Film & Editing Blog - Behind the Scenes

The MacPro is quietly whirring away as it processes some footage for image stabilization and so I thought I'd take a quick snapshot of the documentary timeline to show how the edit is going. The top three tracks are video and still images and the bottom tracks are audio. As you can see things are getting busy!

There's a lot that goes into post production and in this documentary we have the following footage and sources to bring together:

• Video from a flip camera (HD) taken by the talent.
• Video from a mobile phone taken by the talent.
• Music privided by the client (who is a musician).
• Film footage from 3 canon cameras (HDV 1440x1080) (HD 1920x1080) and (HD DSLR 1920x1080).
• Still images from various cameras.
• Generated Graphics.
• Mutliple composited sequences.
• Screen captured footage from web browsers (for twitter feed etc)

So as you can see it's quite a complex little beasty! The story follows Pete Windridge-France who swims the channel to raise money for charity and you can find out more at http://www.justgiving.com/peteswims. At the moment I'm just finishing the colour grading which is one step in a long list of steps needed to produce the final video:

1. Shooting
2. Editing
3. Compositing (titles, animations effects)
4. Sound and Audio effects and levelling
5. Colour Grading
6. Rendering
7. Uploading to youtube

I'm lying in bed this morning in my hotel in Cusco with another lazy (as lazy as I want to be) day ahead of me and I'm thinking about the background sound effects and sound scape for a short movie script I've been preparing. Anyway it occurs to me that Cuscu being such a crazy place, and I mean that fondly, has an amazing soundscape perfect for a number of upcoming filming projects! So I decide to go into town with my sound recording kit and leave the camera behind - my eyes need a break so time to make my ears work harder for a change!

Taking a couple of Zacuto rod connectors with spuds, and a rod and handle from the JAG35 I make this compact little rig. The Shotgun mic is a Sennheiser K6+ME66 affair and I'm using a custom made Neutrik XLR-XLR short lead. The recorder is a Marantz PMD661 Solid State Recorder with the following setup: PCM-16 16bit 48kHz mono channel. For headphones, I had to travel real lite so I didn't bring my big cans, instead I'm using Sennheiser CX300 mkII's which are fantastic! They normally go for about £70 but amazon were doing them at 70% off a while back! I wish I'd got two pairs!

Right, adios! I'm all set so I'm going to wonder into town now and see what Cusco has to offer in the way of backing soundscapes! :)

So we completed filming the Inca Trail Trek yesterday and spent the night in a hotel! Which meant a shower and a real bed! But just when you thought it was all over... worry not! today is the big day. We're off to Machu Picchu (pronounced Machew Pic Chew). So I've got the HD DSLR 5D mk II rig ready and we start the day early getting on a bus at about 7am to take us to the Machu Picchu site.

It's like going to a prison! There's only one road and there's a security checkpoint. Then once you arrive and "de-bus" - you've got to love those Americanisms! you go through passport control! yep that's right you need your passport and a ticket to get in. One of our party has forgotten her student card and this causes a 5 min queue and I'm thinking of that Clint Eastwood film "Firefox" where the guard stops him and says something like "your papers are not in order...". Anyway no one is arrested, deported, killed or otherwise in hollywood fashion taken off and interrogated and our party gets in!

Once through there is a stall for the tourists where you can get your passport stamped with an official Macchu Picchu stamp! (and yes like the tourist I am, I got mine done - well you only live once!)

I'm going in with the filming rig and audio equipment in the backpack and the 5D Mk II slung over my shoulder with the Canon EF 24-70mm 1:2.8 L series USM lens with a Fader ND Mk II filter. The 5D is not a small camera especially with the battery grip on but it's also not that big and so it doesn't get unwanted attention from the guards at the gate. Why would that be a problem... well you see if you're a professional then you may need to pay for a filming permit. I wouldn't mind but this is a charity gig and I'm doing this bit out of the goodness of my heart - there's no cash invovled so technically it's not a job and I'm just a tourist, but I don't need the hassle!

Back to Machu Picchu... it's .... BEAUTIFUL! There's still a low mist and the mountains are shades of grey! Makes for some stunning abstract black and white shots. Hey I always shoot in RAW full colour but I can imagine what the black and whites will look like. This is a photo opportunity that's worth the tired legs! My guide tells me to keep the rig in the bag for now, we'll use it later... fine! I'm in photography mode right now! But here's how I see life... There's probably been millions of people stood here with cameras and they're all taking the same shot... that's not for me. I don't like being predictable and Banksy's graffiti in London which says "This is not a photo opportunity" springs to mind and so I stop and get out of tourist mode and back into pro photographer mode. I'd rather go away with 5 pictures that make me tingle than 500 that anyone could have taken. I start looking around me, thinking about the movement of the sun, the way the clouds and mist are evolving, where the people are and where they are not... I do that thing that photographers do that is more intuitive than logical and you start putting yourself in various places and seeing from those spots... I wonder off from my group a little so I can start to take pictures that tell more of a story than "I was here".

