Robin Schmidt
Director
Robin Schmidt is an award winning English writer/director working in drama, comedy and the occasional music video.
He won the Bahamas 14 Islands film competition in 2010 and was named ‘One to Watch’ by Moviescope magazine. He started life as a classical musician, singing and playing piano and violin before changing tack suddenly to work in films. He set up Chrome Productions in 2002 and worked his way through extreme sports films, fac ent TV, commercials and lots of other daft productions along the way before leaving the company to go freelance in 2010.
After winning the Bahamas competition he was taken on by Canon as a pro ‘envoy’ for a year and became well-known as a DSLR blogger, unpicking the difficulties of shooting with the equipment with his site registering 30k plus impressions every month. He converted that success into a year long contract for a luxury resort brand in Mauritius, designing and implementing a content marketing strategy for them. At the same time his comedy work was blowing up with collaborator Simon Wan and their web series Stenderz led to them being regularly featured on the Fearne Cotton show, being headhunted by photographer Rankin, featured in Hunger Magazine and hired to present the HungerPod.
In 2013, Robin moved squarely into long form drama directing:
AfterDeath is his debut feature film and is a co-directing gig with fellow Chrome alumnus Gez Medinger due for release in 2014. He followed that up with a 40 minute martial arts love story, Dog which is now being turned into a graphic novel. He is developing two new feature projects, The Life in Your Hands and the Last Flight alongside a feature-length version of DOG.
Robin is a skilled multi-hyphenate, happy shooting, directing, writing, editing, performing and doing bis own VFX.
Websites
Robin Schmidt
NFS Score
252
(Sophomore)
Article Comment
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New Footage from the Sony FS7 & First Impressions from a Working DP
6 years ago
Well that's a little unfair. He's providing content for free and seems like the kind of chap who would supply an ungraded version if you asked nicely. REALLY nicely.
On another nite the grain intensity is fully diallable in film convert so that's actually wrong.
I think you're right though that it's hard to judge camera tests when shots are heavily graded but most end users will be doing exactly this and slapping luts on. Like everything else in our business, it'a all becoming commoditised.
But hey let's bash a guy for giving us free content, he probably should have paid us to watch it come to think of it.
Article Comment
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Why Shooting on Film is Like Writing a Handwritten Letter
6 years ago
Um, okay! I've actually shot a feature on alexa and countless promos on all flavours of RED, which will only come out as bragging but having sat in the grading suite for long hours scrutinising the footage I do feel I'm qualified!
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Why Shooting on Film is Like Writing a Handwritten Letter
6 years ago
True, that is fair I guess. Transformers... ergh!
Anyway, I guess, in amongst all this is the point that shooting on film isn't just about comparing sensors with celluloid, there's a load more going on which is still special, still magical and still worth preserving because it's value goes beyond simple pixel maths and resolution charts. Worth cherishing.
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Why Shooting on Film is Like Writing a Handwritten Letter
6 years ago
I'm kind of stunned by the comments here. Why give a guy shit for rationally expressing why he, and he alone, shot on film. It's absolute crap that digital looks like film when you put a few filters on. And I'd be surprised if many commenting here had ever shot on celluloid themselves. Not for me to launch into a debate about the aesthetic qualities of film but my own preferences stem from how exteriors, human faces and slow motion are rendered. Digital can't do it the same way. Yet.
Above and beyond all that tho is an elevation if story and filmmaking over and above the wretchedly mechanical repetitive process that it can easily become. I you're shooting film everyone on set steps it up a notch. You see that pile of cans slowly dwindling and you hear money ticking through the gate. That's when it gets really special. And if that isn't what you want out of filmmaking then I genuinely feel for you.
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You've Never Seen Ski Cinematography Like This
6 years ago
The cinematography is beautiful but makes me sad it couldn't be done on film. Snow and water in slow mo on film are so gorgeous for action sports. Personally hated the VO and the shell the action was put in but that's a small gripe from someone who used to make ski films
Given that you're swapping a stills/video camera for a purely video one I would advocate making the switch to lenses that are better suited to that purpose. And I would seriously consider the Veydra m43 primes that have just been announced. Superb build quality, colour matched, lovely lovely lenses all round and really not that expensive. In that scenario your lenses are your big purchase and you simply upgrade the body as and when the time comes. The BMPCC is so cheap anyway that you're in great shape that way. Blackmagic look to have committed a good ten years or so to cameras so we can fully expect a second gen BMPCC at some point. With those lenses you'd have a wonderful package for an incredibly low cost.