Final major projects are done!

A couple of days ago I finally handed in my final major projects. it was a massive push right up to the last few minutes of the hand in window and I don't mind saying, a stressful experience.

I have been very fortunate to have worked with some very gifted people on the two projects I have been involved with for this module. looking back over the last 5 weeks I think we have done incredibly well and produced to very different but engaging documentaries.

As a director on this course you have to be a bit of a 'jack of all trades'  filling the gaps on shoots and within the edit because you work in small teams and as the director the ultimate responsibility to bring the documentary home relies on you. For the BMX documentary "Living the dream" I was the director, sound engineer and dubbing mixer and found it hard to juggle all the roles and find time to do dissertation and production paperwork. Its a learning curve though and overall I am very happy with the outcome and look forward to hearing the feedback from the contributors.

All thats left is to write my dissertation then my Masters is over, its amazing to think that in a few weeks time I will be handing in my dissertation and thats it! It only seems like yesterday that we were all working in small groups producing little one minute films week by week - how time flies........

My First Camera Role

The unthinkable truth, a documentary about the APFU was my first camera role since embarking on my Masters back in October. I have quite a bit of experience of filming but I wanted this piece of work to really stand out and emulate television as much as possible, to give me something great to show potential employers and add to my showreel.

I used two cameras for this shoot, the Panasonic P2 and the Canon 1D Mk1V, the combination of these cameras allowed me to film the different shots I needed and be able to include timelapse as well.

I had a lot of experience of using these two cameras from a three month expedition to Borneo where I documented the expedition through film and photography. From this I knew that the footage from both cameras can be matched. With a little colour work the Panasonic P2 footage can look as nice as the Canon 1D Mk1V.

In the edit I was really pleased to see the documentary come together, on this project I was really fortunate to work with a very gifted Director and Editor and I think it shows in the final piece how well we worked together. One thing that I did suffer from was a dust spot on the sensor of the Canon camera. on the screen shots, above, you can see it just above the contributors head.
This is one of the many pitfalls of shooting on a digital SLR camera, having to change lenses frequently exposes you to dust getting into the body of the camera and causing these types of issues.

In a future blog I will be writing a feature on problems with DSLR shooting so take a look if you are a keen DSLR user!

Crit Screening

Crit screening time came around quickly but it was great to see all the projects in their various states.
The BMX documentary that Im directing wasn't quite complete, it was at a very good stage but still required an opening sequence and credits. The UFO Documentary was a finished piece and both were received very well with only minor and specific comments from the course leaders.

We can take those comments and implement them in the coming days before the final hand in. I think the team are positive that we have worked hard, the editor, directors and camera operators have all stayed available in the edit to make sure these projects stay on time and have the the necessary support to help the editor bring two large projects together.

Keep your eye out on here for the links to watch these documentaries through my vimeo page!

Doc two filmed, we are ready for the edit....

Another crazy drive around the country has ended and the second of the two documentaries I'm working on has finished filming. We drove to manchester to film the olympic development programmes BMX riders which was an amazing experience and they were all great on camera and very good in the interviews. There coach Marcus Bloomfield was very kind and allowed us access for two days which gave us ample opportunities to film their training and gain some great cutaways and actuality. As the Director I'm really thankful to British Cycling for allowing us to film and visit there amazing facility so close to the Olympics.
After two days in Manchester we travelled down to London for the next leg of the filming, we visited the Peckham BMX club which has development and trained two of England's brightest talents, Quillan Isidore and Tre Whyte. and then travelled to Mitcham and Sheen to film with a very talented young rider called Flo who had her first World Championships experience this year in the 12-14 category.
Finally on sunday we filmed with Rob Reed who was one of our earliest contributors and very instrumental in helping me to develop this story, we filmed him training at his local track, Hayes Hawks, and then filmed a master interview. before driving back to Cornwall!

 Filming with Quillan and CK Flash at Peckham

Michaela Rose filming Flo at their home in London

 This documentary has been a Fantastic experience, we have filmed at the biggest event on the BMX calendar, filmed with the coach and riders of the Olympic development team, meet and worked with CK flash the coach of Quillan Isidore the world number one rider in his class and young talent such as Flo. Throughout the filming we have meet a great many people and I have become completely hooked by BMX riding and I look forward to cheering on our Olympic riders Shanaze Reade and Liam Phillips 
in the up coming weeks at the 2012 Olympic Games here in London.

1000 miles and were home, Doc one done!

