So, as I said, I’ve been quite busy. I had three high profile shoots in the space of two weeks which required a lot of work on my end. Two of them turned out really well though — the third I haven’t seen yet but the footage was awesome so I’ve no doubt that it’ll be great too.

I kinda took December off. Everyone in the industry knows how this job can really take over your life if you let it. I find it really healthy to take a chunk of time off and take a step back. December is the best time to do it, seeing as there are barely an productions happening over the winter.

Here are a few pictures on what I’ve been up to.

When we arrived Alex and Kate (the director) had already been prepping the set and testing out a few lighting setups. There was not a lot of options to choose from. Lighting wise, we’d got:

• 2k Blondes x2
• 2.5k HMI
• 1.25k HMI
• 850w Fresnel
• Dedo 150w x3
• Photographey style softboxes x2

Whilst the set wasn’t very big, it had a lot of points where light could enter: three portholes, a door and a large grate in the ceiling. And with our motley collection of lights we were going to be hard pressed to have realistic looking daylight coming from all of those points.

Day 1

We started off with a night scene. It was a slow dolly across the ground to reveal one of our characters hiding and trying to sleep. It was a nice easy set up to start with. The 2.5k HMI was on a double windup, with half CTB and a quarter frost. Now I know moonlight isn’t blue and I don’t really like using blue moonlight, but it’s what audiences have come to expect and in the context of this project the fact we can’t do establishing shots blue would have to do. When we got the light up, I thought that the shadows from the grate were too harsh. I wanted to save them for later scenes, the ones in daylight. So Heath put a piece of 216 directly over the top of it to soften up the shadows loads. This created a really nice, gentle gradation of the shadows without any harshness.

To give the scene some extra colour, we used a Dedo to show some light coming through the doorway with only some light diff on. We left one of the portholes open and shone a CTB’ed soft box through it to give the back wall of the set a bit of light.

Next we did a quick shot of the characters looking out of the porthole at night. This was really just a pickup an idea Kate had on set it turned out to be my favourite shot of the project. We already had the soft box set up which gave a nice light onto the face. We played around trying to get some reflectionly type light that was bouncing off the water but we didn’t have the time to refine it enough. We put a fairly strong warm backlight on the actor and then we used a practical lamp to separate her from the background. This is definitely my favourite shot and Heath managed to capture it wonderfully on his 35mm film camera.

After this, we switched the day time. Initally we were going to go with a strong light coming through the grate, casting the crosshatched pattern. However as we were lighting, we shone the two 2k’s through the porthole and discovered we had quite a nice morning effect. We could’ve combined this with the grate, but as the set was so small and every scene had to look like it was in a different place, I decided to again diffuse the grate and leave it for another time. The morning glow suited the scene more.

The scene was an altercation and then a conversation. It was played out nicely and we shot standard coverage of most of it. Again Heath managed to capture a couple of wonderful moments with his cameras.

As we were working with kids the days were pretty short. This was actually quite lucky as it gave us a chance to play about with light and angles inside the set without time constraints.

Day 2

I learnt a lot on the morning of the second day. We were doing an outside scene one of the main character seeing a tall ship for the first time. I was extremely sceptical as all we had was an empty concrete corner and a brick wall. It was supposed to be this hustling, bustling port! Needless to say I ate my words. Production design (being Kate and the intrepid Chris Dane) transformed the corner into a wonderful set. Through the lens it looked fantastic! The only lighting we used was the 2.5kW HMI to boost one side of the face.

Then the great British weather hit and it started to rain. We had one more shot to do a big one. We had a 24 foot jib to do a huge upward sweeping move as the girl looks up and sees the ship for the first time. It was super difficult; windy and rainy and horrible. We got a few takes in and possibly got the shot however it got to the point where we’d loose pivotal scenes inside if we carried on. I still haven’t seen the jib shots again so I’m not sure if it came out okay.

