Having spent the last few weeks studying the camcorder market, I realized I had to develop a list of criteria to make the decision to buy a new camcorder. The falling Canadian dollar also became a factor—with retail prices on electronics undoubtedly to rise as a result, I had to decide sooner rather than later. So… here are the four main criteria in my decision-making:
1. Mini-DV format
2. Firewire/IEEE1394 equipped
3. Final Cut Studio compatible.
4. HD and SD capable
Compression is the main factor behind the first two items. Mini-DV and Firewire are still the best in terms of the least amount of compression applied by the camcorder or computer. Hard drive, DVD-RAM, and flash memory camcorders use higher compression than mini-DV cameras, so tape still wins (until I can afford those fancy P2 card systems). USB-2 is faster than USB, but it’s still not as good as Firewire. I’d rather not add additional compression by using a slow transfer bus.
The third criteria is dictated by the computer I’m using for post-production. I’m not upgrading from Final Cut Studio 1 as explained in an earlier post, so the camcorder has to work with it and the G5. From what I’ve read on various websites and forums, as long as you correctly tell Final Cut what kind of footage you’re uploading, it should be able to accept any SD or HDV camcorder. Mini-DV cams record video as 60i even in 30p or 24p format, but FCS can handle the various pull-down ratios. Most of the problems I’ve read about on the HV20 User and other forums are related to people not setting the right format before attempting to capture. And Adobe AfterEffects has some additional capacity for dealing with pulldown ratios if Final Cut can’t.
Finally, with HD becoming so prominent in broadcast, online, and home entertainment video, the smart choice is to buy an HD camcorder. I still need something that can play SD video for the projects already shot on SD. So it has to be a dual-format camcorder.
Other factors, although not critical, are related to the fact that I’m replacing a camcorder. I don’t think Canon has changed the form factor of their batteries, so my still-good Ultura batteries could be carried over to another Canon (this, of course, gives a boost to the HV30). An XLR mike input would be really nice having used an inline transformer with the Ultura for all this time. And if the new camcorder fits in my camcorder bag, I’ll be happy.
Next week, the decision and the purchase
Showing posts with label shooting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shooting. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Requiem for a Camcorder
In the spring of 2000, I bought my first camcorder, the Canon Ultura. It was one of the early consumer-grade mini-DV, all-digital camcorders, and it was great—I remember being amazed by how vivid digital video looked compared to the graininess that I’d come to expect from analog video camcorders.
The Ultura was a great camcorder, enabling me to shoot my UK vacation that summer, and then allowing me to start shooting Miller & Mullet and other stuff. The Ultura also served as my capture and export deck for a series of Macs and Mac OS’s, and it never let me down. Until, that is, this summer while I was trying to capture footage for a short my friend Jeff had shot. After 8 years of regular (and sometimes heavy) use, the Ultura’s playback head is kaput. Not even my trusty head-cleaning tape could fix the problem.
I paid $1500 CAD, plus tax, in early 2000, which was a typical price for a camcorder back then. I remember looking at various cameras, including Sony and Panasonic, before picking the Ultura from Japan Camera at the Eaton Centre.
The Ultura is a single-chip camera, but it was a better camera than most that year. Canon had actually put in a better lens in it, much better than the ones used in their ZR-series and Elura camcorders that followed. The Firewire connection worked perfectly, as did the tape mechanism, and I never had to take it for repairs, despite the abuse it received, including shooting a feature during an incredibly hot and humid Toronto summer, capturing the footage from that feature (on nearly 30 mini-DV tapes)….
Canon withdrew the Ultura after a year in production, and I remember the replacement models weren’t of the same quality. Sure they were samller and had more buttons, but the quality wasn’t there (I’m basing my opinion on what I saw in various camera store showrooms).
I tricked the Ultura out with cheap Cokin filters (the key filters being the neutral density and circular polarizer, but I also bought 2 grades of orange for counterbalancing the ND filter, and a blue filter that I never got around to using for day-for-night shooting), so for outdoor shooting, the Ultura did a great job. Indoors, footage tended to be grainy if it wasn’t in a horribly bright room. I tried to go manual as much as possible for colour balance and exposure as the automatic controls tended to over-react to any change in lighting levels. Overall, though, I learned how to avoid the Ultura’s limitations, and I think the resulting video looked better than most one-chip productions did.
The most annoying aspect of the Ultura, though, was the audio jack. I curse whoever decided that a ⅛” plug was a better option than XLR or even 1/4 “…. The transformer I bought to convert XLR to the ⅛” worked great, but eventually you had to find the sweet spot where the plug and jack were both in full contact and the audio was actually reaching the recording head (I went through a series of cheap headphones dedicated to ensuring the audio was making it to two channels at the same time).
