ADAM DOCKER

Snake filming

2009-07-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am filming a "series pilot" in a jungle with Richard Rasmussen a well known wildlife presenter in Brazil. Yes, it was poisonous!

The Law

2009-06-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Law "Don't Stop, Believe" from Adam Docker on Vimeo.

This is the first video for The Law that I filmed, directed and edited. Shot on a Sony EX3 with a Letus and various prime Nikon lenses.

Filmed in their rehearsal room/garage,lock-up in Dundee, this is their first single taken from their forthcoming album "A Measure of Wealth" out now!

www.thelawmusic.com

India

2009-06-07T01:39:00.001-07:00

Filming the elephant arriving in Salem

Following and filming the transportation of an elephant from the Nilgiri Hills to a sanctuary in Salem. A 300km drive that took 12 hours.

Look up at the building, top left corner...yep...just there...those little figurines...that's us.

Waiting for the truck carrying the elephant to drive into Salem.
Very tired and very groggy!

I do tired and groggy very well, especially after having just stepped in human shit!

Filming outside Mysore Palace

Luke sawing off a Buffalo's horn.

Gory stuff!

Luke, Marc and Myself. Nathan is taking the picture.

Believe it or not am actually filming a donkey in a rickshaw here!

Luke and the donkey in the rickshaw!

Puttarpathi, or put more frankly Sai Baba Town

We went to a little village where every year thousands of storks come and nest so we decided to film the guys that go there to rescue all the chicks that break their legs, wings or have bad falls.

Watching Luke operate on a dog. Notice I am the only one not wearing a gown or mask. Funny that!

Accident with a rickshaw.

Self portrait with a Nikon D200 and a 50mm f1.4 lens

Dirty feet and dancing - Malawi

2009-05-04T10:26:00.001-07:00

Malawi - Kung Fu

2009-04-29T02:10:00.000-07:00

On our epic tour of the globe, we stopped off in Malawi for a couple of weeks.
While filming, crowds would gather and the kids would shout "Chucky, Chucky, Chucky" and do kung fu impressions whilst pointing and laughing at Marc the producer.

We got to the bottom of it. All the kids thought that Marc was Chuck Norris!!! How strange, obviously they still watch all the old 80's episodes.
Taking an arty picture was near on impossible as all the kids would jump in front of the camera and start their kung fu moves.
I have never been to a place whose people love having their picture taken so much!! Kids and adults alike would fight to be filmed or have their pic taken!!

I decided to line all the children up against a wall and get them to pose their favourite kung fu move while maintaining some kind of order.

There is always one that escapes!

Grenada

2009-04-28T08:47:00.001-07:00

Filming sea turtles in Carricou, a little island off Grenada.

These are the Real Pirates of the Caribbean!! These pirates from Petit Martinique found the turtle, pictured above, brought it to the KIDO foundation who pay the local fishermen, pirates or sailors a certain amount to save the turtles rather than hack them up for soup so that KIDO can tag them and release them back into the sea.
Dario from the KIDO foundation, called us immediately to come and film it. So we grabbed a water taxi and went over to the other side of the island of Carricou to film the turtle as it rushed back into the sea

Getting ready for a dive

Going overboard

This is the first time I have been diving. JP from Lumbadive in Carricou patiently gave me my first lesson. I went down to four metres and considering it was my first time I was quite chuffed about that.

Pokot Tribe - Kenya

2009-04-26T12:26:00.001-07:00

Some pictures of the Pokot Tribe I took last year in Kenya.

HD XDCAM 700

2009-04-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

Back from a hectic 12 day shoot in Malawi. We are producing a 10 x 1hour series for Sky. can't say what it is at the moment , not that its much of a secret, but the press release hasn't been sent out yet so I have to adhere to protocol; Am out in Grenada on stage two of the series and I thought I would write a quick report on the camera we have just recently purchased for this project: the Sony HD XDCAM pdw700.

Most of the filming on this new project is hand held which makes for really hard work; as much as I would like to use the tripod, the style, look and feel of this programme dictates that it has to be dynamic, there isn’t a minute to spare as the presenter darts around from one place to another. It can go from a close up to crash zooming out and off on a chase. What it all does mean is that my shoulder takes a real beating. It’s red and raw and my back is screaming for a session at the chiropractors. I mustn’t complain, it’s part and parcel of the job, although I must remember to get some sort of special padding to put on to the camera as there is a metal bit underneath which is sticking into my shoulder and it bloody hurts.

