Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage from Khalid Mohtaseb on Vimeo.

When two international TV networks asked me to go to Haiti to shoot ENG footage I was very uncertain about what to expect. Like many others I was getting my information on what was happening on the ground from the news and occasionally by word of mouth. Almost everyone who knew of my trip tried to talk me out of it, which in itself was very frustrating. The networks wanted us there as soon as possible and there was no time for preproduction or coordination.

Almost all the images and videos coming out of Haiti had become all too familiar and I knew that was not how I wanted to capture a story of this significance. The idea that life goes on even in the most horrific state of despair was fascinating to me and getting that concept across was my main goal in shooting this montage. I wanted to focus on the Haitian people and the lives that had been affected by this devastating earthquake as well as showcase how modern technology can revolutionize journalism and the way news coverage is shot.

Our team of four, which also included two correspondents and a second shooter, traveled from New York City to Santa Domingo and with great uncertainty, took a bus across the border to Haiti. Our 15-hour trip ended when we were dropped off at the heavily guarded US embassy in the Haitian capital. From there we found our way to the United Nations base, where we pitched a tent and settled in along with the many other journalists based there. For the next week that tent would be our home.

Posing with aid workers - the team all ready to shoot the news with the Panasonic HPX-500

The 5DmkII rig ready to roll with Kessler Pocket Dolly

Production
All the ENG footage was shot with a Panasonic HPX-500. The second shooter was my good friend Raymond Bishir, who is a photographer and wanted to shoot his personal work as well. Every day we not only had to shoot, edit, and transmit two three-minute reports but to make enough time to shoot our personal stuff. We established a workflow in which we would alternate between news shooting and personal shooting. We were fortunate enough that the two journalists we were working with (Susan Modaress and Hassan Abu Zaytoon) were very supportive and patient with us.

Working in an earthquake zone is physically and emotionally overwhelming. Aside from the documentary I shot in Egypt and Lebanon this was my first time shooting with a journalistic mindset. Having to document a natural disaster of this magnitude was very difficult to grasp. One of the main factors that we were all concerned about the logistical challenges such as housing, food, water, transportation, and safety; however I tried not think about the obstacles as they tend to be distracting. That being said, we packed very lightly. Each of us only brought a limited amount of personal belongings and the bare essential tools to get the job done.

Tools I used for the montage.
-Tenba shootout rolling backpack
-Canon 5D mark2
-Kessler Pocket Dolly
-Miller solo ENG legs w/ the Arrow 25 head, a few lenses
-Canon 16-35, 24-70, 70-200 2.8 L series),
-Marshall 7inch HDMI monitor
-5 Canon BPE-6 camera batteries.
-Apple Macbook pro

Shooting personal work at the airfield with 5DmkII on Pocket Dolly and Miller tripod

It’s crucial to keep a low profile when shooting in disaster zones so I chose not to bring a mattebox, follow focus, filters, and barely ever shot with the monitor. The pocket dolly was almost always part of the setup as it takes seconds to build and works flawlessly. I strongly believe that a dolly shot is far more powerful than a static shot so I tried using it any chance I could. I chose to shoot everything between a 100-320 ISO and nothing faster than a 5.6 f-stop. I tried to keep my shutter speed around 1/60 of a second to get it closest to a film shutter degree. I cranked up the shutter speed for all the water distribution shots to crystallize the water.

Shooting in the strong sun was challenging

One of my biggest challenges when it came to shooting was the contrast between the darker skin complexions and direct sunlight. I worked around it by finding a midpoint between the two and exposing for it. Turning down the on-camera contrast also helped significantly with the latitude. I knew I wouldn’t achieve the look I wanted in camera so I shot everything with a standard pictures style and tweaked the look in post.

Post Production

I’ve been listening to Eric Wollo ’s music for quite some time now and I knew that “Sounds of the Seen Part 1” was the track I wanted to use. I edited everything in the native H.264 codec and exported as Apple ProRes 422 after I was done editing. The montage was edited in a couple of days using Final Cut Pro and most of the time was spent grading.

A still from a clip graded in Photoshop for reference

My first step in grading is almost always retouching a screenshot from the clip in Photoshop. I then use the Photoshopped still as a reference for my color grading. I started the grade in FCP using the three-way color corrector to shift the mids and shadows to a warmer color tone. From here on out I live in Magic Bullet Looks to fine-tune the exposure and colors. I rarely ever use the looks presets as they are overused and can get more precise results by building my own.