At 4am yesterday we finally made it back to Falmouth after filming for the last four days for the documentary - The Unthinkable Truth 

It has been a great experience, working with the contributors and travelling around the Shropshire/Welsh boarders on the hunt for UFO's. 

I have filmed in a variety of locations including a night-shoot in the welsh valleys and again picked up great experience in filming for the television industry. It has been difficult at times because ninety percent of the filming has been on location and the weather has, for once, been incredibly sunny. This made it difficult to film because of harsh shadows, ever changing light conditions and changes in colour temperature throughout the shoots and to make things worse we didn't have a light because the store don't have any portable camera lights, to overcome some of the problems I took a reflector which was an essential and I could not have filmed without it.

I used a mixture of Canon 1D and Panasonic P2 cameras to film this piece. to help the narrative along I filmed a couple of time-lapse's to use in the edit to give the sense of moving through time and to take us from day through to night as well. Because of mixing two camera types I will have to work with the editor and colour grade the footage to help the two combine well and for it not to be too noticeable.

This documentary has been a fun project and I have enjoyed working on it, the main contributor was fantastic to work with and I'm sure we will work again with him in the future.

Day of rest today after a 20 hour working day yesterday and then its straight back into it with the BMX Doc - Hoodies to Heroes early next week.......

Filming on DSLR

Anybody that has tried their hand at filming with a digital SLR camera will know there limitations. One of the biggest challenges is the LCD screen on the back of the camera. they are small, poorly placed and impossible to see in bright sunlight. 

The answer to this problem is to use a LCD viewfinder, or loupe as they are sometimes called, but with so many available and prices ranging from £20 to £299 its hard to know which one to buy.

I have used the Zacuto Z-finder PRO for a while now on my Canon 1D and it is an excellent piece of kit but its £279 price tag is a lot when starting out and trying to purchase lenses, rigs and various other pieces of kit. Also when used on a Canon 1D you don't get the use of the fantastic machined bracket as found on the 5D. 

I previously purchased a cheap alternative (£20) which used an elastic strap to hold it in place. This was  useable but only just, the viewfinder optics were poor and the stability that is offered from having a eyepiece is lost because the strength and structure of the viewfinder is limited. Add to this the elastic straps getting in the way of buttons and the poor optics means for me it isn't really a viable option.

I decided to research a little more and try and find a happy middle ground and after some internet trawling I found an interesting option with a more acceptable price tag - The seagull LCD Viewfinder 

At £79.99 or thereabouts, it a serious contender. I ordered one and was very surprised with its optics, quality and fitment. It comes complete with a stick on mount for your LCD screen and a carry bag to keep it safe when not in use. It is modelled very closely to the Zacuto - in fact the images on the box it comes in are of a a 5D with a Zacuto viewfinder and it fits perfectly onto the Zacuto mount as well!

Having it all set up I tested it at the UCI World Championships and I can really find no fault with it. The lens of the viewfinder does fog up in hot conditions but thats the same as most but all in all for the price I think it is hard to beat!

BMX World Championships

We have just returned from, what was, one of the most intense filming schedules I have done to date. We were filming for the 2012 BMX World Championships at the Birmingham NIA. It had taken many weeks of emailing and phone calls to gain access to this event but it was worth it in the end.

The track on the first day 

It was very hard to co-ordinate the three of us because we all had to film to give us full track coverage and the information from the organisers was less than adequate but after a few hours on the first day we all settled into a good routine and the following days were far more successful.

Michaela and Tim in the press meeting!

Due to the documentary still being in the development stages I decided to have coverage of all the GB BMX riders so this has resulted in a large amount of footage at this point. Across the four days we shot nearly 200Gb from two panasonic P2's and three Digital SLR's (1x Canon 5D and 2x Canon 1D's). This is an excessive amount of footage for a ten minute documentary but a large proportion wont make it into the edit once we have fully established who we have as contributors on the doc.
The Director, producer and D.O.P all shot this weekend and enjoyed practising our skills of following the action and trying to capture riders as they whizz past at speeds of 35 mph. it was a tough weekend but also a very rewarding experience and I hope that the end result we be able to get across some of the action, drama and excitement of the events.

As the director on this documentary, it has always been a hard idea to get into a script for a ten minute piece, the fear is with an extreme sports subject that you end up making a promotional film and not a televisual programme. With that in mind I'am glad that I have a strong team which worked so well on the previous documentary.

