Pete Blakemore.com

Masquerade Winter Ball

Pete — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:33:56 +0000

The RA’s of University of Birmingham got together to set an outstanding evening for the freshers of Aitken Wing & Chelwood, Elgar Court and Maple Bank. Held at the Aston Villa football club, Holte Suite, there was a champagne reception, Hollywood reporters taking photos and a few other surprises that made the evening incredible to shoot.

Thanks to the RA for co-coordinating a fantastic event, the Students for being themselves and Maximum Sound PA and Back on Monday Entertainments.

48 hour film challenge: Autumn Leaves

Pete — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:24:00 +0000

For those who don’t know the premice of a 48 hour film challenge, it’s simple. You collect your brief on friday night, detailing you the prop you must use, the theme and the line of dialogue your short must contain. You hand in the finished product in on Sunday. Sounds easy right? The stills and making of video will tell how it really happened.

So not only did the 8 of us manage to put all of that together, but we produced something that the Exeter Phonenix wanted to screen in their 2 Short Nights film festival. It’s being shown this Thursday, at 9.15pm. Details available here, come along if you’re around.

A lot of thanks are owed to many different people who helped us along the way.

Though the cast (Lucy and Ross), crew (Ali, Dave, Ruby, Osguz, Jack) derserve a massive congratulations for their hard work, as do the people we thanked in the video played a huge role in making it happen, there are others I like to mention who helped in the pre-production process:

Elmely Delacour – offered great Exeter location suggestions
Hugh Godfrey – planning and logistics
My Parents, for putting up with the chaos that a 48 hour film can cause.

it was a fantastic weekend and we still can’t believe the final product that our sleep deprived husks of ourselves managed to pull off. We enjoyed doing it, and are already thinking about the next one.

I can’t wait to see it on the big screen and see what the other teams produced.

Timelapse London: Shooting with Paddy Bird

Pete — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:07:48 +0000

Last week I was shooting with esteemed documentary maker Paddy Bird. He’s currently working on a documentary for the Big Issue website, and we had great day wandering around the streets of London shooting timelapses and spoting locations for his interviews. One of the great thing about time lapses is you spend so much time in one location, and can therefore spend a lot longer composing single frames while watching the world go by. So I had a go at shooting some alternative long exposures, I’m pretty pleased with the resuts: (click on the image to enlarge)

Redbrick wins the Guardian SMA for best website

Pete — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:19:34 +0000

My successor-once-removed, Chris Hutchinson summed up this great day rather well:

Glen Moultrie, Chris Hutchinson, Sam Lear

“I feel ecstatic; the whole team does. It’s amazing. We’ve had three years of fantastic ideas and fantastic work from everyone and this year’s been just as good,” said Christopher Hutchinson, online editor of Redbrick.

Read the Guardian’s coverage of this great day here.

Redbrick's Guardian Student Media Award

So proud to have worked with these guys and the replacements that followed in our footsteps.

Redbrick's Guardian Student Media Award - editors past, present and future come out to celebrate

Archives: 24 hours in Delhi

Pete — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:23:09 +0000

It was a day like no other. I had landed in Delhi 16 hours earlier, and after the obligatory 14 hour sleep due to flying with a dodgy airline and a six hour stop over in a country, let alone city, I hadn’t heard of; I found myself being wide awake before the sun and eager to get out an explore. What happened in those 24 hours was brilliant. I saw no tourists, no-one I recognize, and was stared at constantly. There’s no greater way to experience a new city than to be thrust into the heart of it and expected to survive.

Three years later with a yearning to go back, I still miss Delhi. I hadn’t before and I haven’t since found any other city like it on the planet. It’s the definition of chaos theory. Somehow, despite all the craziness that in contains; it functions.

Before the heat gets you, the dirt does. Before the dirt gets you, the Tuc-tuc drivers do. Before the tuc-tuc drivers get you…nope they always get you first.