Using Magic Bullet Looks to fine tune exposure and colors

Some of the most useful tools in Magic Bullet are the spot exposure, grad exposure, vignette, contrast and curves. I faced major latitude issues due to the dark skin completions and the skin tones were almost always too bright or too dark. The spot exposure really helped in solving this issue.

The grad exposure is an essential tool to draw attention to your subjects. I used it to bring the exposure of the foreground or background up or down a few stops.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time recently trying to learn Apple Color, as its tweaking tools are far more precise than Final Cut Pro or Magic Bullet.

The before and after results of grading

Khalid was born in Doha Qatar in December 1985. He spent his childhood traveling from one country to another, until his father was relocated to Wayne New Jersey in 1993. Inspired by music, math, and independent film khalid discovered his passion for filmmaking at an early age. In 2004 he attended the New York Film Academy and later won best screen play at the 2005 New York International Film Festival for his short feature “Optimistic”. After graduating he started working on commercials, music videos, and corporate events in hope to finance his personal projects.
His website is here

NG Earth Explorer Desert Adventure from Johnnie Behiri on Vimeo.

Being a freelance cameraman/editor gives me the freedom to accept other interesting projects when not working with the BBC.

When National Geographic approached and asked me to make a film about their “Earth explorer bag collection” I had no doubt that the Canon 7D was the right tool for the job.

Production notes
The task I got was to produce/direct/film/edit a short film that will be presented in NG megastores, exhibitions and at distributors’ point of sales. The main idea was to try and keep the “NG spirit” although we are talking about a commercial product.

A budget and a very tight timeline for the production were set and my first task was to find a proper filming location. I needed a place that would look like an “international desert”. Furthermore, if I could get a few “desert looks” in one location that did not require long travelling time it would be even better. The other thing I needed was a desert that allowed me easy access to its inhabitants and where the language barrier would not be a problem. The reason is that NG is very strict with its copyright policy. Anybody and anything that moves in the frame must give permission to be filmed and any other brand (in my case Land Rover and Canon) filmed in the video must give permission for their product to be shown in the video.
Last, I needed to shoot in a country that was potentially reliable when dealing with the different service providers and – not forgetting – that would be cost effective too….

The place I chose to go to was the Negev desert in the south of Israel.
I planned 3 shooting days and knew in advance that days would be short and nights very cold. In order to stay in my budget and timeline there was no way I could go to Israel in advance and do full preproduction preparations so I had to heavily rely on my previous experience when shooting there and I found a great desert guide from a reliable company which could match the places I imagined and wanted to film to the actual locations on the ground.

The crew was minimal. On set I had at times 2 people from NG, the desert guide, my two actors and me, doing the shooting…
Using the 7D allowed me to be fast, very light and flexible.

The camera survived through the desert heat, sand and long shooting days without any problems (from previous experience, only when shooting 50 frames per second did I get the overheating problem).

Choosing camera profile
Before starting the project I was looking for a picture profile that would give me “out of the box” warm, nice “desert colors”. Then I came across the “custom 7d picture styles” thread on Cinema 5d. A forum member Sumitagarwal posted some promising profiles. His “Kodachrome” profile looked very interesting.
After adjusting the profile even more for my liking I felt like I had a nice “out of the box” color to start with. When shooting, I was using a combination of graduated ND 0.3/0.6/0.9 filters (Formatt filters) to enhance the beautiful blue skies or, in other shots, darken the shiny brown earth.
Vari-ND came in very useful in other shots when I wanted to keep the aperture wide open in midday strong light using the 70-200mm lens as you can see at 4:14 min of the video.
Setting up the camera LCD brightness to ”manual- step no. 3”, gave me the closest WYSWYG when filming so I felt very comfortable with what I saw in the VF.
Later in editing, I was using Cineform “First light” to slightly colour correct and mostly to match colour differences between the different lenses/ND filters used.

Aerial shots (00:29)
These were done with the Canon 17-55mm lens, stabilizer switched on. It is not easy to shoot when the airplane door is taken off and winds are blowing strongly, yet it was a quick and dirty solution allowing me to achieve some nice usable aerial shots.

