SA eNews July 2017 - From the Pres - After All screening & Q&A - SA AGM - Profile Grant Marshall

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From the Pres

I hope you have paid your membership dues as they were payable by June 30 and without funds we cannot put our events on for no charge, nor subsidise the cost of the tickets to our awards, so dig deep and get online and make our treasurer happy. Please!

Of course I'm not allowed to give financial advice but if you haven't paid your dues yet and you pay today (June 30) you could claim it in this years return rather than waiting for another 12 months!

After the recent changes you may wish to check you are in the right membership category via the link below.

Remember entry dates for the SA & WA Awards have changed to August 1 and close CoB on August 18 - only financial members may enter.

Put Saturday October 28 in your diary for the 37th Annual SA & WA Awards for Cinematography which will be held at the Adelaide Oval with pre dinner drinks in the Rick Davies Bar overlooking the oval whilst the formal presentation will be a sit down dinner in the Cathedral Room.

The recent Drone night at Above Oz / Picture Hire was very well attended indeed, we nearly ran out of chairs! We were updated on the latest CASA regs regarding drones, licensing, etc and we met Will Whitelaw the Adelaide CASA rep. I've never heard so many acronyms in one presentation! Thanks to Dai Cookes from Above Oz for organising the night.

If you have an idea for a trade or educational night suggest it to either myself or one of your committee, their names are on the SA page of our website.

Click to go to the Category page »

Wrap up of After All screening & Q&A

48 guests joined the masters of animation - Michael Cusack and Richard Chataway from Anifex for the screening of their short film After All.

This was followed by a presentation and Q&A about their work on the film which went for about an hour. There were some great insights into the scripting, the shoot, the set design and there were many good questions superbly answered by Michael and Richard.

Then a break for some tasty pizza and a few drinks before heading back into the SAFC theatre to see another of Anifex's great films Sleight of Hand.

Many thanks to Michael, Richard and the SAFC.

I hear the film was very well received when screened recently in International Competition at the Annecy International Festival of Animated Film in France. Also at the Sydney Film Festival After All picked up the award for "Best Screenplay" which was fantastic because it was up against all of the short film categories including live action...so quite a coup there!

2017 SA AGM in August

Yep our AGM is coming up again soon, Monday night August 14 and this year we will be holding it at the Little Bang Brewery which should be fun with beer tastings and pizza following the AGM. I believe there may be some other fun things to do on the night too!

I have links below for Corporate members to either download a committee nomination form or alternatively a proxy form if you can't make it on the night.

Please consider carefully the roles and the responsibility that is required if you are interested in nominating for a committee role. The role of a committee member requires time, commitment and responsibility but is a great opportunity to be involved in shaping the future of your ACS.

Only Corporate members may stand or vote at the AGM but all members over 18 are welcome. In the August eNews will will ask all wishing to attend to rsvp as the numbers will be limited.

Corporate members include: Camera Crew, Cinematographer, Accredited, Retired and Life members.

Student, CineKids, Honorary and Associate members are classed as non-corporate members and have no voting rights. Sorry!

	Click to download SA 2017 AGM Committee Nomination Form »
	Click to download SA 2017 AGM Proxy Form »

Profile Grant Marshall

Grant Marshall with Murray Nicholl

Grant let's start with what you like best on TV?

Lonesome Dove would be my favourite TV show and Dean Semmler ACS was the second unit director on it. The film is beautifully shot and its an epic western series so if you like a good western, see it!

Now, what got you interested in a career in TV?

When I was a kid my brother (reporter Paul Marshall) would take me to school in a Channel Seven News car which I thought was very cool. It wasnt until I started work at channel 7 in Sydney as a 19 year old camera assistant, that I realised camera work was my passion.

Grant on a shoot with Steve Whitham

You specialise in shooting News, please tell us why?

I loved being out on the road chasing news and I still do after 36 years!

Channel Seven have sent me all over the world and Im lucky to have worked on several Olympics, both summer and winter games, as well as three Commonwealth Games. Locally you are thrown into whatever makes the news, from natural disasters to great human interest stories, and everything in between.

Is there a particular story that sticks in your mind?

