EDGE CITY FILMS

Last November I picked up a Panasonic AG-HVX200P (w/ (3) 8GB P2 cards (2) 16GB P2 cards), a P2 Store, a Firestore FS100 with native progresive ability and a bunch of other extras. There have been several great projects recently using the camera (images on the way): Toyota Tundra, Oceanic Cable OC16 "Iraq," HVCB Web stories, etc. The images are coming out fantastic (Digital 4:2:2), details can be found on my Equipment page.

In Feb 2006 I picked up an AAton LTR-54 Super-16mm film camera. It has a color tap, precision speed control, PL mount, 5 mags, 12-120mm Zeiss, 5 on-board batteries, a matte box, extension eyepiece, and more.

The camera has been a steady friend this year and has been used for AIG, State Farm, First Insurance, Oceanic Cable, FHB, CPB, among others.

In May 2006 I used the camera for 4 commercials for Swedish American Hospital in Illinois for Shooters Film Production. The shoot went fantastic and some behind the scenes stills cam be found on my Behind Camera page. Aaton cameras are excellent for shooting handheld, very comfortable and very quiet. Aaton cameras were just used recently for the filming of March Of The Penguins. More information on the way.

I am so happy to announce that Sunday Wind has won the "Dream Digital Award at the 2006 Hawaii International Film Festival!

Sunday Wiind was a shoot large in scope, beautiful scenery and in heart. On June 11th and 12th back in 2005 everyone came out on their weekend and helped me realize one of my dream projects. The story is set the morning of Dec 7th, 1941 and follows 3 local Hawaii farmers as the morning unfolds into a set of wrong place / wrong time scenarios. Thank you so much to every one who made the film a reality.

Nov 2005 "Sand Island Drive-In Anthem" Directed by Ryan Kawamoto won the Audience Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival for best short film. Thank you Ryan and Kinetic Films for having me aboard your great film and congratulations to the rest of the Cast and Crew. Thank you very much to the Crew for all their help and all the laughs, a better time shooting a film was never had.

In spring 2005 there were some pretty cool blockbuster projects: Hawaiian Telecom for Kinetic Productions (35 mm using Arri 535b and Arri 435), finishing touches for Pele O Ka Foodmart (Mini DV feature), a music video for Go Jimmy Go and publicity stills in Medium Format for Pele O Ka Foodmart.

Hawaiian Telecom was a very large shoot. I prepped the job with Director James Sereno for almost a month. Meetings, planning, scouts, more meetings. It was all worth it as the footage was pretty cool. The concept allowed us to use in-camera speed ramps for various scenes. We were ramping from 24 fps up to 60fps and even 150 fps. I had a chance to use one of my favorite lamps a 4K Xenon. The lamp is capable of casting a very, very strong beam of light that is amazingly directional. We would sometimes point the lamp AWAY from the set to a special Xenon 6 piece articulated mirror that then can bounce the light back into the set just where I wanted it.

June 2005, Michael Wurth was in town to direct my short film and to grab some pick-up shots for Pele O Ka Foodmart. There was some ADR work to cover some lines where the performance was so wonderful that the take could not be replaced with an alternate take. When we were not frantically working shots, meetings and ADR into the schedule... we were out at Sandy Beach shooting publicity stills with my Medium format camera. We got some great shots and once again were visited by Margret Jones character from the film, which I will not go into great detail but to say "Mana"

Spring 2005,Lukas Seno contacted me a while back and mentioned a certain music video for the band Go Jimmy Go and wanted to know if I would help out for one or two shots. Little did he know I love their music and signed on to do anything he and the band could dream up. The "Set me Free" music video was the result. Check it out on their website!

I am happy to announce that I received the Special Judges Award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2005 Pele Awards. The commercial, which won, was "Bill" for Oceanic Time Warner, by Director David Rosen.

The commercial was shot in 16mm for Shooters Film Production Inc. The commercial was a fun challenge, we were going to parody the brand name drug commercials you always see with normal people suddenly enjoying life to the fullest just because they take a little orange pill. We used Waimanalo Beach to play for a nondescript beach on the Mainland somewhere and the Honolulu Zoo to play for Africa.

My favorite shot was of the character "Bill" sitting in his living room eating Cheetos and couch potato-ing out... when the daylight streaming into the house is doused and suddenly the living room becomes a movie theater, complete with the flickering movie beam over his head. We did the shot in camera without any post special FX. We had to shoot in the daytime, so first we had to block out all the real daylight. I created a little nook outside one window with an outdoor plant to really sell that it was a bright sunny day. All of the bright lights making the daylight were patched to a electro- distribution area where my Gaffer Jason Fratis threw the switch at the right moment to kill all the lights and fire up the movie beam gag.

I am also happy to announce that "O-Man," the trailer for the Ohina Short Film Festival, also won an award at the Pele Awards this year (beating out a trailer for a certain other film festival here in town).

See the BET Antigua Carnival 2005 segment here! In August I was in Antigua filming Carnival 2005 for BET Worldbeat. The special should run on BET in November. On the way back I stopped in Seattle for the color correction of "Pele O Ka Foodmart." Director Michael Wurth and I sat in with John Davidson of Victory Studios for a two day session polishing our movie we shot in January: "Pele O Ka Foodmart."

Poly Power narrated by The Rock premiered on ESPN in February. There is additional information on my Documentary page.

2004 NEWS

In June 2004 I joined The International Cinematographers Guild as a D.P.

Local 600

I am honored to be a part of the Guild's history and tradition.

