By Matthew Hopkins

When shooter/editors Josh Thompson and Liam White found themselves absorbed in the 24 hour news coverage of the escalating trouble in London last month, the lure of the action proved too much. The Progress Film Company is based in Brighton and predominantly shoots using DSLRs for commercial, music and corporate work. But Josh and Liam packed a Canon 5DmkII kit and jumped on the first train to Clapham Junction. Upon stepping out of the station onto the High Road, they were immediately engulfed in chaotic scenes of looting, vandalism and violence.

Josh and Liam worked quickly and quietly, with one person taking the camera out of their bag and shooting while the other kept watch. By remaining relatively discreet they were able to capture scenes of missiles being thrown at police, rioters breaking into shops and looting, as well as violence towards members of the public who tried to intervene.

After seeing one photographer being assaulted and having his camera smashed, they started shooting with an iPhone4 and a Flip UltraHD from the heart of the action, walking through the looting crowds who were smashing their way in and out of high street shops. Again they worked fast, passing through each area swiftly before regrouping.

Upon reviewing the footage with the Progress team that evening, it was quickly agreed that they should keep shooting despite having no clear story or news agenda. Josh and Liam returned to Clapham the next morning to document the reactions of those involved in – and affected by – the riots. We wanted to listen to the discussion on the street rather than present a story or show the chaos that the news was broadcasting. A 5DmkII allowed us to get close to those involved without intimidating them and once we’d started shooting, a crowd gathered to join in the debate.

Upon reviewing the new footage it became increasingly clear that there was a message on the street that the news broadcasters did not seem to be focusing on. Residents were talking about the inevitability of something like this happening. With an editor in the studio running through the footage with a detached view, we were able to build a story that focused on the issues rather than getting too involved with the initial violence.

With that in mind, we spent a further two days shooting in other affected areas around London such as Croydon, Tottenham and Hackney, asking members of those communities “Why has this happened?” The answers to this question were far from clear-cut – racially, politically, economically or otherwise – with fingers being pointed at far-reaching issues that in some cases go back generations.

Our aim in editing this film was to keep the feeling of discussion open – we used the camera to listen rather than to enforce an agenda, and chose to keep away from cutaways during the narrative of the film.

What develops on screen is a very powerful insight into communities that we all thought we understood, but in reality know very little about.

For more details about Progress Film please check out the website.

By Dan Chung and Sarah Li

Ruige were demonstrating their latest HDMI monitors at BIRTV. They feature the remote magnification switch that they previously showed as a prototype at NAB 2011. The monitors also had improved full screen viewing when used with the 5DmkII in record mode.

They also showed a new 4.8inch monitor which not only had HDMI and HD-SDI input and output but also had the ability to cross convert HDMI to SDI – all built into the back of the unit.

By Matt Allard

Lenses should be the most important part of your kit. Camera bodies come and go, but good glass can be used for a lifetime. Testament to this is that 20- to 30-year-old lenses can still look fantastic on your camera. Over time they have been refined – auto focus and stabilization may have been added – but the basic design remains the same.

You should always try to buy the best lens you can afford. You are better off spending more money on your lens than getting an expensive camera body and a cheap kit lens. In most cases you get what you pay for, but there are always exceptions. If you only have enough money for a Canon 5DmkII body and a cheap lens, you are better off getting for example a Canon 60D and spending more money on a better piece of glass. You can keep quality lenses forever but your camera body can become outdated in a matter of years. Another very important thing to remember is try to buy a lens you can use on multiple cameras as this will save you a fortune down the track.

The first thing you need to consider is whether you are going to use the lenses for stills as well or just video. For photo and video you are going to want a lens that has autofocus. Manual focus for photography can be a major hassle, depending on what you’re shooting. Go and try to shoot some fast-moving action with a manual focus only lens and you will be tearing your hair out. You just can’t focus as fast as a good auto focus system. 