In 2000 I was sent to Whyalla to cover the crash of the Whyalla Airlines flight. Reporter Jessica Adamson and I were out all night on the water with the search crews. We were the only news crew there and it was quite a surreal experience. This was a terrible tragedy and I try to visit the memorial to the victims whenever I am back in Whyalla.

Any other memorable jobs?

I covered the lunar eclipse at Ceduna in 2002, again with Jessica and we had to drive a mobile home there as there was no accommodation with 10,000 spectators in Ceduna. It was great fun and In terms of spectacles, the eclipse is up there as my all-time best, along with the Olympics opening ceremony.

Grant with Keith Conlon & Marty McNichol

I guess you've seen some big changes over the years?

Drones are now a big part of newsgathering and a routine way for us to obtain pictures from the air. After flying thousands of hours in helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, airships, gliders and numerous Air Force planes, the drone has taken over much of our air work.

I dont fly as much these days and I miss that, but the drone offers me new challenges. Part of my job at Channel 7 Adelaide as the chief camera operator is to oversee our drone operation and our pilots.

Do you have any other passions outside of work?

Yeah, my two brothers and I have an old fishing boat which we bought on Kangaroo Island about seven years ago which was very beaten up and looking quite sad. At 40 feet long and 10 tonnes, its has been a labour of love for us since then.

We have just put in another engine, painted and restored it from end to end but there is always something to do on it. Its great fun to work on and we even did our weather broadcast from it for the news recently. I think its always going to be a work in progress but as I said, fun to do

Grant shooting with his cousin Mike Taylor and Brett Stanton

Do you think you will stay in the industry?

There are about 50 camera operators in Adelaide involved in TV news gathering for the free to air Networks. You get to know your comrades well in this industry as you see them out on news jobs all the time. I enjoy the camaraderie of that and I look forward to the next 40 years. I dont know where I will be by then, but Im sure by that time I wont smell too good!

Thanks Grant, it's interesting times shooting for the networks. Keep up the good work, cheers, Ed

Image Preservation, can you help?

Preservation of our images is vitally important. As you would be aware, recorded and filmed images don't last forever but we need to preserve them for historical and cultural reasons.

Recently Michael Veitch the Film Preservation Officer from the State Library of South Australia contacted me about what they are trying to achieve at the library regarding Image Preservation.

At the State Library they have quite a collection of film and video relating to the State.

They mostly have analogue players of video including J-type (B&W), 1, beta-super, S-vhs, U-matic sp, Hi8, betacam sp and digi, dvcpro 25 & DVcam.

They have a SAMMAsolo used to digitise the video signals into Lossless Motion Jpeg 2000 as well as other formats including jpeg-2 for access with full metadata on the mxf file.

The SAMMAsolo was developed for the Library of Congress for their automation process. Have a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8QvfimOfko&t=34s They only have one unit that transfers one video signal at a time!

For film they have a greater than 2K flashscan Choice to digitise 16mm, 9.5mm, super and regular 8mm film. Check it out at https://www.mwa-nova.com/flashtransfer_choice.html

16mm film is scanned as DPX files at 2048 x 1556. It is then recoded to a Master Archive Package using Lossless DCP software. Sometime they scan to 2336 x 1757 if the film is important.

On occasions they can generate files that are more than 400GB in their final configuration!

Recently they lost their good JVC S-vhs with inbuilt TBC and have some of their other S-vhs players faltering.

If any of our ACS members can help with players and expertise it would be of great help. Even if the players don't work they may be able to use them for spare parts to help keep their machines operational.

Please contact Michael via the link below if you think you can help. Thanks Pres.

Contact Michael Veitch »

In Sydney soon?

Viv Madigan, JoAnne Bouzianis Sellick and Piers Mussared recently attended the ACS cocktail party and stills exhibition at our National HQ.

If you are planning a trip or shoot in Sydney please consider dropping into our National HQ in North Sydney. The clubhouse is great, the old gear, memorabilia, mementos and library are just incredible and worth visiting too see for that alone. Just contact Richard Wilmot or David Lewis ACS and check out your HQ, grab a coffee or use the internet. It's great and it's for all ACS members.

If you are in Sydney when it's the third Thursday of the month why not go to a HQ Drop in Evening where cinematographers or suppliers may be showing some of their work or products.

Contact HQ Manager
David Lewis ACS
dlewis@cinematographer.net.au
0408 273 702