Aussie DP - Cinematography, Lighting & Colour

24/05/2025

Here are some more screen grabs from the recent scenes we shot on, 'Because of the War'. Working with the horses was certainly a new challenge, and for the actors too as some of them had to learn to ride on the day!
It all came together though, and we were able to cross another two scenes off the list. Well done team!

18/05/2025

Filmmaking tip time! Tip number 1...

15/04/2025

Here's another release from Kingdom Culture Worship's live studio performance that I had the privilege to be one of the camera operators on last year. I had a nice little vantage point on the far side of the room for this one where I could get some long shots, and some B-roll closeups of the guitar, and the bow being used on the metal block/chime instrument (not sure on the name of that one, haha). Be sure to check these guys out, a very talented bunch!

Official Live Video for "Most Like Home" by Kingdom Culture Worship. Recorded live in Brisbane, Australia. __________________________________________________...

30/03/2025

Another scene done on, 'Because of the War'. We filmed this scene last week at a Lutheran Church in Witta, near Maleny, on the Sunshine Coast. A big thank you to Philip Thamm for arranging a shoot day for us, and to Pastor Matt for allowing us to shoot at the church - he even played the part of the Minister in the scene.

21/03/2025

Here's the latest release from Kingdom Culture Worship's live studio session. For those of you that don't know, I had the privilege of camera operating for the band along with a team of other operators last year. Great working with you guys (both band and crew)!

Official Live Video for "Glimpse" by Kingdom Culture Worship. Recorded live in Brisbane, Australia. _________________________________________________________...

10/03/2025

I missed sharing this one back in mid Jan. This is the second release from Kingdom Culture Worship's live studio session that I had the privilege of camera operating on.
If you missed my recent post, I was called in on the day of this shoot, merely hours before-hand, to cover for another operator.
It was great to meet the band and the rest of the camera crew. With Christian circles having many links, it turns out that one of the band members, Brett Shaw, had been the producer on my friend, Eliza King's, recent album, 'The Pressing In', which I'd produced two music videos for.
I make quite a few cameos in the background of this one, haha.

Official Live Video for "Cost" by Kingdom Culture Worship. Recorded live in Brisbane, Australia. __________________________________________________________CO...

06/03/2025

Hi all, it's been quite some time since my last post on this page, so I thought I'd let you all know what I've been up to.
The reasons for my radio silence is that in late 2023 / early 2024 I decided to run all my creative work updates (in house productions and out of house freelance work) through my own production company name, Alternative Path Productions.
This was done to save the running of multiple sites and accounts, but I'm finding the merging of my freelance and in house production work to be confusing the image of what Alternative Path Productions stands for.
So moving forward, I now plan to keep my business name purely for my own productions, while I continue my freelance work on the side under the name - Aussie DP.
So on that note, here's the last post of my freelance work that I shared on the Alternative Path Productions' socials.
I look forward to bringing all my freelance work updates back to Aussie DP, with updates of all the productions I've worked on since my last post.

Official Live Video for "Adore" by Kingdom Culture Worship. Recorded live in Brisbane, Australia. __________________________________________________________T...

04/12/2023

Well past time for an update I'd say!
I've recently been shot listing for an upcoming short-film project based on a well known Australian children's book, but as it's still early days, I can't share too much just yet.
So today I'd like to share some stills from a project that I worked on as DP last year for my friend, Roger Dvorak, titled, The Final Bullet.
I've been wanting to revisit this footage with my own colour grade for some time, and it's time that I finally had this week to get to it!
I've been delving into colour grading tutorials lately to improve my skills, and more and more I find that there's such importance in this later step in the process of filmmaking.
All of these shots were captured with cheap cinema/hybrid cameras. Around half of this shoot being captured with the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro, and the other with the Panasonic GH6 (and possibly a few on the GH5S from memory). It really goes to show that if you take the time to practise, hone your skills, and are given the opportunity to use them (a big thanks to Roger there!), you don't need an expensive cinema camera and a massive crew for your project. I say this not to boast but to encourage us all that we don't need the latest gear. There's been many a time that I've fallen into that trap and had GAS... (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) feeling that I can't create my best unless I have this or that piece of new technology. A big thanks to my friend, Cody Osborne, for reminding me of this recently.
So don't let GAS hold you back, get out there and create! Make your own projects if you need to. And finally, get to know the filmmaking gear you have. If you know how far you can push your gear, the better you can adapt on set and know what you have to work with in post production.
I hope you enjoy the shots! Cheers.

08/10/2023

I often look back at my previous work, and I thought it might be fun to give some of my old shots an updated colour grade, and to talk about the cameras and lenses I've used on previous productions that I've been a part of.
So today I'd like to share some still grabs from a recent short film I worked on called, 'The Narrow Path'. I shot this one mostly on the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 4K (BMPCC4K), and some shots on the Panasonic Lumix S5IIX. After shooting the first day on the Panasonic with Lumix L mount photography lenses, I felt that the image was too sharp, even with a 1/8 pure mist filter.
So for the rest of the shoot I opted for the BMPCC4K with a Cine lens set from Zhong Yi Optics, the Mitakon Speedmaster T1.0 Cine set.
Though matching the different cameras in post would be a step I knew I might have to talk the colour grader through (being that this shoot was someone's university master project), I saw the extra work as well worth it due to the flares I would get, the option of 12-bit RAW in camera, and far faster lenses to use for the upcoming night shoots that were planned. These lenses however, were very much further on the other end of the spectrum.
On set there were shots that these lenses actually made quite difficult. Having to open up the aperture to T1.0 for some night shots caused far more softness than I had expected. To add to my challenges on set, the widest lens the cine set offered was a 17mm, which on a BMPCC4K with an approximate 1.85x crop equates to the equivalent of a 31/32mm on full-frame.
Finally, as the lenses had only arrived that week, I'd made the mistake of not running proper tests before hand and found out on set that the lenses weren't properly adjusted and some (the 17mm especially) needed to be shimmed.
All this whilst doing camera operating, cinematography, lighting, and lending assistance on the directing side of things made a challenging shoot to say the least.
But with all this said, I'm glad of the lessons I learned, the new friends I made, and I'm still quite happy with most of the shots we captured with the time we had on set.
See if you can guess which camera is which!

07/10/2023

G'day everyone. I've recently decided to create this page to share some of my creative work outside of Alternative Path Productions. Beyond this I'd also like to share my knowledge of what I've learned over the years, some behind-the-scenes footage, and to chat about filmmaking in general as I use this new platform to help advertise what I do as I look for further work in the film / video content industry.
I look forward to sharing a bunch of content with you soon!