So… after spending several hours over a couple of nights trying to capture and recapture Jeff’s footage, I realized my beloved Ultura had reached the end of its working life and was now destined to sit as a memento on my bookcase rather than actually shoot anything.
Next time, part one of my search for a replacement.
The Ultura was a great camcorder, enabling me to shoot my UK vacation that summer, and then allowing me to start shooting Miller & Mullet and other stuff. The Ultura also served as my capture and export deck for a series of Macs and Mac OS’s, and it never let me down. Until, that is, this summer while I was trying to capture footage for a short my friend Jeff had shot. After 8 years of regular (and sometimes heavy) use, the Ultura’s playback head is kaput. Not even my trusty head-cleaning tape could fix the problem.
I paid $1500 CAD, plus tax, in early 2000, which was a typical price for a camcorder back then. I remember looking at various cameras, including Sony and Panasonic, before picking the Ultura from Japan Camera at the Eaton Centre.
The Ultura is a single-chip camera, but it was a better camera than most that year. Canon had actually put in a better lens in it, much better than the ones used in their ZR-series and Elura camcorders that followed. The Firewire connection worked perfectly, as did the tape mechanism, and I never had to take it for repairs, despite the abuse it received, including shooting a feature during an incredibly hot and humid Toronto summer, capturing the footage from that feature (on nearly 30 mini-DV tapes)….
Canon withdrew the Ultura after a year in production, and I remember the replacement models weren’t of the same quality. Sure they were samller and had more buttons, but the quality wasn’t there (I’m basing my opinion on what I saw in various camera store showrooms).
I tricked the Ultura out with cheap Cokin filters (the key filters being the neutral density and circular polarizer, but I also bought 2 grades of orange for counterbalancing the ND filter, and a blue filter that I never got around to using for day-for-night shooting), so for outdoor shooting, the Ultura did a great job. Indoors, footage tended to be grainy if it wasn’t in a horribly bright room. I tried to go manual as much as possible for colour balance and exposure as the automatic controls tended to over-react to any change in lighting levels. Overall, though, I learned how to avoid the Ultura’s limitations, and I think the resulting video looked better than most one-chip productions did.
The most annoying aspect of the Ultura, though, was the audio jack. I curse whoever decided that a ⅛” plug was a better option than XLR or even 1/4 “…. The transformer I bought to convert XLR to the ⅛” worked great, but eventually you had to find the sweet spot where the plug and jack were both in full contact and the audio was actually reaching the recording head (I went through a series of cheap headphones dedicated to ensuring the audio was making it to two channels at the same time).
So… after spending several hours over a couple of nights trying to capture and recapture Jeff’s footage, I realized my beloved Ultura had reached the end of its working life and was now destined to sit as a memento on my bookcase rather than actually shoot anything.
Next time, part one of my search for a replacement.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Ed & Red’s Night Party: Our Adventures in Multi-Camera
A couple of weekends ago, we shot an episode of Ed & Red’s Night Party, the great Canadian TV show hosted by a sarcastic sock. I won’t go into detail about the show’s history because the Wikipedia entry does that better than I could. Nevertheless, to see a homemade show from cable access channel become a Canadian late-night institution is encouraging to anyone who picks up a camera hoping to give up the day job.
I don’t know where I could verify this, but I suspect that Ed’s show is likely the longest running Canadian late-night talkshow. If it’s not the Canadian champ, it’s definitely the Toronto and Ontario champ. The national networks have both created and abandoned talk shows—CTV most notably with Open Mike with Mike Bullard, Global with subsequent The Mike Bullard Show, and CBC’s infamous Friday Night with Ralph Benmergui—but Ed the Sock has fended off all of them, probably by not trying to appeal to as broad an audience as the others did. He knows his audience and gives them exactly what they want: edgy late-night humour, a healthy dollop of pop culture’s highs and lows, and plenty of sex-related humour and features.
The current version of Ed’s show, partnering him with Liana “Red” K., doesn’t have the traditional guest interviews where the guest comes out and is interviewed, but in our two appearances, we’ve been interviewed while in the hot tub and lounging on a couch where we were watching the show. The interviews weren’t conventional by any means, but we managed to plug our stuff.
I’ve never taken a TV production course, so my exposure to multi-camera shooting has been limited to a couple of occasions where we happened to have 2 mini-DV cameras on shooting day, and we used both at the same time to speed things up. It wasn’t true multi-camera shooting—the 2nd camera usually shot the same angle but at a different focal length so that we could get the closeups done at the same times as the master shots.
When we appeared in the hot tub on Ed & Red’s, there was only one camera assigned to cover us, so it was a single-camera situation and we worked to just one camera.