Dissertation Approaches

Module 150 is not only research it is also the start of preparation for my dissertation. The dissertation is closely linked to your working practise within the final major projects which at first I was very unhappy with as I felt this was just a critical review.
I wanted to focus my dissertation on natural history programming, specifically the dumbing down of narration and content over the last decade. This isn't possible because of the link to your current working practises on the final major projects and the course doesn't cater for natural history within its briefs.

Filming in Borneo with Dale (DSLR)

With this in mind I developed new ideas with my dissertation tutor and have slowly etched out a plan to still be able to use the dissertation to speak to industry professionals within natural history filmmaking.
My dissertation is focusing on new technology within the industry, specifically the introduction of digital SLR cameras that shot high definition footage. Are they a fad or a serious contender for the next generation of cameraman?

This has allowed me to draw on my background of filming with my own digital SLR and to approach directors, cameramen and production houses to help me research my dissertation.
Overall Iam much more positive about this dissertation and looking forward to contacting professionals in the coming weeks.

Pitching Day

Today was the final pitch session to see what documentary and drama ideas were going to get green-lit.
I was actively involved in four ideas so pretty confident that at least two of those would get the go ahead.
The ideas were
Hoodies to Heroes  - A documentary about BMX riding and its inclusion in the Olympics
Britains Bionic Man - The story of David Follett who was paralysed in a car accident
Mutilations, The Unthinkable Truth - A Documentary about the APFU and the investigation work they              
do surrounding animal mutilations.
On the Cusp of Madness - A documentary charting the rise to fame of Ryan Keen with madness drummer 'Woody"

All the pitches were really good and most had a strong story and interesting subject matter but there were going to be some that wouldn't get made because we don't have the resources and time to make them all.

In the end Hoodies to Heroes and Mutilations, The Unthinkable Truth got the green light so I will be directing one and cameraman on another which Im very happy about.

Look out for more updates in the coming weeks about how we progress!

We are in

Today I had an email form Tobias Fredrich at the UCI Union Cycliste Internationale giving us filming rights for two cameras at the BMX world championships!
This is a massive step forward for the documentary because it gives us the access to the biggest competition in the BMX calendar.

http://www.bmxworldchamps.co.uk/

BMX Doc

The BMX Documentary is proving to be a very challenge piece to bring together.
We have a great initial contributor, Robert Reed, who has given us a massive list of ideas and contributors but the story is to broad for a 10 minute piece.
The list of contacts is from all areas of cycling so firstly we have focused on just BMX riding and then developed the story from there. At the moment we are trying to get the top athletes in this sport to contribute as this will give a great element to the story.

Rob Reed ©timhuntphotography

So far we are looking to make the story about how much BMX riding has changed from its early grass routes in the wastelands of inner cities right through to its inclusion in the Olympics.
As director on this piece I am trying to get us access to the UCI World Championships at the end of May in Birmingham. This is the top competition for BMX riders and showcases the talent from all over the world, over 200 riders will compete for four days for the ultimate prize to be the world number one!

We are also contacting young riders as well to showcase the up and coming future of the sport and look at who the next generation of Olympic and world champions might be.

I will update soon on how we get on and the contributors we have.

http://www.bmxworldchamps.co.uk/

Another Idea comes together

I have lots of ideas for television programmes but many of them don't always fit the specific briefs of our modules at uni. For module 150/160 I had two ideas that did fit the briefs and I'm very pleased that today my contributor agreed to be part of my documentary idea.

The brief is BBC3 Extraordinary Me and David is definitely that. He is one of only three people in the country who is testing the EKSO an exoskeleton suit. As well as that he is a world class badminton player and a torch bearer for the Olympics.
He story is very inspirational and his determination and spirit is a credit to him.

I look forward to pitching this idea and hopefully seeing it made in the coming weeks

For david story see the daily mail article written earlier this year.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2132059/Britains-bionic-man-Robot-suit-allows-Olympic-torch-bearer-22-walk-again.html

The search for the unexplained!

Unit 150 is the development stage of the final major projects of my Masters in Television Production.
Im directing a project about BMX riding and its inclusion within the Olympics but we have to do two roles so I'm developing other ideas that I have an interest in.

UFO Hunters surrounds the mystery of animal mutilations throughout the U.K. It focuses on a group called the APFU who research the mystery and try to work out what or who is doing this to animals, some farm cattle others wild, all over the country. I have been in contact with one of their founding members who has been very helpful and informative.

The more I have researched this subject the more fascinating it becomes and I think it fits the Channel 4 brief for First Cut series very well.
The Producer from the strip Doc has also been very involved in developing this idea, so much so that she has decided that she wants to have her directorial debut! Im going to do the role of cameraman and i'm very much looking forward to the challenge of filming this documentary if it is greenlit in the coming weeks.

