Kevin Martin

Director: Jaxon Defa
DoP: Kevin Michael Martin
Editor: Jaxon Defa

The first official film I was Director of Photography on outside of film school came through collaboration with a skilled writer in the writing program from Vancouver film school. Divided was written and Directed by Jaxon Defa. This short film was a dialogue rich, covering various stages of a relationship.

Divided was filmed with a Panasonic DVX 100A mini DV camera. The crew consisted only of myself, a sound guy and the director. The script called for only a few locations mostly exterior with one of the exteriors on the Beach and a second at night at a bus stop. We wanted to run and gun, so this meant keeping everything light.

As a cinematographer I prefer to work in a minimalist fashion, while I love the use of expansive lighting packages, I like to work with available natural light whenever …

Director: Daniela “Danto” Tovar
DoP: Dick Chua
Producer: Alexander Joho
Editor: Moira Connor

The second round of our final projects at Vancouver Film School meant the use of one of my favorite cameras, the Arri SR2 16mm film camera. And for this round I was selected as the 1st camera assistant. I was stoked to get this position because it allowed me more hands on the film camera. I was also able to help play with lens choice to distance ratios and even more important loading all the 400 foot mags.

This production was a drama about voodoo, chickens and freaks. A very super picture from director Daniela Tovar. The set that was built for this final project was very well done which made lighting and filming quite fun.

Having the ability to work with film one …

Director: Ou Chu Ping
DoP: Jung Suk Park
Producer: Moira Connor
Camera Operator: Kevin Michael Martin

So the spring of 2006 was upon us, birds chirping, flowers blooming and a close to one of the rainiest winters in Vancouver, BC’s history. I mean no sun for almost 60 days straight. Pretty wild. Despite the torrid rain and cold weather finals had finally arrived.

Two rounds of films, first on digital and the second on 16mm film. My plan for these rounds was to stay in the camera department to get as much experience and credits in the camera department as I could. So I was selected by Jung Suk and Chu-Ping to be the camera operator along with Jon Pander as 1st AC.

It …

Director: Jonny Pander
DoP: Kevin Michael Martin
Producer: Alex Joho
Editor: Kevin Michael Martin

So after finishing up on I Saw You we began preproduction on the second round of mid-terms and this meant we were pulling out the 16mm Arri SR1 Film camera’s. Lenses, hoods, kodak film stock, and the works. So as any good camera lover would do I put my hat in for a cinematographer position and was chosen as cinematographer and editor for the project.

Frost was a period thriller set in the early nineteen hundreds set in central canada in the winter. Yes, this one was a doozy. As the cinematographer I set off to work directly with the Director, Jon Pander and the Producer Alexander Joho to begin dissecting the script and …

As the school year went on and we learned and shot shot and learned we came to our midterms. The second film I had the honor of working on was a short narrative psychological thriller called I Saw You directed by Jamie Davenport. I was approached by the powers that be and Jamie to serve as the Producer for the film.

Now the way it worked at VFS was that they would green light 3 films and split the class into various positions, give you a production office, full DV Sony SR570 camera package, enough lights and electric to fit a box truck and about $25,000 to shoot the film. The beauty was that this was all us, we were mentored through the process in script revisions, producing, camera, directing and all the positions to make a solid film.

I remember the production like it was yesterday and looking back I would …