For our second appearance, we had 3 segments during the show, with at least 3 cameras on us (one across the floor for a head-on angle, one beside the couch for a side view, and a third somewhere in the middle). We weren’t required to work towards any one camera, so it was similar to a stage appearance where you only have to be aware of a general zone to work to. Mullet, sitting on screen right, had a camera directly to his left with the others spread out in front of him, so he couldn’t really turn to face me without turning away from the audience. I, on screen left, was looking almost directly into a camera when I faced him, so I made sure I turned to my left (screen right) when we were seated during the 3 segments so that Mullet wouldn’t face away from the camera best positioned for his closeups (but, rest assured, I was also pointing my face at that camera, so I wasn’t doing him a favour—I was doing us both a favour).
We got progressively more physical through the 3 segments, so not having to worry about where the camera was definitely freed up how we worked.
For no-budget filmmaking, multi-camera likely isn’t an option. You need at least 2 cameras of the same quality, video format, etc., etc. Hollywood always drags out extra cameras for those thigns even they can’t afford to do more than once (I recall a making-of doc on the Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom DVD where Mr. Spielberg had 14 cameras rolling for the one-time-only destruction of a footbridge), but the same could apply on a no-budget scale. If I were shooting something where I had to get a lot of coverage done in a limited time (a well-known actor is giving you a break by doing a scene for you but can only give you an hour, for example), or you’re shooting something that can only be done in one take (like having your character jump into a parade), I would definitely budget for a 2nd camera and an extra person. Likewise, if I were shooting a scale model’s destruction, I’d have to weigh the costs of making multiple copies of said model for repeated takes or renting a 2nd camera to shoot it once.
Another aspect of multi-cam shooting is that the lighting has to be designed for multiple camera setups. This means a lot more work at the beginning of the day, but the lighting guys only had to make minor adjustments here and there during the shoot. This also means you can move the cameras, zoom in for a closeup, etc., on the fly. Our area was pretty well lit, and the crew defined our working areas for us, so your talent can be given an area to play in rather than being stuck on a mark. I think you could adapt this type of thinking for single-cam shooting on a set, and you’d be able to go from setup to setup without keeping warmed-up actors waiting for lights to change. It wouldn’t work in every situation, of course, but if you didn’t need special lighting, you could probably get away with it.
We won’t be using multi-camera for our DVD, but doing Ed & Red’s was still a good experience, and I’d recommend to any no-budget filmmaker that they check out a traditional 3-camera TV shoot if they ever get the chance—watch those cameras work!
I don’t know where I could verify this, but I suspect that Ed’s show is likely the longest running Canadian late-night talkshow. If it’s not the Canadian champ, it’s definitely the Toronto and Ontario champ. The national networks have both created and abandoned talk shows—CTV most notably with Open Mike with Mike Bullard, Global with subsequent The Mike Bullard Show, and CBC’s infamous Friday Night with Ralph Benmergui—but Ed the Sock has fended off all of them, probably by not trying to appeal to as broad an audience as the others did. He knows his audience and gives them exactly what they want: edgy late-night humour, a healthy dollop of pop culture’s highs and lows, and plenty of sex-related humour and features.
The current version of Ed’s show, partnering him with Liana “Red” K., doesn’t have the traditional guest interviews where the guest comes out and is interviewed, but in our two appearances, we’ve been interviewed while in the hot tub and lounging on a couch where we were watching the show. The interviews weren’t conventional by any means, but we managed to plug our stuff.
I’ve never taken a TV production course, so my exposure to multi-camera shooting has been limited to a couple of occasions where we happened to have 2 mini-DV cameras on shooting day, and we used both at the same time to speed things up. It wasn’t true multi-camera shooting—the 2nd camera usually shot the same angle but at a different focal length so that we could get the closeups done at the same times as the master shots.
When we appeared in the hot tub on Ed & Red’s, there was only one camera assigned to cover us, so it was a single-camera situation and we worked to just one camera.
For our second appearance, we had 3 segments during the show, with at least 3 cameras on us (one across the floor for a head-on angle, one beside the couch for a side view, and a third somewhere in the middle). We weren’t required to work towards any one camera, so it was similar to a stage appearance where you only have to be aware of a general zone to work to. Mullet, sitting on screen right, had a camera directly to his left with the others spread out in front of him, so he couldn’t really turn to face me without turning away from the audience. I, on screen left, was looking almost directly into a camera when I faced him, so I made sure I turned to my left (screen right) when we were seated during the 3 segments so that Mullet wouldn’t face away from the camera best positioned for his closeups (but, rest assured, I was also pointing my face at that camera, so I wasn’t doing him a favour—I was doing us both a favour).
We got progressively more physical through the 3 segments, so not having to worry about where the camera was definitely freed up how we worked.
