Film & Editing Blog - Behind the Scenes

We've produced a behind the scenes mini documentary of the post production process of the making of the Pete Swims documentary. This includes editing, compositing, audio mixing, graphics, titles, animations and more.

What we're looking at here is approx 24 hours of work time (over 3 days) condensed down to 10 mins. And as one client said... "you make it look effortless" but that's because this is what we do and we know how to use the cameras, software and hardware to get the end results.

To see the Pete Swims Documentary go here.

For those media geeks out there, the screen capture was done using iShowU HD Pro and editing in Adobe Premiere where it went through 2 rounds of time ramping up totaling 1,000,000% speed up.

I then laid the audio vocal track over the top in one take using a Sennheiser K6+ME66 mic through the Marantz 661. For a bit of fun I made the opening animation in After Effects 5.5.

Enjoy

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! :)

Well it's Sunday evening and I'm sitting on the sofa going over the dailies from filming the 2011 Frank Farrelly Provocative Therapy training event in Leeds. Spartmedia have been filming Frank's Leeds based events for a number of years now and it's always a pleasure to see him work his magic on stage and to be involved.

This year we were in the Hilton Hotel which was a great venue from a filming perspective as well as for the delegates, some of whom had travelled from New York and India to attend! We setup the filming equipment and room (see list below) and the event ran over the Saturday and Sunday. Frank Farrelly's work and the demonstrations and explanations by the event host Nick Kemp of Nick Kemp Training are really powerful stuff and there was, by chance, a strong theme of "resolving relationship issues" running throughout the different live sessions.

Rough guide to some of the film and stage equipment used for this event:

• 2x Fresnel Lights
• 2x cold lights with diffusers for talent
• 1x softbox light for front fill
• 5mx3m black stage backdrop and backdrop stand
• PA system with multi channel mixer with feed to solid state Marantz audio recorder
• 3x HD ENG cameras (all colour balanced) Sony and Canon.
• 1x Canon 5D mark II with 70-200m L series canon lens
• Jag35 Field Runner Rig with Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5 & Genus follow focus
• Posters
• 3x lavalier (lapel) mics
• 2x audience hand held mics
• shotgun mic for ambience feed
• Marantz PMD 661 for mobile audio recording
• Laptop with Final Cut Pro for live reviews and tethered recording if needed

Being a live event there is no script and so we really have to pay attention and think on our feet, which is a lot of fun and something we've got a lot of experience at. During this event, similar to many other live events, as well as taking care of the multicam filming we also  mic'd up delegates and talent alike with lavalier mics as they went on stage, did the live sound mixing and PA system control and generated audio copies of "live sessions" for the participants in real time on CD.

DVD Products to come...

The great news is that it looks like there are going to be a number of DVDs coming out of this event so it's on to the next stage of post production editing for me and I'll keep you posted.
Note to self... I really must update the project list page!

PS. Thanks Vic Carerra for your help

PPS. Thanks Dr Sue for taking the picture of me grinning with our new 5D Filming rig!