showreel

Monday 23 July 2018

Scotland!!!

In a few days time I will have lived in Scotland for as long as I have lived in England - 17 years in both and I wanted to share my top ten fun things about living here!
 

Me at art school - up a ladder!


1- Ken is NOT a person - it took me 3 months to figure that out when I first moved up.

my local beach in East Lothian

2- You can succeed as a creative in Scotland and not have to move to London (but you should always be willing to travel!)

another local beach!

20 min from the centre of Edinburgh you can be here!


3- Scottish people are pretty much the best people on Earth - fact. I have traveled to over 65 Countries in my life and I have never met a group of people so willing to help, with so much love and no filter ( a spade is a spade in Scotland) and it really is one of the things I love most about living here is being around friends, family and colleagues who are just well nice!



4- The Edinburgh Fringe is the largest comedy festival in the world it is incredible that such a great arts event takes place in Edinburgh every year and there are some huge advantages to living in a city where this happens (and a couple of disadvantages!) - the advantages are that you have access to over 50,000 shows over the space of a month and there is something for literally everyone! Disadvantages - a trip that would usually take you 10 min can take an hour, your favorite little quiet place for a bite to eat will not be quiet, it will feel at times like it is London on the North sea, you will want to ask to legalize punching tourists in the back of the head who suddenly stop in the middle of the pavement for no reason... (ok that might be a personal issue!)
from the gilded balloon

Check out our festival showreel to see some of what happens!!

5- Edinburgh is a gorgeous city to live in - it is just epic and a lovely place to come home too parking charges are not always fun and the road works that pop up randomly are often frustrating but you when you have a massive castle, a large hill (arthurs seat) and the beach within walking (ok a good jogging) distance its pretty hard to find anywhere else that competes!


6- The weather is not always the greatest! - its pretty much winter from September until May but if you like miles of empty beach, snow, log fires and whisky then your in for a treat!


7- We have the best NYE parties in the world.

8- The opportunity to work in hugely diverse fields are huge:

15 years later still going up ladders!
and more ladders


9- You can shoot fashion in Scotland http://www.mattsphotosuk.com/








10- It is a great place to bring up a family.
Gill, Arran, Rose and Me!!

So to wrap it up - Scotland is my home and my favorite place on earth! I might not be technically Scottish but both my children are! It has been a blast over the last 17 years - some big ups and some massive downs but I wouldn't change it for the world and here's working on the next 17 years being even more epic!


Tuesday 3 July 2018

Long term review!

Ok so before I start I need to make it very clear that I love these guys:

https://trakke.co.uk/

Go and check them out they are made in Glasgow and they are epic!

A couple of years ago we did some work for them and I got to try out the bags and they are awesome!

Since then i have been using them alot and more recently they have just released a camera insert for the wee lug messenger and it is awesome thats the orange thing!!! 

I had a play with it on a recent shoot on Eriskay and with a new edition bannoch backpack
I managed to get all my camera gear in a secure - weather tight and just plain epic looking setup

Its hard to know where to start on reviewing this as I can't come at it from an unbiased view! I really do love them - ive taken these 2 bags across the UK - with clothes for a week (admittedly i dont change much!  plus computer, hard drives,cameras (yes upto 5 cameras - hassleblad h4d, canon 7dmk2, polaroid and muji 2 plus lenses!)

They are comfy - like really comfy - the rucksack especially as its a great size and just fits eveyrthing right if you know what I mean!

The buckles are lush too - they are clever and designed and yet feel effortless to use.

I have alot of bags - as I have alot of gear but I use these every day for business, pleasure and well even taking in the clothes for my new baby at the hospital - what more can I say

go check them out !!!!








Monday 28 May 2018

what do I do?

I don't post on this blog as much as I should but its quite difficult to figure out what to say! I could argue that its because I spend my life capturing other people stories and so when it comes to mine it feels a bit dull but in reality i'm just not that great at making the time to create blog posts!!

But I thought I would share a little bit of insight about what I do and try and share a few bits of knowledge i've picked up along the way! I'll also include some fun images along the way like this one (me on set for the Official launch of Christmas teaser campaign by Irn Bru) :


So what do I do?

At the very top I am the Senior Producer at MBP (check us out here mbpltd.com) and I am a fashion photographer (check my link here http://www.mattsphotosuk.com/) but what does that mean - well basically I just love creating content and working with people! (still is from last years drinkaware campaign)


I'll speak about the film stuff first! In MBP we have a small epic team, Scott Thomson my business partner (ex footballer and all round amazing dude) Kevin Gordon our salesman and we have our board of directors, legal guys and accounts team. We decided to create the business that way so that we could keep our costs low, and be very responsive to the demands of our clients - we can get the right people for the right job anywhere in the world and it allows us the freedom to spend time on the jobs we love not just the ones that make lots of profit margin. This also means that we have to get great people to work with us and we have - this is one of the things I love about the film industry is working with great people doing great things and in environments that are not always the easiest to operate in.  (pic below is of the time we were filming for Vroon offshore and the shoot where we put a pig in a plane and then Ferguson Pioneer film )


We have 4 areas we specialize in:

1: creative industries this is everything to do with tv, advertising, marketing, promotional work it's the stuff that goes on tv, or in the cinema, or online and social channels.