For more information check out the link below

http://www.apfu.org/

Dub Pistols....

In recent weeks I have been filming live music with a small crew from my course at University. We covered some great acoustic sessions with Ruarri Joseph's and Ryan keen at Gylly cafe as part of their CafeLive sessions but I was very happy when we heard we had the gig at the Princess Pavilions covering the Dub Pistols.

It was an amazing gig and we were granted fantastic access by Barry Ashworth and the rest of the band. We filmed on stage and had the opportunity to get some truly great footage.

To get this sort of footage you defiantly need the right equipment so we used a Canon 5D Mk11 and Canon 1D mk1V. these DSLR's really come into there own in this environment.
shot at ISO 3200 and 1/50th of a second at around F4 the image quality is fantastic but follow focus for two hours is stressful!

Unit 150 Begins

After the Easter break we are back and starting the research stage of our final major projects.

Briefs are for a 10 minute documentary following the formats of BBC Three's Extraordinary Me or Channel 4 First Cut.


We are only at the ideas stage at the moment but I'm developing an Idea with the team from the Strip Doc about cycling and BMX riding and its inclusion within the Olympics. The cameraman has a great contact Robert Reed who has links to UCI BMX World Championships, events such as Rollapaluza and many many more.
We are looking to focus on the grass routes story of BMX riding and how it has been transported to a new level by it inclusion in the Olympics.

We are also hoping to use the other contacts within competition bike events to make a promotional film for his work with schools and for his sponsors.


Currently I am contacting the Great British cycling team and event coordinators at the UCI to gain access to film at the upcoming World Championship so watch this space!

And we're done! Module 140 is over.....

Today was the hand in of module 140, well at least the DVD's anyway.

This Module has been very challenging and I have learned a great deal and I'm happy, mostly, with the outcomes. I have personally learned a new skill with directing one of the pieces and had a chance to work with some truly gifted people on the stripping documentary.

Stripping for a Living has faced problems with unreliable contributors and long days driving all over the country were great learning curves for us all and will put us in good steed for working in the Industry later this year.....
All that is left to say really is a big thank you to my Producer, Cameraman and Editor. It was a really rewarding experience. All of your dedication, drive and enthusiasm was brilliant and I am grateful for such a good team.

Beer, Brewing and the Britz gave me the chance to increase my sound skills and I'm happy with the outcome of that. Its a shame it got so far behind in the later weeks as I think the concept and original idea was a good one. Ultimately the Director/Producer struggled with the role, but thats why we are here studying the Masters.
The production sound was good and my choices of equipment (rifle Mic, boom pole and zoom recorder) proved to be the right choice and I understand fully why they are industry standard.
Post-production sound was unfortunately non existent due to the doc running way behind schedule. In fact the sound and camera operator were actually the ones editing the basic structure of the documentary.
Music choices were made by the director and editor to save time as they were unable to edit it. In the end it was a four man job to pull it, kicking and screaming, back on time and make it possible for the Director to hand it in on the Friday.
That said I have learned a lot about sound on this project, just would have liked to get a chance to use Protools to tidy it up a bit and set the levels But its all a learning curve!



Next stop final major project.......

Crit screening time again

Today was the crit screening for the two projects I'm part of

Stripping for a living looked great on the big screen and I was proud to show it as a finished article after all the let downs and frustrations of un-realiable contributors. Feedback was mostly good with a few comments about more background from the contributors which was inevitable. Given more time on this project I would have liked to have got more from the dancers. Filmed them outside of the club but this just hasn't been possible with the time constraints, not to mention problems of gaining access into clubs in the first place.

Beer, Brewing and Britz  This was a different story all together, there was only 40 seconds cut so the audience didn't really have a chance to gauge the project very well. Again the comments were positive but I'm shocked that it is so behind considering most of the footage has been hanging around on hardrives for the past three weeks.
Some of the questions seemed to throw the director as well which wasn't very comforting as we still don't have a working script and we are firmly into the edit time!

I think the coming week is going to be a hard on the editor and I'm currently wondering how she is going to edit a drama and a documentary in four days.......

Last bit of filming in the bag.....

So last night we finished the filming for Young and Pissed....


We all meet on the streets of Falmouth at around (.30pm and found, as you would expect, that they were deserted but at least the camera operator and myself had the chance to chat about shots and decide on good locations to set up the camera.

