I recently shot a short promo for ‘Strictly Come Dancing – The Professionals’. The touring live stage version features the world champion dancers from the smash hit BBC TV series as they take to the stage for the first time in the ultimate dance extravaganza!

The brief was to provide footage for news access and for general promotional purposes. I shot the dress rehearsal with a couple of cameras and was able to deliver an edit for them the next day. This is a formidable challenge, but was achieved thanks to the latest technology and a willingness to work long into the night!

I’ll try and get permission to post the promo soon.

Following a question on the Edius forums, I put together this simple tutorial on how to crop your standard 16:9 widescreen films to 2.35:1 without having a ‘letterbox’ or black bars top and bottom. I upload to both Vimeo and ExposureRoom and it is possible with both of these sites to upload a film without the borders. ExposureRoom actually has a feature built in that will allow you to choose your crop when you upload – but I still prefer this method as it means I can use the same source file for all uploads.

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I recently had the pleasure of shooting a short piece to camera for EC1 New Deal for Communities with the BBC presenter Kate Silverton. I have worked with EC1 NDC before – the film I shot for them ‘EC1 Day’ is viewable here.

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A couple of months back I shot my first paying gig with the Panasonic GH1. The film was for the UK’s Premier Latin Music and Dance Festival in Southport called Salsa Kingdom. The make up of the film is a mixture of promotional shots and interview pieces.

I had already shot quite a bit on the GH1 and I knew what it was capable of and also knew about its limitations. There has been a lot written about the GH1 and the performance of its codec. In my experience, when shooting in 720/50 the camera performs very well and the codec is pretty robust. There is more of a problem with the 1080/25 setting. One of the situations which can cause issues is fast movement – either of the camera, or of the subject in front of the camera. This movement becomes too much for the camera to deal with and for small moment the codec breaks down and produces what people are referring to as ‘mud’. This mud is a slight blockiness or pixelation of the image. This occurs more readily in 1080/25.

The 1080/25 mode is still great – as long as you are aware of the limitation. My Thames Barrier film got a lot of views online and sparked a lot of interest in the camera and this was shot nearly all 1080/25. (The slo-mo stuff was 720/50).

Weighing everything up I decided the camera would be a good choice for the shoot. Although I knew I would be shooting fast motion, I wanted to shoot 720/50 as this would give me the option later to slow down any of the dancing footage.

Having made my decision, I thought I should explain my decision to the Producer of the event who had hired me. Shooting on DSLR’s is still very much in its infancy and there is a risk that people will wonder what the hell you have turned up with. I told him that I was going to try something a bit new but not to worry! He had seen my reel and hired me because of it, so to his credit he trusted me. I’ve seen a lot of people chatting online about this dilemma – the suggestion being that clients will take you more seriously with a bigger camera or wonder why they are paying you so much if you turn up with a little DSLR. It think there may be some truth in this – but if you manage there expectations up front I think there should be less of a problem – especially as DSLR’s gain more popularity and more importantly once people see the results.

Another factor in my choice of the GH1 was light. I knew I would be shooting in low light and this is where the DSLR’s are king. Combined with a set of old Canon FD primes I knew I would be able to cope with some very lowlight situations. Something that my other camera – a Panasonic HVX200 would have struggled with. I spent a long time in post on one production having to de-noise a ton of footage as it was shot run ‘n gun in very low light and the resulting image was very, very noisy. Not so these DSLR’s and for me that was the deciding factor.

Next up I had to sort out a working rig for the camera. I went to Redrock Micro and put together a rig from various bits of their DSLR support kit. I used a set of rails which had the camera on a raised baseplate with two front handles, then I used their cage pieces to go around the camera with a handle on top for easy carrying and low-mode shooting. I topped this off with the Genus mattebox. The end result was a pretty meaty looking rig that was stable enough to shoot handheld. Unlike the Canon DSLR’s the GH1 has an electronic viewfinder that I was able to use whilst shooting and this made the handheld rig pretty simple to use.

Redrock DSLR setup with Redrock Mattebox

Genus Basic Mattebox

During shooting there were very few issues with the camera at all. It worked perfectly throughout and I was even pleasantly surprised when shooting with the stock lens supplied with the camera. I had some footage I needed to get that was on the street and was completely run ‘n gun. For this, the stock lens’s ability to autofocus whilst shooting made a big difference. Not always perfect and not always quick enough – but good enough to get useable footage.

There were a lot of interviews for this film and for sound I went with the Zoom H4N. This is a little portable recorder that does a fantastic job. It records up to 4 tracks in high quality BWF (Broadcat Wave Format) and will provide phantom power for a boom mic. All of the audio was captured using the Zoom H4N.