2: Construction timelapse cameras - these are remote camera systems that are put onsites to document construction or allow remote access like this one here:

http://lindoresabbeydistillery.com/live-cam/

3: Energy, we work with energy companies across the global in different locations to create everything from health and safety videos, engineering films and promotional works.

4: Defense we work with different agencies and companies to create content - from internal films to showcase a particular stage of a project to promotional content.

We split everything down into the 4 main sections as each area has very different needs and issues to contend with and so it makes it easier to understand the type of production that will occur - for example on creative industry work you could have 15 plus crew and 80 plus extras whereas on the defense work it could just be me!

This all means that I need to be able to adapt quickly to different situations and work within the constraints of the sector!

This leads me on to my top 5 tips as a producer:

1: Never forget your job is to sell! ( I sometime forget this!) But as a producer my job is to sell - i have to sell everything - I have to sell what we do as a production company to clients, to agencies to my team, I have to sell the crew to the client, sometimes the idea to the client (depending on if the idea is already their) I also have to sell the idea to the director, and the crew so they understand the point and then I have to sell all of this again as making a film has an end and so you always have to sell. I joke to my friends and say that 95% of my job is sales and the other 5% is: pre-production, production, post production, accounts, legal, company running, filming, editing, voiceover, graphics, animation, design, awards entering, social media and drinking coffee!



2: Always have a plan - now not everyone needs to know the plan they just need to know that you have a plan - if you don't have a plan find one and stick to it until someone has a better idea.




3: film making is a team activity, and to make a good film you need a good team - it’s like anything in life really find great people and work with them - you want people on set who pull you up, who go that extra mile who stay composed even when things don’t quite go to plan. They are hard to find but when you do it will change your life! (That’s a little shout out to my team - you know who you are your all epic! )






4: this maybe a little contentious! But You have to love this job and you can’t really call it a job it has to be your life, everything you do has to be geared towards creating otherwise you will never succeed - the hours are horrific the pay is often appalling, your are effective to weather, clients, crew, kit, stray pigs, wild snakes, lack of power, security threats, no fly zones, jobs being postponed, cancelled shelved being revisited 5 years later- kit dying, exploding and just having a blue screen of death - this is a producers bread and butter and it’s 7 days a week 24 hours a day especially when working internationally and unless you understand that it can get very exhausting!









And finally number 5:
Have fun! As a film maker, producer, director, cameraman, one man band, editor, company director I am in the very privileged position of getting up every day and doing what I love I get to make films and if your not having fun then you are not doing something right so change it because you cannot live this lifestyle unless you love it and you can’t love it unless it’s fun (in my experience!)

 






Ok so now onto my fashion and more widely photography.

From the moment I could walk I’ve loved shooting, I’ve loved cameras and I’ve loved capturing images, I got really into shooting stills in art school and then developed it further I’ve had work in publications across the world and many front covers.









The thing that I love about fashion is that you can see the beauty - in other areas you have to search and hunt for it but in fashion it’s very obviously in front of you and so your attention goes onto how best to capture this - from technical elements like the type of camera, lens, location and light to the more emotive elements this is where the fun is and what kind of message you want to portray in the work.




And this feeds into the production work I like looking at how I’ve shot something in the fashion world and figuring out how I can apply that to the film world- sometimes it works really well and other times well...



So my top tips for fashion photography:

1: have a plan!
2: be competent with your equipment, practice with your cameras, lighting backgrounds, read your manuals understand what your camera can and can’t do and work to its strengths
3: always be courteous, kind and a nice person - the world has enough arses in it already you don’t need to be another one. ( I do try 🙈)
4: fashion photography is a team creation and find people you like working with and who are great!
5: strive to create truly great work- keep pushing yourself and learn from your mistakes

I hope that this has given you a little insight to what I do! If you liked this post please let me know and I’ll do more!!

Oh and a quick plug - im having an exhibition very soon called digital beauty - if you keep an eye out on social media things are going to start happening very soon! and here's a quick screen grab from one of the installations:













Tuesday 22 August 2017

what happens when you use a hassleblad h4d to shoot a music festival?

So a couple of weeks ago I got the privilege to run some great photographers for the new festival in Dundee called Carnival 56 and this took quite alot of my time and so i didn't get to shoot as much as I would have liked to but I was lucky enough to be allowed on stage for Rudimentals headline set and I thought it would be a good time to crack out the hassy and here are some of the pics:












Its safe to say it was alot of fun using the hassy!!!!


Scotland!!!

In a few days time I will have lived in Scotland for as long as I have lived in England - 17 years in both and I wanted to share my top ten ...