Shooting “documentary style” (1:47)
Most of the Bedouin scene was shot while things were happening without interfering in the situation. The Rode stereo mic was connected directly to the camera capturing sufficient ambient audio (quality-wise) for this type of project. The DVtec multirig was chosen because it was small and could be folded any time, allowing me to store the camera with the rig attached into my Kata bag protecting the camera and lens from heat and sand

Time-lapse (3:53)
This was my first attempt shooting time-lapse and let me tell you, the actual shooting is extremely boring (looonnng hours) but the final result it worth every minute spent on it. The time-lapse sequence was shot with the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens and JENIS TC-80N3 Remote Switch with Digital Timer for Canon.
You will find many great time-lapse videos and tutorials on-line, but my suggestion is to try it for yourself; it is not difficult at all.

When did the camera perform not so well?
On one occasion we had an amazing minor sandstorm. The sand created horizontal “sand steps”. When attempting to shoot the sand I got terrible moiré and had to give up shooting.

Equipment I chose to have with me:
Canon 7d
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 AT-X
Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS USM
Canon EF 70-200 f2.8L USM
Samyang 85mm f1.4
Samyang 8mm f3.5
Vari-ND
Formatt filters graduated ND 0.3/0.6/0.9
Zacuto Z-Finder
Rode SVM stereo mic
Manfrotto 756XB with 701HDVminihead

Sachtler DV8 SB
Litepanels 1×1
4 Canon E-6 battaries
1 Kingston 133X 32GB
3 Sandisk extreme III 8GB CF cards
DVtec multirig
Kata T-214 bag
Kata OC-82 bag
Kata PR-460 bag
Netbook and a WD external hard disk to back up the material
JENIS TC-80N3 For time-lapse shooting

Editing was done on Adobe Premiere CS2
All files were converted before editing to Cineform files using the Prospect 4k plugin.
Slight colour correction and matching colours in scenes was done with Cineform “First light”.

Johnnie Behiri is a BBC freelance cameraman operating from Vienna, Austria.
When not working for the BBC, Johnnie films documentaries, commercials, music videos, and testimonial/marketing videos

5DmkII firmware 2.0.3 audio test from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Yesterday I had the chance to test the new 5DmkII firmware 2.0.3 in a real news environment. It that adds 1080/24p and 25p recording, Tv and Av modes for video and manual control of the audio levels in the camera. I used it on a bustling doorstep interview by visiting UK Foreign secretary David Miliband. Above is a very short test clip shot at 25p.

The audio was fed from a reporters mic with a Sennheiser SKP 100 radio transmitter to my very lovely Sound Devices MixPre audio mixer, then to a Pinknoise systems custom made XLR to minijack -45db PAD cable to the 5DmkII. The Pinknoise cable is necessary because otherwise the output of the mixer’s XLR’s is too hot for the camera’s mic level input.

The 5DmkII with Sound Devices mixer and Pinknoise cable

The beauty of this setup is that I can monitor what is being sent to the camera using headphones and on the mixers brightly lit LED meters. Once the correct level is set in camera I don’t have to touch the 5DmkII again as all the adjustments can then be done on the mixer instead. The preamps in the mixer are of far higher quality than those in the camera and so a lot of the hiss I would get before is removed. I can also use an XLR mic with Phantom power like the Audio Technica AT875R shotgun mic shown here.

I’m not convinced of the strength of the minijack connection in busy news environments like this and I’m worried it may fall out or become dislodged too easily. For that reason I actually set the record level in camera at just under half way on the meter. This is a compromise I’m trying for news so that if the jack does fall out I still get some sound from my internal camera mic. There is some slight hiss due to the camera’s noisy internal preamps, but I can live with it. Using the mixer I can also output to an audio recorder at the same time for insurance.

In a more controlled environment I would want to reduce the in camera level to near minimum and use the better quality pre-amps in the Sound Devices mixer to boost the level.

So far this is the best (and most expensive) option I have used for news audio. Other cheaper options I like that offer similar functionality are the Juicedlink CX231 with DN101 adapter attached , or the Tascam DR-100 recorder with a Pinknoise cable on the line output.
If you haven’t already installed the new firmware you can hop over here to download it.

