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.

It’s six am and as the sun begins to rise over the Mongolian steppes I’m standing – 5DMkII poised – wondering if this time I’ve bitten off a little more than I can chew.  We’ve pitched a short film of the horse racing at the annual country wide Naadam festival to my bosses at The Guardian.  As ever with the newspaper I’m on a limited budget, with the crew consisting of reporter Tania Branigan and myself; there is no second camera, sound man, assistant or producer.   I usually prefer shooting solo as it allows for more intimate footage, but for this assignment I wish I had more help – I can only be in one place at one time and for a live race event like this there will be no second chances.

Getting to this point was hard enough. We arrived in Mongolia less than a day earlier so had little time to prepare.  I had briefed a local fixer ahead of our arrival that I wanted to follow a young jockey through his day.  But while he found a suitable child in the capital he could not find a local race where we could get sufficient access to the subjects.  Luckily I’d researched online and found a possible alternative, so taking a bit of a gamble we drove half a day out of Ulan Bator to the town of Kharkhorin (a bumpy ride despite the 4×4).
Luckily the local race organisers agreed to all our requests. Our next task was to find our subject. It didn’t seem that hard given the tens of competitors, but I should have known better. With weeks to befriend one it might have been different, but every child we spoke to was incredibly shy.  Tania decided it would be far to follow one of the horse trainers instead and managed to find Tsedendamba – an amazingly eloquent 61-year-old who has been in the saddle since he was four. He had a young jockey called Purevsuren who was racing the next day and we agreed to meet them just before sunrise.

I had anticipated just how hard it would be to get all the shots I wanted so I packed accordingly, bringing five HD cameras – a Canon 1DmkIV, 5DmkII, 550D and two GoPro HD cams.  As I was travelling light I also chose three slower, ligher weight, f4 aperture Canon L lenses – a 17-40mm, 24-105mm and a 70-200mm.   I also had a 50mm f1.2L and a Sigma 12-24mm lens which I intended to use on the 550D in cases where it ran the risk of getting damaged.  Even though I only had a 20kg checked baggage allowance I also managed to bring with me a Manfrotto 561BHDV monopod, Redrockmicro shoulder rig, Zacuto Z-finder, Steadicam Merlin, Juicedlink DT454, Sanken CS-1 shotgun mic, Sennheiser G2 radio mics and a Gitzo 2941LVL tripod with Manfrotto 701HDV head…with a bit of help from Tania.

After a few hours sleep in our ger – the traditional Mongolian round, felted tents that herders live in – we headed out to the location in the dark.  Tsedendamba had been up the whole night, preparing for the race, but greeted us enthusiastically.  We started to interview him as the sun began to rise, as this is when herders look to the skies to predict what kind of horse will win that day.

For the extreme close up of his eyes I used a Canon EF12 extension tube on the 50mm f1.2L. Normally I would use a 100mm macro lens but I had no room for it this time.  For audio I used radio mics into the Juicedlink DT454 on one channel and then a camera-mounted Sanken CS-1 shotgun mic into the other as a fallback.  Thanks to the Juicedlink’s headphone monitor I was able to hear what was being fed to the camera.  
For the long shots of the sunrise I fitted a Canon 2x convertor to the 70-200 f4L.   The resulting f8 maximum aperture wasn’t an issue because most of these shots were quite bright and shot as a silhoutte.  

Sunrise shot with Canon 70-200f4L IS and 2x convertor

Next I fitted a 550D with the Sigma 12-24 to a Steadicam Merlin and filmed some walking shots of the boy and trainer.  Even though I’ve had a little hands-on instruction with the Merlin from its inventor Garrett Brown, I still find it hard to set up and use in a hurry; hopefully my Steadicam skills will improve in time.  Setting the lens aperture at f8 allowed me to set the focus at around 2 metres and get pretty much everything in focus so I wasn’t constantly trying to adjust it.

One shot I was keen to get was of the boy and trainer walking off, from a high angle.  Sadly I didn’t have a Kessler Crane to hand so I had to make do.  I held up in the air my 5DmkII with the 12-24mm on top of a Manfrotto video monopod, wedging the monopod’s little feet against my body.  I started with it at head height next to the trainer and, as they walked off, slowly raised the camera to fake a jib effect.  It’s far from perfect but I think it was worth a try.  When I came to edit it I applied Final Cut Pro’s Smoothcam filter to iron out any minor bumps.

