As Jared and I approach the conclusion of our initial production period, it’s extraordinary to think of how many topics we’ve covered in our conversations leading up to this point—and I’ll be honest when I say that, in terms of content, we could easily spend two more months filming at TVN.
Back in November and December, we had a lot of those “first interviews,” or, the interviews that break the ice between subject and filmmaker. The interviews that are often like, “Oh wow, this is the “But I digress” moments of all “But I digress” moments, or the interview that was like pulling teeth. For some of the individuals who we are considering to be main characters, we’ve had upwards of 5, 6, and even 7 interviews lasting from 2-4hrs (one per week, and multiple hours of on-the-go filming as well). We’ll start talking at 10am and 1pm rolls around, Sam checks his watch and lets out an, “UNBELIEVABLE, we’ve sat here for 3hrs!” That a’way, Sam.
Alas, we find ourselves discussing a tremendous range of topics that includes but is not limited to growing old, sex, dentures, prescription pills, death, memories, honeymoons etc. Every time we sit down with Sam, he sighs, “Well, what are we gonna talk about today?” or Ceil says, “Alright, ask ya questions already!”
Obviously, the content is crucial, but another issue is the way in which we are setting up for and filming these interviews. Here are some things we keep in mind:
1. Camera placement. Essentially, we take our time in choosing where we set up the camera on the tripod (we’ve also found ourselves in a few handheld interviews that have taken place on the fly).
2. Composing the frame and looking at what objects, shapes, colors, textures, etc are relevant and/or contribute to the individual being filmed. What’s in the foreground? Is there a plant that obstructs the frame? A weird framed picture that hangs awkwardly behind the subject’s head?
3. Hand in hand with composition is framing. Bearing in mind the Rule of Thirds, we make sure the subject’s eyeline matches with the invisible line at the top third of the frame; and that the body/face of the subject is weighted to the left or right third of the frame. Here are some non-Life’s Waltz examples:
I don’t know what that cat is all about…
4. Covering the interviews. Depending on what the subject is talking about, or how emotional he/she gets, we still have to cover the interview–which means we film medium shots, medium close-ups (CU), and CUs. If the interview is really informational or there are some crazy, “character-building” hand gestures, we’ll keep a wider frame; and if the interview gets emotional or really deep, we’ll punch in for a tighter frame so we can look into the eyes and pick up any nuanced facial gestures. Also, if we are interviewing more than one person, when person A is talking about something irrelevant (ex: their parakeet named “Skippy” from two decades ago), we punch in for a CU on person B (C, D, etc) in order to get a reaction shot of them. Later in the editing room, we can remove the dialogue about Skippy the parakeet and replace it with more relevant audio that correlates to the scene.
On the other hand, we’ve also acquired a diverse amount of live action and B Roll. Live action footage is footage that contains specific interactions among individuals or groups and offers a “showing” rather than a “telling” of something about a situation or character(s). For Life’s Waltz, we will probably adhere to the principle of showing over telling since we find it infinitely more interesting and engaging.
For example, if we are asking Sam what kinds of activities he is involved in, he might answer in an interview, “I call the numbers during BINGO on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.” It’s our job as filmmakers to then make that piece of information interesting. Our usual approach is to go after the activity itself, which would entail filming Sam calling those numbers out during BINGO.
“B5….I16…N32..”
So, we sit-in on BINGO (which by the way, can be hilarious). In sitting in on this activity, we are gathering B Roll. “B Roll?” This is the on-the-fly, running-and-gunning, “turn around and catch that interaction!” footage that will be cut into scenes or parts, sequences, or used over interview dialogue. B Roll often serves as a supplement or alternative to support the audio, and vice versa. The audio on the B Roll footage is sometimes altered, fully removed, and/or replaced other sound bites of dialogue that correlates to the visuals or score.
In shooting live action or B Roll footage, we keep a few things in mind:
1. Shoot to Edit. In a fiction film, a director can prepare for CUs, mediums, or wide shots and they are in control of when the camera rolls. But this is the real world, so we are always rolling and we never get to call out an “ACTION!” or “CUT!” But, we still have to amass the same amount of CUs, mediums, wides, cutaways etc. just as a fiction film would–in other words, we have to shoot creatively so that we can edit creatively. If we are filming on the fly with two or more people, we also have to be sure to gather enough reaction shots of those in the situation who are not talking just like we would in an interview. And, we need those CUs, mediums, and wides, so we can cut between those shots and the reaction shots. Reaction shots are pivotal in the editing room–we cut to them in order to replace the insignificant dialogue with significant dialogue over that reaction shot. This is tremendously helpful in refining the scene! I also want to point out that this process doesn’t compromise the reality or the accuracy of the situation, rather, we’re just cutting out the fluff so that a conclusion or punchline is reached more quickly.
2. We get dancing. Our “dance,” as our documentary professor liked to call it, would be the way in which we record picture and sound. Since the camera has a mic on it, it picks up sound from wherever it is pointing (in that heart-shaped pick-up pattern we mentioned earlier). Meanwhile, we are also recording with the shotgun mic for dialogue, and it picks up sound/dialogue even more specifically that the camera mic. This puts us in a good position to record both general and specific audio. Yay! So, when I am pointing the camera/camera mic at something, Jared will point the directional mic on the boom in the opposite direction so that we are gathering sound from different parts of the room.
All I can say is that, hopefully, all of these efforts while filming will pay off as we dive into our ~180 hrs. of footage that is waiting to be edited.