But for video, manual focus is crucial. You can’t be in the middle of shooting something and have your lens whirling around trying to grab focus during a shot. Lenses by Canon/Nikon/Tamron/Sigma etc that have both manual and auto focus are your best option if you plan to shoot stills and video. A lot of modern day lenses also offer image stablizers (often referred to as IS or VR) which can make a big difference to your photos or video.

If you want lenses just for video then you need to consider other things. For example, if you buy a Canon EF lens for, say, your 7D you have no ability to change exposure smoothly during a shot as the aperture is controlled by a clicked dial on the rear of the camera. The other problem is that Canon EF lenses don’t work fully on anything other than a Canon body. There are adaptors from Birger and other companies that are coming out that will allow you to use EF glass with full aperture control for cameras like the Panasonic AF100, Sony FS100 and the Sony F3,  but they will not be cheap. So for video your choices are a bit harder. You ideally want a lens that allows you to manually control the aperture and has manual focus. Even manual aperture lenses do have hard aperture stops but you can get them declicked to offer smooth iris control.

The second thing you have to decide is whether to get a prime lens or a zoom lens. There is no right or wrong choice here: it comes down to the individual operator and what he or she needs the lens for. Zooms can save you a lot of time as you don’t have to keep changing lenses, you don’t have to move around as much and you don’t need to buy as many lenses. When looking at a zoom lens you want to make sure you get something that has a constant aperture eg f2.8. If you have a zoom lens with variable aperture, the aperture will change when you change the focal length – this is a major pain for video. Additionally some zoom lenses (known as varifocal) do not maintain the focus throughout the zoom range meaning that you have to refocus every time you zoom – another major pain. In the ideal world your zoom lens would be fixed aperture and maintain focus (parfocal).

Combinations
A good example combination for a Canon APS-C sized sensor camera like the 7D or 60D would be a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, a Canon 17-55mm f2.8 and a Canon 70-200mm f2.8L (or f4). This would give you 3 lenses that would cover a large range at fast aperture. Add a 1.4 or 2x teleconvertor and you would extend this range even further. If you were using a Canon 5DmkII you would just get a Canon 16-35mm f2.8 instead of the Tokina and a Canon 24-70mm or Canon 24-105mm instead of the 17-55mm. These are just examples as there are other brands out there that you could use. 

Your other option, if you’re just using your lenses for video, is to get older Contax/Zeiss or Nikon manual focus only lenses (either zooms or primes). You can now also get old manual focus Canon FD primes adapted to fit EOS cameras or other cameras like the NEX. Optically a lot of these lenses are older designs but many are still very good and it would save you a lot of money.

Some of the super zooms on the market will allow you to cover a huge range. For example I used the Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-f6.3 on a Sony F3 during the Japan tsunami/earthquake. It gave me a super range without me having to change lenses. I did this as a compromise for time over quality. Is it a good lens? Not really. It looked ok on the F3 although this lens is supposed to be used with the inbuilt stabilization on, so when using it on the F3, every time there was wind or lots of movement the whole picture turned to jello. I have also heard that this lens looks terrible on say a 7D. 

My advice would be to stay away from this sort of lens for video work. I think these super zooms are much more suited to travel photography rather than video. For me, when I do use zoom lenses, I never tend to use them as zoom lenses anyway. When I use the Canon 70-200mm I’m normally either at 70mm or 200mm. I rarely use anything in between. So you need to ask yourself whether you will be using the zoom as a zoom or just using the two extremes of the range.

Personally, I much prefer using prime lenses over zooms. Zooms can make you very lazy. You stay in the one spot and just zoom. Using primes makes you think more about your shot and forces you to move your feet. If your feet aren’t glued to the floor you will discover new angles that maybe you would never have seen if you were using a zoom. Primes also have the added benefit of being much faster lenses. The look of, say, a f2.8 zoom lens and a f1.2 prime is completely different. Don’t get me wrong; there are some fantastic zoom lenses out there, but they just don’t have the same look as a good prime lens. Fast zoom lenses are good but fast primes are great. 