Next I had to quickly shoot a montage of shots to illustrate the festival itself.  The bulk of shots were on the 70-200 f4L IS, with the new Genus Fader ND and Zacuto Z-finder fitted, using the monopod and with the lens image stabilizer to help steady the image.  The focus pulls I did were all done by hand with no follow focus (again I had no room in my luggage); most were bad, but a couple came off okay.  For the slow motion shots of the wrestlers I switched the camera to 720p/50 and conformed the footage to 25p afterwards in Apple’s Cinematools.  I was allowed to go into the wrestling ring for only a few minutes to get the wide shots, so I had to go handheld using the 17-40mm lens on my Redrockmicro custom rig. Steadicam would have been better but was too hard to get right in the time I had.  Most of the time I was just trying to avoid the wrestlers so I couldn’t really get as close as I wanted either.

For the horse race I wanted to make sure I had enough shots to allow me to cut a fast-paced sequence that showed just how intense it was.  I also needed to make sure there was no additional danger to the jockeys from what I was doing – especially as there are ethical questions about whether such young children should be racing like this.  I had brought a pair of GoPro HD cameras with me for this very purpose.  The boy jockeys were very happy to wear them so we attached one on Purevsuren’s chest, and another on the helmet of another rider.  The GoPro’s record in 1080p but have no viewfinder so setting up can be a little tricky.  I guestimated the framing by looking at the reflection of the image in the lens head-on.  GoPros have an amazing battery life and can record uninterrupted for long periods.  This was important as I had to set the cameras running a long time before the race actually started.  Unfortunately it was very dusty and one of the cameras somehow got a smudge in the lens between setting up and the race – in the end I had to use the footage as I couldn’t shoot it again.

One other downside to the GoPros is that there is no easy way to fit Neutral Density filters (apart from a small custom one, which I didn’t have, which goes inside the case).   This meant that the GoPro was going to be using fast shutter speeds in the bright light of the race.  Luckily this wasn’t a complete disaster as I had made the creative decision to shoot all the race footage at high shutter speed anyway for an action movie feel.  I set the DSLRs at shutter speed around 1/2000th/sec when shooting the race.

Ready to shoot from the sunroof using Redrockmicro rig and Z-finder

We had arranged with officials for our 4×4 to follow the race along with the other escort vehicles.  For the race start I had Tania shoot a wide shot on my second camera.  This worked out well as I needed both wide and long shots.  I stood out of the car sunroof ready to roll.  We had to maintain a safe distance so as not to frighten the horses; as a result most of the shooting was on the Canon 70-200mm with the Redrockmicro shoulder rig for support.  The terrain was very rough and it was going to be impossible to get smooth shots for more than a few seconds at a time.  Focussing was going to be tough too, as much as I love faster apertures I decided to shoot at around f5.6 or f8 instead so that focus was not so critical.  I had also tested the Steadicam Merlin but there was no way to make it work in the high wind and with a long enough lens – I reckon the best way to do this properly would be a r/c helicopter mounted camera. I also equipped the 550D with a tripod for wide angle shots; the aim was to get ahead of the riders during parts of the race and put the camera down on its own near the track so the horses would come past it.  Occasions like this are perfect for the 550D as if it were to get destroyed by a stray rider or car it would not be as bad as a dead 5DMkII.

Our 4x4 needing a clean

When it came down to it, the whole race took less than half an hour.  I got almost enough usable footage to string together in the edit.  There were a couple of shots missing however and though we were only able to follow one race all the way though I was able to pick up some b-roll from static positions on a second race later in the day.

If I were to do it again I would certainly bring a bigger crew and more equipment. That said, I hope the end result is watchable and more cinematic that one of our regular news reports.  Let me know what you think.

