We are delighted to have been nominated for the Learning on Screen award run by the BUFVC and are really excited to be going to the party in April to see who the winner is!
The films that have been nominated are the career films we made to support the IOP in their mission to persuade more people to take physics to A-level.
You can see them here:
Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us.
January has been a busy month for Picnic, editing our Newton Science content. But we wanted to enter the Jessops competition ‘The Shot’ to produce a 10 minute film around the theme of ‘The Shot’. I’ve wanted to make a film about a landscape photographer for about a year now, and we were fortunate to find Sławek locally in Sussex. He’s an extremely talented photographer, taking breathtaking shots of the Sussex coastline and countryside. As it turns out we were the only documentary entry, and so far we’ve had 4499 views (in two days!).
We were very inspired by Philip Bloom’s wonderful film ‘Booth’s and Bodies‘ all shot on the Sony Nex-5N, a beautiful little camera we got back in October and have started using more and more. We wanted to make something as visual as the artistry that was taking place on screen and something philosophical. In Sławek we had the perfect candidate.
Workshop Day
We woke at 5am on Monday 23rd January (not easy after a weekend walking in the New Forest!) and picked Sławek up, parked up (in near darkness) to begin the 20 minute walk to the Seven Sisters in Sussex. A truly beautiful location for a dawn shoot. We shot for a few hours as the sun swiftly rose, we were the only people for miles and it was incredibly peaceful. It was a beautiful morning, the waves were crashing by the cliffs as we ventured round one, then two of the bases of the impressive chalk cliffs following Sławek as he looked for ‘the shot’ that he had never got before at Seven Sisters. As he talked about the illusive images that he goes looking for, each one more extraordinary and unique than the last, we were reminded of our own pursuit for perfection, our own drive to get better shots than ever before. Ultimately Sławek reminded us that the pursuit of the shot is just as important as actually taking ‘the shot’, and the mere act of filming / photography is an enlightening and enriching experience regardless of the results. No trip is ever fruitless, and for us this film most certainly was very fruitful indeed.
You can watch the full film below, shot by Nell and myself on the Sony Nex 5-N and the Canon 550D.