For no-budget filmmaking, multi-camera likely isn’t an option. You need at least 2 cameras of the same quality, video format, etc., etc. Hollywood always drags out extra cameras for those thigns even they can’t afford to do more than once (I recall a making-of doc on the Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom DVD where Mr. Spielberg had 14 cameras rolling for the one-time-only destruction of a footbridge), but the same could apply on a no-budget scale. If I were shooting something where I had to get a lot of coverage done in a limited time (a well-known actor is giving you a break by doing a scene for you but can only give you an hour, for example), or you’re shooting something that can only be done in one take (like having your character jump into a parade), I would definitely budget for a 2nd camera and an extra person. Likewise, if I were shooting a scale model’s destruction, I’d have to weigh the costs of making multiple copies of said model for repeated takes or renting a 2nd camera to shoot it once.
Another aspect of multi-cam shooting is that the lighting has to be designed for multiple camera setups. This means a lot more work at the beginning of the day, but the lighting guys only had to make minor adjustments here and there during the shoot. This also means you can move the cameras, zoom in for a closeup, etc., on the fly. Our area was pretty well lit, and the crew defined our working areas for us, so your talent can be given an area to play in rather than being stuck on a mark. I think you could adapt this type of thinking for single-cam shooting on a set, and you’d be able to go from setup to setup without keeping warmed-up actors waiting for lights to change. It wouldn’t work in every situation, of course, but if you didn’t need special lighting, you could probably get away with it.
We won’t be using multi-camera for our DVD, but doing Ed & Red’s was still a good experience, and I’d recommend to any no-budget filmmaker that they check out a traditional 3-camera TV shoot if they ever get the chance—watch those cameras work!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The 74-Minute Skeleton in Our Closet, 5: No-Budget Finances
Compared to most student features, Babysitters was an inexpensive project, but for two people putting up all the money themselves, it wasn’t cheap!
With the purchase of computer software and hardware, video equipment, supplies, props, and the mandatory on-set food and drink, I put around $5500 CAD into it (equivalent of about $3600 US in 2002). Mullet put in $2000 CAD, so our budget for Babysitters for 2001-2002 was $7500 CAD, or about $4900 USD in 2002 dollars (all dollar numbers below are in Canadian funds).
So… what did $7500 buy us besides 74-minutes of hilarity?
Most of that money went into fixed assets like computers, software, extra hard drives, a tripod, shotgun microphone, etc., so the money we spent on Babysitters has saved considerable money on subsequent projects. We can now make a short for the costs of blank tapes, food, beverages, gas, parking, office supplies, and the occasional new prop.
For Babysitters, as a general strategy, we decided to buy inexpensive gear rather than rent better stuff since we had a lot of single shooting days spread out over 9 months. If we’d scheduled the shoot to take place within a single block of time or two, the rental option would have made more sense, so your schedule will dictate your finances a great deal.
We never prepared a budget beforehand, which is something we should have done, in hindsight. If we had done a budget, though, we would have revised it constantly as we came across new expenses that we hadn’t anticipated—every rookie mistake will cost you money.
We averaged about $100 each day for food, beverages, props, gas, parking, and supplies like mini-DV tapes, and that has been our typical budget ever since. We’ve always been able to borrow cameras, so we’ve never had to rent one (about $200/day for a DVX100 or similar camera in Toronto these days).
We also don’t pay our actors or crew anything. This means we don’t use people who belong to the acting guild in Canada, ACTRA, as we can’t afford the minimums that the guild has in place for its members. If we did use guild people without following procedure, we would never be able to sell the project to anyone, so it’s not worth it. ACTRA does have a low-budget program, but they’re still pretty big bucks for anyone at the no-budget level. The guilds in your area will have similar rules and policies that you should know before starting a project.
Any decent film school has an introductory producing class, so I’d recommend taking one before plunging into shooting. If I didn’t live near a dozen film schools like there are in Toronto, the internet has leveled the playing field—you can get just about any book on film and video producing, and there are a lot of good websites, lists, and blogs on the topic as well. I’ll post an entry with some links at some point.
You also want to budget your time. For longer projects, you should anticipate the demands on your time during all phases of production. A good production management book or course can give you an idea of how much time you’ll need to do things (and it will always take longer to do something than you’d think it would…).
We saved money where we could with gear. Instead of buying a microphone boom pole, I modified a $15 window-washing extension arm with a PVC collar and mini-bungee cords to create a shock mount (this guy had a similar idea). We used a $5 desktop mike stand for most of the shoots—putting the mike at the feet of our performers just out of frame with the mike aimed up. I bought 3 sets of halogen work lights for our interiors, using gels to convert them whenever needed to sunlight-balanced light. I built camera stabilizers (to make handheld shots easier) with raw materials from Canadian Tire (after seeing how much a pro stabilizer cost). All of this stuff may look cheap and crappy, but with a little work, it does the same job as the pro gear at a fraction of the cost.