Gizmag.com just posted a video of a very interesting demonstration of a ‘Wonder Camera’ concept from Canon at the Japanese pavilion of the Shanghai World Expo. It is Canon’s imagining of what a camera will be like around the year 2030, but what is really interesting is that most of the technology they show appears to actually work today. This camera of the future would have a single touch-controlled, image-stabilised megazoom lens going from extreme macro to 5000mm super telephoto and everything would be in focus. One assumes that to get shallow depth of field the camera would apply some kind of computer algorithm and not actually use optical techniques. It would feature a super high definition sensor and only capture video, using the video to generate stills if needed. If you observe carefully, the camera is tethered to a backpack worn by the presenter. One can assume that much of the camera’s electronics are really in a computer in this backpack which may be linked wirelessly or tethered to even more computing power behind the scenes. Even so, I’ld love to take a peek inside and see what makes it tick. At one point they show off multiple faces in the audience being tracked; later, these are turned into individual portraits simply by cropping the high resolution sensor. I assume that what is holding technology like this back is storage capacity and computing power – and given how quickly these are increasing you may not have to wait until 2030 for the chance to buy something like this.

What this all means for professional stills and video is quite interesting. When cameras like this become available will all our current DSLR and filmmaking gear become redundant? Can we throw all our lovely EF lenses away? Will we never need to pull focus again? Will making a TV programme or a film simply be a question of lighting a set, then placing enough of these cameras around that there is enough footage for someone to edit together later on?

These cameras would almost certainly be the death knell for breaking news coverage by professionals, who could never compete with a citizen on the spot with one of these cameras. It would also presumably mean that there would be plenty of work for picture and video editors who would have to sift through all this material attempting to make something watchable out of it.

Anyone who doubts that this is going to happen need only look back to 1995 when Canon launched the DCS3, their first DSLR with a whopping 1.3 million pixel sensor and brick-like appearance – then look how far we have come in the following 15 years. It is also interesting that Canon has chosen this moment to show this to the world. I wonder if they really expect us to ditch all our EF gear much sooner than we might have expected.

‘Children of Enlightenment’ is a documentary about youth culture in Japan, its uniqueness, its creativity, and its reflection of the state of Japan’s economy and society.

SYNOPSIS

‘Children of Enlightenment’ is a revolutionary documentary that aims to become the chronicle of a generation – namely, young Japanese people, who are in the process of leading their country into a creative renaissance. Rejecting – and rejected by – the secure corporate jobs of the past, Japan’s youth are asserting their individuality by diving into creative pursuits like art, fashion, and music. ‘Children on the Enlightenment’ guides its audience into this creative scene, following the youth to the places where they work, play, live, and create. The film explores the new lifestyles and new philosophies with which these young people experiment. Through interviews with older established artists the documentary reveals the history of this remarkable movement, and how the Japanese scene has changed over the years. It also explores the issues and difficulties facing the youth movement and the challenge that the movement poses to society.

CHILDREN OF ENLIGHTENMENT trailer from Peter H. Chang on Vimeo.

TECHNICAL NOTES

We were told that it would be too hot, but we planned an ambitious three week shoot in August 2009 that would take us all over Japan. In addition to securing one of the first production Zacuto Z-finders Steve Weiss at Zacuto sent over a Zacuto Sniper rig, Z-Focus and Z-lite weight for us to test on our shoot. We also had a full Redrockmicro DSLR Cinema Bundle to work with.

The Zacuto Sniper gunstock rig was fantastic, very well-balanced and a joy to use. Zacuto build quality is superb and their service exemplary. However, after some testing out in the field, we quickly realized that these shoulder rigs were a bit too cumbersome and conspicuous for run and gun guerrilla-style shooting in 90F (32C) degree heat and 90 percent humidity!

Shooting in a dense urban center like Tokyo made us prioritize mobility and maintaining a low profile. After a bit of trial and error, we stripped everything down to a version of the Tactical Shooter (now known as the Striker). However, for running and gunning with quick starts and stops, we needed to have fast access to the controls on the right side of the camera body. We modified the Tactical Shooter so that the handle was on the left side, with the right hand usually holding the camera body and having instant access to controls – essential for our run-and-gun style of shooting. With my still photography muscle memory, focusing with the right hand took some getting used to but it worked out really well. Overall, the rig felt more balanced and natural than the stock configuration.

The high heat and humidity did fog up the Z-finder on occasion, especially on Sado Island where we filmed the Kodo Earth Celebration Festival, but letting the eyepiece breathe periodically seemed to solve this. The latest versions of the Z-finder have anti-fog glass, so this is no longer an issue. The Z-finder was and remains an essential piece of kit.

