Short Film: Laredo
Best Cinematography Winner / Boston International Film Festival 2009

Laredo stars Ireland's newest star, talented actor Kevin J. Ryan.

Laredo was filmed on a Sony Varicam camera. I used the cameras digital sensor on the 6300 degrees Kelvin setting, combined with chocolate 1 and at times chocolate 2 filter, to give the film a very warm and smoky atmospheric daylight feel. For the interior scenes we used ever so slight smoke to give the light through the air an atmospheric density.

I like my cinematography to push the expressionistic visual envelope so to speak. None-the-less my work always stems from naturalism so that even my most stylized approach remains motivated and within the most accepted cinematic boundaries.

I like to shoot an average of 30 high quality executed camera set ups on any given feature film shoot day. The most effective method I know for squeezing every last drop of juice out of a shooting day, is by studying the layout of the land during the silence and tranquility of the location scout day. The more I observe, photograph, spend effort on a light study and plan during pre production, the more efficient and effective I can be on the shoot day.

Laredo was shot over a period of 4 days. Both the Director David Price and I are huge fans of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, so making a visually motivated story together was merely an extension of our breathing. In fact David, [the son of former Columbia and Universal studio President and Producer, Frank Price] spent six months filming in Italy on Ladyhawke with Vittorio, so David had lots of enduring stories to share.

Huge kudos also need to go to editor Nathan Anderson who's deft editorial hand ensured all our efforts to capture magical moments on set, were elevated in post production to their fullest potential.