We only had to pay for locations three times, when we shot scenes in rehearsal spaces. We used both our apartments, interior and exterior, for as many distinct locations as we could squeeze out of them, and we used someone’s apartment for another location. We found and used a deserted lot downtown, and we used public property elsewhere. We didn’t build sets, which is another big expense even for something small.
We were fortunate in that we avoided the debt like a lot of filmmakers get into with features, so I don’t have any advice to others on how to manage it. Just avoid it if you can. After all, no-budget means no-money….
With the purchase of computer software and hardware, video equipment, supplies, props, and the mandatory on-set food and drink, I put around $5500 CAD into it (equivalent of about $3600 US in 2002). Mullet put in $2000 CAD, so our budget for Babysitters for 2001-2002 was $7500 CAD, or about $4900 USD in 2002 dollars (all dollar numbers below are in Canadian funds).
So… what did $7500 buy us besides 74-minutes of hilarity?
Most of that money went into fixed assets like computers, software, extra hard drives, a tripod, shotgun microphone, etc., so the money we spent on Babysitters has saved considerable money on subsequent projects. We can now make a short for the costs of blank tapes, food, beverages, gas, parking, office supplies, and the occasional new prop.
For Babysitters, as a general strategy, we decided to buy inexpensive gear rather than rent better stuff since we had a lot of single shooting days spread out over 9 months. If we’d scheduled the shoot to take place within a single block of time or two, the rental option would have made more sense, so your schedule will dictate your finances a great deal.
We never prepared a budget beforehand, which is something we should have done, in hindsight. If we had done a budget, though, we would have revised it constantly as we came across new expenses that we hadn’t anticipated—every rookie mistake will cost you money.
We averaged about $100 each day for food, beverages, props, gas, parking, and supplies like mini-DV tapes, and that has been our typical budget ever since. We’ve always been able to borrow cameras, so we’ve never had to rent one (about $200/day for a DVX100 or similar camera in Toronto these days).
We also don’t pay our actors or crew anything. This means we don’t use people who belong to the acting guild in Canada, ACTRA, as we can’t afford the minimums that the guild has in place for its members. If we did use guild people without following procedure, we would never be able to sell the project to anyone, so it’s not worth it. ACTRA does have a low-budget program, but they’re still pretty big bucks for anyone at the no-budget level. The guilds in your area will have similar rules and policies that you should know before starting a project.
Any decent film school has an introductory producing class, so I’d recommend taking one before plunging into shooting. If I didn’t live near a dozen film schools like there are in Toronto, the internet has leveled the playing field—you can get just about any book on film and video producing, and there are a lot of good websites, lists, and blogs on the topic as well. I’ll post an entry with some links at some point.
You also want to budget your time. For longer projects, you should anticipate the demands on your time during all phases of production. A good production management book or course can give you an idea of how much time you’ll need to do things (and it will always take longer to do something than you’d think it would…).
We saved money where we could with gear. Instead of buying a microphone boom pole, I modified a $15 window-washing extension arm with a PVC collar and mini-bungee cords to create a shock mount (this guy had a similar idea). We used a $5 desktop mike stand for most of the shoots—putting the mike at the feet of our performers just out of frame with the mike aimed up. I bought 3 sets of halogen work lights for our interiors, using gels to convert them whenever needed to sunlight-balanced light. I built camera stabilizers (to make handheld shots easier) with raw materials from Canadian Tire (after seeing how much a pro stabilizer cost). All of this stuff may look cheap and crappy, but with a little work, it does the same job as the pro gear at a fraction of the cost.
We only had to pay for locations three times, when we shot scenes in rehearsal spaces. We used both our apartments, interior and exterior, for as many distinct locations as we could squeeze out of them, and we used someone’s apartment for another location. We found and used a deserted lot downtown, and we used public property elsewhere. We didn’t build sets, which is another big expense even for something small.
We were fortunate in that we avoided the debt like a lot of filmmakers get into with features, so I don’t have any advice to others on how to manage it. Just avoid it if you can. After all, no-budget means no-money….
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The 74-Minute Skeleton in Our Closet, 3: Life in Production
So, what’s it like shooting a feature movie on a no-budget project? It’s a lot of work, but with enough preparation, you can get an enormous amount of work done.
I was working full-time at my day job, so I did all my prep on weeknights. There were weeks where we didn’t shoot anything (we didn’t shoot on long weekends or for most of December and early January, for example), but for the most part the process took up the bulk of my free time once we’d started production. Every hour and minute spent on preproduction is worth it—don’t scrimp here or you’ll pay for it on shooting day.