Other recent projects include: Commercials for Hawaiian Telecom, FHB.Com, Ala Moana Center, The Verizon Yellow Pages. New spots for Cutter, McDonalds, Foodland, 16mm spots for Senator Dan Inouye, Jib work for Cowboy U for The Country Music Channel, PSAs for The Red Cross, Anti-Smoking campaigns, and the very fun to shoot trailer for Ohina the Short Film Showcase... this year a spoof of Japanese shows like Kikaida, Godzilla, etc..

MORE JIB SIZES!

Current sizes: (30', 24', 18', 12', 6' and 3')
For more Jib information click on "Jib Arm" in the column to your left.

(DP Shawn Hiatt shooting a scene for The Bank of Hawaii with an Arri 535b) 2004
January started out fairly exciting as I was stuck in American Samoa (with no power) for about a week, along with the rest of our crew, due to Hurricane Heta. We were back in American Samoa to shoot more footage for the upcoming documentary "Splitting The Rock" directed by Jeremy Spears. The island paradise became a bit windy as we sought cover due to 120 mph winds and torrential rains that went on for 3 days or so... Nature is something else!

From crazy weather to crazy golf, I shot two days of footage in 24p at the Sony Open golf tournament with my Panasonic AG-DVX100P

with Adam Sandler for a series of promos for "Happy Gilmore" showings on the USA Network.

Also in January I operated my jib for the WB Network on their reality show "High School Reunion." This time the new cast was on Maui and had a house at Paiea. It was fun to work with the HS Reunion crew again.

February

At a small Hawaiian ceremony on Valentines day with just family, Janet and I were wed on Kailua Beach. It was a beautiful day and evening, the weather cooperated and the food was ono-licious. Thank you to all of our well wishers! Janet I love you!

A look at the good looking Symposium.

The indie feature I shot last March The Symposium looks great thanks to the magic wand of John Davidson from Victory Studios in Seattle. Michael Wurth and I finally had some time to run the color correction we planned for back a year before. Michael flew up to Seattle and I connected to the session via "Session Link," a high-speed Internet access from the office of "Shooters Film Production," here in Honolulu. Thanks Dave and Darin for putting up with me and letting me use your system!

March
Things are getting very busy as I just finished 4 days of shooting 16mm for the AUW campaign, Jib for Oceanic Cable, a new spot for Oceanic Cable directed by Dave Rosen, 2 days of shooting with my 24p camera for James Sereno, and 3 days of shooting for Ryan Kawamoto for McDonalds also with my 24p camera (w/glidecam and Ewa Marine water housing). With lots of projects looming, hopefully it will be a very busy spring

2003 News
AWARDS... from Director Roy Kimura (3) spots I shot for him won awards: Toyota "Matrix" :30 spot won a Silver Telly Award. " "Guru :30," and "Lexus ES-300 :30" both won Bronze Telly Awards. Thanks for the great news Roy.

Also in December 2003

Dave Rosen, Darin Kaneshiro from Shooters Film Production and I traveled to Chicago for a week of shooting for a hospital there... at one point shooting some timelapse footage in a blizzard... hmmm of the 7 or 8 people outside that freezing evening in all of Illinois... 6 of them were on our crew and the other 2 were snow plow operators....ha.

There were some really fun shots in the script, including a climbing wall and some underwater shots with a pregnant woman. For the underwater shots I picked up an Ewa Marine housing for my 24p camera. It sure was a good thing the pool was indoors and heated... as the snow was pretty deep outside.

Some other 2003 haps:
Director of Photography Shawn Hiatt was busy in 2003 with a wide variety of projects including: operating his 24' Jimmy Jib Triangle and reality shooting for the ABC Family series "The Last Resort," he was the Cinematographer for three commercials for "Cutter" directed by Tim Savage shot in Super-16. One spot using Kodak's brand new 500 ASA Vision2 7218 stock for a romantic dinner scene, one emulating an Indiana Jones look including using Shawn's 18' Jimmy Jib Triangle at Oahu's sheer Pali cliff and for the last spot in the series Shawn employed the same lab and camera techniques used in filming "Castaway."

Also in January 2003 Shawn flew to American Samoa to capture University of Hawaii Head coach June Jones on his first trip to Samoa to look for prospective star football players. The footage is to be used in the upcoming feature length documentary "Splitting the Rock," directed by "Fastpitch" Director Jeremy Spear. The documentary will follow Polynesian football players in a "Hoop Dreams" style for the upcoming two years as they strive for starting positions in the NFL. After Samoa, Shawn shot the opening credit sequence for the documentary using a Tyler Nose Mounted 16x9 Digital BetaCam. The shot began 4 miles out to sea, flying in towards the beach (at about 20' off the water) then slowed down and hovered to match a 24' Jib arm shot Shawn filmed on a previous day.

Shawn and his Jib Arm remained busy after that for two more movies shot in HD; one an 1800's period piece for BYU shot in 24p with the Panasonic Varicam and the other "Dream Keeper," a European movie shot in 25p. "Dream Keeper" was a "real operating challenge" says Shawn. The shot was to match into a series of shots jibbing and zooming up and away from an American Indian ceremony, the underlying Indian legend being that the whole world rests on the back of a huge sea turtle that is swimming in an ocean. To pull the shot off Shawn had to maneuver the 25p camera, pointed straight down on the end of the 12' version of his Jimmy Jib Triangle to within 2 inches of the water surface of Maui Ocean Center's Green Sea Turtle tank. Once there he had to pick up a 1 inch square section of the shell of a turtle swimming by, then hold the shot and follow the turtle for 15 seconds as the camera jibs up and away to reveal the whole turtle, the water and eventually the other turtles swimming nearby.