Am really happy with the results, from the workflow down to the picture quality.
Prior to buying the camera, we at RES were mulling over which camera to go for, the Panasonic Varicam, the Sony HDCAM 750 or the Sony HD XDCAM 700.
So many things to weigh up, tape, tapeless or disc, different Mbits, variable frame rate or not, digitising requirements and above all cost of the camera as well costs of the various workflows that each camera dictates.

We decided on the 700. We needed something that allowed a quick and cheap workflow as well good quality pictures.
At the end of each shooting day we digitise all the footage onto an external hard rive, allowing us to study the days filming and story lines. Should we be missing anything, I'd rather notice it on the shoot rather than in the edit suite back in London!

As well as the camera body we also bought two inbuilt radio mic receivers, a third independent radio mic, matte box and filters (an ND .9 grey grad filter and Polariser),a Teletest RX transmitter and a remote monitor. Lots of great gadget, but it means am also having to use two IDX V lock batteries as the camera sucks up so much juice and adding weight to an already heavy camera. I think it comes in at nearly 13 kilos, I must go and weigh it.

The lenses I use are the Canon HJ11 and the HJ22.

I find factory settings on Sony HD cameras to be extremely contrasty, with no latitude to grade when it comes to post. The blacks and whites are really pushed to their limits and there isn't much in the grey tones. I found a BBC set up by Alan Brown (I think that's his name!!), someone who knows what they are talking about when it comes to anything technical. The set up is supposedly a Varicam look for cinematographers out there who seem to have the same problem when it comes to wanting more of a flat, 'greyer' picture.
My only concern is the viewfinder, its not quite true to what I get at the other end. My whites seem to be hotter in the VF. I keep calibrating it, but it just doesn't seem right.

Filming a piece to camera in St. George's, Grenada.

The Law

2009-03-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a hectic weekend of shooting two music videos for a great Scottish band called "The Law" up in Dundee, Scotland.
Budget, as usual was very low, so out came the Sony EX3 and the Letus with Nikon lenses. The band were brilliant to work with and I think all in all we got two very good videos.
This the first one: "Don't Stop, Believe"

The Law "Don't Stop, Believe" from Adam Docker on Vimeo.

LG

2008-11-12T13:54:00.000-08:00

I directed, filmed and edited 5 videos for LG and the launch of their new mobile phone, the Renoir.

The budget was low I decided to go for the Sony EX1 with the Letus adaptor and a range of Nikon Prime SLR lenses to get that "short depth of field" look that you only ever get with film cameras or with the more expensive P+S technik.

It was the first time I had used this set up, I had seen and read so much about it, so I decided to give it a go. I always had my reservations about shooting tapeless and shooting with a 1/3" camera, but I was mightily surprised by the results and despite it being fiddly especially when filming off the cuff, it was really good fun to work with. The workflow was brilliant, to slip the card into your laptop and drop the video files onto your hard drive for instant editing is a dream, but it still doesn't solve the problem of where to store the files when the job is finished.

Music is by blog.davidterranova.com

Nathan Gallagher is a pro winter sports photographer (www.nathangallagher.com) and does a great job as a presenter, showing us the workings of the new LG phone

Ben Radford is a football photographer I have known for over 10 years. I used to film (many moons ago) football stories around the world for Futbol Mundial and Trans World of Sport and would bump into Ben in various exotic locations and tournaments.

Publicis, the advertising agency, asked if I knew any football photographers that could add some weight to the campaign, so I gave them a couple of numbers of who I thought could do it and Ben was chosen.

The original idea was to film Ben inside a stadium during a game but the Premier League don't allow anybody, apart from the rights holders and possibly a lot of cash, to film during a match day, which meant being a bit more creative.

The other problem was which football club and what stadium to film outside of. It was between Arsenal and Fulham. Arsenal, I think, have a mobile phone sponsorship with LG and Fulham have a club and shirt sponsorship.

It was decided that Fulham was the best option.

We filmed outside their stadium on a saturday during their home game against Newcastle Utd and then came back a couple of nights later to film inside the ground. We payed 10 extras to "dress up" as Fulham fans for a bit of atmosphere.

Everything had to filmed quite tight and low, so as not to show any empty stands.

Fimed with the EX1 with Letus and various Nikon prime lenses.

General Pictures

2008-07-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

Some shots I did in Iran a few years back for "The History of Football" a 13 part 1 hour TV series.

While we were filming the "large mural of soldiers with traffic in the foreground" a secret police vehicle spotted us and we were arrested and held for six hours while they made sure we weren't spies! It wasn't a pleasant experience, but that didn't change my feelings for the country and its people, some of the friendliest and hospitable on this planet.

