My Work | Michael Firus

Picture = 1000 words ∴ 4 seconds of 25fps video = 100,000 words.

First thoughts on film lighting

My website: https://michaelfirus.com/ And thus our long holidays come to a close. As the last harsh rays of summer light morph into the gentle glow of autumn’s clouds and low sun, we begin our classes once again. In the studio this semester, our focus is on light. Often described as the brush and pigment by…

Lighting Exercise

This exercise offered an intriguing exploration of lighting. Tasked with finding some distinctive lighting around campus, my goal for this exercise was two-fold. First of all, I wanted it to simply be an exploration of the conventional practice of lighting the “off-side” of the actor’s face. Second of all, I wanted to see how a…

Colour Grading

Through colour grading, a multitude of differing meanings can be created using the same footage. This post is an exploration of these meanings. For this exercise, I will use footage I have shot that I intend to use (in part of course) in my final project. All the following colour work was done within the…

Beauty

Every now and then in one’s cinematic career, there comes moments where time stands still. These moments possess an element of sheer and blatant beauty. OK, without sounding too romantic, one such moment took place at a shoot for a documentary that I am currently creating. Over the last few weeks, I have been undertaking…

Large Noises

I have always thought that the shooting of free music videos for upcoming artist is a damn good idea. On the face of it, it may seem lacking in benefit. The ol’ argument comes up: ‘what’s in it for moi?’. But in reality, the benefits are huge. You get to have an amazing subject to…

Tram Surfing

A few weeks ago I participated in a rather interesting shoot. Tram Sessions is an organisation that takes upcoming artists and puts them on Melbourne’s trams to perform their latest tunes. Oh, did I mention they made such occasions into music videos? As a videographer on one such project, I found the un-officious and warm…

What is it all for? – End of the day type stuff

Media can be many things. It can be provocative, detrimental, constructive and even totally impotent. However, as a general rule, I tend to think media should be used to do a little good. For the last four months, I have been editing small promotional clips for the charity organisation International Children’s Care. This charity works…

DSLR Underwater Cinematography

In my experience, the technical difficulties of shooting underwater are far outweighed by the amazing perspectives one can capture. The first issue one must contend with is that of equipment. For my clip I used a Canon 70D and this underwater case. Since I do not shoot underwater very often, this case was fine for…