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.