Someone on the street in Yamassoukro, Ivory Coast

Market in Kano, Nigeria

Street cleaner, Tunis, Tunisia

Army and police watching the African Champions League Final, Cairo, Egypt

Drive-by picture of an afternoon prayer in a slum in Kano, Nigeria

Market lady in Yamassoukro, Ivory Coast

Mummified skeletons at the genocide memorial

in Kitale, Rwanda

World Cup Final 2002. Final whistle, the Brazilian bench steam onto the pitch

Palestinian girl. Shatila, Palestinian camp, Beirut.

5am Sunrise over Rio de Janeiro

Iraq National Football Team. Pre-war.

The Iraqi footbal team after their victory of a Middle East tournament.

They were ordered to put T-shirts of Saddam on as they paraded the cup.

As the team were celebrating in the changing room, Uday, Saddam's son and head of the Iraq FA, called on the phone congratulating the team.

There was talk that Uday would go berserk when the national team put in a poor performance and would make examples on certain players, put them in jail, hang them upside down and have their feet whipped...A lot of these stories were hear say, but when we asked the players if this was true they didn't deny it.

Team photo with the Palestinian National Football Team

Martin Egan (left) and yours truly (right)

Syrian Riot Squad

Kenya

2008-07-13T12:57:00.001-07:00

Marc @ Red Earth Studio came across Luke Gamble back in 2007 while browsing on the internet one lazy day. Luke is a Somerset based Vet, who's charity Worldwide Veterinary Services (WVS) provides medication and veterinary help to those in need in all four corners of the globe.

We went down to meet him, took a little camera to screen test him and instantly we knew we had found a gem of a wildlife/animal presenter.

He had already done a cheap little video with a local production company which had been touted around broadcasters to no avail and that was a bit of a stumbling block as it took a lot of convincing from us to prove to him that we were the right company to make something with and this really tested his loyalties, but after much deliberating he decided to sign up with Red Earth Studio.

We knew that the video that we had wasn't good enough, despite the content being incredible, so it was decided that we go and shoot another promo.

In April 2008, Luke was asked by the Kenyan government to help out with the farmers who were now living in displacement camps set up after the political unrest in Feb 2008.

Thousands of people had lost their homes, farms and livelihoods as warring tribes fought each other over land and power around the Rift Valley region in Central West of Kenya.

It was a no brainer. We knew it would be a great backdrop to film a pilot programme about Luke's work. At the time we owned a Sony DSR 570 but we took the view that to make it have more impact we should film it on HD, but we had to keep the costs down as we were paying this out of our own pocket. We did a deal with hammerhead.tv and they gave us a Sony 750 for the 10 days; so myself and Marc headed out to Nairobi with Luke and his good friend and assistant Clive for a bit of a kenyan adventure.

10 x one hour episodes of Luke Gamble - Vet Adventures will TX on SKY 1 in 2010

Luke vaccinating a dog

Marc and Clive vaccinating some cows

Marc happy in his new role

I love this pic. Myself, left, Luke and Marc, walking down the street discussing a piece to camera that we have just done, oblivious to how much we stood out and everyone staring at us.

Reality soon hit home once we set foot inside the camps. The conditions people were living in were dreadful.

Funny, looking at these pictures, everything looks so clean. It doesn't look as bad as it was.

I haven't captured the grittiness of it. Shame there isn't a smell-a-camera.

Little boy collecting water

Interviewing one of the councillors of the camp who told us some pretty horrifying stories of violence and rapes, especially on children!!

Despite their suffering, everyone was welcoming and happy to see us and talk to us.

Take 87!!! We shot this scene so many times and we never used it!

Luke introducing the camp to camera with 20 kids in tow.

Beauty salon in an IDP camp

Marc filming the kids on a little camera.

A house destroyed in the troubles. 2 people were killed in it.

This woman threatened to spit at Luke, then told him she had HIV and cracked up laughing! Weird!!

Awful conditions in a camp near Mount Elgon, on the border with Uganda.

The surrounding hills and land were some of the most fertile and beautiful I have ever seen.

The crew, minus me, who is taking the picture.

Our trusty vehicle "Willie". That was its nickname.

Unfortunately, Willie had a tendency to break down a lot!

At least Willie wasn't as bad as this 3 wheel tractor!

Crossing the equator. Yes, we tested pouring water through a funnel to see if what they say was true about it going one way in the northern hemisphere and the opposite way on the south and on the equator it just pours straight out.

Its called the Coriolis effect

We had a morning off and decided to visit Nakuru National Park. An amazing experience.

