Karl Taylor Photography

“No Regrets” is a short film made by respected British stills photographer Karl Taylor.

“This is my first foray into film making and was a personal exercise into the difficulties and pitfalls of the medium as well as a personal experiment into the capabilities of HD-DSLRs for this type of story telling.

Having been inspired by Vincent Laforie’s “Reverie” but without the budget or sponsorship and support from Canon, it also became an exercise for me in how to make an effective and visually interesting piece, but on very low budget!”

“Predominantly filmed on Canon DSLRs including the 5D mk2 and a 7D it was an opportunity for me to explore the differences in producing high end images for stills photography and creating images with feeling, atmosphere and depth in a motion form”

Having heard the track  “Heaven” from Unkle featuring Gavin Clark, I started to experiment with it on the timeline in the editing stage. This haunting and enigmatic piece depicted the mood perfectly for my own preconceived ideas of what the film was trying to portray. This piece of music is a personal favourite of mine and fitted well with it’s extended track length for the 10-minute duration of the film. The final edit features the standard piece “Heaven” from the album “End Titles” and the alternative “Redux” mix. Both tracks and the album are available from Itunes here. Find out more about Unkle at www.unkle.com . Find out more about Gavin Clark at www.clayhillmusic.co.uk

In July 2011 we entered “No Regrets” in our first video festival with the online video and film festival at Vzaar.

We were ecstatic to learn that it was voted best overall video in the Vzaar Video and Film Festival which was judged by respected film director Oliver Stone director of Holywood blockbusters such as “Platoon”, “JFK and “Wall Street”.

Speaking on behalf of the judges, Mr McCluskey of Vzaar said the overall standard of entries was “incredibly high”, and it is very encouraging to discover that vzaar’s clients are producing work of such excellent quality to promote their businesses online.

Vzaar CEO Stephen McCluskey described “No Regrets” as “memorable and exquisite photography.”

Mr. McCluskey also commented, “The winning entry stood out from the rest, however, because it featured a variety of compelling elements. The imagery was inspiring, the content was haunting, the soundtrack well edited and highly compatible.”

Ian Snead VP of sales and marketing added “The vzaar judging panel and Oliver Stone were extremely impressed with the quality of the video you submitted”

Karl says   “In order not to overcomplicate my first attempt at a short film I deliberately kept the script simple and open to interpretation. I chose to portray the basics of human emotional turmoil that we can all relate to, and combine this with a variety of camera angles, focal lengths and depths of field to accommodate that story effectively. My first and foremost concern was to find interesting visuals that could be realistically accomplished without having to hire a helicopter and ton of filming equipment but still make the viewer “fall” into the images. The time-lapse sequences were introduced to add a sense of  “ in the grand scheme of things thinking” from the girls thoughts and for visual effect into the film. I think between us we achieved that and full credit goes to Colette who did a brilliant job in portraying what I wanted to capture.”

The film was predominantly made using Canon DSLR cameras including the 5Dmk2 and 7D and a variety of Canon lenses, with a small section using the tiny but versatile Go-Pro camera system. The time-lapse sequences were filmed using a dolly and a Canon DSLR and the film was recorded mostly in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree National Park, California.

“No Regrets” was very much an “off the cuff project” all made while whilst working in California on another photography project. The filming was undertaken over a 3 day period and included several very late nights for the night footage and time-lapse sequences and also included a ticking off from the police for filming in a restricted port area, although after a brief explanation they were very accommodating and allowed us to get a sequence in the bag before moving us on!

The film stars Colette Falla who had worked with Karl several times in the past and is now based in Los Angeles. The main camera work was undertaken by Karl with some additional camera work and help from Tim Gaudion who collaborates with Karl on many projects. Assistance was provided by Fabienne Ogier who is Karl’s studio assistant and Jon Bairds who works on the business website and marketing.

Karl is quite proud of the fact that whilst he was hoping Tim would produce a professional story board for the film, Karl had to scribble the entire script and filming ideas on an A4 piece of paper on the flight from London to LA and just finished it in the hotel room in LA about an hour before Colette arrived!