Also, most lenses are optically not at their best when their apertures are wide open and tend to perform better when they are stopped down. This may be vital with stills, but I don’t think it’s as important when shooting video. Your stills lenses are designed, in the case of a full frame, to cover a huge sensor at high resolution; when you’re shooting video the image is getting reduced to a much lower 1920×1080 pixels. At this frame size the lens isn’t really getting pushed very hard. Personally I am comfortable with the quality of the results when shooting most of my lenses wide open.

People using DSLRs for video these days have in my opinion an over-fascination with shallow depth of field. You don’t need it on every shot you do. Of course, if you want super shallow depth of field then you need fast primes. Primes also, of course, offer the benefit of being in most cases very fast and therefore very good in low light conditions. I can tell the quality difference between a really good prime lens and a stills zoom quite easily. One of my favorite lenses is the Canon 50mm f1.2. It is way more expensive than the Canon 50mm f1.4 and you could buy about 20 Canon 50mm f1.8 lenses for the same money – but in my opinion it is worth every cent. For me 50mm is the lens I use the most. If you are planning on buying a really good quality lens, buy it in the focal length you use the most.

Build quality is very important to me. In most cases, the more expensive the lens, the better the build quality. The Canon L series for example are built pretty toughly. A prime example the Canon 50mm f1.2L as opposed to the Canon 50mm f1.8. Yes the Canon 50mm f1.8 only costs around $80 but if you drop it from just a few feet it will probably never work again. Good build quality also means there is less chance of moisture or dust getting into your lens.

Depending on the type of work you’re doing, build quality may not be a major factor for you; for example, if you’re very careful with your equipment and don’t travel much. If you’re constantly in challenging environments and travelling a lot then you need something built to withstand the conditions. Next time you’re shopping for a lens, pick it up and feel the weight, see what it is made out of and ask yourself: “If I drop this, will it be ok?”   Of course, even if you have something as solid as a Canon 50mm f1.2L, if you drop it straight down onto the front element it may not survive. One common alternative option are the Zeiss ZF and Zeiss ZE series – built like tanks with solid metal and not plastic.

Then there’s flexibility: can I use my lenses on multiple cameras and across multiple manufacturers? If you want the greatest flexibility you want to buy lenses that you can use on lots of different cameras. The problem up to this point (although people are working on it) is that if you owned say a Canon 5D and you wanted to buy a Sony FS100, but all you owned were Canon EF lenses, you couldn’t use them. If you have invested thousands of dollars in lenses you want to be able to use them on whatever the next camera is that you decide to buy. 

I have a wide variety of lenses from Nikon, Canon, Tokina, Sony and Zeiss and my favorite lenses are my Zeiss ones. There is just something about the look of them. They are also extremely flexible. In a Nikon mount they offer manual focus (albeit in the opposite direction to Canon) and manual aperture control. Using inexpensive lens adaptors I can use these lenses on Nikon DSLR, a Canon DSLR, my Sony F3 and even my Sony NEX-5. Although I love my Canon L series glass I can’t currently use it on anything else (with the exception of the Sony NEX-5 without aperture control).

What matters is the lens that is right for you: think about what you normally shoot and how you shoot it. Factor in price, speed, f-stop, build quality and flexibility and determine what your requirements are. There is no substitute for really good glass; it can ultimately determine the quality of your finished product. Remember too that you are the artist – your camera and lens are just the palette and brush.

There are way too many lenses to cover in this post so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask here below and I’ll be happy to help you out.

About Matthew Allard, Aljazeera Senior Field Cameraman, Kuala Lumpur:
Matt has been a Camera/Editor in TV news for more 20 years, previously working for both Channel 9 and Channel 10 in Australia. Twice Network Ten Australia’s cameraman of the year as well as being a Walkley Finalist for outstanding camerawork in 2006 (for coverage of the Cronulla Race Riots) and a Logie Finalist for outstanding news coverage 2006 (Bali 9). He is a multiple ACS (Australian Cinematographers Society) award winner. His Sword Maker story that was shot on a 7D won the prestigious Neil Davis International News Golden Tripod at the 2011 ACS Awards. He has covered news events in more than 35 countries, from major sporting events to terrorist bombings. Based out of the Kuala Lumpur broadcast centre in Malaysia he is an avid user and follower of new technology, shooting stories on HD broadcast cameras, the Sony F3 as well as new Canon DSLRs.

