“Darren is one of those exceptional individuals that brings a positive demeanor to everything he does; and this combined with his raw artistic talent, technical abilities and project management skills makes him a very obvious choice for our ongoing commercials work”  Richard Prout- 1791 Diamonds Managing Director

We achieved this by using Nikon lenses, shooting on a Sony EX3 with Letus lens adaptor and recording at a high bit rate to a NanoFlash.

Ben used Spencer Locke-Bonney as his Gaffer and the lighting setups were pretty straight forward. Ben’s assistant Oliver Cross shot the band on the bicycle and playground shots on a  Canon 5D Mark II, Oliver also took these behind the scenes shots.

The video was edited by Paul Wedel in Wellington and graded by Andrew at ToyBox.

Channel Four came along and made a small Behind the Scenes piece- click to view.

The clip and Annah’s album have just been released, and it’s receiving very positive reviews.

“I worked with Darren and WhiteHorse Productions recently on a music video for one of our wonderful new local artists. Darren came up with a great concept that was able to be executed incredibly effectively.
It resulted in my favourite video we had made with this artist. The video was beautiful and exactly how we had imagined it to be. Darren has a natural gift behind the camera and a wonderful eye for beauty.
I couldn’t have asked for anything more from the production.” Tori Holmes- Sony Music Entertainment

Click here to listen- http://247prayernz.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/07-new-zealand-national-anthem.mp3

As the 2011 World Cup fast approaches, we believe an opportunity exists to add stunning imagery and story to this captivating and stirring song and make a high quality music video that will capture the hearts and imaginations of people all around the world.
Many kiwi’s can remember the national anthem being played on national television at the start and end of broadcast. Browsing on youtube you can see older versions of the NZ anthem reaching hundreds of thousands of views.

The idea is to create a video that not only showcases the incredible landscape of NZ but also the people that are part of this great land. We see great potential to incorporate the all blacks and of coarse the famous ‘haka’ as part of the video.

A music video of this nature has the potential to go viral online as well as become an integral part of New Zealand’s marketing campaign for the world cup.
We are looking for people to partner with to make this vision a reality.

To do justice to the song we envisage we would ideally need at least $50,000 to make a high quality video and NZ on air have committed $5000 towards the project through their music video funding scheme.

About Cindy Ruakere

Cindy Ruakere
Taranaki Te Atiwa Pakeha

Cindy was born and raised in the Taranaki and currently resides in the Waikato.

Cindy is a New Zealand Christian Itinerant worship leader and speaker. Ruakere embodies the pioneering spirit of New Zealand through her music and songs.

Not only does Cindy have a passion for Aotearoa/New Zealand but also carries a pioneering heart of New Zealand overseas wherever she minsters. Cindy has toured the world extensively, ministering and performing in Central Asia, Eurpope, UK, Asia, Pacific, USA, South America, Africa, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Israel and Russia.

Cindy has recored 5 albums and an interactive single CD. Cindy has also recently composed and recored the sound track for MasterChef NZ 2010.

View the music video here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPJ4Ft3M0gQ

For more information on Cindy please go to her website- www.cindyruakere.com

A video created to explain the unique ‘Design your own ring’ service offered by 1791 Diamonds.

By Producer Darren Simmonds and Director Topher Straus

This is a story about a team of film industry professionals from the Queenstown/Wanaka Lakes District who collaborated together with a goal of creating a ‘spec’ commercial. The idea of making a spec had always been a goal for director Topher Straus and after moving to New Zealand in 2008 he realized the potential of the location and talent base of the South Island.

Topher met producer Darren Simmonds through the Wanaka Film Trust they collaborated together with the idea of making a Nike spec commercial. The duo’s charismatic energy and passion for the craft captured the immigration and trust of the production team.  ”We set about to create a high budget commercial complete with aerial photography and visual effects on a shoestring budget. We were very pleased with our achievement.”

The guys collaborated with Director of Photography Eoin O’Liddigh to fine tune the logistics and visual elements. Queenstown’s Bret Mills and his company Local Action has been a great support with production equipment as well as providing the innovative Red One camera for the shoot. The decision to not shoot on film and go digital with the Red was motivated by industry cost cutting trends. Eoin “The RED ONE camera was a very capable tool on this shoot.  It allowed me to use the best ’35mm cinema’ lenses available and push the dynamic range of the camera to its extremes.”

Casting Director Di Aspenall suggested international model Carrie O’Brien now based in Wanaka for the part. Carrie is not only an ex New York super model and athlete but also is a mother of 5.  Straus knew O’Briens work and spirit would fit the role perfectly.

It was the area’s dry landscape that inspired the original idea and having a stunning location was paramount. The crew split their two-day shoot between being on top of Mt. Roy at 1200m above Lake Wanaka and a large private lakefront farm. “Wanaka is relatively unknown and the idea is to showcase the area for future endeavors”

“The weeks leading up to the shoot including the location scout, a giant, unappealing inversion cloud hovered above our locations. We had to go for it and shoot due to logistics – magically on our shoot day the sky opened up and we had perfect conditions we needed to make this a successful spec commercial. Irish luck, and the footage speaks for itself”.

Philip Hurring of Action TV in Queenstown edited the shots together while CG artist Kim Fogelberg worked on the visual effects. A tremendous amount of effort and time was put into the project by a large group of people.

Director- Topher Straus