Another music video, another dollar....well....

A fairly slow start to the year in terms of productions.
The main thing so far being the just completed and published music video for the Oxford doom/sludge band UNDERSMILE, and the song "Soil".

This was all shot on the trusty Canon T2i, from around the end of January until March (Actually only on 4 days, it just got spread over a wide amount of time)....To start with I had ideas of creating a very Argento style video, and although the colour scheme of the 'live' part retained the very over the top lighting, little remains of my original plan...So it ended up being a mish mash of visuals, not perhaps as striking as the previous video I did for the band, but it captures their performance style better.

As the live part was filmed at night (on a freakishly cold MArch evening, in the middle of a farm, with snow and ice still on the ground), I had to employ a 30mm 1.4 sigma lens (not fantastic as the focus was razor thin), and a lot of lights to get close to lighting the scene...I'd bought 6 160-led lights and covered them with coloured gels and thought that might be enough, but to be honest I really could have done with more powerful lights...and as I hate pushing the camera above 400iso I had a real job on my hands...a 5dMarkII would probably have been better for this, but hey.

As always I tell myself I won't film 'the next' project at night, but I always do!

Undersmile - Soil - The Official Video

A long time...but still in the game!

Okay okay, I know, 3 years of bloggy invisibility. Entirely my fault, but things in the Mondo Cheapo camp have not been quiet.
After the misfire that was "Raven's Wing" (more on that in the future), the hopes for 80's action superstardom that was "Asmatico", 2012 saw some success for MCP....
The video for the Undersmile song "Milk" was the first music video I've ever filmed, and it's currently got nearly 50,000 views in under 6 months...
Then an improtu recording of the deathrock band Fangs on Fur at the Whitby Goth Festival, resulted in a massive thumbs up for my video for their song "Cigarette".
More music videos are being planned along with shorts/longer features.
Stay frosty, 2013 is the future, Man!

7D....

Okay, after much debate, I bought the beast that is the Canon 7d.

Is it perfect? Of course not.

Is it bloody good? Yes.

Have only messed around in doors so far, but with a cheap 1.8 lens it does very well in low light, and the ability to change aperture, shutter speed and ISO while recording is a MASSIVE improvement on the D90.

Will attempt to post video at some point :)

first things...

Okay, this is the somewhat general blog about the world of Mondo Cheapo Productions, and some vaguely associated things about its creator and big boss *cough*, Me :).

Mondo Cheapo is the super low budget (for 'low', read 'no') film making production 'company' that I started with a friend about 12 years ago, before we had the slightest idea how to use cameras, write stories, or make films...but hey, if we had a name for all our farting about, then it was valid, right? :)

Only in the last year did Mondo Cheapo go from being a pipedream to actually starting to take shape. I'd always wanted to make films, but couldn't ever seem to get mine and my friends collective asses in gear to make anything....and then one windy March day in 2009, we took my fiances faithful old Sony Cybershot DSC-T30 camera to an abandoned airport building, and made what will probably be my legacy, the little known crime drama "F***in' C***".

The camera has no manual settings to speak of. It is a compact digital camera with very basic video function. It doesn't know the meaning of shutter speed or depth of field. Its 640X480, not exactly HD(its barely the D part ;) ).

BUT...

We made something that had a very thin plot, and had 'acting', and had an end (no more pointless "walk around like zombies" experiments), so it was a story, and I edited it, and we laughed at it in a good way(you'll see what I mean when I post it)...But I'd finally made *something*.

.....and now we're making something else, which is very nearly finished. Its no epic, but its a huge leap from "F***in' C***", and its a stepping stone to making bigger and better films, and whether anyone wants to watch them or not, its not going to stop us :).

...and so it begins!

The first post on the Mondo Cheapo blog....

Who or what is Mondo Cheapo? You'll find out soon ;)