Cinematography in Canada Since 1957

#LainaBrown #AssociateMemberCSC @lainabrown

Last Post! 👋 Thank you so much for the privilege of hosting CSC!

My partner David is a lawyer, and we both get into stressful work seasons. Recently we’ve been talking about the reasons we got into our individual lines of work - because its fun and challenges us! Sometimes we get caught up trying to do the best job we can, forgetting that we got into this because we love it. And we should guard that passion! 🙌

And so I guess that’s my parting encouragement - we are so lucky to be making films, and we need to keep ourselves healthy and happy while we do it so we can keep working as long as we can! (Physically but also mentally!) ✌️✌️

Thanks for watching have a great day🌞🎬

Photos:
1 - pic by @meggorobinson
2 - A classic messy-head pic, photo by @buioassis
3 - A ring light I made :) with Peter Thiessen 💡
4 - The fun of blowing up a small plane SFX / VFX 💥

#LainaBrown #AssociateMemberCSC @lainabrown

I went to Fine Art school! I often feel more like an artist than a technician, but I think the line between artist and master craftsperson is thin. I’m not drawn to image-making because I love the tools, but because of how the tools inspire imagination.

These images are part of an Art-Film for Dominique Rey, an artist who was also a prof of mine in University. (@dominiquereyart ) I’m very proud to be working for someone who I respect and whose work I admire.

She was very intentional about what kind of frames and angles she was looking for, being a photographer herself. Bodies cropped to make forms ambiguous, costumes and landscapes obscured to engage the unfamiliar. The work is how Motherhood is surprising and also disorienting. Historically motherhood is portrayed sentimentally, even sanctified - but here we want to complicate the visuals, make it a bit more rock-and-roll.🤘

Crew:
DIR Laina Brown & Taylor Brown
BCAM @documara
GAF @benstoufferwpg
KEY GRIP Bobby Cortez
Artist: @dominiquereyart

#LainaBrown #AssociateMemberCSC @LainaBrown

Stop-motion is that place between cinematography and photography, and I thought I’d share one project cause it’s something I really love to do. When you are always working with life-size sets and lights, it’s a fun change to have everything at your fingertips.

This project was a music video called “Maybe Next Year”⛅️

I think the key for lots of collage stop-motion is to have a light that’s soft to not give too much shine, but still providing shadow to show it’s tactile. Practical lighting effects are key to showing off the hand-done work!
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The hardest part was definitely blending the digital with the practical. The band members were shot separately, and then rendered out and put into the practical scenes we had shot.
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HUGE thanks to @noahderksen for funding this music video, I’m extremely proud of it and would love to do more stop-motion in the future 🌞

Directed by: @lainabrown @ moviemakertaylor
Additional Visual Effects: @Nik.Enns @connorwielgosz

ABOUT THE PICS
1-my fav scene 🐋
2- me and Taylor shooting it 📸 and @smbrownnn helping us cut ✂️
3- sky scene ✈️
4- hand in the shot!
5- a sand transition and the unglamorous reality of what it was like making it 😂

#LainaBrown #AssociateMemberCSC @lainabrown

This music video for Boy Golden was an especially fun one. ⭐️📺 He asked if we could create something inspired by 1960’s French Music TV specials, and I had no idea there was this whole movement of black and white live music videos done in white infinity rooms! Trying to figure out what kind of equipment would emulate the look was fun, especially because we were filming digitally. We hung mylar from the ceiling and manually operated lights, over-cropped closeups and jacked up the pro-mist. It was a very fun time. 🖤🤍 Not to mention an awesome song! 🤠
🎵
Mountain Road by BoyGolden and the church of better daze ; @sixshooterrecords
Produced by @FolksFilms
Directed by @MovieMakerTaylor
Lighting, AC, Set-Dec, Swings @Nik.Enns @Meggorobinson
Location: @unit204ps
Beautiful behind the scenes pics by @buioassis

#LainaBrown #AssociateMemberCSC @LainaBrown

Have you ever done a 48HOUR film? 😵 Shooting, editing and delivering a film in 48 hours on zero budget is completely chaotic, and really helps you find your filmmaking teammates! Maybe it’s some form of trauma bonding? 😅But people who put themselves through 48 Hour Films are there because they LOVE film, they can perform under extreme pressure, and they want to do it with you! 🥰Those are people you wanna keep with you. 🎬 48’s were my first films.

I’ll just talk about the Manitoba film scene for a minute..

Before I moved to Manitoba, I had no idea what the film scene was like here. But after @folksfilms was born, people offered to share their gimbals, lights, and industry secrets. Students in film school wanted to bring us into their circles, and the Winnipeg Film Group staff knew us by name. We had never been to film school, but no one treated us like second-rate filmmakers.