I’ve been using the Zacuto EVF for a while now and find it to be a very welcome addition to my regular shooting kit with the Canon 5DmkII. Originally I had it mounted on top of the camera with the supplied hotshoe adapter but very quickly found this to be an inconvienient location because there was then nowhere to place my microphones when running and gunning. I have since constructed a bracket using some parts from Really Right Stuff and an Ultralight arm that allowed me to place the EVF on the side of the 5DmkII. This frees up the hotshoe again and places the EVF in a good position on the side of the camera to allow for a more ENG style of shooting – better balanced with the camera offset when mounted on a chest or shoulder support rig. Crucially for me this setup allows me to keep the EVF as part of the camera as I move from Redrockmicro running man rig chest rig, to full shoulder rig, to tripod and to my camera bag – all without needing to dissassemble the EVF setup. My solution is fine but a bit expensive, somewhat of a cludge and a little heavy.

Enter Zacuto with their own custom solution which looks to be lighter and more flexible than my setup. The EVF mount is based on the company’s Gorilla plate system for DSLRs. It too offsets the EVF to the optimal position without adding too much bulk to the camera. There is also a quick release to allow rapid detachment of the EVF.

For me I could see myself using this setup almost without a support rig at all for some shoots, just holding the EVF to my face and gripping the camera in the other hand. Also launching soon is the Zacuto’s universal cable Pincher which will neatly hold HDMI cables in place and provide strain relief.

The EVF Gorilla plate bracket is $240 US and available now from Zacuto’s web store, it requires the use of a $69 Gorilla plate if you do not own one already.

Disclosure – This website recently joined the Zacuto affliate sales program but this in no way affects this website’s many and diverse bloggers who are free to talk about any gear they use.

The cult of Ifa is at the heart of the voodoo tradition, both in West Africa and the diaspora. This short film, made while working on a photo reportage in Benin, offers a rare glimpse into the world of the “babalawo”, the initiate and priest of Ifa. Because I have been going back to the same town for so many years now, people are used to my presence. I am no longer exotic. They also know that I am interested in, and have respect for, their traditions.

It’s impossible to say anything in depth about such a complex, rich and ancient tradition in a few minute’s video – which is why I haven’t tried to do so. All I wanted was to give an idea of the atmosphere during sacrifice and consultation.

The video shows how the “fetishes”, or Orishas, Legba, Shango and Ogun are installed. We then see babalawos and their clients involved in parts of rituals of divination and sacrifice. Those familiar with the subject will recognize the processes here. Everyone else can just take in some of the atmosphere of these fragments.

Ifa Fragments from David Paul Carr on Vimeo.

I asked two of the babalawos to speak to camera for a couple of minutes about Ifa, suggesting that as it was impossible to go into detail, they should try to present simply a couple of key ideas that would be useful for a stranger unfamiliar with the subject. After each take a friend translated into French for me more or less what was said so I knew if I had what I needed. I hope this film will be the beginning of a larger project, which would allow me to document the world of Ifa and the voduns in greater detail.

I’m an English photographer based in Paris and usually I work for big companies, public institutions and NGOs. This year I’ve done stories on the homeless population of Saint Petersburg, Russia, Haitian peasants and, most recently, nutrition in Benin. My impression is that the French – at least the people I deal with – are a little behind when it comes to using video on the web. This can be frustrating and I have ended up shooting a lot of stuff  for myself just to show clients what can be done. It’s an investment and a very time-consuming one. Essentially, I have to find a way of doing two jobs – stills and video – when there’s only really time for one.