For sound, again we wanted to streamline things as much as possible. We used the Juicedlink CX231 with Rode NTG-2 in our run-and-gun setup, and recorded double-system whenever it was possible.

Tramm Hudson’s Magic Lantern firmware, while still in its infancy then, proved critical for neutralizing the auto-gain control and providing zebras.

The innocuous form factor and appearance of the DSLR helped open doors for us – it allowed us to shoot in some incredibly tight spaces and it facilitated access in places where larger cameras and crews were forbidden or where they would have been too obtrusive (ie small art galleries or shops). Space is a premium in Japan. Disturbing the peace and interrupting the daily routine of Japanese citizens is frowned upon and generally not allowed. Finally, the low-light capabilities of the 5DmkII were pivotal in capturing concerts and outdoor events at night.

The documentary is still in production, and we are gearing up for more shooting this summer and fall. It will be released in early 2011.

GEAR LIST

2x Canon 5DmkII
Canon EF 24mm f1.4L II
Canon EF 35mm f1.4L
Canon EF 50mm f1.2L
Canon EF 85mm f1.2L
Canon EF 24-105 f4L IS
Canon EF 70-200 f4L IS

Litepanels Micro
Juicedlink CX231
Rode NTG-2
Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder

Zacuto Z-Finder v1
Zacuto Sniper
Zacuto Tactical Shooter

Fader Vari-ND
B+W ND filters
8x Canon LP-E6 batteries
4x Sandisk Extreme III 32GB CF cards

Gitzo GT2941LLVL Tripod
Gitzo G2380
Satchtler FSB4
Steadicam Merlin
Thinktank Airport International 2.0
Macbook Pro 15.4″ Unibody

MAKING ‘CHILDREN OF ENLIGHTENMENT’

From a journalistic standpoint, the primary challenge in making “Children of Enlightenment” has not been, as one might suspect, getting access to the subjects. On the contrary, Japanese artists and musicians of all stripes have proven to be extremely open and welcoming, utterly giving the lie to stereotypes of Japanese people as shy and retiring. It’s a bit like stories of the Summer of Love over there, only it’s real. Meeting the ‘Children’ themselves has often been as easy as talking to random people in the street – then following their networks to something interesting. There has been nary a whiff of artistic snobbery or hipster exclusiveness. In fact, this openness and warmth is something we think will powerfully connect with audiences; it will make viewers stop and think “Wait…why shouldn’t counterculture be open to anyone who wants to walk up and join?”

Instead, the problem has been simply one of scale. Our subject is enormous. Nestled in the nooks and crannies and backstreets and lofts of Japan’s unrivaled urban jungles are a million tiny pockets of creativity. Bars that only twenty people know about – spinning music that only fifty people have heard. Apartments of jazz musicians decorated like a combination of 50s beatnik cafe, 70s Wilt Chamberlain love pads and 1600s French boudoirs. Hairstylist shops with construction paper instead of furniture. Perhaps you begin to comprehend the scale of the work at hand. But though it is a problem in terms of finding the best subjects for the film, this amazing diversity makes the process of discovery itself an absolute joy. We were detectives, following a glitter-coated trail of candy-colored clues. And the payoff is something everyone back home will get to share.

The second difficulty we encountered was the remnants of corporate media control. There is not a lot of independent non-corporate wealth flowing around in Japan – artists are routinely given a stark choice between exposure and creative control. Big festivals like Fuji Rock, beautiful as they are, are corporate to the core; there is no Max Yasgur to offer his farm to the hippie masses. For us, this means a laborious process of climbing the ladder of access – quite a contrast to the urban jungle-hunt that we use to find the indies. Though the process is taking years, however, it will eventually pay off. “Children of Enlightenment” will penetrate the Japanese corporate firewall.

In the end, like any documentary of its type, “Children of Enlightenment” does take a lot of networking. But it also takes another, less well-known skill: the ability to ask the right questions. Take the Scarlet Brigade, for example (an indie band we filmed early on). Any documentary could capture their hyperactive, cheerful live act. Any documentary could show the unusual instruments, quirky music styles, original costumes, or show the band joking and laughing at the after-party. Of course, we show all these things. But we tried to go deeper, as well. We discovered that the band’s organizer made the band his life’s work, but doesn’t consider himself a professional musician; that he views the communities that spring up around a band, and not the music itself, as a force for change in society; that he believes that each of his band members have a “special power” that he identifies and praises. By asking the right questions, we discovered that this goofy mid-twenties dropout in a fedora was a deeply thoughtful and philosophical man, and a natural leader. Of course we suspected he might be, but to ask the right questions is no trivial thing.