Before we started shooting, I created a master shot list during my script breakdown process, plus the schedule itself. Each week, I updated the rough plans for each shooting day to prepare a call sheet to e-mail to our cast and crew, rechecked the shot list, made sure we had the locations lined up, props ready, cast contacted, and all the little details, like “Do I have enough makeup for next week?” or “where can we get a ceramic dog?”
For exteriors, I’d also track weather forecasts. Probability of precipitation [POP] was the key as we would go ahead whenever it was 60% or less. I used several local sources, just to build concensus on how the weather was going to turn out.
I spend my Friday nights pulling together everything together to make the day go as smoothly. I’d gather my bags of gear, charge or change batteries, made sure I had enough mini-DV tapes, went out and bought food and beverages.
I can’t stress the importance of checklists. Any time I forget something important, like camera batteries or blank tapes, it’s always because I haven’t opened up the bags and cross-checked with my checklist. When you’re tired and your head is filled with details of what you’re shooting, you will miss something crucial, like your battery pack or tapes.
For all shoots I’d bring a bag containing the camcorder, battery pack, microphone cables, daylight gels, clothespins, clamps, extra battery for the mike, desktop mike stand, duct tape, clapper, markers, chalk, camcorder shoe accessory adapter, screwdrivers, and pliers. For interiors, I’d add work lights, three 25’ extension cords, spare bulbs, and work gloves. In a padded 3-ring binder, I’d have copies of the script, pens, markers, shot lists, and continuity forms. I’d also have props and a cooler for food.
The day of the shoot, Mullet would get up around 6 a.m. and start getting ready. I’d get up at 7 to check the weather to make sure it was still a go. It was a very dry year and I think we only had one or two rain-outs, and one fog-out where I couldn’t see across the street.
Once we’d decided to go ahead, I’d check the mountain of gear in the living room to make sure I had everyhing. Mullet would arrive in his car by 8:30 or 9 a.m., and we’d head out to pick up the cast and crew.
We were usually at our first location by 9:30 with the first setup started by 10. Once we’d warmed up with some rehearsal takes, we’d get right into it, and our mornings were always productive—our best work was usually during that time. Our afternoons were usually productive, but once it started getting hot in that May-July period, our pace from mid-afternoon onwards wasn’t always as peppy.
On set, I set up the shots and gear with the help of whoever was our crew that day. Meanwhile, Mullet briefed the actors, ran the lines, and brought them in to do the blocking, giving notes as needed.
Since then, we’ve changed the way we work. It’s still collaborative, to be sure, but I direct the actors now, and with using filmmaking buddies on our projects, I don’t have to worry about setting up the gear as much (or even picking where to put the camera).
We’d shoot a couple of rehearsal takes just to find the beats and figure out the blocking. We’d then shoot a few takes as rehearsed, repeating until we got at least 2 good takes on tape (always have a safety take just in case…). If there was time, we’d start improvising a bit, just to see what else we could find. If a scene or shot wasn’t working, we’d rewrite on the spot, sometimes using improv but mostly huddling together with the script and a pen. Most of the time, we shortened things or adapted to take better advantage of the location.
For scheduling, we’d always try to have the cast wrapped by mid-afternoon, leaving any Miller & Mullet-only shots to the end of the day if needed. Most of the cast didn’t have to give us a full day, but those who played the more important characters, like Marcel St. Pierre, generously gave us a full day’s work. Marcel volunteered for 4 shooting days, with one of them being cancelled due to dense fog. One way to pay back for your cast’s generosity is to not waste their time and get them done as early as possible.
We’d normally wrap by 4 o’clock, but sometimes we went to 5, and I think we had a couple of 6 p.m. finishes. We also had a couple 2-hour shoots where we wrapped in time for lunch. Your schedule will vary, mostly depending upon cast and location availability.
Usually that same night, Mullet would come over and we’d watch our rushes. I’d take notes on what we liked or disliked to add to the spreadsheet I’d set up to use during editing. This saved a lot of time when we sat down to edit, and for anything with more than a few shots, I still do it today.
I also made notes on the bad takes, indicating what went wrong, just in case we could use part of a bad take and edit around the mistake with another take. Otherwise, we would have had to watch all the takes for a particular shot when we were editing (we did do that a number of times, of course, but not as frequently as it would have been otherwise).
Our Saturdays were long, usually 12-15 hours by the time we watched the rushes. But we only did we two shooting days back to back once—the last scheduled weekend we shot both the Saturday and Sunday, all exteriors, during the hottest weekend of the year. I don’t even remember what we shot on the last day.
