Here’s a look at how I created one of the FX shots in the Wasteland trailer. Tom, the director, wanted to see the central character, Scott (Shameer Seepersand), walking along a deserted dual carriageway to show his isolation in the post-apocalyptic world.
We started by shooting the A50 from a bridge (image 1). Traffic was light, but we were never able to get a clean, car-less shot. (While filming we were interrupted by a couple of blokes from the Highways Agency who wanted to cover their arses in case of accident, so gave us a safety briefing: “Be careful when you cross the road, lads.”)
The next day we drove around looking for a footpath or cycle path with similar tarmac to the A50 which could be shot from a bridge to get the same elevated viewpoint. Having located one, we filmed Sham walking (2).
Shrinking Sham down and feathering the edges of his element into the shot was the work of moments (3), but the illusion wasn’t complete until this element had been colour-corrected to match up the tarmacs.
Next the cars had to be erased, which I achieved partly by overlaying cropped sections from later in the footage (when the cars had moved on, leaving a space behind) and partly by exporting a frame to Photoshop and using the clone tool. The former technique is preferable because using a motion element retains the movement of picture noise; the lack of this movement can be an FX giveaway. Therefore I kept the Photoshopped sections small – just way in the distance where the cars were tiny.
At this point (4) the shot is essentially complete, but I added some extra touches in the form of smoke elements from an FX library, a faint one in the distance (top left) and one on the van which I had left frozen in the picture as if it had been abandoned. I also duplicated the van’s smoke and distorted it to create a shadow for that smoke (5).
Here’s the first in what I hope will be a series of podcasts covering the making of my new short film Stop/Eject. This one features producer Tom Wadlow discussing how the project originated, and provides a glimpse of the first pre-production meeting.
Shooting director Patrick Coyle in his role as Buck
You learn something with every job you do. On last weekend’s intensive shoot for Field Trip, I learnt a hell of a lot. Aside from one day filming the Wasteland trailer and a morning filming a corporate, it was my first use of my new Canon 600D and Pro Aim shoulder rig. Four days, up to seventeen hours each day, and every shot handheld: I could not have asked for a tougher crash course in HD-DSLR cinematography.
Between takes
The director wanted a documentary style: lots of ad-libbed camera movements including crash zooms. It quickly became apparent that SLRs are not the right format for such a style, prone as they are to the rolling shutter “jelly” effect, and given that the lenses we were using noticeably adjusted the exposure – even in manual mode – whenever we zoomed. So that was the first lesson: choose your camera to fit your movie, and don’t just follow the crowd.
Aside from that, perhaps the key thing I realised is that I’ve bought into a system, a system which I can adapt to my needs and finances. This is true of both the rig and the camera. In the case of the former, I left off the follow focus and frequently the matte box and sunshades too, since these slowed down lens changes and made it harder for me to pull focus on the fly.
My lenses
With the latter, lenses were the big revelation. To keep costs down, I didn’t purchase any lenses with my camera. I already owned Canon’s basic 18-55mm and 55-250mm zooms, and an adaptor would allow me to use my old 28, 50 and 70-210mm Minolta lenses too. None of these are particularly great, and crucially none of them are very fast. When I borrowed some f1.4 andf f1.8 primes from a helpful runner, I was blown away by the tiny depth-of-field. Conclusion: I’m wasting my camera’s potential with my current set of lenses, and I must get hold of some nice fast ones pronto.
Other things learnt or reinforced on Field Trip include: always make very sure the data has all been transferred before you wipe a card; you get what you pay for (one of my cheap third party batteries packed up); and I need some nice ND filters.
As ever, you’ll be the first to know when I get the new kit and how it stacks up. Thanks to James Byrne for the Field Trip photos.
When you’re lighting without a budget, sometimes you have to press some very random objects into service. Yesterday I used a towel, a t-shirt and a hot tub cover to light a scene.
LED light in action
I was working on Patrick Coyle’s hilarious comedy feature Field Trip, which he was bravely attempting to shoot in just four days. (Sadly he didn’t succeed in that timeframe and another couple of days will be needed.) The style was documentary-esque, a la The Office, with everything to be shot using available light. But occasionally we were forced to add more light in order to expose an image; such was the case when shooting around a hot tub in a garden at night. Of course the light had to be soft and flat to match with other scenes that weren’t artificially lit.
The slate
The problem was that we only had one redhead. No reflectors, no flags, no polecats, no c-stands, not even any gels or diffuser. I noticed that the cover for the hot tub was cream on the underside, and could see its potential for bouncing light, but couldn’t see a way of rigging it up. After much head-scratching, at the suggestion of lead actor Tony Streeter we propped up the cover against one corner of the hot tub’s shelter and I aimed the redhead at it, throwing a large amount of soft light back towards the tub.