I’m not going to go into all the detail on the firmware here but there a couple of great reads , one from Phil Bloom here and another from Planet5D

Here’s a quick run through of the new firmware’s features from Mitch at Planet5D

Guide to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II “cinema” update 2.0.3 from planetMitch on Vimeo.

Guardian reporter Tania Branigan and I have been wanting to make a report about the children of migrant workers for a while now. Although many of them were born in Beijing, their access to education and other services is limited because of China’s household registration system, the hukou. It basically divides citizens into urban and rural dwellers and assigns them various rights. It made more sense in the 1950s, when China was a planned economy, but has created huge problems now that tens of millions of Chinese farmers have moved to cities to find work. Because the hukou is inherited, their kids struggle to access basic services too.

I knew that the best way to tell this story would be through the life of a child. We were fortunate to find a great subject in eight-year-old Yuhui, whose parents will do anything to ensure she gets a good education. Like many migrant kids, she has not been able to get a place in a state school and instead goes to a privately-run place in the city.

We had been trying to set up a visit to the school for a while and as luck would have it managed to arrange it just as my 550D cameras arrived. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try them out on an assignment. I wanted the video to mix conventional news reporting with documentary style.

The schoolchildren check out the 550D

For the shoot I used both my 550D cameras shooting at 1080/25p, one rigged for slider action and the other in a regular configuration. I had a good range of lenses with me. the Zeiss ZE 28mm f2, 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.4, the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, a Canon 100mm 2.8 macro lens and a 135mm f2 Canon lens. To aid focus I fitted my Zacuto Z-finder – the same one I use with my other Canon cameras.

I chose to shoot using just natural light and work around it – the interiors were all between 200 and 800 asa at between f2.8 and f5.6 , avoiding the ultra shallow depth of field look. This was an aesthetic choice as I felt it just made the end result a bit more ‘real’.

The two sliders – my small Singapore-made one and a larger Glidetrack – were also critical to the look of the piece. For the uninitiated, these are metal rails with small carriages that move along them, simulating the look of a traditional tripod dolly over short distances. The longer Glidetrack was mounted on my Miller DS-20 at one end and a light stand at the other – this setup was used for most of the slides. My mini Singapore slider was used in tight spots or for putting straight onto a table for close up-sliding.

Unlike on many news assignments, I had the time to stay and shoot over a longer period. Once the children got used to me and my camera being in the classroom they settled down and this allowed me to get far more natural shots.

The Glidetrack and 550D ready for action

For the outside shots I used 4×4 glass ND filters in a Genus mattebox (with Sunshade removed to try and keep a low profile). I would normally use a Fader ND filter for speed but in this instance, with a little more time on my hands, I thought I would go for the best quality possible.

As with the 7D and 1DmkIV the mic input only has automatic gain control and is pretty useless for high quality audio. Instead I used my new Tascam DR-100 field recorder with a Sanken CS-1 mic attached via XLR. I then synced the sound with the in-camera audio using Bruce Sharpe’s amazing Pluraleyes software for Final Cut Pro.

Editing was quite straightforward. I converted the clips to Prores 422 LT using MpegStreamclip before dropping them into Final Cut Pro. While I don’t usually put much of a grade on my news videos I felt that this feature deserved to be slightly more stylised – nothing too drastic; just a bit of a film look with a slight vignette on most shots, all done in Magic Bullet looks.

In terms of subject and technique this is one of the most satisfying short news features I have done. The performance of the 550D was nothing short of stunning for such a small, inexpensive camera. To my mind the equipment is not the barrier to creating great-looking news videos any more; it’s all about investing time in learning the skills and coupling it with some good old fashioned journalism.

To read Tania Branigan’s story on Migrant workers on the Guardian click here

How DSLR allowed Simon to make great video while keeping a low profile in a country that is largely out of bounds to western media.

I have been involved in production and post production and taking photographs for over a decade now. When I saw the videos shot by Vincent Laforet and Dan Chung on the 5DmkII it was immediately apparent that I should invest in one.

After testing it out on a low budget video production, where it happened to save the day, I wanted to put the 5DmkII through its paces and I conjured up the idea of traveling through Myanmar.