Sunday mornings, I’d log the tapes in Adobe Premiere and let the computer batch capture all the footage to my hard drives. Because I’d made my notes the night before, I didn’t need a lot of time to do the logging, and I’d leave the computer to do the capture itself.
On Monday nights, I’d start the process over again. Even if you're shooting a 5-minute short, you should expect to have a similar workload. Being a producer is the unsung role of no-budget filmmaking--no executive mansions or fat paycheques....
Next time, post-production.
I was working full-time at my day job, so I did all my prep on weeknights. There were weeks where we didn’t shoot anything (we didn’t shoot on long weekends or for most of December and early January, for example), but for the most part the process took up the bulk of my free time once we’d started production. Every hour and minute spent on preproduction is worth it—don’t scrimp here or you’ll pay for it on shooting day.
Before we started shooting, I created a master shot list during my script breakdown process, plus the schedule itself. Each week, I updated the rough plans for each shooting day to prepare a call sheet to e-mail to our cast and crew, rechecked the shot list, made sure we had the locations lined up, props ready, cast contacted, and all the little details, like “Do I have enough makeup for next week?” or “where can we get a ceramic dog?”
For exteriors, I’d also track weather forecasts. Probability of precipitation [POP] was the key as we would go ahead whenever it was 60% or less. I used several local sources, just to build concensus on how the weather was going to turn out.
I spend my Friday nights pulling together everything together to make the day go as smoothly. I’d gather my bags of gear, charge or change batteries, made sure I had enough mini-DV tapes, went out and bought food and beverages.
I can’t stress the importance of checklists. Any time I forget something important, like camera batteries or blank tapes, it’s always because I haven’t opened up the bags and cross-checked with my checklist. When you’re tired and your head is filled with details of what you’re shooting, you will miss something crucial, like your battery pack or tapes.
For all shoots I’d bring a bag containing the camcorder, battery pack, microphone cables, daylight gels, clothespins, clamps, extra battery for the mike, desktop mike stand, duct tape, clapper, markers, chalk, camcorder shoe accessory adapter, screwdrivers, and pliers. For interiors, I’d add work lights, three 25’ extension cords, spare bulbs, and work gloves. In a padded 3-ring binder, I’d have copies of the script, pens, markers, shot lists, and continuity forms. I’d also have props and a cooler for food.
The day of the shoot, Mullet would get up around 6 a.m. and start getting ready. I’d get up at 7 to check the weather to make sure it was still a go. It was a very dry year and I think we only had one or two rain-outs, and one fog-out where I couldn’t see across the street.
Once we’d decided to go ahead, I’d check the mountain of gear in the living room to make sure I had everyhing. Mullet would arrive in his car by 8:30 or 9 a.m., and we’d head out to pick up the cast and crew.
We were usually at our first location by 9:30 with the first setup started by 10. Once we’d warmed up with some rehearsal takes, we’d get right into it, and our mornings were always productive—our best work was usually during that time. Our afternoons were usually productive, but once it started getting hot in that May-July period, our pace from mid-afternoon onwards wasn’t always as peppy.
On set, I set up the shots and gear with the help of whoever was our crew that day. Meanwhile, Mullet briefed the actors, ran the lines, and brought them in to do the blocking, giving notes as needed.
Since then, we’ve changed the way we work. It’s still collaborative, to be sure, but I direct the actors now, and with using filmmaking buddies on our projects, I don’t have to worry about setting up the gear as much (or even picking where to put the camera).
We’d shoot a couple of rehearsal takes just to find the beats and figure out the blocking. We’d then shoot a few takes as rehearsed, repeating until we got at least 2 good takes on tape (always have a safety take just in case…). If there was time, we’d start improvising a bit, just to see what else we could find. If a scene or shot wasn’t working, we’d rewrite on the spot, sometimes using improv but mostly huddling together with the script and a pen. Most of the time, we shortened things or adapted to take better advantage of the location.
For scheduling, we’d always try to have the cast wrapped by mid-afternoon, leaving any Miller & Mullet-only shots to the end of the day if needed. Most of the cast didn’t have to give us a full day, but those who played the more important characters, like Marcel St. Pierre, generously gave us a full day’s work. Marcel volunteered for 4 shooting days, with one of them being cancelled due to dense fog. One way to pay back for your cast’s generosity is to not waste their time and get them done as early as possible.
We’d normally wrap by 4 o’clock, but sometimes we went to 5, and I think we had a couple of 6 p.m. finishes. We also had a couple 2-hour shoots where we wrapped in time for lunch. Your schedule will vary, mostly depending upon cast and location availability.
Usually that same night, Mullet would come over and we’d watch our rushes. I’d take notes on what we liked or disliked to add to the spreadsheet I’d set up to use during editing. This saved a lot of time when we sat down to edit, and for anything with more than a few shots, I still do it today.
