The changing world of Japan’s Geisha from Matthew Allard on Vimeo.

The changing face of geishas was one of the stories I covered on a recent assignment to Japan. For centuries their mysterious world was reserved for the elite, with wealthy men paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of a geisha’s company.
Times in Japan have changed and the modern geisha has had to adapt to survive. With the financial crisis that has swept across the world, the number of clients has greatly declined. Geishas or Maiko (the trainees) have now had to look for other sources of income. In Kyoto, beer gardens are now using them to mingle with customers and dance on a small stage. This is a far cry from the exclusivity the culture thrived on for generations. It has brought them out of teahouses and into the world of the common person.

Correspondent Steve Chao and I pre-planned to shoot this story on a DSLR. I usually shoot on Sony XDCAM HD cameras, but they are not great in low light and are big and heavy and don’t allow you to get that intimate with your subject. Our shoot involved filming at night in a rooftop beer garden and also in a small teahouse. It is very difficult and usually horribly expensive to film a geisha; we were very lucky and managed to find a young Maiko to shoot, but were given limited access and time. I wanted an intimate feel to the story, to take you into the geishas’ world but also show you how they have been forced to adapt to modern times.

Armed with a Canon 7D, 5Dmk2 and 7 lenses we got to work. The beer garden was crowded and dark, but the 7D allowed me to shoot in an intimate environment where the light wasn’t ideal. I don’t like using artificial light unless It is absolutely necessary and most of the shots in the beer garden were made using ambient light. On a few, I had Steve hold a Litepanels 1×1 light on a boom pole above the table. These are fantastic and produce a beautiful soft light that imitates ambient light. All the sound was recorded separately on a Zoom H4N using either Seinnheiser radio or shotgun mics.

The next part of the story involved shooting the Maiko doing her make-up in a small traditional Japanese house. This is extremely rare to get and I wanted to make it look as good as I could in the limited time we had with her. She would put her make-up on in front of a large mirror with traditional Japanese sliding doors in the background so I turned off all the lights in the room and placed two 1×1 Litepanel LED lights dimmed down on either side of the mirror. Given the small room and the size of the mirror I wanted to get 3 different angles of her transforming herself into a geisha. I placed the 5D with a Canon 16-35mm f2.8 lens at a low angle right underneath the mirror. This camera was going to record the wide shot for the whole sequence. The 7D was placed very close up to the edge of the mirror but it had to be far back enough that it couldn’t be seen in the wide shot by the other camera. This made the 7D very hard to operate as it was in an awkward position, but the compromise had to be made.

The 7D was running a Canon 100mm f2.8 macro (the non-stabilized version). I wanted to shoot very close details of the make-up being applied. I also wanted very shallow depth of field. I was unable to use my Zacuto Z-finder or a monitor due to the position of the camera.  I was also forced to continually rack focus as the shot was so tight and the talent was constantly moving. After 45 minutes my eyes were watering from having to concentrate so hard. To add to the difficulty, she couldn’t stop or repeat anything. I had one shot at it and if I got it wrong or out of focus I couldn’t do it again.

This shoot proved to be very difficult but I was happy with the end result. The 7D was set in 720p/50fps as I wanted to slow down the make-up sequence in Apple’s Cinema tools. It was cut on FCP and there was no use of Magic Bullet or fancy color correction programs. I’m shooting for international broadcast and I don’t want soft, overly colour-corrected images. The joy for me is getting it right when you shoot it and not having  to say….”I’ll fix it in post” I’m not sure if I just happened to get a great 7D, but I shoot on the standard camera profile and I’m more than happy with the image it produces. The DSLR still provides me with a lot of problems; bad moire, rolling shutter and – in almost all situations without a very good shoulder support – terrible hand-held results. The cameras provide spectacular bang for your buck but if you use them you have to know their limitations and plan accordingly. I travel almost every week to shoot stories across Asia-Pacific. This is only the third story I have shot completely on DSLRs because in most cases I don’t have the time or the limitations of the cameras make it too hard to use on many assignments. While they do have their place in my kit, I’m excited about the new breed of hybrid video/DSLR cameras that are on the horizon. I don’t ever see DSLRs getting proper audio, full HDMI out or all the features we crave. Technology is moving so quickly that a new breed of cameras will ultimately outdate the video DSLR.

Lenses used on this shoot were a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS II, 50mm f1.2, 135mm f2, 24-70mm f2.8, 100mm Macro f2.8, 16-35mm f2.8 and a Tokina 11-16mm   f2.8. All interviews were shot on the 70-200mm.

About Matthew Allard, Aljazeera Senior Field Cameraman, Kuala Lumpur:
Matt has been a Camera/Editor in TV news for 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 has covered news events in more than 30 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 as well as new Canon DSLR’s.

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.