We moved back inside for the final shots with the kids. We were replicating a battle scene! For this I placed a number of threes around the kids and each light had a spark on. During the take they would randomly flash their light and shout BANG! I was with Alex, who was camera operating, and shaking the camera around. I tried punching a couple of times and it looked pretty good!

After this the kids went home and we filmed some cannons going off. We only had two takes due to lack of pyros, so we had to do a wide rather than go in for closeups; to make sure we got the effect in. There was a lot of boring health and safety (which a venomently hate and think it should be replaced with a general ‘be careful guys’) but the shots themselves went off great! We did one in slow motion and one normal speed. The slow mo one looked fantastic.

Day Three And Four

The kids were replaced with adults for the last two days and we did similar things small scenes, looks, pickups, moments. We used the prison cell for the first time. Heath and I created a window using the 850w and a cardboard cutout! We accented the actors with thin strips of light from the Dedos. The Epic’s wonderful low light capabilities came into play here and it really performed magnificently.

It was a wonderful shoot, full of extremely talented people. I really hope the project goes forward with a budget because I can’t even imagine what these guys can do if they had a little bit of money!

Later this week I’m going to write a few words on what we did and why etc etc, but I just wanted to show everyone a few pictures that my awesome gaffer Heath McWaters (http://www.heathmcwaters.co.uk) took during the four day shoot.

Stay tuned on Wednesday/Thursday for more information about the shoot, how we lit it and why.

Canon have released yet another DSLR, the 6D. I’m sure a whole load of people are wondering what the video quality is like. Well like all other Canon DSLRs the video is basically the same as the other models. From the 5DMkIII down to the Rebel T3i, they all look pretty much the same; barring the D.O.F. changes a large sensor exhibits. It’s just another link in the same chain!

Vertigo, BFI Southbank

A couple of weeks ago I went to see Vertigo at the BFI Southbank. I have to confess that I’d never seen Vertigo before (shock, horror). Whilst, I thought it was absolutely fantastic, I don’t think it deserves to knock Citizen Kane off the top spot of the latest Sight & Sound poll. It really blew my socks off. But it had aged so mh — whereas Citizen Kane hasn’t at all. What I mean is, Citizen Kane could of been made toy — as a historical epic. Vertigo contains dated ideas that didn’t quite translate to a modern audience.

The print the BFI have restored is amazing. It looks so beautiful. The cinematography isn’t really anything to write home about, but it works well within the story and just ‘fits’. I’m so glad I got the chance to see this on the big screen plus I had a great Mexican beforehand from Wahaca.

Dredd 3D

Anthony Dodd-Mantle WHY?! Why did you make this film in 3D?!

And Cineworld, WHY?! Why are you only showing one screening of the 2D version?!

Dredd was a gorgeous looking film, ruined by crappy 3D. It was a great film all the way actually. A great homage to the comics. Karl Urban was awesome as Dredd and captured his spirit in a hugely underplayed (and simultaneously overplayed) performance. Go see it.

Anna Karenina

Pretty, but shit.

pCAM

This is pretty much a standard app that almost everyone I know has on set. It has a huge array of tools and is being constantly updated as new cameras come out. I use it the most for the depth of field calculations but it also includes splits, field of view, exposure, diopter and many more. It even has a very nice siemens star option which is hugely useful.

Artemis Directors Viewfinder

This app uses the iPhone’s inbuilt camera to replicate the field of view on just about any camera, with just about any lens on. It digitally zooms in so you can see the exact F.O.V. of the lens. This is so useful when you’ve got a huge, fully rigged Epic or Alexa and you want to quickly check a shot in another spot on the set. Rather than moving the camera over for a shot that might not even happen, you can just boot up the app and check real quick. You can even take pictures and annotate them perfect for those tech scouts!

Helios

My favourite sun tracking app. Essential when shooting exteriors. Saved my bacon many times. Especially with timelaspes and getting the sunrise in the right position.