A couple of gotchas. First, zooming whilst shooting with the stock lens is for me, generally a no no. It seems that the codec is working with so little overhead that even something as simple as zooming in can cause it to break down. I saw this happen, so my little punch zooms didn’t really work.

Second gotcha may not be a gotcha at all. The ‘mud’ situation. I cut the whole piece together and was very happy with the result. Only when I happened to pause on a particular frame did I notice that during some of the fast dancing, the codec was breaking up. My take on it is this: If the film is compelling enough, if it works and its telling a story, you don’t notice the shortcomings. If you go looking for them – you’ll find them

The client was very happy with the final film. We got some shots they had not been able to get before. We kept really mobile and were able to run around across the town grabbing footage on the fly. For this kind of job, the DSLR is near perfect.

I have been commissioned to make a documentary about a new Public Health School in Hong Kong. The school is part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the documentary will follow the students of a new BSc course. The course is the first of it’s kind in Hong Kong.

Since the course is 3 years long, I will be travelling back to Hong Kong several times over the next few years to catch up with the Professor’s and students and see how things are developing.

It’s a great honour to be asked to be involved in such a project and I enjoyed the first round of shooting a lot.

Because I was travelling I needed a portable and compact filming solution and that is where the development of new camera technologies has proved to be extremely useful. I am shooting the documentary on a Digital SLR camera, which is capable of producing stunning results in a very compact form factor.

I use two DLSR cameras like this now – the Panasonic GH1 and the Canon 7D. The Hong Kong film is being shot with the GH1.

In the still above – taken from the film – you can see the kind of possible results. It takes people a moment to get over the fact that your camera is so small! But they soon forget about it, and if anything, being so discreet helps the interviewees to feel more relaxed.

I’m currently working on a project for a museum who wanted a display with an Olypmic theme. The display features 10 British Olympians and is designed to allow people to vote for their favourite British Olympian.

All of the graphics were produced in After Effects using photographs licensed from the Press Association. They have a fantastic catalogue of photos across a massive range of subjects – but their sports photography is particularly good.

I’m not sure who I’d pick – but I think Daley Thompson has got to be up there…!

I’m working on a promo with the actor Michael Mckell – www.michaelmckell.com He is about to release an album ‘Shower Over Moon St’ and I’m going to be shooting a promo for the first single.

Below are a couple of frame grabs from our first bit of shooting. This was shot with the Panasonic GH1 camera and graded with Magic Bullet Looks. I look forward to seeing just how much can be achieved with this camera.

I had my first opportunity to test the GH1 out recently and took the camera out to the Thames Barrier Park in London. The park has 22 acres of lawns, trees and a fantastic formal garden that echoes the unique architecture of the Barrier.

The first enjoyment of using this rig for me was the sheer portability of it. I’m used to lugging a Panasonic HVX200 around and with a 35mm lens adapter attached plus heavy duty tripod, it starts to get a bit tough… And since this was the hottest day of the year so far, I felt a sense of relief everytime I looked at my single lightweight backpack.

Another benefit of shooting this way was that it allows you to be more inconspicuous. The whole setup is so compact that people pay you little attention. This allowed me to capture some nice candid moments of people relaxing in the sunshine.

The camera itself was great to use. The viewfinder is bright and detailed and has a dioptric adjustment for glasses wearers such as myself. On my list of future accessories is a shade/hood for the LCD screen. Under normal conditions, the screen is very good – I particularly like the fact that it can articulate into different positions, allowing you to see the screen clearly whilst shooting at all sorts of angles. But in bright sunlight it is hard to see properly. So I will be trying out a Hoodman shade or possibly even the Hoodloupe soon.

Another consideration in the bright light was getting a decent exposure. I wanted to test out the shallow depth of field possibilities of the camera and in order to do that you need to open up the aperture. However, as the camera does not have any ND (Neutral Density) filters built into it – as a video camera might – there is no way of restricting the light coming into the camera.

I used the Cokin P filter system to get around this limitation. Suddenly transported back to my days of stills photography, I bought the Cokin P series mount which holds up to 4 filters.

I had a mount for the stock lens and as the stock lens is quite slow, in combination with a Cokin ND filter, I was able to get some shallow depth of field shots. I have already invested in some more ND – an ND8 – as the camera is extremely sensitive to light. In addition I was using some Canon FD lenses on the camera which were much faster than the stock lens and will need plenty of ND on if I want to shoot with shallow DOF.

