are no longer the only way to get the film, it’s fun to be able to present it online for everyone to watch for free! Of course, the film will still be available in its DVD format (which can be ordered from www.petrispexet.com) featuring LOADS of special features. The film is in Swedish without subtitles mind you - but it could be a fun watch, especially as it’s a bit different than other films I’ve done. So head on over to the film’s page to watch it in mindblowingly good Vimeo HD quality!

But that’s not all, far from it.

I’ve remastered and re-encoded most of my films on the website, and uploaded a streaming Vimeo HD version to their respective pages. Among these are Showoff and 16 - now available for the first time in true high definition due to both some hefty upscaling work using Apple Shake 4.1 in Showoff’s case, and a brand new 1080p encode when it comes to 16. All the other films below have been remastered using their original 1080p versions - it’s taken a few weeks to get it all together, but it’s fun to finally be able to present most of my films the way they were meant to be seen! The full list of re-encoded HD films are:

Showoff
Cell
16
Zombie Exterminator
Energy (Commercial)
Campsite

EDIT: The new Vimeo HD version of Campsite is now up and running on the film’s page!

But head on over and watch some of the older films I’ve made right now in glourious HD, along with Spex and the City, which is for the first time available to view on the internet for free!

Speak to you more soon, and here’s for another 300 posts! Take care.

The third in the Redrock M2 Adapter test series - trying to film a lot of different things, so I’ve got knowledge concerning how best to prepare for a specific scene, when I eventually move on to make a film using 35mm lenses. I tagged along with Fredrik and Amanda during a photoshoot on the top of the World Trade Center in Malmö yesterday and shot a bunch of footage - edited it in about an hour and added some music - the final result can be viewed right here:

Still gearing up towards my next proper film which I am still working on the script for - thought it’d be good to have some more experience with the Redrock adapter and get used to manual focusing, especially in improvised situations.

Until next time, take care! Going to a meeting to talk about a new film job tomorrow evening which should be fun Speak soon!

EDIT: Currently seems to be some interlacing issues with the new HD version I just uploaded - I’m on it, currently fixing it.

EDIT 2: Problem solved, which means the film above is now available in Vimeo HD!

Shot another test using the Redrock adapter yesterday outside with a bunch of friends! Worked on it a bit today with grading and adding a 2.35 aspect ratio and other neat and neccesary stuff. Oh, and stay after the end for an outtake of the acting genius Mattias who goes just a tad overboard.

Shot on a Sony HDR-FX1 with a Redrock M2 Cinema adapter, using a Sigma 28mm/1.8 lens (Nikon mount) as well as a 35mm/1.4 and 50mm/1.8 lens from Nikkor. Also, the quite great music is by none other than Redhawk Productions local film composer Nils Bülow! I decided to add some music to it and just name it a follow-up to the Summer Spirit film I did a couple of years ago, which was also mainly shot as an equipment test. Can’t wait to make a proper film using the above equipment!

I don’t think I’ll upload this into the “Movies” section of the website, as it’s mainly a test. Perhaps I should differentiate movies and tests on the website and create a new category? Decisions, decisions…

Until next time, take care everyone!

Hey everyone! Just uploaded a whole bunch of new banner images to the website, featuring more images from both earlier films I’ve made to the latest ones, including Campsite, Spex and the City and the Energy commercial. In total, instead of there being a mere 5 different banner images, there are now 33! So it’s a pretty cool upgrade, and will hopefully make the website a bit more colourful and fun to visit

Until next time, take care!

Hey everyone - been trying out a Redrock M2 Encore adapter today with a bunch of friends who just bought it. The M2 allows you to use 35mm lenses (same lenses used on still photography) for shooting film. It was a pretty cool experience, and even though I didn’t have much time to try it out today, I will try to give it another whirl soon and shoot some footage outside. Even without a lot of grading, except for some minor contrast changes, the production value and film-look the adapter grants is quite impressive - check out the embedded test right here:

Sorry about the slight shaky-cam tendency - didn’t really have time to set up proper lightning or even use a tripod on some shots - but it became pretty cool, and is a technique I’m hoping to use on my new short film, which is still in the script-writing process (more specifically, rewrites right now). Speak to you more soon!