I am convinced that it’s only a matter of time before the divisions between photography, video, etc will become completely blurred. As computers become cheaper and more powerful and video resolution and frame rates increase it will become easier and easier to grab quality frames from moving images. And when raw video becomes more accessible that quality will only get better and better. In 2009 one of my corporate clients shot a very expensive TV commercial campaign and made excellent billboard-size ads from the video footage. When I saw that I realized that everything was going to change…

I’m also convinced that filming stuff is not at all the same as making a film. For a photographer like me there is a whole new (and for me very exciting) set of skills to learn. Having a DSLR that shoots video is absolutely not enough…

One of my motivations for starting to make videos was the fact that so much of what I saw and heard when on assignments couldn’t be captured in stills. Video allows me to record things that would previously have gone unrecorded. It sounds obvious but for me it’s quite magical.

Because I work alone, I have to be very careful about how much gear I bring. Carry-on baggage limitations are a nightmare for me: I was taught never to let my essential kit out of my sight and my biggest fear is arriving somewhere without the tools I need to get the job done. So what I use on foreign trips is always something of a compromise and I try to reduce what I take as much as possible. I dislike having more kit than I can (fairly) comfortably carry by myself.

For Benin I used a very simple kit:

Canon 5DmkII.
24-105mm f4L (I had a 35mm lens as well but didn’t use it)
Manfrotto tripod with video head.
A lightweight Velbon monopod.
Fader ND filters.
Rode Videomic.
Zoom H1 audio recorder on a Gorillapod (I have an H4N but decided it was too bulky to
take with me).
Zacuto Z-Finder.
An Olympus EPL1 with the kit zoom lens and Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens. (This is my backup camera, which I use with the Z-Finder.)

I had the Magic Lantern hack installed on the Canon but had some problems with it that I suspect were more due to my inexperience than anything else. The false colours for setting exposure are great!

Editing was done in Adobe Premiere Pro. I have Final Cut but currently prefer PP. I had a cheap 11 inch i3 Acer Timeline X laptop with me (the Macs stay at home) and had installed PP just before leaving. I was amazed that I could start editing on that machine. OK, it wasn’t very fast and render times were frankly slow, but it meant that I could use all the down-time during the trip to get started putting the video together.

It took me a long time to figure out that taking a series of photographs doesn’t mean you have a story. With video this is even more the case. When on a stills job, I try to identify what – given all the limitations I have to deal with – I can manage to film that might become a coherent whole, and then concentrate on only doing that rather than over-filming and discovering in the end that I have nothing to work with (which is very, very easy to do).

A long time ago I worked as assistant to Terence Donovan. Many years later, a little to my surprise, the experience I had of film shoots with him has helped me approach working with video.

Finally, two sources of inspiration for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Kiarostami film ABC Africa and something I heard the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan once say in reply to a question about going to film school: “Look, today if you really want to make a film there’s nothing to stop you”.

About David Paul Carr
David Paul Carr is an English photographer based in Paris, France. His work includes editorial, corporate, institutional and NGO photography.
http://www.davidpaulcarr.com/

By Dan Chung

Many thanks to all those who came to my ‘HDDSLR in the real world’ training workshop at Jacobs Pro lounge in London last week. One unexpected pleasure was to have some top Associated Press and Bloomberg news photographers along as participants.

Also a big thank you to Nick Millen of Canon UK for coming along to support the event and bringing his expertise as well as the latest lovely L lenses with him on the day. We had a good discussion on a range of topics as well as gear available to try from Manfrotto, Jag35, Zacuto, Redrockmicro, Genus, Pinknoise Systems and IDCphoto.

Apologies to those we could not accommodate this time; we felt it was much better to keep the class small and more personal. As it was oversubscribed, Jacobs and myself are organising another session on July 1st. Again it will be open to all, but those of you who were on the waiting list last time and didn’t get a place will have the first option to attend this one. As before we are keeping numbers below ten.