Low profile shooting in Myanmar

Without delving into the intricacies of the situation there, what really set the tone before I went was the advice of an acquaintance who had set up an NGO in Myanmar. In essence, I ought to be wary approaching people and broaching sensitive subjects as this could seriously compromise them with the powers that be. They would be the ones to bear the consequences of the exchange, whether or not they imparted anything that might rattle the established order. I also heard that the military were less than fond of people taking pictures of them. Actually, I didn’t have a pressing journalistic agenda for this trip but I wanted at least to have a good look and get a feel for the place.

I had reason to suspect that my luggage would be checked on arrival so I purposely limited my equipment and decided not to bring any professional audio gear. I thought too many accessories would make the 5D appear more journalistic – otherwise it appears like any DSLR carried by tourists enthusiastic about photography. Light and low profile was the order of the day.

I took 3 Canon L lenses, an essential ND filter for shooting video, a polarizer screw on, step down rings for all the lenses and the very light and compact Gitzo traveler tripod. I also had a rain cover, which came in very handy when riding around in a powered boat. Finally, I bought an Archos 5 Internet Media tablet, to which I could connect a CF card reader and transfer files. I could also view jpgs on the Archos, though it wasn’t quite up to playing 1080p. All my equipment, except the 5DmkII body with lens, fitted comfortably into a small backpack and could go with me wherever I went.

Shooting with the raincover on

I used a simple guidebook to help navigate my way around the country. I was on my own time and could ramble around, seeking out things that interested me, choosing favorable shooting positions and waiting for good light. It was an enjoyable process. I could happily labour over composition, exposure and the use of filters. I could easily go around on foot or bicycle, even trek through forest and traverse hills with all the equipment. I could walk up hundreds of steps and then shoot the emerging vista in HD. The limitation with camera support meant that I had static camera the whole time, but I’m quite happy with what I achieved.

Myanmar is very hot and I would say that the most useful equipment I had – second only to the more technologically advanced sun block – was a hat. Luckily, I didn’t have any problems with the camera overheating. The equipment was very light and performed admirably and did not impede my travels at all. The Myanmar I discovered was a friendly one; certainly a place that seems wealthier in spirit than in anything else.

You can contact Simon and see more of his work here http://www.emotefilms.com/

I usually shoot news and long feature pieces, but sometimes I get the chance to shoot something different. Bufori is a custom car company that hand makes luxury saloons and sports cars. They unveiled their brand new Bufori “Geneva” at the 80th Geneva International Motor Show and approached me about making a short film to showcase it, to be shown on various screens at the show. I decided to shoot this on my Canon 7D and also used three GoPro Hero Cams. In the old days I would have had to take a big broadcast camera and all the accessories to shoot something like this. Now I can take a much smaller DSLR camera, a few lenses and accomplish what you could only dream about a few years ago.

Bufori Geneva from Matthew Allard on Vimeo.

I shot both stills and a video for the company that were played on screens at the motor show. I decided to shoot the video on my Canon 7D using the following lenses – Canon 16-35mm f2.8, Canon 50mm f1.2 and a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. For the on-board driving shots I utilized the GoPro HD Hero cams mounted on various parts of the car. I do have mounts and arms to put a full size DSLR on a car but decided against it (better to risk a $300 camera as opposed to a $1700 one!).

A GoPro HD ready to go

Inside the factory I shot various parts being manufactured and tried to concentrate on the detail of having almost every component made by hand. I cannot stress enough the importance of using good, fast glass when you shoot. Don’t let anyone tell you that it doesn’t matter as much which lenses you use when you’re shooting video, because it does. Would you put cheap tires on a Ferrari? In most cases you get what you pay for. My Canon 50mm f1.2 cost more than my camera but is worth every cent – the difference between the F1.2 and F1.4 is huge. My advice is to buy the most expensive lenses you can afford on your budget.

Dolly and 7D rig in action

For the shots of the car inside the factory I also utilized a broadcast jib and dolly. The Genus adapter plate is a fantastic piece of kit; it enables me to put my 7D straight onto my broadcast tripod or jib so you get rock-solid movement. I also used two Litepanels 1×1 LED lights to illuminate the car. I actually needed more light than I had but time constraints and the fact that I was doing this alone limited my options. The 7D was an absolute joy to use. It enabled me to work in low light with a small depth of field that allowed me to show incredible detail. I would not have been able to use a broadcast camera when shooting in the factory unless I used excessive light, something I try to stay away from.