Hot tub cover = bounce board
Then we needed to flag off some of this light to prevent it from blowing out one side of a character’s face when she was standing at the entrance. Being a hoopy kind of frood, the hot tub’s owner knew where his towel was, and had lent it to us along with an old t-shirt when we were experimenting earlier with makeshift diffusers. I now realised both these unlikely fabrics could be used as flags. With an LED camping light gaffered to the ceiling to add an extra spot of brightness, some Christmas lights for a bit of sparkle and some fast lenses on the cameras, the set-up was complete.
I’d advise any filmmaker to take as much kit as they possibly can wherever they go, but if you can’t, be prepared to use anything that comes to hand in the service of cinema.
Director Patrick Coyle and... don't ask
More from the Field Trip shoot next time, when I’ll talk about what I learnt from four intense days of working with my new Canon 600D HDSLR and the Pro Aim shoulder rig.
The backlight above the set (photo: Chrissa Maund)
Yesterday I DPed the trailer for Light Films‘ upcoming zombie feature, Wasteland, and I thought I’d share some of the lighting process with you. The main scene featured actor Shameer Seepersand in a boarded-up old house he’s hiding out in; this was a nice little two-sided set designed by Sophie Black and built in director Tom Wadlow’s garage. The script and direction called for minimal daylight to be seeping through gaps in the window boards and the main light sources to be candles dotted around the set.
Candlelit scenes are tricky because, as with any practical light source, the Director of Photography needs to set up movie lamps to enhance the light shed by them without these movie lamps getting into frame, while ensuring that the pool of light and any shadows cast by it look as if they’re coming from the practical source. The available lighting equipment was very minimal: just three redheads, a reflector and bunch of clip-on domestic light fittings.
Most of the candles were behind Sham, so I started by having my gaffer Col rig one of the redheads to the rafters in the rear corner, to serve as backlight. A layer of full CTO (orange colour correcting gel) and one of spun (diffuser) helped to dim and soften the light and create a candle-like colour. Of course the angle was a massive cheat, coming from above rather than low down, but there was no other way to keep it out of shot.
A domestic light fitting hidden behind a candle
Next I needed to create pools of light around the candles. If I’d had a Dedo kit (small spotlights) I would have been tempted to position them near camera and focus each one’s little circle of light on a candle or group of candles. But I didn’t, so instead I used the domestic light fittings with 100W bulbs and hid them behind the set dressing. These shed pools of light on the walls behind the candles, though of course not on the surfaces on which the candles were stood. Fortunately the scene contained no camera angles high enough for this giveaway to be noticeable. The set and dressing immediately surrounding the bulbs were coated with fire retardant paint for safety.
Col wiggles the reflector cover
Finally I wanted to add some dynamics to create the impression of the candelight flickering. At first we tried bouncing a second orange-gelled redhead off a reflector which Col would wobble during the takes. A better solution occurred to me when I remembered that the reflector had a zip-off fabric cover that was golden on one side. We took the orange gel off the lamp and got rid of the reflector itself, instead bouncing the light off the golden cover as Col rippled it.
The third redhead was placed behind the window as “daylight”, and with a generous helping of smoke the effect was complete.
The trailer will be available to view online soon (when I get around to editing it) and there’s also some info coming on Stop/Eject, the short I’m developing for the same company, which had its first pre-production meeting on Sunday.
The final lighting as seen in the master shot (copyright 2011 Light Films)
Sorry, I know I promised this several posts back, but here at last is my review of the Proaim shoulder rig I recently purchased for my Canon 600D. It’s available in several different configurations, but I went for “Kit 3 + cage” which cost a little under £700 all told.
The Proaim shoulder rig with top handle
The main reason I wanted it was to address one of DSLRs’ key flaws for video work: the handling. They’re small – meaning shaky shots – and not designed for using in the kind of positions a moving image camera operator needs. By bracing the camera against your body, a shoulder rig steadies the shot. Of course it will never eliminate the movement of the human body completely, but rather than a shake it will give you more of a sway which viewers will subconciously recognise from handheld TV and film and associate with big, expensive cameras (which all sit on your shoulder, of course).