RentMe

This is small, little know app (I think). It basically calculates what a piece of kit should be rented at (per day). This is super useful to use in negotiations with rental houses. Sometimes all you’ll need is a very small bit of kit you might of broken, or not been able to source anywhere else. This app gives you a great idea of the day rate right off the bat.

KataData

This app lets me calculate how much storage space I’m going to need. Alternatively it tells me how much footage I can shoot during the day. It’s got a really nice interface and works flawlessly. It can also details file sizes when transcoding a bunch of material from one codec to another.

TeraCentral

A great app from the guys at TeraDeck this app allows you to patch in and watch the wireless stream from a TeraDeck Cube. It works like a charm and it’s free!

LivePlay / ToDailies

These two apps are both from LightIron and work in conduction with the TeraDeck Cube, although a number of products will work with it. LivePlay allows me to watch previous takes back whenever I want and input specific metadata from my department (camera). Usually every H.O.D. has an iPad and will input their metadata to help out the editor. It’s super simple to print off nicely formatted reports for the editor.

That’s pretty much it for film-centric apps. Here are a few more I consider my most important apps.

Evernote

I use it for jotting down notes to remember later.

Dropbox

I use Dropbox for everything

Reeder

Syncs with my Google Reader and provides access to all my RSS feeds in an awesome UI.

Tweetbot

My number one Twitter client. You can’t beat this app!

American Cinematographer

The world’s greatest magazine delivered directly to my iPad? Yes please!

Comixology

Gotta have my weekly fix of comics. As I’m all over the world most of the time, it’s easier to get them digitally. I do miss the smell of the pages though.

Downcast

Takes care of all my podcasts way better than the native Apple app does.

Pocket

For all those things I don’t have time to read right now.

iA Writer

For the few times I need to write stuff on my iPad, I use this.

Things

For to-do management. Probably the most perfect system on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Recently updated with cloud sync it’s super powerful, super easy and get me to do all my stuff.

I went to see Total Recall on Thursday. Beforehand my girlfriend and I went for some food. I had a burger and a shake (vanilla can’t beat it.) It tasted great. I realised a little while ago that burgers are best when they’re simple. Don’t fuck with a burger. Some food joints have amazingly complicated variations on burgers with salsa, bacon, guacamole, chilli, pineapple (!!), sour cream, mushrooms, jalapeños and hundreds more combinations. Just leave it alone! I used to have these extravagant burgers cos I thought ‘I like all these ingredients on their own, or with other things; I’m gonna like them all together on a burger’. FALSE. It doesn’t taste better. It just gives the illusion of tasting better, cos there’s more stuff in it. Seriously next time, just get a regular cheese burger with fries (and a vanilla shake if possible.) Jules will be proud of you and you’ll enjoy being able to pick it up without the contents falling out.

Back to Total Recall I’d been waiting to see this film for a while. Ever since I heard they were re-making it. I love the first one. I grew up on Arnie action films. I wore out a copy of Terminator 2 on VHS when I was six. Looking back six seems a tad young to watch Terminator 2, but I turned out alright. Total Recall was in a box set of Arnie films I bought at some point in my youth. Or maybe my mother bought me them as it’s an 18 in the UK. Either way I loved the film. And I loved it for what it was; a camp, hyper-violent, semi-funny action film with Arnie saying great one liners. The heart of the Philip K. Dick story that it’s based on; it’s essence was never truly explored. Is Quaid really a secret agent? Or did the Rekall chair just fuck his brain over? I don’t care that the original Total Recall glazed over this because it was designed not too. Early on when Verhoeven was brought on to direct, he cut a large section at the start exploring Douglas Quaid, the dock worker, the everyday man. He did this because Arnie could never pass as that. Look at him, he looks like a super agent. An audience would never buy he was just a normal guy.