BIOS

Peter H. Chang (producer/director/DP):
Peter is the director and producer of “Lightscapes”, an ongoing experiential television series airing on The Discovery Channel that captures renowned Japanese artist Akira Hasegawa’s unique “D-K” art form – large-scale, abstract painting-like images projected onto natural landscapes and architecture. Peter is also producing a feature film based on “Speed Tribes,” the bestselling book about Japanese motorcycle gangs and other subcultures. His credits include “Blink”, “Car Babes”, “I’m Seducible”, and “The Matrix Reloaded”. His work as a photographer has been featured in newspapers, magazines, movie posters, and online. He recently photographed Kathy Griffin and her mother Maggie for ELDR magazine, and was featured on the Emmy award-winning “Kathy Griffin Show” on BRAVO TV.

http://cinefugue.com
http://peterhchang.com

Noah Smith (director):
Noah studied Japanese during his undergrad years at Stanford. He moved to Japan from 2003-2006 to work as an editor and research assistant, during which time he fell in love with the Japanese underground art, music, and fashion scenes. In addition to maintaining the political blog Noahpinion and contributing to Observing Japan, he is currently completing a PhD in economics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

This is a big deal: I am reliably informed the BBC has aired its first hard news piece shot mostly on a Canon 5DmkII. It’s a nicely filmed report on Burma’s Kachin army by correspondent Alastair Leithead and shot by a BBC cameraman. Much of the footage has the DSLR look but I’m told they also used a small Sony A1 HDV camcorder for the interview sections. The piece is a great use of the camera as they were travelling to a remote location – the 5DmkII makes it much easier to keep a low profile.

The Burma story shot on 5DmkII, click picture to go to BBC website

Up till now the only 5DmkII or 7D material I’ve seen on the BBC have been a snooker promo and a piece about Phil Bloom and his filmmaking. Now the BBC are joining numerous major news organisations in using DSLR for news footage; others include PBS, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 (UK), Reuters, AP and Agence France Press.

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

Participants in the Hangzhou Yang Xiaoguang Canon workshop experiment with the Canon 5DmkII

Any international visitor to a Chinese photography festival should come prepared with the best the camera market has to offer, as anything less will leave you feeling markedly underdressed. At the meeting of newspaper photographers in Dali this year it was the turn of the Canon 5DmkII, a camera that has taken the Chinese news industry by storm as newspapers introduce multimedia onto their websites. One Canon rep told me they were selling around 2,000 units a month in China, and I have heard rumours of double this number in peak months.

The Southern Metropolitan News in Guangzhou, like many of the 2,200 national and provincial newspapers in China, has invested heavily in the 5DmkII. They now have 12 photographers shooting both stills and video as well as a dedicated multimedia team working on longer term projects (see http://umedia.nddaily.com/#20090912-12 and click around). Technically the stories are well produced but creating compelling narratives is proving much harder. However The Southern Metropolitan is making progress and has invited Mediastorm founder Brian Storm twice now to run workshops with their staff which has made a noticeable difference.

Canon too has not missed the opportunity, offering free workshops and supporting a new £5,000 multimedia award for young Chinese photojournalists. Most newspapers have a mix of Canon and Nikon equipment making it much easier for them to buy into whichever camera system offers them the best product. Canon China have put aside twenty-four 5DmkIIs along with lenses, sound equipment and computers exclusively for training news photographers around the country and the results are starting to come through.

The video below (without the Chinese subtitles) was shot this summer by Changsha photographer Liu Zhe, who attended the first 5D workshop in April.

This is the best video I have seen by a Chinese newspaper photographer to date and there is still plenty of room for improvement, however given the Chinese newspaper market is yet to see the kinds of revenue drops now being experienced in the West, there is no doubt in my mind that we will see far greater investment in this kind of reporting in China over the next few years.

D J Clark is director of Visual Journalism at the Asia Center for Journalism and course leader for the University of Bolton – MA Photography (international photojournalism, travel and documentary) that runs in Dalian China.