Final Major Project Unit: Post-production

Lauren and I had our final shoot date with our last contributor, Seema. She currently lives on the West side of London, so we took a journey there and aimed to get all the filming done in one day. She is a self-employed Optometrist, currently studying for a Masters. And she also paints as a hobby. So we filmed a sequence of her doing her art, with a lens change to get some macro shots. I couldn't do much movement on this lens, as it was a telephoto without a built-in stabiliser. So I set-up the shots on a tripod and let the action unfold, as any slight touch of the camera would cause smalls vibrations.

For reasons attached to the stigma and discrimination in the workplace with mental illnesses, she didn't want to be recognised, so not to damage her career. In this case, for the interview we sat her with her back to a window, so I exposed to that light rather than exposing her face.

We then went out to the church, to film a few shots. Unlike, our previous shoots, we only interviewed her once at her house. Here is her shot list.

Whilst Lauren is organising the structure of the documentary in the edit. I've been working on some looks and testing the footage to see how it's handling correction. It's good practice to get the white balance and lighting right when on the shoot, and I've learned from experience. But there are times where it's not always spot on, perhaps I start getting lazy. Luckily, colour balance can be fixed in post. However, I do always pay attention to the exposure of the image because that's not, if at all, easy to fix. Especially images which are over-exposed, as opposed to under-exposed.

Here's some examples of my own correcting of my mistakes, and adding a little bit of a "filmic" look:

too warm

getting there

to add a letterbox?

slightly brighter

getting macro

Final Major Project Unit: Research

I've been continually looking for inspiration throughout this project, especially whilst shooting.

Over time, I've built up a list of director's work I've admired. And for this project I've sent them all questionnaires to find out more about their roles, and so far I've received some really good feedback.

These directors do a lot of commercial, short documentary and music videos. Most with backgrounds in photography, and cinematography.

One of my favourite directors I've admired for a few years creates nearly all of Ben Howard's videos, Mickey Smith. He has a background in photography, in particular surf photography. So he has an amazing eye for visuals, finding beauty in the changes in nature and seeing lines. I can definitely say he's inspired a lot of my own work.

A cameraman and director who works with Mickey is called Allan Wilson, who is equally talented in his work. Mickey, along with Allan, are known under Astray. http://www.theastray.com/main.html

I've also found other director's I admire on production company websites who specialise in documentary and commercial films, such as:

http://www.independ.net
http://www.roguefilms.com
http://www.thepublicrecord.tv
http://www.prettybirdus.com
http://leafhouseblog.wordpress.com

In terms of other music videos, the work that inspires me comes from Daniels, Brewer, and Sam Brown.

http://www.danieldaniel.us
http://www.brewerr.us

This is behind the scenes of a music video for Two Door Cinema Club with Brewer, they've kindly replied to my emails. 

A documentary director who creates amazing shorts, and made Oxyana. Sean Dunne, his style and approach to stories just draws you in. I love how it's very organic, simple, and tells the story of the person without voiceover but through the weaving of the interviews with the people and the sequences filmed with them to show us who they are. 

http://veryapeproductions.com

Sean has worked with Galen Summer, an editor but also a director (http://www.galensummer.com) . Who has worked with cinematographer Ed David (http://www.kittyguerrilla.com).




"The story of the man and his records"

Final Major Project Unit: Production

Filming with Belinda

This week I've been to London to shoot some city shots and time-lapses for the film. 

I always find a cat...

I've also been logging the footage and syncing the sound ready for Lauren to go through and start editing. After seeing it all together, I am happy with it so far, but there's still a long way to go. 

Today we had our first shoot with Belinda. This is our main shoot with her, so we aimed to get her full interview down, plus a trip to the theatre and some sequence shots. She has a background in theatre performance and music plays an important role in her life. She highlighted an article for us on how music is thought to raise dopamine levels in the brain. Here are a few stills from today.

I'm very pleased we wrapped on time and got everything done. It was a relaxed day as well, and Belinda said how comfortable she felt around us. Which is very positive, as we had the same reaction from Liz last week.  

My shot list:

Final Major Project Unit: Production

Filming with Liz

Lauren and I stayed in Woking for a couple of days shooting with a lovely contributor, Liz. We'd shot with John to test the water in terms of style and how to work with people and learnt a lot. We have also shot with Dan, but only a interview which we'd use mainly for voiceover. But for Liz, we found out more about her and chose to shoot sequences first as they are the important parts to cover the interview and show use more about how the person lives. 