Colin Farrell on the other hand does look like an everyday guy albeit an attractive one. However, they fail to make me think at any point that Farrell’s Quaid could be anything but a double agent who doesn’t know it. It does the same thing as Verhoeven’s Quaid and leaves the audience no doubt of which reality is real. I guess what I’m saying is that if this film had been directed by Christopher Nolan, I’d coming out of the cinema wondering whether Quaid was still strapped to that Rekall chair. I think that was a trick very much missed.

Regardless of any of that, the cinematography and production design is absolutely stunning. These two disciplines rely on each other so much, it’s rare that one of them is good without the other. I loved the fact that they constructed all the sets. You could tell! They looked brilliant. They looked real and physical. Yes, they were channeling Blade Runner. It’s the best sci-fi ever made why wouldn’t you channel a bit of it’s influence? Paul Anderson, ASC was the cinematographer. His work is great. It’s always very stylistic. Films like ‘Deja Vu’ and ‘Man on Fire’ have such a strong visual look to them. They were due to shoot on 35mm anamorphic but 8 days before they were due to start shooting production decided they were going to shoot digitally with RED Epic. The reason being the amount of VFX shots required. I can’t imagine what it feels like to have months of pre-production pulled out from under you like that. Does it translate into the film? Absolutely not. It looks fucking great. It’s an anamorphic flare fest and it’s awesome. I’m slightly surprised they stuck with the Panavision anamorphics rather than going for something like the 1.3x Hawk Anamorphics. With the Hawks they could of used more of the Epic’s sensor and get some more resolution out of it. That said, those Pana Ana’s are amazing lenses and have a very distinctive look that they were after.

The film feels very real. Like I said, all the set were actually built with green screen used for backdrops of the futuristic cities. Various different colour palettes surfaced throughout the film as Quaid makes his way to different parts of the world.

It was one of those films where I go straight home and read the American Cinematographer article on it. If you’re on the fence about seeing it, just go and enjoy. The story falls a bit flat, but the rest of the film makes up for it.

Dark Horse was pretty good. I though the first half of the film the story and the visuals were excellent. It drew me into the world and I really engaged with the main character Abe. It was very subtle comedy, similar to Solondz’s other work but I really enjoy that level of comedy and it had me laughing… or at least gwaffing.

The second half was not so good. Alright – but not good. The cinematography was really cool. It was very ‘American Indie’ style – the whole had that vibe. There were many shots repeated at different point in the films. I’m guessing this was to show the monotony of Abe’s life. The lighting was very naturalistic and very nice. For a film where there was no much scope to stretch into ‘awesome’ lighting Parekh did a brilliant job. The only issue I had throughout the whole film was that the focus buzzed a lot! Now, I don’t know if this was because I was sat in the front row; the screen was pretty big and whatever projection system they were using was bang on sharp, bright and looked great. But it did drop in and out of focus a lot. It didn’t detract from the film, but it annoyed the cinematographer in me quite a lot! Even my girlfriend mentioned something about it as we left the cinema, completely unprompted.

Here’s a picture from a job I shot yesterday.

I had a fun, lazy Sunday today. Started off around 10am when my girlfriend and I went for our regular breakfast at Mel’s Breakfast and Beats Diner. They do amazing breakfasts – pretty much everything you can imagine. I went in with the intention of having some porridge with fruit and honey (I’m trying to be healthy). My stomach had other ideas. I ended up with a massive stack of American style pancakes, a couple of sausages, bacon, a fried egg and crap loads of maple syrup. It tasted so good I thought I was gonna have a heart attack! Mandy had a Mini Works, which was basically a mini English breakfast. I nicked some of her bacon after I ran out!

After that monster breakfast we drove to our nearest shopping centre. We’d finally decided to get our eyes tested. Either of us had had them tested in a very long time. Turns out I need glasses, but only very slightly, when using a computer screen. Mandy’s eyesight was perfect! It took a bit longer than we thought at the opticians and our plan to go see either Ted or Total Recall was scuppered. Our only choice was to go and see The Expendables 2.

Now this wasn’t a bad choice. I’ve been wanting to go see The Expendables ever since it came out. I just never got around to it. I *loved* the first one and I had high hopes for the second one.

