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A journey intowedding cinematography Meeting andmarrying successful wedding photographer Kate Hopewell- Smith was the catalyst for Brent Kirkman to leave the IT industry after 25 years to start a fresh career as a wedding filmmaker
I am very much a second career cinematographer. I have, however, always had a love of video and filming so when I met my wife – Kate Hopewell-Smith – shooting movies was a natural development from just shooting stills and a business evolution that I encouraged us to consider. Having completed a private pilot’s licence in 2000, I was also keen to explore the aerial imaging world – the perfect excuse to invest in some drones! I cut my teeth shooting video on DSLRs and relatively quickly became frustrated with their limitations. I was particularly exasperated by the lack of dynamic range, being able to judge exposure only on an LCD screen, the imposition of a maximum record time, manual zoom control, poor autofocus and lack of good audio recording control. Using a DSLR is basically like filming in JPEG – everything is baked in - so I needed to choose my
settings wisely as there was very limited scope to make any adjustments later on. Kate’s business was, and still is, known for photography and any filming work was an add-on. We made the decision to launch a new, luxury, imaging brand that gave the three disciplines we offer equal importance. In 2017 we launched Photography, Film and Air byLumiere – positioning ourselves at the high-end with a focus on destination weddings. After becoming frustrated with my DSLR and with a higher pricing strategy it became clear that it was time to invest in a more professional platform. I needed to be able to produce better quality footage and have far greater scope for post- production colour grading – particularly as we wanted to offer photography and films with a unique look and feel. I began to do my research knowing it would be a significant business investment and was seriously considering
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PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2018
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