I also made notes on the bad takes, indicating what went wrong, just in case we could use part of a bad take and edit around the mistake with another take. Otherwise, we would have had to watch all the takes for a particular shot when we were editing (we did do that a number of times, of course, but not as frequently as it would have been otherwise).
Our Saturdays were long, usually 12-15 hours by the time we watched the rushes. But we only did we two shooting days back to back once—the last scheduled weekend we shot both the Saturday and Sunday, all exteriors, during the hottest weekend of the year. I don’t even remember what we shot on the last day.
Sunday mornings, I’d log the tapes in Adobe Premiere and let the computer batch capture all the footage to my hard drives. Because I’d made my notes the night before, I didn’t need a lot of time to do the logging, and I’d leave the computer to do the capture itself.
On Monday nights, I’d start the process over again. Even if you're shooting a 5-minute short, you should expect to have a similar workload. Being a producer is the unsung role of no-budget filmmaking--no executive mansions or fat paycheques....
Next time, post-production.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Finally something in the can!
We finally have something in the can!
After all these months of moaning about preproduction and rewriting, we actually went out with camcorder and director in hand and shot stuff.
This past Saturday (May 12), Mullet and I were joined by Andrew Currie, esteemed grad of the Second City mainstage company, one half of the Devil's Advocates, blogger extraordinaire, and producer of the late Second Cine video show which played a couple of videos we did. AC is also a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, so he actually knows what he's doing.
This was our first experience with a pro, and it was a good learning experience for us.
We shot it on location on a side street one block north of Queen West, between Spadina and University. Behind the Rivoli, really. In fact, we used their garbage cans for a few shots, much to the dismay of some tired-looking cooks and a bemused manager. The street had these great alleys and laneways, strewn with garbage, brilliant and mundane graffiti, and that big city grunge that can't be craeted by art directors (unless they have a lot of money or use the real thing...).
AC wanted to work chronologically as he was basically editing in camera with minimal coverage. He didn't need the slate as he'll be editing it himself, but I did grey-card the first tape just to make sure I can get colour-balance done later on. I brought along my usual continuity log sheets, but they weren't needed, either. This was one difference between how AC shoots and how we did it, but with a 5-page script, I guess the usual slate/log stuff is probably borderline overkill. We have shot stuff without logging it or slating it, like our Aristocrats DVD contest entry which was 5 takes of the same story with 2 cameras, so I only changed the take number on the slate to mark the start and end of each take.
We did a number of takes for each set up until he got one good one and one safety in the can. This is basically what we do, so this was nothing new --though he did apologize when making us do another take when hunched over or fumbling through garbage (not necessary --we've made ourselves do a lot worse for a lot more takes...). With the lines being minimal and me not having to do more than perform, I was more focussed on the performing than I usually am, so I believe I sucked less than usual.
Mullet was good, too,
After all these months of moaning about preproduction and rewriting, we actually went out with camcorder and director in hand and shot stuff.
This past Saturday (May 12), Mullet and I were joined by Andrew Currie, esteemed grad of the Second City mainstage company, one half of the Devil's Advocates, blogger extraordinaire, and producer of the late Second Cine video show which played a couple of videos we did. AC is also a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, so he actually knows what he's doing.
This was our first experience with a pro, and it was a good learning experience for us.
We shot it on location on a side street one block north of Queen West, between Spadina and University. Behind the Rivoli, really. In fact, we used their garbage cans for a few shots, much to the dismay of some tired-looking cooks and a bemused manager. The street had these great alleys and laneways, strewn with garbage, brilliant and mundane graffiti, and that big city grunge that can't be craeted by art directors (unless they have a lot of money or use the real thing...).
AC wanted to work chronologically as he was basically editing in camera with minimal coverage. He didn't need the slate as he'll be editing it himself, but I did grey-card the first tape just to make sure I can get colour-balance done later on. I brought along my usual continuity log sheets, but they weren't needed, either. This was one difference between how AC shoots and how we did it, but with a 5-page script, I guess the usual slate/log stuff is probably borderline overkill. We have shot stuff without logging it or slating it, like our Aristocrats DVD contest entry which was 5 takes of the same story with 2 cameras, so I only changed the take number on the slate to mark the start and end of each take.
We did a number of takes for each set up until he got one good one and one safety in the can. This is basically what we do, so this was nothing new --though he did apologize when making us do another take when hunched over or fumbling through garbage (not necessary --we've made ourselves do a lot worse for a lot more takes...). With the lines being minimal and me not having to do more than perform, I was more focussed on the performing than I usually am, so I believe I sucked less than usual.
Mullet was good, too,
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