Let me preface anything I’m about to say with the fact that I fucking love action films. I love explosions, big guns, cheesy lines, muscle bound men, blood & guts, punching, kicking, swearing, handle bar moustaches — all that shit. I love it. I don’t care how brainless it is or how non existent the story is. I like to crack open a beer with my friends and watch a spectacle that makes my laugh and make noises like ‘wooooaahhhh!’ and ‘eeeeeek!’ So with all that said, it’s hardly surprising I loved The Expendables 2 right?

It’s a great film. It’s an awesome film. It’s a fucking cool film. It does exactly what it says in the tin. The plot is just thick enough to enable the film to exist and the worn out old men do the rest. It was awesome to see Arnie back. Fuck, the guy can’t act, but I got a shiver up my spine when Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger burst though those doors, blowing the shit out of everything. That entire last sequence etched a permanent grin on my face.

I enjoyed the cinematography too. There are a great marriage between the fight choreography and the cinematography. I don’t think there was a moment when I felt lost in the action or I lost my (the camera’s) position within the action. That’s a huge testament to Shelly Johnson, ASC but I would expect no less. I was surprised to see that it was shot on film. These days, especially with action films, digital is the favoured medium. In some of the more calmer sequences, in the close up the image looked a little soft. After checking out the tech specs, they only did a 2K DI. For me, that’s not enough resolution. It’s barely more than your TV set at home. 4K should be the standard resolution for a DI and then downsample it to 2K for the DCPs. The downsampling alone will give it more sharpness and crispness.

Anyway, withstanding a little softness in the close ups. It was a great film. I was grinning from the first to last frame – even the sad bits. What more can you ask of a film like that? It’s pure testosterone driven entertainment at it’s very best. I really do feel sorry for people who can’t switch off and enjoy things like The Expendables 2. Life must be so serious for them.

It’s basically the lowest spec camera of the family consisting of the C300 and the soon to be released C500. Priced at a little over £4000 ($7999) it’s aimed squarely at the members DSLR market looking to upgrade to a proper ‘video’ camera. The C300 was previously marketed as this but I always considered the price jump from DSLRs to be too high. This is much more of a natural step up for DSLR film makers.

It’s features are great:

• Super 35mm Sensor – I assume that this is the same sensor in the C300, down sampling from 4k for a pristine HD image
• EF lens mount – Loads of cheap, good looking lenses to chose from. DSLR filmmakers can easily migrate their lens collections across
• One-Shot AF/Push Auto Iris/Auto White Balance features – It’s features like these that point it squarely to single operator, low budget projects.
• Compact, modular design – The camera is 15% smaller than the C300. It’s perfect for hand held.
• 24Mbps (Max) MPEG-4 AVCHD/H.264 recording, 4:2:0 colour sampling – 50Mbps was never going to happen with this camera, otherwise why would you buy a C300? Broadcast is currently a minimum of 50Mbps, so this camera isn’t technically good enough for TV, but perfect for web productions.
• ISO range of 320-20,000 – The C300 is amazing at low light and I see no reason the C100 will be any different. Expect great things with no light.
• Two SD memory card slots with relay record or simultaneous record options – Awesome, super low cost recording media options. Everyone owns these cards already and they’re great, cheap and robust.

The way I see it this camera is basically a 5D with all the video camera features you need. It records in a similar codec; I think the actual video will be better than the 5D. It’s definitely a great upgrade for someone currently using 5D’s. It’s a bit more expensive but with all the extra feature it should allow you to work quicker, better and more effectively.

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on one for a test drive. Hopefully they’ll have some at IBC to play with.