7D ringlight rig

For the outside shots of the car I found a small road that had lots of twists and turns and plenty of character. By setting up in a variety of spots I was able to get plenty of different angles of the car without having to move around a lot. This was the first shoot that I used the Zacuto Z-Finder on. It is brilliant, but having said that I’m still waiting for someone to come out with an adjustable viewfinder so you can use it in whatever position you like. Coming from a broadcast background, I’m used to using cameras with viewfinders that move up and down so you can see what you’re doing regardless of where you put the camera. Someone needs to come up with one or take a leaf out of Sony’s Alpha range of DSLRs that have a moveable LCD screen on the back (are you listening Canon?). I spent a lot of time lying on the ground in the middle of the road to get some of the angles O wanted.

No matter how much I use the 7D, I’m continually blown away by the quality of the images. The DSLR has revolutionized the way I work. While it is not suitable for everything, it gives me a very useful addition to my arsenal of different cameras that I use on a daily basis.

Apart from the Hero cam vision all material is ungraded and shot on the standard camera settings. The entire video was shot in less than one day and I’d like to say thank you to Lee Ali, Mark Phillips and Felix Haller for all their help.

Update – The competition is now closed, all names will be put in a hat and the winner announced shortly

***Breaking news – Seeing as there has been a phenomenal response to this competition I went back to the supplier I got the 24-105mm cup from and managed to get some more. Obviously there were going to be a lot of disappointed people so I hope this will go some way to making up for it. The competition will continue and I will add an extra special prize for the winner, but for those who can’t wait to own a cup like this head over to Ebay now http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330418303799&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT Apologies for the high shipping costs but they really are that bad from China. If anyone wants to club together for a shipment it should work out cheaper***

Now everybody has seen the Canon 70-200 f4L coffee cup over on pdnpulse given to sports photographers at the Winter games, it has caused so much of a stir that there is even a facebook group here

I have to say that I have one even better. This one is so authentic that when I first saw it I thought it was the real thing!

So I present to you the 24-105mm f4L IS coffee cup!

The 24-105 cup

Better still as a sign of my generosity I’m going to give one away to a lucky reader picked at random. All you have to do is register as a user on dslrnewsshooter with your real name and email, then post a comment below. At the end of March one lucky reader’s name will be picked out of a hat and I’ll be sending that cup out to them.

Comes complete with box

The 24-105mm f4L IS coffee cup in use

Be careful which one you fill with coffee

Possibly the DSLR world’s worst kept secret was officially unveiled today. It gives the 5DmkII video mode 24fps (actual 23.976fps) and 25fps which filmmakers and newsgatherers alike have been calling for, it also changes the 30fps option to the NTSC video standard of 29.97fps. There is also a new feature of an onscreen histogram option to help gauge exposure.

A Canon 5DmkII with Rode Videomic on the Canon stand at a Chinese trade show

The firmware also gives users the option to manually fix the audio level using an onscreen level meter, a complete godsend for News shooters who have been wrestling with Auto Gain Control, external audio recorders, hacking the camera with Tramm Hudson’s Magic Lantern firmware, or using accessories like the Beachtek DXA5D or Juicedlink DN101/CX231 combo to get useable results. Now this doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to plug just any mic into the 5DmkII, it will still need to be a powered model such as the Rode Videomic or Sennheiser MKE400. Additionally the mic gain circuit in the camera is known not to be of the best quality, so for really good results an external pre-amp or audio mixer is still recommended. Adjusting the levels on screen will not be easy on the fly either, so for run and gun I intend to fix the 5DmkII audio level at minimum and then use the output of a mixer or audio recorder to provide the audio gain – with the added bonus of being able to adjust the levels with proper control knobs. The mixer/audio recorder method will also allow you to monitor what sound is being sent to the camera as even with the new firmware there is still no way to plug headphones into the 5DmkII for live monitoring. For the paranoid like myself I will also continue to record separate audio to a recorder and sync with Singular software’s Pluraleyes for important assignments and interviews so I can be really sure I have a good quality audio track.

Now the other big question is whether Canon will add this new audio functionality to its flagship news camera the 1DmkIV or indeed the highly popular 7D. There will surely be an outcry from owners of these cameras if no announcement is forthcoming.

