This short film is my personal reflection on the year 2010, told through visions of the Christmas holiday. A very personal piece that I think can speak to us all in some way, it's a call to remember the wonder of life that we can so easily forget. As Christmas time came to the Antico Household I took a look at my 16 month old Connor as he was surrounded by the beauty and wonder of the holiday season. And then I started to think, that the greatest gift of all was right in front of me, and that was a gift that guided me and my creative endeavors all year.

Children however don't forget what happened.. often because they're experiencing it for the first time.

And so we come to this short.

I'm actually not too happy with the level of chroma noise in some of these shots. Shooting at F4 with available light on the 17-40 was a slight challenge with this cam, and I had to go to 1600 or even 2500 ISO to compensate. I also boosted up the exposure in Looks but that brought out even more noise. At some point I may run these clips through Denoiser, but for now this will have to do.

I am also not too happy with the Glidecam footage… it was swaying too much and Smoothcam compensated but made it kind of blurry. I added some effects to try and cover that up but it's not ideal. Practice makes perfect I suppose.

GEAR USED:

Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 100mm F2.8 L Macro Lens
Canon 17-40 F4 L lens
Canon 50mm F1.4 USM Lens
Kessler Pocket Dolly Traveler V2
Manfrotto Video Monopod
Manfrotto 701 HDV Fluid Head

Voice Over by me, recorded into a Zoom H4N using it's built in mics and a Samson Pop filter. There are a couple of bits of static but those are in the original track (no idea why but I wasn't about to re-rip the CD.) A quick production pass done in Garageband.

Music - "Cora" by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman from the Last of the Mohicans Soundtrack, available on iTunes.

Edited in Final Cut Pro
Graded with Magic Bullet Looks