Working with the Canon FD lenses was great. I’ve picked up a few primes on Ebay – 28mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 100mm 2.8. I originally got these for use with my SGPro 35mm adapter, but one of the beauties of the GH1 camera is how adaptable it is. There are a large number of adapters available online to allow you to mount lenses from different camera systems to the body of the GH1. I used the Jinfinance. This is a well made adapter that screws neatly and simply onto the lens and then onto the GH1 body. The GH1 informs you that there is no lens attached but it helpfully has a menu function that allows you to shoot ‘without a lens attached’. In this mode you can use any manual lens you can find an adapter for.

One thing to bear in mind is that the Panasonic uses the micro Four Thirds system, which means that when you mount a 35mm still lens on the camera it will have an equivalent focal length of 2x. This means that a 50mm lens will have the look of a 100mm lens in 35mm terms.

I shot most of the Thames Barrier Park film in FHD mode – this is the camera’s full HD 1080/25 AVCHD mode. There has been a lot written about the quality of the codec in this mode. I would say best on my breif experimentation so far that the codec in this mode is not that robust. The picture can break up if you move the camera too quickly – but this can be planned for and avoided. However, I did notice some artifacting even in static shots.

That said, the camera does have a fantastic 720/50 mode. All of the slow motion shots in the film were done in this mode. The codec appears to be much more robust in 720 and anything fast moving or that required quick camera movement should be shot in this mode for best results. As a bonus, since it is 720/50 – dropping the footage onto a 25p timeline allows for very simple and effective slow motion. This is achieved differently in various NLE’s, but in Edius – my editing setup – I simply dropped the footage onto a 25p timeline and changed the speed to 50%.

I’m already looking forward to my next outing with the camera and can see this being an extremely useful part of my kit. For lowlight work, or where I need to be compact and portable, the camera is perfect. Using a DSLR to shoot video also has the added benefit of being able to deliver high quality to stills to clients as well – all from the same unit.

For more information on the GH1 visit http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/2129937/index.html

Watch my film, shot with the GH1 here http://www.joe-shaw.co.uk/?p=341

Before shooting The Echo I did a lot of prep work, including storyboarding the film. Below is a small selection of storyboard frames and their comparative stills from the final film. You can see where I stuck to the storyboard and where in some cases it was necessary to alter the original concept.

The storyboard frames were created in Frameforge Studio 3D, which is a great bit of software. It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it can be a really useful tool for planning your shots out in advance. The main advantage of it is that it is photographically accurate. You can set a lens, a precise camera height etc and what you see is exactly what you would get.

I had to knock up a very basic version of the train station in order to plan the shots in Frameforge, but it didn’t take too long and since it was for me only, I didn’t worry about it being too pretty.

The purpose of the storyboard was not as a document to follow religiously, but as a guide to help out when things got tough on the day. The Echo is a simple film and shot even more simply – but even so, when you’re trying to get 15 mins in one day it really helps to have planned ahead. If you don’t storyboard, I would at the very least have a good shot list to keep you on the straight and narrow.

Some shots were added on the day. The front on shot under the sign for Folkestone Harbour was the biggest addition. It was just too good to miss and has become the ‘poster’ image for the film. We actually left some kit in the shot, it was very wide and we just didn’t notice it. That was painted out in post.

Some shots were dropped, the biggest being the jib shots. I had planned a couple of jib shots – but as time was running out they dropped off the list. This seemed like a sensible thing to do at the time, but I regret it. It would have added some extra production value to the film. More importantly, I neglected to put something simpler in place of one of the main jib shots that would have acted as a nice master for part of the scene. It meant that I had greatly reduced options when it came to editing. You live and learn.

One of the greatest revelations on the day was how possible it was to pull off dolly shots with the ‘Wally Dolly‘. If I had known that this simple dolly would be quite so effective and so fast to set up I would have used it more. I was amazed at how quick it was from unpacking to tracking.

Another consideration of course was that moving the camera meant having to follow focus. The film was shot using the Letus Extreme 35mm DOF adapter, which meant that focusing was much more critical – and since we were going for a shallow depth of field look, the margin for error was far greater. When I set the film up and got Phil Bloom on board to DP, we had talked about whether or not he wanted a focus puller. He decided against it. I think this is because his background was ENG/News and he is capable of pulling his own focus. I know that since then he would never contemplate it again!

He actually made a great job of pulling focus of the barrel of the lens – including the shot where we track into Carlisle. It took a few attempts and I would not have tried this on other moments where it might have got in the way of performance. I would hate to have to go over and over again and lose a great performance for the sake of trying to get focus.

I’m certain that whatever I shoot next with Phil, he will at the very least use a follow focus, and would probably consider a focus puller/AC.

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