We turned up at 6am, just before sunrise. We were the only vehicle entering the park which made it even more special, it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

The flamingo's were disappointing, we were expecting millions of them, instead there were hardly any. We were told afterwards they the park had had a bit of a eco disaster from the surrounding factories pouring all their waste into the lake, thus killing all the birds!!

Cuba

2008-07-13T12:56:00.001-07:00

Coming soon...

Art of Combat

2008-07-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

This promo was shot over ten days in and around Sao Paolo, Brazil. Filmed on a HD Sony 900, it was co-production between Red Earth Studio (my company) and a Brazilian production company called Canal Azul, who are part of the TRAFFIC Group.

Myself and Marc, one the our producers at RES who had developed the idea, flew out to Brazil to direct the promo, while Canal Azul helped out with production, crew, kit and post, which they had in-house.

We landed in pretty drab weather, actually Sao Paolo is always drab. It is when I'm there anyway, I always end up getting colds, flus or some sort of reaction to the pollution. Its not the greatest looking of cities, its skyline a jungle of tall buildings as far as the eye can see, covered in a strange gothic graffiti.

The production crew at Canal Azul were amazing and had organized some amazing locations and actors, so from the first day of the shoot to the end, apart from the post, but that story comes further down(!), everything went smoothly; I think they even had a hand in the weather, as the clouds dispersed and out came the sun tan lotion for the remainder of the time we were there.

Our first location was the beach in Guaruja, 100km south of SP, near Santos.

It was a stunning morning with a beautiful pink sky as the sun rose above the waves of the atlantic ocean. We filmed a young girl performing Tai Chi with a sword. The sunrise and water in the background made for an amazing picture and a promising start to the shoot.

We have so much beautiful footage, I'm gagging to make a second edit. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Later on that afternoon, a local capoeira club agreed to show off some of their skills, a mixture of dance and martial arts that came over to Brazil during the slave trade from Africa.

The scariest part of the shoot had to be filming the scene of the Tai Chi guy on the rooftop of the Copan building, one of the tallest in Sao Paolo.

I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but there is a two foot wall around the edge, beyond that is a sheer drop to the traffic below.

It was harrowing and I had been worried about filming there for days. I kept having these nightmares of tripping over the edge.

I never did trip over the edge and after a while I got used to it; kind of!

This is where I forget the names of everyone and I am going to have to ask Marc who a couple of these people are. I'm crap with names!

Bottom right to left: Me, Marc, Grip (forgot his name)

Top right to left: Joao (camera assistant-amazing, brilliant and a great guy), production assistant, Joana Fava, Lygia, producer and asst director (also brilliant and helped immensely) and the runner and general assistant (forgot his name)

Marc and Joao discussing things during a break in shooting

These two guys were pretty good. Especially the guy in red, he really thought he was a film star in the way that he carried himself.

The setting was amazing.

Brazil has the largest japanese population outside of Japan as well as a large chinese and asian community, which made filming in Brazil a hell of a lot cheaper than going to China and Japan.

With a great location like this temple, situated in the middle of a bush about 150km north of Sao Paolo, we couldn't go wrong.

P1 Motorsport Promo

2008-07-11T05:18:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite shoots.

We had two days to film a corporate video for the P1 Motorsport Team while they tested their new cars at the Valencia race track in Spain. We had carte blanche to do what we wanted and decided to spend the money on a Varicam with a Pro35 adaptor and prime lenses to create a slick film look.

Varicam camera with a 70-200 mm lens

On the first day at the circuit, strong winds blew a media centre tent, cleverly placed on top of a stand, on to all the trucks and race cars causing a lot of damage. A morning of havoc ensued with some serious clearing up and one hell of an insurance form for some poor sod. Luckily no one was hurt!!

The Renault World Series is a launch pad for aspiring pilots to become Formula 1 heroes.

All the cars are supplied by Renault and are all the same. No team is allowed to tamper with the engine or its design. Each team consists of two pilots and the two at the helm for P1 Motorsport were Giedo Van Der Garde from Holland and British girl Pippa Mann who also happens to be the only female driver in the series.

Due to delays in production, only one car was delivered to the team for testing, so both pilots had to share the one car. They weren't too happy about that and to top it all off they only had one day of testing left before the championship started so performing for the camera was the last thing on their minds.

The next day we woke to a glorious sunrise; the winds had died down and when we arrived at the track both Pippa and Giedo were in surprisingly excellent moods, getting on with the job at hand as well as giving us time to film some set up shots.

Pippa's interview was filmed in her hotel room in Valencia, Giedo wasn't in the mood so we had to go and film him in Amsterdam a week later, while Roly the team manger and close-ups of the car were filmed at the team's headquarters in Norwich.