I created a page of shots, grouped by a couple of sequences based on our knowledge of Liz. We know she does crafts, so I got some shots as she worked. Then we set up for a interview in the same position, and found that she was a comfortable talker. She was talking whilst working on a card, so I filmed parts of her making the card, and a close-up of her. But, in the end, she found it too distracting to do both so she concentrated on talking to the camera, and we picked up the shot of her finishing the card later on. 

working on her crafts

I also google street viewed her house, and saw that there was a train line, and she had mentioned a canal which she likes to walks on. So after we finished in the house we went to the canal and got some shots of her at her favourite spot. Before going to a nearby field and setting up an interview with her sat on a bench. 

at the canal

The next day we focused on getting the more serious interview, sat in the living room, in a more traditional set-up. They were sat in the sofa in the middle of the room, with objects behind, window light in front of them, and I could adjust a dimmer switch above them. Which was a very ideal set-up.

Her husband also volunteered to be part of the film, so Lauren conducted his interview too. Typically I switched sides to Lauren so that his interview was looking left-to-right on the left-hand side of the frame, and Liz's was opposite, so they didn't match for the edit. I managed to get some shots of Liz's wedding rings, and we asked them to sit at their table-for-two outside in their garden. Overall, it was a very good place to shoot, as I could get a lot of GV's and cutaways of sentimental objects that Liz has on show. 

I didn't get all the shots explicitly to this shot list, as sometimes they don't work, but I improvise in many of these situations and find interesting angles. 

Final Major Project Unit: Production

The shooting is well on the way... 

We did a second shoot with John at Joss Bay. I build ideas in my head beforehand, and put them into a series of notes to create a sequence. The style of this documentary surrounds the v/o interview we take in the contributor's houses, which is also filmed for safety. The main visuals look into the people's lives in sequences, setting them up and building a story. And talking to them in these situations, as different locations may bring something different out of them. We also talk about what ever is relevant, such as how being outside helps the mental wellbeing of an individual. These situations include going outdoors, on walks, doing crafts or art projects, and even riding a cab. Things that relate to their background stories, and the message of dealing with bipolar. 

For John, and his love of surfing and being by the sea, it seemed relevant to film him at Joss Bay, Kent's surfing beach. Firstly we filmed some shots travelling in the car, and a short interview in the car too. At the beach, I liked the idea of following him to the water. And shooting in extreme wide shots to show the vastness of the beach, and the open water. Extreme wide shots can also be used to exaggerate the loneliness of the individual. 

I'm uploading and logging the footage as we go, familiarising myself with it, seeing how each shot edits visually, and what "look" it fits. I'm also logging the footage to give to Lauren as she will be editing it. 

As I don't use a steadicam for filming, I rely on my own steadiness (most of the time), I thought I'd test these stabilisation tools in post-production. Here is a test I did. It can be quite an improvement, but noticeable if you know the signs to spot. I've seen it used in many smaller budget documentaries, and even in some lower budget TV reality shows. 

Before shooting with John, I went out and tested the GoPro Hero2 sports camera, to see on various angles how it shoots in water and what kind of images it gets, how stable it is, how it reacts to changes in light and white balance, and focus. As these aren't things you can control in camera, other than change it to spot metering, rather than evaluative. 

I also tested the timelapse feature and attached the camera to the window in the car. I tested it at night too to see how it handles low light, and as expected, lots of noise. 

On my second drive out, I tested my Canon 6D on the dashboard because I wanted to slow the shutter speed, which you can't control in the GoPro. This blurs anything at high speeds, especially at the edges of the frame, leaves light trails, and I think gives a better sense of the feeling of moving at a high speed. As the Canon 6D doesn't have a built in intervalometer, and I don't have a smart phone to control it via wifi, I held the shutter button down and set it to continuous burst mode. I put a gaussian blur over the GoPro day timelapse halfway through, as I prefer it blurred to it being sharp. You may want to skip through. 

So this week has been a heavy week for shooting, we're shooting for the next few days, and more next week. I'll be going out to get my timelapses too, and hopefully some more inner city shots to contrast with the serene nature shots.