One of the two 4x4" filter trays partially raised out
But with Proaim’s “Kit 3 + cage” you get more than just a shoulder mount. You get a complete rail system which you can reconfigure to your heart’s content, a matte box, follow focus and a top handle. While researching the system online, I found many people complaining about the build quality – many of whom had never used one, it must be said. Obviously it’s not as robust as its more expensive counterparts, but it all seems solid enough to me. It takes a bit of getting used to, as many of the parts bump into each other if you try to configure them in certain ways, but this is a small price to pay for the flexibility of the rig overall.
Let’s look at the rig in more detail from front to back. The matte box contains two filter trays which can be rotated (but not separately, unfortunately) and is equipped with side and top flags. The trays take standard 4×4″ filters, which are pricey, so I currently have a cheap Cokin-compatible graduated ND sellotaped into one of my trays!
The follow focus
The follow focus is perhaps the most useful part of the set-up. Various different gears are provided which slip onto your lenses’ focus rings and mesh with the gears in the follow focus unit itself. When you turn (or, more to the point, your focus puller turns) the knob on the side, it therefore drives the focus ring – or indeed the zoom ring, if you wish to configure it that way. You also have the option of connecting a crank or a whip (flexible shaft) to the knob (oh dear, it’s all getting a bit Carry On), the idea being that whatever strange position the camera is in and whatever moves it has to do, your camera assistant can still hit their focus marks without getting in the way. And I can confirm that this system works just fine even if you’re using lenses whose focus rings move back and forth as they’re turned.
Coming to the camera mount itself, there is the usual quick-release plate that screws into your DSLR’s tripod thread. On the 600D, this covers a small portion of the battery cover – just enough to prevent it opening. As per this review‘s advice, I filed out a recess in the quick-release plate and the battery cover now opens. On the bottom of the rig is another screw thread so you can attach your tripod’s quick-release plate and easily put the whole thing onto sticks.
The battery compartment now opens
I’ve attached the top handle just behind the camera, to stop it getting in the way of the follow focus. Two extra railing tubes are provided (not pictured) and can be mounted either at the side or on the top, and a basic suspension mount for a shotgun mic is also supplied (again, not pictured).
At the back is the shoulder pad, which isn’t the most luxurious but seems comfortable enough, and a bracing arm folds down to put some of the weight against your stomach and side. However, this doesn’t stop the rig from being very front-heavy and tiring to hold up for more than a few minutes at a time. In a later post I’ll explain how I overcame this problem.
The Proaim shoulder rig viewed from the rear
All in all, I really like this rig and look forward to doing my first proper shoots with it next week. The value for money is excellent, and it completely transforms my little stills camera into a proper, workhorse video camera.
A decade ago today principal photography wrapped on The Beacon. To celebrate, here’s Behind The Beacon, a documentary previously only available to those lucky few who purchased the DVD. (I’m sorry, lucky few. I’m really sorry. I hope it was at least useful as a coaster.)
The documentary was made by David Abbott of Star Films, who also served as first assistant director, director’s chauffeur and action vehicle co-ordinator on The Beacon. Yep, The Beacon is a £3,000 movie with a car chase in it. How? Well, a crazy cast and crew, a quiet common and a total disregard for any kind of health and safety procedures. In fact, the chief requirement for involvement in the film, behind or in front of camera, was a complete lack of interest in one’s own personal safety. So I must of course write the immortal words: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.
Anyway, there’ll probably be some more behind-the-scenes video nuggets from The Beacon coming your way later in the year, so look out for those. And you can read all about the making of the Malvern Hills’ most action-packed movie ever by selecting The Beacon from the Blog Categories in the sidebar. And if you feel like you’ve missed something because you haven’t seen the film itself – trust me – ignorance is bliss.
For the last six years I’ve been developing and trying to raise finance for The Dark Side of the Earth, my would-be third feature. It’s a wildly ambitious fantasy-adventure set in an alternate 1908 where the world has stopped spinning, and a girl stows away aboard an airship travelling from the Light Side to the Dark Side with the aim of finding Old Father Time and starting the earth turning again.
In 2008 I shot a 35mm pilot for the film starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Kate Burdette (The Duchess) and featuring the voice of Mark Heap (Green Wing, Spaced), on a wonderful big steampunk set with a beautiful puppet of a Victorian swordfighting robot. Many, many talented and hardworking people contributed their skills to the pilot and to the development of the feature script. Sadly all I have to show for all this effort are lingering debt and a gorgeous 35mm print of the pilot. No fucker will finance it.
But perhaps you can learn something from what I achieved, and more to the point, didn’t achieve by reading the blog – which you can now do right here on neiloseman.com. There are also hours of behind-the-scenes podcasts and “how to” guides from the pilot and our pitching trips to Cannes on my YouTube channel.
The Beacon budget download (.xls, 16kb)