lifewaltz.com » Filmmaking

Some Techniques for Filming, Pt. 2

Ashley Karitis — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:45:00 +0000

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.

A Brief Note on Goals and Shooting/Final Cut Ratio

Jared Scheib — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:48:00 +0000

We’ve shot 451.44 GB of footage which translates, at 14.92 GB/98 minutes, to 49.42 hours (49:25:20 h:m:s) of footage shot. Our goal for the first month is, as Ashley mentioned, to shoot 75 hours of footage, 40 of which should be interview and 35 of which should be active. While we don’t know the breakdown of interview to active footage shot, that means that we’re 25 hours short of our goal, with 5 days remaining to meet our goal until Ashley goes home to Oregon for a few days for Christmas. That means 25 hours in 5 days, which actually should be attainable if we’re diligent: just 5 hours a day. After all, we’re at TVN from 10am to 8pm every day on average anyway, so we should be able to get there! Just need to ramp it up a little.

Our original goal for January, then, is to shoot 100 hours. To give y’all a sense of perspective, for our previous version of Life’s Waltz, we shot 28 full tapes (42 minutes each) of footage that we cut down to a 16:30 minute film, which boils down to about a 71:1 ratio of footage shot to footage included in the final product. Given we’re aiming to shoot 175 hours total (a goal that may or may not be met, of course, but we will try!) for the feature version and cut it down to, let’s say, a 90-minute film, this would yield a ratio of about 117:1! Maybe we should just stop now and save ourselves time in the editing room! No… but let’s just say that the editing process will be neither quick nor easy! “Fun” may be the word I’m looking for.

Sound Equipment for Life’s Waltz

Ashley Karitis — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:52:00 +0000

For Life’s Waltz, we use two microphones to record sound:

The first microphone we use is our Sennheiser MKH 416. The MKH 416 is a short shotgun condenser mic. This means it’s designed to be super directional, so when you point it at something, it (mostly) records sound from a narrow window directly in front, while at the same time it rejects “off-axis” sound. Because it’s used for picking up sound from the specific source that it is pointed at, it’s ideal for dialogue recording. Not-so-coincidentally, the Senn 416 is known in the Hollywood industry as the traditional workhorse found on sets everywhere.

We hook this bad boy up to a boom pole or use a pistol grip for hand-held audio. It sits inside a muffy blimp (in the lingo, a “Zeppelin” with a “windjammer”) to create dead air space around it and to block disturbances such as wind, etc.

Secondly, we have an AKG CK93, which is powered by an SE 300B power supply. The microphone is actually a tiny capsule (as you can see–above the blue line is the whole microphone!) that can be changed out for a whole series of capsules that have different ideal uses and pickup patterns.

This microphone is attached to the camera itself (cameras generally come with low-quality mics). The CK93 is a hypercardioid mic which means that it picks up sound in a broader, heart-shaped patten. Think of its “pickup pattern” (the field in which it best records sound) as an upside down heart.

We first slip it through a rubber shock mount and then attach the shock mount to the camera using a cold shoe mount. A cold shoe is one that doesn’t supply power. You may have seen flash bulbs for still cameras that mount to the top of the camera and draw upon electricity from the camera to produce the light flash–that would be a “hot shoe”. Our on-camera mic also has a mini-blimpy, or a baby ball gag (I don’t know where they got that name from!), over it to create dead air space around it.

Some Techniques for Interviewing Pt. I

Ashley Karitis — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:59:00 +0000

A lot of people have asked me, “When you sit down with your subjects, what do you ask them?” or, “How do you get people to say the ‘right thing’?“

I hate to disappoint, but there is no” right or wrong” thing for any of our participants to say. The beautiful and fascinating thing about the documentary process is that the characters speak to us; we don’t craft them. The only thing in our control at this stage in production is the ability to create such an environment for them so that they are comfortable with opening up to us.

Generally, we begin an interview with basic questions: “Let’s start with you telling us your name, age, where you’re from…etc.” And off they go! Sometimes we can’t get a word in for the next 2 hours; and sometimes, getting anymore information is like pulling teeth!

After a few minutes, we get more specific: “Tell me more about the first time you met your husband…” This approach helps in getting the individual to restate the “question” so that the footage will make sense if the audience didn’t hear the original question.

After a few more visits, and after the subject is even more comfortable opening up to us, we might even go the random route: “Tell us about your first kiss…” or “How did your marriage challenge you?“

It’s wonderful to hear about the amazing moments from when widows/widowers first met their significant other–I especially love when couples correct each other, “No, it happened this way!“

Sometimes it goes this way:

Husband: “Well, I was making $75 a week–”
Wife: “–no, you were making $100 a week, or I wouldn’t have gone out on that date with you!“

Here are some other things we think about when filming:

1. Never interrupt anyone at anytime! Unless the roof is about to cave in or that person’s life is in danger…

2. After the individual is done speaking, we allow for a grace period of silence. Interestingly, this is actually when some of the most remarkable personal information is revealed.