Full details from Canon here

*Added – link to Canon sample video showing new firmware here

A snapper’s thoughts on how a stint in short-film shooting can provide valuable experience for creating cinematic documentary pieces

I am a newspaper photographer for The Daily/Sunday Telegraph and The Times (UK) and took my first steps into DSLR-video shooting when the Canon 5DmkII came out. I started with a “shut up and shoot” approach and an interest in short pieces I felt were better captured with video than pictures only, such as 16 Teeth, capturing Cumbria’s last traditional rakemakers:

16 TEETH – Cumbria’s last traditional rakemakers from Rii Schroer on Vimeo.

However, a recent stint in short-film making (taking part in the Canon/Vimeo contest: Beyond the Still by Vincent Laforet) was a real eye-opener into the wide possibilities of cinematic DSLR- video shooting. I found some of these experiences of great inspiration and good training for documentary/feature/news reporting.

In short-film making every sequence needs as much planning as possible, and the intensity of the visual side produces the discipline of looking at the shoot in-depth from as many different views as possible. It is about getting to grips with how to achieve certain shots technically and looking into what equipment can be useful in creating those shots.

HEARTBEAT – 5D Mark II from Rii Schroer on Vimeo.

Doing a cinematic short, you try to figure out how emotion, a sense of place, action, or the revealing of layers can be solved technically. What visual look and feel do you want to give your piece to transmit your message? How can this look be created? It is a good playground for trying out various techniques and equipment, such as pulling focus, car suction mounts and Glidetracks. You are also considering when to use static shots or steady/Glidecam/handheld rig images, what ratio of wide, middle, tight shots to go for, or whether a panoramic shot, timelapse or slow motion sequence might add to the story.
Experimenting with creating a short film was a fun experience, although a quite time consuming one. I have been told by a filmmaker, add 2 or 3 times the time you expect it to take, which was about right in this instance.

Day 2: Lucy running her heals off...took us a while to get the stop in the middle of the tree group right, but got there in the end, exactly when the sun came out. Nice!

Day 2: Yorkshire tea break - a finger warm up desperately needed!

Our piece was created in two-and-a-half weeks from the idea, through scriptwriting and three days of shooting, to editing – alongside our day jobs. Locations had to be scouted; permission for shooting in the parks obtained; schedules for team, composer, and actors drawn up (this was a no budget production); equipment, insurance and props organized; whilst praying for the weather to stay stable (no rain or snowstorms!)

We wanted to try out as much equipment as we could get our hands on to get as much experience as possible. Lighting for the moving image proved to be challenging; for example, in the moving car scene, getting rid of reflections from our modelling light flash units. LCD-lighting panels, which we gelled with CTOs, were great to use for the night scenes. As we did not go for much dialogue, we put sound issues to one side during the shoot. In retrospect it proved to be a mistake, costing valuable hours in the editing suite.

Not only did we acquire valuable experience during the shoot, we also learnt a lot in retrospect, analysing what we could have done differently and more coherently – especially regarding the running scenes (shorter edit, more camera movement). Setting a deadline for your project feels important though.

I found that, even if some equipment will not always be of use for documentary film-making (eg if you have to keep it small-scale for a “fly on the wall” approach), gaining knowledge about what works well in certain situations and how to use it is immensely helpful. No matter what field one is in, it is beautiful to create visually attractive pieces, and this is the fun part of using your photographic knowledge.

Day 3: Lantern Theatre, Sheffield was absolutely lovely - what a gem! Wished we could have used it more.

The five amazing entries that made it to the final of the Beyond the Still competition were produced by professional production/videographer teams not by the targeted sector of “photographers becoming filmmakers.” This is an interesting trend that was confirmed at the recent Broadcast Video Expo in London; it seems that it is the professional filmmakers, who are going crazy about DSLR shooting. But watching and creating cinematic shorts can be exciting for the documentary shooter and useful for creating strong sequences and story telling in the documentary field of work. And the amazing technical possibilities offered by HD DSLR cameras leave no excuse not to get your hands on one and use your knowledge and expertise, already acquired through photographic reportage/news work, to create those stories you want to tell.

Rii Schroer
www.riischroer.de
http://www.vimeo.com/user1008646