Canon C300: Field Test

Filmmaker Interviews: Rick Gershon from Canon Pro on Vimeo.

MediaStorm’s Director of Photography, Rick Gershon, brought the C300 to Angola to shoot their documentary “Surviving the Peace,” which follows the progress of the Mines Advisory Group as they clear unexploded ordnance. Watch as he shares his thoughts on how the C300 helped realize their vision for the production in this interview with Gershon and featuring footage from the documentary.

“MAG (Mines Advisory Group) works in more than 35 countries around the world to remove land mines, bombs and other weapons from post-conflict countries.  After commissioning MediaStorm in 2011 to tell the story of mine removal in Laos, MAG approached MediaStorm to shoot and produce a new piece highlighting their work in Angola.

The goal of the project was to create a personal, emotion-rich representation of how Angolans live in the shadow of landmines and unexploded ordnance, while delivering the client’s message in a compelling way. In addition, it was necessary to create a piece that felt unique from the story in Laos and provided a more focused look at the personal impact of these munitions on the communities that they affect.”

Oh, boy!  Did they ever achieve their goal!  “Surviving The Peace” is a stunning piece of work, an incredibly powerful but difficult and highly emotional story to tell, artfully crafted in the telling by the project crew.  I particularly enjoyed seeing the C300 in actual use under similar conditions to what I experience with my own work in Mexico.  Dust, wind, rough terrain, difficult transport, and lack of electricity in many remote locations of the world is the norm.  It is also where many of the better untold stories are found.  What is difficult to get to and where the conditions are extreme on both the people living there as well as the film crew considering shooting a documentary is likely to go under reported and chalked down in priority rank of choices because of the technical difficulties.

For those of us seeking a higher degree of control over our video production work, the Canon C300 comes highly recommended by more than one of my friends.  More on this subject later….  Right now I HIGHLY encourage you who have read this far to take the extra time and view the full-length finished production of “Surviving The Peace” below.  Exceptional work like this is an inspiration to us all.  The study of what goes into making it can return rewards for years from the improvement in your own work, as it will in mine.

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