3. And, I’ve been told by a friend (it’s you Cecelia, if you’re reading!) that if you let someone sit for 7 seconds in silence, they’ll eventually speak up. Our culture is predisposed to talking, talking, talking, so if you give them those 7 seconds, they feel compelled to fill the silence (this coincides with #2). And more than often, they do!

4. When you’re interviewing 2 people at a time, we usually want to cut ourselves out of the conversation and get those two to simply interact with each other organically. So we look away and avoid eye contact! (but re-establish eye contact when the moment is over so that they do not think you are just ignoring them!) Whoever’s operating sound will look down at the mixer and the camera operator will look down or away. This helps to characterize those individuals and generate more interaction between the two to make it feel like a simple conversation between the two caught on camera.

Please feel free to comment with any questions, we’re happy to answer! I will post more techniques we use in the filming process in the coming weeks…

Learn It, Live It, Love It

Ashley Karitis — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:01:00 +0000

Well, tomorrow is our first day of shooting! Since my arrival, Jared and I have been familiarizing ourselves with the newly arrived equipment, setting up our work flow, and goal-setting. This process has involved anything from reading manuals at seemingly laborious page-by-page speeds, assembling each and every part, and actually getting both sound and picture up and running and doing “tests.”

As tedious as some of this preparation may sound, the plus side is that we certainly have found many awesome features to our Panasonic HMC150 ! For example, the camera offers three ways in assisting focus:

1. The frame “expands” or zooms in (punches in, in the industry lingo) on the center of the original frame. You can then focus on that original center, and it quickly punches back out.
2. You can also choose to place a graph in the top right of the flip-out LCD screen. The graph shows a fuzzy, exponential-like curve that becomes more circular as the object comes more into focus.
3. Lastly, there is a focus-assist feature that accentuates the edges/contour lines of anything in the frame that is in focus. So, when your object is finally in focus, those lines jump out a lot to indicate the achieved focus.

Isn’t that awesome?

I might as well add/admit, that if our Manfrotto Tripod was actually a real man, I would already be head over heels, weak in the knees, falling for “him”. I’m that in love with it!

Our work flow in this context is the way that we will operate as a team from the beginning of shooting through our final cut of the film. To start, we will be filming anywhere from 3-6 hours a day. This is dually convenient since we will then have the remainder of the day to both transfer our footage to the hard drives for editing; and also, these shorter days will give the individuals with whom we are working with a chance to get comfortable with us and our equipment (the last thing we would want to do is impose on anybody’s home!).

As we continue shooting, we expect to spend more time with our participants (the “stars” of the film!) through conversations, activities, and their respective lifestyles. Much later in production, as we accumulate hours and hours of footage, Jared and I will take breaks to generate some “rough cuts,” or some loosely compiled scenes around 20-30 minutes to see what direction our characters are taking us in. These rough cuts will in effect re-direct our shooting, and so forth. As we discovered while making the previous, shorter version of Life’s Waltz in our final semester at USC, a documentary’s story is created in the editing room. Unlike fiction film, where you start with the story/script and create the film based on that, documentary (at least for us) is the opposite: shoot a bunch of footage, then find the story/script in the editing room. This then has bearing on how we will proceed with shooting, so it’s a reciprocal process of “writing” the story in the editing room with footage already obtained and then refining our focus of what we shoot based on the emerging story.

Lastly, Jared and I have some personal, creative, administrative, and technical goals. These goals include everything from maintaining our Life’s Waltz blog to learning how to transcode footage and exercising some self-discipline in getting enough sleep (my body likes 7hrs minimum as we essentially dedicate our lives to this project.

Technical Goal #1 for Ashley:

1. Improve sound mixing skills and boom operation while shooting.

That’s a mouthful, but basically, I’m a less experienced with sound and other technical components of production than Jared. I’m sure this frustrates him at times, so I’m making it another goal of mine to observe and absorb as many of his superhero-gonna-figure-out-just-about-anything googolplex of skills to help improve our production efficiency too.

Equipment arrives!

Jared Scheib — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:26:00 +0000

Initial unpacking… wow, we were like kids in a candy store!

All of these boxes came today.. and this isn’t everything.

The camera.. the fabled Panasonic HMC150.. we’ve spotted it…

Untouched.

It’s so unexpectedly lightweight – I can feel the power!

Bogen/Manfrotto tripod (sticks) with 503HDV fluid head

Yay, K-Tek 110CCR boompole! (This is what the Sennheiser will be mounted onto so it’ll look like one of those microphones you notoriously know the image of from Hollywood sets, with that grey blimp on top and the sound guy with the headphones on.)

LaCie hard drives to store our footage; Trascend 16GB SDHC 6 Class flash memory to record onto from camera (goodbye tapes, hello solid-state!)

Sennheiser 416 Short Shotgun Mic; AKG CK93 Hypercardiod Mic plus SE300B power; some XLRs cables for good measure!

Wow… this is incredible. This whole weekend will be dedicated to getting used to the equipment and workflow.

More later! (And more equipment tomorrow!)