Here we work on each other’s sets, friends share and rent equipment at the drop of a hat, people even look out for each other. I’ve been given second chances when I’ve messed up on set, which I think speaks volumes. Union people help indie folks, and the presence of big films here really boosts our ability to find good crews. When I’ve needed a slider or a global shutter camera in a pinch, people actually respond to my instagram stories in minutes to help me out!

It’s a growing film hub here. And it’s not perfect, but what we’ve got is kind of exceptional.

Also that Tax Credit. 😜👌

🎬🎥SET CREW:
Writing @NateFlaman
Directing @moviemakertaylor
Swings: @DaleThielmanVisuals, @NikEnns
Audio 2019+2021: @Tobylizh
Colour+VFX: @Nik.Enns
Composer: @LiamCarterBerry
SFX Costume: @vinylraven
SFX Makeup: @emmajuliansfx

1)  Refraction Sector, 2018 48 Hour Film.
2) PHENOMENA, 2021 48 Hour Film.
3) Model Citizens, 2019 48 Hour Film.
4) teams!
5) Our movie posters

@bendrixdotme, our 48hr film fest project creator!💫

#LainaBrown #AssociateMemberCSC @Lainabrown

Here’s a couple clips from a mini-doc featuring Noah Derksen, and the creating of his latest album.

I was just one person doing this project, so packing only what I could carry in two trips was paramount 😅. My time in the recording studio was in 1-2 hour chunks. 🎙️

💡My light kit was 2 Aperture MC’s (magnetic), some tungsten bulbs, a homemade dimmer, and some black cloth with pony clips to negative some of the practical light. I used an aperture 120D and a 300D with a 1.5” and 3.5” softbox with grid for the interview and one recording session at NoFunClub @nofunclub_wpg

I used all kinds of lenses and filters, some vintage stills lenses my friend nikenns rehoused, sigma arts and canon macro.

I shot, edited, and colored this project. I think this is one of the last projects I did all on my own - it’s just so much better with a crew and with help. But my brother Taylor did come to the interview day and setup audio and operated a camera while I interviewed 😌❤️🎧

I had never seen someone record an album before and it was so much more collaborative and improvisational than I imagined it would be. You get people together who are so good at what they do they can just adapt and change and create on the fly. It was very fun to see and it’s a really beautiful album! 🎼

If you’ve read this all woah I’m so impressed! My question is: what light do you never want to go anywhere without (no matter how big or small the shoot is)?🚨💡

#LainaBrown #AssociateMemberCSC @lainabrown

HEY LADIES! Wanted to make a post for us. 😎⚡️⚡️

It’s true, sometimes we are still the only female on the crew. For a long time I struggled against feelings of not belonging, intimidation, and fear of being in leadership. One of the reasons for this was I didn’t see lots of women in camera when I first started. I think this is all the more reason we should make ourselves visible to one another. 😌🎥

I found two female DP’s in Winnipeg who have become massive supporters, and who inspire me as they do their fantastic work ⚡️. Getting together and talking about our struggles, what we’re working on, and how we can help each other…it helps me normalize my experiences. Seeing other women do amazing work is so incredibly encouraging and we should share ourselves with each other!

Post about yourselves, share your knowledge🤓, and reach out to someone for help and advice…get to know other local DP ladies, or if you had a bad experience on set and want to see what’s normal and how other people deal, lets talk about it! And especially listening to BIPOC stories and strategies.
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Shout out to @edenlcarter and @documara who are DPs in Manitoba who I was once intimidated by but now consider great friends. 😜🥳

Lets support each other 🌞!

ABOUT THE PICS:

1- Tamara, Eden, and me teaching an intro to cinema-camera workshop through @filmtrainingmanitoba
2- @edenlcarter ⬅️ check her out! Lead of cinematography at Think Shift, working with cool rigs and great crews 🔥
3- @documara ⬅️ documentary film extraordinaire, Sony wiz, artist, does it all. 🔥
4- @get_wrecked_fx and @meggorobinson in a easyrig/readyrig faceoff
5- celebration drink after we taught our camera workshop.

#lainabrown #associatememberCSC @lainabrown
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There’s a kinship between dance and cinematography. They work in visual, time-based mediums, relying on music and audio to support their rhythms. They both hit people in the feels, with movement and motion. 🖤

This is a selection of clips from a few dance films I’ve DP’d & shot over the years.

As an operator, nothing beats getting in sync with a dancer and anticipating their movements. The camera becomes part of the dance, your decisions and interpretations entwine with the art. I’ve been temped to over-plan my shots for dance films when it calls for an organic hand-held feel. Sometimes the best thing is to simply know the dance itself really really well, then you can make intuitive improvisations in rhythm with the choreography that are way more visceral and connected. To me, that feeling is magical.
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Dancers Represented:
@Chelsea_bri_kay, @brirayfergs & @kmhldbrnd [w/ Dir Taylor Brown]; @Knogram @hiljamesmovement Naomi Wiebe, @Katie_Santo @Liamsaito1997 [w/ Dir @mirandamoros ]