At around 11.30 the night was in full swing and we gained some good footage with a few fancy dressed  people and the obligatory drunk guy running at the camera and shouting.
I interviewed four people on camera to see what they had been drinking and ask weather they used supermarket deals to drink before they came out.
Again I was surprised by the lack of direction and I'm worried that there is no cohesion in what we are shooting for this documentary.

On the plus side we did get to interview a policeman in his car. Again we used the recce questions I wrote 5 weeks before and we didn't get a challenging interview as the questions weren't tailored to the situation. It was made harder by being left with the camera operator to do the interview! This meant that i was asking questions whilst sitting in the back of the police car so the policeman was struggling to look towards the camera as he responded to my questions.
Still this project is all filmed and its time to get these last few pieces of filming added so the editor can finish making the documentary......

We finally made a documentary!

After delays, unreliable contributors and a club owner who went on holiday, we have finally just finished a gruelling two days filming in a Lap dancing club in Bristol.
We had just two evenings to get everything we needed and within that time we had only one and a half hours each night were we had freedom to film when and where we wanted. Its was a very intense way to film and credit goes out to the producer and cameraman for working so well in these difficult conditions.
Last night we got back at 3am in the morning and we are in university at 9am to pitch to Twofour Digital so it never stops at the moment.

Looking forward to seeing all the footage in AVID and starting to work with the editor to turn all the great shots into a documentary.....

Protools

I have been working with Protools this week in preparation for the sound edit on Young and Pissed. For this documentary I' m the sound engineer so once an edit is done I will have the exported sound track from AVID to work on in Protools.
For the swimming documentary, Fighting Chance, I had a brief chance to work on the sound but I feel I need to keep working with this software to be competent in using it, not to mention trying to remember where all the buttons are!

The swim Doc uploaded into Protools ready to be worked on

I reworked the old documentary because neither of the current documentaries have a timeline edited yet so it makes sense to work with what I have instead of waiting to the last minute.

On the sound there were issues with background noise, especially with the interview of Len in the swimming pool. I used the 7band equaliser to search out the frequency of the noise and remove it as much as possible. When using this technique it is remarkable how much you can take out but you need to take a lot of consideration into the person voice. It is very easy to change the sound of it it when you remove the unwanted noises.

London filming abandoned!

So I write this blog entry after a gruelling 7 hour drive back from london.

We should have been spending the day with our contributor, filming her life outside of the lap dancing club and then following her before she went to work.
Instead we awoke to find a text message from Gigi from 11pm saying she had been rushed to hospital with pains in her breast implants!

We have had a great deal of problems with contributors on this project but its all good industry experience and we have rallied around again and phone bashed all the clubs to try and gain some more contributors.....
In the mean time we wish Gigi a speedy recovery and hope that we can get filming in the coming days.

A welcome little break from the course

Its sunday morning and I'm thinking I need to watch some Wallace and Gromit with a cup of tea! Why? Well because Michaela and myself have just returned from a trip to Bristol where we were lucky enough to see Andy's Wild Adventures (CBeebies) being filmed in a giant green screen studio and a trip to Aardman to their offices and studio's.

Andy's Wild Adventures was a fantastic opportunity to see green screen in action, look at lighting set ups and just to be able to watch a production in full swing.

We had good chance to speak to all the team and see how each of the individual roles were working together. The cameraman and lighting engineer even swapped roles for a bit to set a shot up!
The shoot was centred around Marine Iguana's and, like all the series, uses BBC natural history footage and then overlays Andy with clever use of green screen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cbn46/Andys_Wild_Adventures_Elephants/


On Saturday Morning we were able to visit Aardman and have a look around the studio's and offices. it was incredible and I must admit that I got just a little bit excited to see a small studio set up with Morph in it! We were also very lucky to see the model of the Pirate ship from the new feature length movie
The Pirates! - In An Adventure With Scientists. It was an incredible model standing around 8 feet tall and the attention to detail was mind blowing.

The studio's gave us a massive insight into the work load that goes into producing these programmes, the lighting is immense with around 12 lights on a small 6 feet set.
The models and scenes are so detailed and everything looks so real in its miniature form. We were told about one scene that will be used in the upcoming pirates film that is 10 minutes long and took one lady two years to film in the studio. The average time from conception through filming and into edit is around four years!