Take care!

Here’s my review of the new sci-fi action film from debut director Neill Blomkamp, produced by the well-known Peter Jackson. I had tried to keep away from trailers and TV spots (except the first teaser trailer released a couple of months back) - I was interested in seeing the film, especially after hearing some of the reviews it had gotten over the week since it was released in the US and UK.

The story is a pretty interesting one, and while it is mostly based on your thoughts on older sci-fi alien invasion films such as Independence Day, it uses your premature thoughts on this type of genre-film to its advantage. Instead of the alien ship centering over a well-known world metropole such as New York, Washington, Paris or London, it circulates over Johannesburg, and has done so for the last 20 years. The aliens, reffered to in the film as prawns, don’t have a specific leader on their ship, but are brought into some sort of protective custody by the government of South Africa - at first they wreck havoc throughout the city of Johannesburg, before they are forcibly moved to live in a camp, District 9, under extremely poor living conditions - the social commentary from director Blomkamp related to the apartheid during the 1960’s when an inner-city block of Johannesburg was labeled a whites-only area, leading to the forced removal and placement of over 60,000 people in camps similar to the one featured in the film, only labeled District 6. Similarities indeed. The plot focuses around Wikus van de Merwe (portrayed by debut actor Sharlto Copley), a field operative assigned to manage the relocation of the aliens - while during a raid Wikus is sprayed by a canister filled with some sort of alien liquid - which rapidly is transforming Wikus into the aliens he is trying to get rid of. While I don’t want to give away too much of the story, I’ll just leave it at saying that it turns into a quite fast-pased ride as Wikus is trying to regain his humanity, recieving help from the last place he’d think. The story is really quite something - it’s not the most original story ever put to screen, but it is tremendously helped by Copley, who carries the film on his shoulders and does it with loads of bravour. From being a completely unknown actor, Copley fully embraces the character of Wikus, and creates a character (along with screenwriter/director Blomkamp of course) who is not a person dealing with extremely heroic or disgusting characteristics, but sort of lives in a shade of gray throughout the film. During the film’s dark beginning, we are as an audience not exactly sure what to think of Wikus. While he in one scene seems like a generally likeable guy, the next he jokes about how burning alien eggs sound like popcorn when they explode. It all is quite disturbing, and makes for a very interesting character that very much fits the story.

Adding to the awesome acting work is the equally spectacular visual effects - with Peter Jackson producing, and his vfx company Weta Digital jumping in for some of the effects work - mainly visual design though, as they’re quite busy working on Avatar. The aliens, or prawns, look really good - and combined with the mockumentary visual style most of the film follows, it all is quite impressive how realistic the interactions between humans and aliens are. This is by far some of the best use of visual effects as a storytelling method in quite some time (not discarding the really awesome use of vfx on Benjamin Button last year) and it really is a ride I can’t wait to live through again, either on the silver screen or at home.

The sound design is really good as well - the alien language used by the prawns actually sounds like something you would hear coming from the windpipes of an extraterrestrial. While some leaps in logic have to be taken to fully enjoy the film - “How could humans learn a language from quite uneducated aliens that is surely both different compared to any other language on earth in for example, grammar?”. All sci-fi films require some leaps of logic - you don’t try to explain how you could have explosions or sound in space in Star Wars or how you would get disconnected from a fake world in The Matrix. Along with it’s great musical score by Clinton Shorter, District 9 comes close to being The Matrix of the 2000’s, including doing what that did to the sci-fi genre - it’s not as revolutionary but it comes pretty close. And that’s not bad. Not bad at all.

More info: Trailer - Metacritic - Official Website