]]> http://fearsomesteve.com/canon-eos-c100-announced/feed/ 1 http://fearsomesteve.com/the-maid-production-run-down/ http://fearsomesteve.com/the-maid-production-run-down/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:06:58 +0000 FearsomeSteve http://fearsomesteve.com/?p=378 Credit to Heath McWaters for the behind the scenes stills I’m showing here. Check him out at http://www.heathmcwaters.co.uk/

Last week I wrapped on my first feature film as Director of Photography. In fact it was my first feature ever – barring a few pickup days on a feature I worked on as loader a few years ago. It was a really great experience, but more about that later.

I was brought onto the project in quite a roundabout way. Originally the director-slash-producer, Paul Emmanuel, approached Brunswick Studios – a company with whom I work for a lot – enquiring about hiring a RED Epic for the film. This lead to a meeting with me and finally to an offer to be cinematographer. It was quite an amazing opportunity and I had no hesitation in agreeing to it.

I was brought on with about six weeks until the production was due to commence. I helped crew the film with my most excellent colleagues. Conor O’Grady (@ConorOG65) is my long term gaffer. I met him at film school and we’ve been working together ever since. We developed a great understanding and he understands what I’m after and he knows how to make it happen.

Assisting him was Heath McWaters (@hmcwaters). I met Heath a few months ago on Speechless, where he stepped in last minute and gaffered for me. He’s a fantastic guy – someone who I feel lucky to have met and have definitely made a new friend in him on this shoot. He and Conor hit it off as well. It was a fantastic lighting team.

On the camera side, I had a bit of trouble sourcing a 1st A.C. With about a week to go someone recommended Chai Rolfe (@Chai_Rolfe) to me. Although she’s only just graduated from film school, she’s an absolutely excellent 1st A.C. I was a little worried she was too inexperienced but she proved those worries completely unfounded. The camera was always ready, always prepped and always in focus.

I managed to get my regular 2nd A.C. Alex Turner (@ajtphotography) onto the project. Alex is a great guy, a true gent and an excellent A.C. He and Chai worked great together. He probably got the most bashing on set (due to his love of 50 Shades Of Grey) but he took it like a champ and was even giving it back by the end.

Finally I had two students/trainees take on the role of DIT/Camera Trainee. We had Rhys during the first week, whose highlight was setting off the burglar alarm during a take and Gavin for the second and third weeks. Both guys were great fun and I was really glad they were a part of the production.

The decision had already been made to shoot on the Epic and I was quite happy about that. Some people might say that an Alexa would of made more sense, considering the look and feel of the film. But I was confident that the Epic was up to it. The main barrier to getting the image you want from the Epic is an education in how the camera works. I’ve been working with the Epic for over a year now, day in, day out and I’m confident that I can get any image I want out of it. It’s so versatile in grading, it’s not funny. Other camera equipment included a set of RED Pro Primes, a 5ft Kessler Cineslider, a 6ft Miller Pro Jib and a Teradek Cube with iPad monitoring.

Along with the camera, I got a great lighting package from Panalux. Panalux are absolutely awesome at supporting low-to-no budget films. They are really understanding and go out of their way to provide awesome quotes. I was able to order a pretty large package (that’s what she said) and we ended up using every part of it, which I was quite chuffed about. I always worry about ordering too much/too little but I got it bang on this time. Here’s the kit list I sent to Panalux:

2.5kW HMI
1.25kW HMI
575w PAR x2
2k Fresnel x2
1k Fresnel x2
800w x3
300w x3
150w Dedo x3
Flag and Net Set
6×6 frame w/ various silks/nets
Chimera with speed ring for 800 and 1k
Scrims set
Kino 4×4
Kino 4×2 x2
Mini Flo Set

I missed off all the distribution etc because that’s fairly standard. And of course, a fuck load of C-Stands.

The script is set all the same location – a large house in the countryside. With a few exterior exceptions, all the scenes take place in that same house. It was quite an ordeal trying to secure a location that fit the bill and the budget, but the awesome producer-slash-production manager-slash-location manager Ronnie Gallon (@TheOriginalGW) managed to find the perfect place. It was great finding a location that fit because it meant we didn’t have to jump around London all the time, or even travel outside London which would of meant putting the crew up (too expensive!). The only problem with it was that the kitchen ceiling was a bit low. I couldn’t stand up straight!