For more information on Aardman please see the link below and check out the trailer for the new movie

Aardmans Website
http://www.aardman.com/

Trailer
http://www.aardman.com/features/upcoming-features/the-pirates-in-an-adventure-with-scientists/

The pressure is on

Its the first day of the month today and the pressure of this module is starting to be felt by myself.
We had a tight schedule of filming in Bristol planned for three days earlier this week but contributors have let us down. Sending my producer an email from Greece to say she wouldn't be around to film until Friday!

As I write this blog update I'm staring at my phone, willing it to ring with news from another club that we can film this weekend to try and make up for the lost time. We only have one more full week to film and its getting increasingly tight.....

Still we was warned that strippers can be notoriously unreliable

A slight re-shuffle......

After a couple of weeks from the initial project pitch and selection process cracks started to appear as the size of projects became apparent.

Due to a drama having a casting problem and Kernow curfew being deemed out of date we have some changes.
Kernow curfew is now a project looking at single parent dads and I have given my role as cameraman away because I had three roles which was a great deal of work and the cancellation of the drama left four people looking for roles.

This has worked out for the best,  I can now concentrate on my director role on stripping for the kids which is proving to be very challenging and time consuming.

Young and Pissed gains another contributor

Today I had a message from another friend of mine who is a student and works in a bar in Falmouth and he agreed to do an interview for our Documentary. Kevin is perfect for the documentary as he falls into the age demographic for binge drinking culture, he is a student and he has a unique story to tell.

In his first year at university he was, like many, out drinking as part of the uni experience but started to drink more and more until his body had enough and he had a seizure! This was a traumatic time for him and he has been left with permanent health problems which don't allow him to drink anymore.
I was really glad he agreed to be part of the doc as I think he is a very strong contributor and has a compelling story to tell. I arranged some possible filming dates and passed all the information on the director.

This is shaping up to be a really good Documentary with some strong contributors, I look forward to filming this interview later this week!

The Docs Are Under Way....

Today we filmed the first interview for the Young and Pissed  Doc that Im working on.
I have arranged an interview with a good friend of mine who works in Hand Bar in Falmouth. The director has two projects to direct so is up against it to keep both organised and on schedule so I have decided to help out as much as possible and take up some of the slack.
Due to a studio project running throughout friday, the director was going to be tied up so I have prepared some questions and the camera operator and myself have shoot this piece on our own.

The interview went well and I was pleased with the sound, I chose to use a lapel Mic and record sound straight onto the Panasonic P2 camera. This allowed for minimal equipment on shoot as there was a skeleton crew. we shot outside the bar in the courtyard and the sound is enhanced by the slight atmos of the cafe and bar in the background.

We also gained a chance to meet the bar owner, Pete, who was very intrigued by the project and has agreed to be part of it. He had some very interesting points and spoke, at length, about supermarkets and the role they have which is a very interesting angle.

Pitching time again!

This week we started Unit 140, two productions to make this semester so its all go!
On the back of good feedback from the last module it was all to play for as we had either dramas or documentaries to make...

My aim was to gain some more camera experience and hopefully direct a piece. the competition for camera roles was high again but as luck would have it, I have been able to work on documentaries and get a sound, camera and director role! Although these roles are not going to be easy.
The first documentary is 'young and pissed'.
     Yep you guessed it, sounds of people being loud and obnoxious and of course SICK! Guess what my role is? Sound, so this will be challenging capturing the atmos of evenings out whilst being able to react to people around us.

Keep an eye out for following posts about sound recording techniques and images of set ups!

My camera role is on Kernow Curfew which was an idea I pitched, this will have great challenges with low light shooting and young contributors.
I will research the role and experiment with different cameras to see which copes best in low light and learn techniques of on camera lighting.

My last role is Director, this is the one I'm most excited about, the documentary is about stripping in the U.K! This will be the most challenging Doc yet and will take all the skills from the director and producer to make it happen and find the contributors.

Watch this space.....

First Screening!

This week has been a big push with the edit of the swimming Documentary 'Fighting Chance'
The entire team have been working to get the story right, concise and ultimately within three minutes!

Thursday afternoon was the first screening with guest lecture Jeremy Gibson present to give us some of his vast experience and feedback.
The film was received well and the few suggestions made were very useful and will be work on early next week before hand in.

It was great to finally see it on the big screen and to have the chance to appraise it as a final piece. When you edit something it is easy to focus on the points your working on and you need to take a step back. After the last two days working on colour grading and sound in Pro Tools It was nice to stand back and view the hard work in the context of the final edit.

For more information on Jeremy Gibson please look at his production company - sevenstones media
http://www.sevenstonesmedia.com/index.htm