We headed up to Sun Gate which is about an hours treck uphill and en rout we discovered that the Discovery Channel were there shooting for three days. They had a 3D filming rig and also some standard (very cool) stuff. Sad to say our guide had to tell some of their crew off because they were standing on the ancient walls. It'd be like a Peruvian film crew coming to the UK and walking on the roof of Canterbury Cathedral... come on guys! filming a place does not make you special or give you a right to disrespect another cultures historical artefacts! Better watch that I don't make the same mistake! Still round the corner from the Disco boys I set my rig up and carried on up the hill. My guide laughed and said "you can just say you're one of their team now" - thanks I think :).

We film a couple of mini documentaries about the Inca belief systems, symbols and such with my guide making a willing and quite good presenter. Lots of scenery footage which is easy in a place like this. I also do a little behind the scenes skit which I may release one day and then we de-rig and head back to the main tourist hubub. I once visited Muir woods in San Franscisco and my friend and guide told me that something like 95% of Americans never make it further than 100m from their cars when they visit nature. I don't know if that was true or not but you get the feeling that's true for most people. The site closest the entrance is naturally heaving and so I take fewer pics as I'm after the sense of scale of the place. I did ask my guide to take a quick snap of me with the main site below (which is the picture shown) just to prove I was there... the rest of the proof will be in the video I'm going to edit when I'm back in Blighty.

Footnote:

If you're thinking of going... GO! It really is an amazing place and saddly it may be shutting to the public soon as the rocks are subsiding and becoming unstable. The charity organisers I'm filming for are Student Adventures in the UK and I think they do non-student trips too so look them up.

Sometimes size and weight are a real consideration when filming outdoor adventures. And this is certainly the case for filming Machu Picchu tomorrow. I'm in the hotel getting ready for tomorrow (and enjoying the fact that there is a shower and a real bed after many days of trekking). The challenge is to take our hybrid field runner Digital SLR filming rig and strip it down to the bare minimum while still being able to record professional sound and video. It has to be light and small so it fits into a typical day sack and be carried around for a day in very very hot conditions.

You Need Great Video AND Audio For The Best Results

The great thing about our filming rig is that it's versatile. So we've dropped the shouder mount, one of the handles and attached the Marantz PDM661 pro audio recorder with Senheiser K6+ME66 shotgun mic under the belly of it all. This rig still has 3 points of contact (eyepiece, handle and follow focus) which allows us to capture great quality images and also audio while being compact and easy to handle and carry.

The camera is not shown in the picture but what you do see (big black piece with two metal tips) towards the left of the picture is the battery grip mounted. By removing the camera at the grip point the camera could be quickly freed to become a stills camera making this setup even more versatile!

It's all about the final shot

In the film industry there's a saying that "The world is held together with gaffer tape and cable ties" and there's certainly a lot of truth in that. What this rig demonstrates is that sometimes you have to adapt and change the way you use kit to make sure you get the best results no matter the conditions. Thinking out of the box is part of the fun when it comes to solving the challenge of getting the right footage. In the past we've:

• Wrapped cameras in clingfilm to protect them from dust while filming on building sites
• Mounted cameras to people to capture sport
• Mounted rigs out of sunroofs, rear & side doors of moving vehicles to capture action
• Then there was the time I put a camera inside a fridge freezer... but that's another story - got a great shot though ;)

We're well into the Inca Trail trek and in this photo I'm taking a well earned break from photographing and filming the adventure to enjoy the views of the stunning mountains and emerald lakes. We've just come over the highest point in the pass which if I remember correctly was about 4500m above sea level.

Just before this highest point was an old abandoned silver mine, which to get to you had to hike off from the path up a steep scree zig zagged path. But it was worth it. I donned the head torch and took the small HF S21 camcorder and went right into the mine. It was dark and damp and thankfully lacking anything with teeth or claws! I saw what looked like some traces of silver in there too and our guide Willow said there were plans to re-open the mine in the future, I wish I'd packed a pickax, but then again... with all the camera and sound equipment I was loaded down enough!

You'll get to see some of the footage of the mine in the final video which we're putting together to promote charity events in Peru for our client Student Adventures.