This is what news photographer Jason Alden had to say about the workshop – “I had an excellent day on Dan’s course, it really helped answer all the questions that I would otherwise have to learn through making mistakes. The course was ideally pitched for the working Editorial Photographer who just needs technical direction to get them on their way. Well worth the time and money; I’m certain it will prove a good investment.”

The workshop will be £150 for the day ( 10am-5.30pm ) and will take place on Friday, July 1st at the Jacobs Pro lounge, 74 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1EU.
 
To book a place please contact Henrietta or Donal on 0207 436 6996.

China based DSLR News shooter Jonah Kessel discusses the issues he faced with language and translation on his latest DSLR video shorts

The Fate of Old Beijing: CH. 1 – A Disappearing World from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

Working in foreign countries journalists encounter many problems with language barriers. However, video journalists face even more cross-cultural communication obstacles to hurdle.

I’ve worked in a number of different countries; however, a recent project taught me more about language issues in relationship to video production in a foreign country than any project I have been part of in the past.

The core of this project was three videos all shot on Canon DSLRs with a combined running time of about 18 minutes. 18 minutes of cut video from about 320 GB of footage covering redevelopment and cultural heritage areas in China’s rapidly modernizing capital. While colleague Kit Gillet and myself speak some Chinese (he, far better than I) when doing interviews we require translators to make sure we understand what is being communicated to us accurately. This is normal; however, its just the tip of the iceberg in the process from street interview to streaming video.

Translation as it relates to video production breaks down into a couple different areas of core concern in my mind. Live translation, transcribing, the decision of subtitling vs. voice over and accuracy.

LIVE TRANSLATION: While we hire native Chinese speakers to work along side of us while we do interviews, the key in video interviews with translators is to make sure they aren’t speaking when you’re subject is speaking. This can be extremely difficult when a conversation is going on. You have the choice to let the subject speak for long periods of time, followed by a lengthy translation — in effect, ruining the possible flow of conversation you might have with your subject. Or, you can have them translate after every statement, breaking up the video into twice as much content as you need as well as the possibility of having messy In’s and Out’s in your video clips. Often, our translator would be telling us what was said — when the subject jumps in and began talking again. Now you have multiple voices in multiple languages at the beginning of your clip. So training your fixer or translator in video journalism is extremely helpful here, but even the best of them can’t stop a subject from speaking while they are translating. In this production a lot of clips came out unusable with events like this.

TRANSCRIBING: Sometimes I tell people I do this and they think I’m nuts. However, let’s say you just completed 15, 20 minute interviews. That’s a lot of information to process and to create a smooth narrative over 18 minutes, it’s pretty helpful to have everything typed out. At that point you can lay everything out and start piecing together the interviews like a puzzle. This means all interviews need to be translated and transcribed. While I know plenty of people who don’t do this, for me its very helpful to know all of my assets in storytelling — and every bit of recorded information is an asset.

The Fate of Old Beijing: CH. 2 – David vs. Goliath from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

SUBTITLING vs. VOICE OVER: After finishing this project a major (unnamed) newspaper enquired about republishing the series. However, the style of this newspaper is to use voice over rather than subtitling. The normal thing you see here is the voice starting at full volume and within one second dropping down to a hardly audible level so the English voice can be heard easily. While this makes information accessible to people who can’t be bothered to read, it creates a lot of problems which makes me lean strongly toward subtitling:

• Immediately by using voice over you might say: you are taking away your subject’s voice. When we started in on this project, one of our big goals was to give the Chinese residents of this issue a voice – or a venue to speak. In past video coverage of the issue, the people who mattered the most had often been left out. So when the the unnamed newspaper requested a version with voice over, I was against it. Even if people couldn’t understand the language, they can understand tonality and learn about a subject based upon the sound of their voice. At the end of the second movie, one of our subjects cries. I asked my colleague, “Does the person doing the voice over have to pretend to cry? Is it possible to make this believable?” The answer we decided, was – no.
• The next thing I learned very quickly, it doesn’t take the same amount of time to say something in one language than in another language. Therefore, you are put into the position where you essentially cut the actual voice of your subject whenever the English happens to be done speaking. In many ways, this makes video a little less honest.
• By using subtitles you make information accessible to people who speak both languages, not just a single audience. When thinking of the 1.4 billion possible audience members in China, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to make the information inaccessible to them.
• On the extreme downside by using subtitles, you clutter the screen. With moving visuals and multiple languages going on this can make it either difficult to read or pay attention to the video.
• However, in some cases voice over can work well when the person doing the voice over has an accent from that country. A great example of this done well, is in Dan Chung’s video Mongolia Racer. The voice of the racer with the Mongolian accent makes the voice over fit in much more naturally and arguably adds to the production rather than harming it.

The reasons above pushed us towards subtitling, be it ruining chances to be published in certain venues but being a little more true to our goals. Once you go down this route you encounter another world of problems technically and grammatically. Having to fit a lot of words on the screen in a short time, or not having enough words during another moment — subtitles can really be tricky to fit into your edits. Furthermore, to line up the words with what subjects are saying, when they are saying it can be difficult if not impossible due to varying sentence structure of languages.

The Fate of Old Beijing: CH. 3 – Beyond the Alleys from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

ACCURACY: Foremost we were worried about accuracy of the translation. However, this is very difficult given the nuance of language and the fact that direct translations don’t make sense. So the language has to be cultural adapted to a certain degree to make sense to the audience. This is a problem for both visual and print journalists. Back when I used to work at Chinese state-controlled China Daily I’d see a copy editor completely change the quote of a famous politician, even President Hu Jintao. While you would never dream of changing a quote in the West, my Chinese colleagues would say something like “Well, he said this, but in English he meant this.” While this might sound ridiculous, sometimes its impossible to avoid. Let me give you an example:

Our subject who opens the first video says to us: “我刚来北京的时候，胡同里都乱七八糟的.” We are interested in the phrase toward the end “乱七八糟” or — luan qi ba zao. This literally means “messy seven, eight rottens.” If we were to insert this into the sentence you would get something like:

“When I first arrived in Beijing, the hutongs were messy seven, eight rottens. They’re in much better shape now.”

To turn this into a logical English sentence, we then have to get someone who understands Chinese and English both technically and culturally to help us understand. We need them to not only literally translate but culturally translate what the phrase means to our audience. In the end, it turns into:

“When I first arrived in Beijing, the hutongs were a mess, very disorderly. They’re in much better shape now.”

To complete this project with accuracy, we hired a native English speaker fluent in Chinese and native Chinese speakers, quasi-fluent in English. Dozens of hours translating, transcribing, subtitling, thinking and arguing about what something actual means were spent at the wee hours of the night. This process has made me a bit wary of international reportage when it comes to quoting accuracy in both print and visual products (be it subtitle or voice over). Trying to figure out the cultural and possibly historical meaning of a language on a deadline is a scary thing.

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ABOUT THE FILMS: “The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs.”

In the face of China’s rapid modernization, the world’s most populous country is struggling to preserve its cultural heritage, and nowhere is this more visible than in the ancient alleyways and courtyards of Beijing.

Once a ubiquitous feature of Beijing, the hutongs are more than simply housing; they are actually a way of life. Entire families live in single, crowded courtyards, often with no bathrooms. Yet despite the lack of modern amenities, the communal aspect to life within the hutongs means that few want to leave – even as their neighbourhoods are being demolished and redeveloped. UNESCO estimates that more than 88 percent of the city’s old residential quarters are already gone, most torn down in the last three decades.

In a three-part series, filmmakers Jonah Kessel and Kit Gillet explore the vanishing world of Beijing’s hutongs, the realities of life within the narrow streets, and the future for these culturally-irreplaceable areas of China’s capital.

– Jonah M. Kessel is a Beijing-based freelance visual journalist and interactive art director specializing in photography, video, print and Web design.

– To see the greater project “The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs” click here.