BMX filming done and dusty!!

First day was the Olympic development programme, again a long drive to film at Manchester. Gaining access in though felt slightly overwhelming but the riders were nice and we just let them continue on whilst working with them. I struggled this day the most, the tripod was stiff and the handle didn't work so any movement caused big jolts in the footage. As well as that using the 70-200mm lens made it harder for my depth of field and I am always wanting to push myself but had focusing issues at the start and didn't know about the image stabiliser button which is normally on. After a day of defeat I felt very deflated as my work has been consistent. But with the support of the director without mistakes I wouldn't have learnt more about the equipment.

Saturday we spent the day at Peckham BMX track and then off to visit Flo our young rider. Peckham initially was something I was worried about, after the dilemmas of the other production company filming their riders I felt nervous. The production company was there, well students working for them were. To start off with I felt I was stepping on peoples toes but out of all the time filming I had the best time there. I filmed actuality of Quillan coaching and the riders practising whilst the other cameraman filmed interviews. I knew what the director wanted so used my initiative and got on with it. The riders made me feel welcome and you could tell the coach and them were one big family trying to make the best out of an area known for being rough. Spending time with Flo was enjoyable, she was much shyer and often when I filmed her she went the other way. To relax her as well as testing out other shots I got into a tunnel to film, which made her laugh but got her use to being told where to ride her bike and the camera being on. Whilst the cameraman was interviewing her dad, I spent time with her recording her playing on the swings, showing her as a normal 12 year old girl. By the end she was more relaxed and I even joined in with her doing cartwheels.

Final day was with Rob which was a short day filming. All we needed was some nice visuals for an opening montage and an interview. That day I felt a bit like a spare cog as this didn't require two camera operators and felt this day a 2 camera set up was too much. But on the one hand having 2 meant capturing him on the track meant we spent less time filming. All in all a busy couple of days.

Here's me filming Flo:-

Draft 3 and one doc down!!

We now have a more developed script from the director for Young and Pissed, yet there is still no ending which is worrying as this is the edit week. Still very unsure about the whole project as it's been a bit miss match with scripts coming in bits and shooting being very spread out over the 5 week period as the first interview was 4 weeks ago so by now should be in the edit. Time is ticking, Asda interview is however done which does only leave us with one more part to shoot so not long until the filming is complete.

On the plus side the Stripper documentary is filmed!!! With so much hard work from the Director and I in planning it, it was a huge success. Especially working with such a visual and experienced camera man, this helped when we were under pressure with the schedule. Only slight problem was expecting 3 girls to be willing to be interviewed, yet the girls didn't really know what was going on. So over 2 days we gained enough trust to get two girls on camera with others doing pole dancing and even one allowing us to film a lapdance. A huge success after the amount of effort the group has put in..can't wait until the final edit.

Camera practice= camera change

From practising on the Canon 1d I realised that the footage you get out of them and how well they work in low light is exceptionally good. At first I was put off by using them but since playing around and testing them out, I want to push myself and use it for the majority of filming for the documentary Young and Pissed.


The main pitfall is the follow focus on big movements, which is why I shall use the Panasonic P2 for anything that will need to cope with drastic movements. I have noticed that the Canon 5d is being used more often in programmes, and since watching Bouncers Ch4 I noticed that they used this camera on some of the master interviews and actuality. In order to keep up with the trends in TV, I want to able to use this camera for the documentary.

This evening we did our first interview with Kevin from 5 degrees who had an interesting story about how due to excessive drinking has seisures now so he can't drink, this interview would have goten the best out of the story if the director hadn't used the Recce questions for this interview as he didn't explore the story and we only captured a glimpse which is a shame. Got some more interviews scheduled soon so hopefully hearing from someone who owns a bar will give another perspective and the questions will be developed to help this.

Recce and practice "drunks"

Just finished the Recce with Joe from the hand bar which gave a young persons point of view of the drinking culture in Britain. It would have been good to have the director here, as it's still early on in and no script has appeared so the sound man took on the role and came up with the questions. Hand bar is a very classy bar which visually was beautiful to shoot. After chatting with the manager, we realised we needed to get him involved with the documentary. He had some strong opinions on the drinking culture and the rise of tax on alcohol. His opinions could help give the doc a stronger storyline, he was telling us how supermarkets are encouraged to sell cheap booze in order to get their tax back, yet bars are being taxed on high percentage beers which aren't the drinks people would binge on. This made me think more about why we are making this doc, not only to show the truth about binge drinking culture but to show people can socially drink and where the blame lies.

For the project young and pissed, I'm using a Panasonic P2 to film the entirety of our documentary. This is a new camera to me, I have previously used it for our 1 minute projects but that was just practice. The main reason for using this camera is it's close to industry standards and docs that are being made like 'Bouncers' CH4 are using cameras like this but with small snippets from the popular Canon 5d.

We have thought about using the Canon 5d, as stylistically they work well in low light and the quality out of the can is spectacular. But to show why we can't use them for filming drunk people, we tested the P2 and the Canon 5d in similar situations. The sound man, James, acted drunk with the typical loud running at the camera, fake vomiting and fake fist fights. As you can see the P2 worked better at maintaining focus, although the 5d looked better straight out of camera following focus was a nightmare and is the reason it's used infrequently in most documentaries.