Paul was a first time director, but he had an exact vision for the film. I don’t want to give too much away about the plot. It’s a coming of age story with a very European feel to it. Paul showed me some excellent French and Spanish films that he wanted to emulate. The lighting was very low key, high contrast. I decided to go for a contra-jour style of lighting where possible and natural. I come from a naturalistic sensibility. I like to have motivated light sources and I like to keep it simple. When lighting a scene, I try and get it as dark as I can and then ‘paint’ from the back.

When we finally got around to shooting, it went pretty smoothly. In fact thinking back I can’t think of any major thing that that went wrong. The Epic performed flawlessly. In fact I think I only had to reboot it due to a problem three times. In each case a reboot solved the problem. We lost no footage – it was all transferred over perfectly. There are a few things I’ve learnt over the course of the shoot that I’d like to share.

Shooting a feature is different to shooting a promo/commercial

Sounds pretty obvious right? Maybe it is, but I didn’t realise how different it was until I actually did it. It’s not in the actual lighting, framing and shooting of the content. It’s the need to do all that stuff over and over again without letting the standard drop in any scene, any shot, any moment. It’s all gotta be awesome and it’s tough! Jury’s out on whether I succeeded or not. I hope I did – I think I did. I guess time will tell.

The Bomb EVF is the Bomb!

When I first got the Epic, there was only the 5″ LCD screen available. I got into the habit of using it all the time. By the time the BOMB EVF (electronic viewfinder) came along, I was far too set in my ways to give it a try. I had it knocking around for nearly half a year now, but hadn’t given it a proper workout. I started the production using the LCD screen, but I’d brought the Bomb along with the intention of trying it out properly for a few days. Well, after the first few days I swapped over. It’s absolutely awesome! I’d completely forgotten the feeling of being attached to a camera like that. The last time I’d used a viewfinder properly was in film school using an Arri SR2 for my graduation film. I’ve used the Z-Finder for DSLRs before but it’s not quite the same effect as the Bomb – or any EVF. It really put me into the frame and I felt much more connected to what I was shooting. It really is absolutely awesome.

For Drama, I want an operator

Due to budget and crew size, we couldn’t afford to bring an operator on board. I’m a big advocate of using an operator. I know many cinematographers who don’t like it. I can’t understand why. For things like music videos, promos or truly visual piece – no problem – I want to operate on those myself because it’s all about the image. But when it comes to drama I want to be concentrating on the way the actors are interacting with the lighting and the set, rather than looking out for focus and framing and exposure and all the other things an operator has to do. I’m more than capable of explaining to someone the shot I want. I have no problem letting someone else to have their hand on the pan handle. I want to watch the performance – that’s what I’m there to capture and enhance. More than once during the shoot I got caught watching the performance and missed a pan or a tilt. It was annoying – what I really wanted to be doing was watching, not operating.

If you need to cough, just cough

A week into the shoot, just about everyone came down with a cough or flu. Luckily (or maybe not) mine hit me on the Sunday, the day off. I spent the whole day in bed sleeping and by Monday I felt a load better and by Tuesday I was basically fine. Except for a scratchy, ticklely cough was I couldn’t shake. This lead to numerous times during a take that I needed to cough. I quickly realised that a little quick cough was much better than trying to hold it in and having a massive, wracking coughing fit one minute later. After the first few times, production made sure I had a cup of hot water on hand. But seriously, if you need to cough, cough.

It was a fantastic shoot; one I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I feel very lucky and very privileged to have shot a feature film at the age of 25. I owe a debt to many people who have helped me get this far. I’m looking forward to my next one!

I’m going to try a do a scene breakdown of my favourite scene at some point in August – that’s if I’m allowed to post stills from the actual production. I’ll walk through the lighting setup(s) and the shots and talk about how I constructed the scene and why.