Two full days shooting at the Fan Expo. Sore feet, massively sore ankle, sore back and I'm actually kind of tired of seeing nubile female bodies in Spandex. I'm sure I'll get over that last part
It's been going well. My equipment choices have worked out well. Unfortunately, right at the end of today's shoot, I had an issue with my Rode shotgun mic. The base plat that slides on to the camera's hotshoe snapped. Which means for the moment that I can't easily fit it to the camera. What is really odd is that I was warned about that very thing by a total stranger less than three hours before it happened.
It was a clean break down the middle, one half of the base plate is still on the cam so I hope I can fix it. In the meantime I can use the Sony's shotgun for the shoot tomorrow
Tomorrow, the last day of the Expo, I will be shooting with Nadia. Up to this point I've been shooting a tone of B Roll and doing interviews with fans and exhibitors alike. Pretty generic stuff, really. I sort of fell back on my old habit of making a promo video .. it would be a really really go promo video but that isn't what I'm going for here
I'm hoping that by following Nadia the video will go in a different direction. What I am looking for here is focus or, if you will, a focal point. I have a feeling that following Nadia and recording her and the reactions she will likely receive will make the video anything but generic
I have been shooting my interviews in various locations around the Expo in natural light. Mostly that has been working with me. The Sony has a big image sensor for the size of the cam and the 1080p 60fps is really getting everything it can out of the light. Fleshtones is where you begin to have problem with ambient light, particularly the various kinds of indoor lights.
Tomorrow I may bring my Lumahawk, a battery powered multi LED light. It is dimmable and I can adjust the colour temp, that is adjusting it from blue and yellow. I intend to use it with a diffuser and set to not quite full, I want to use it as "fill" adding warmth and tone to the skin. Nadia is quite pale, with bleach blond hair and her Black Cat costume is ... well .. black. So I don't want her face to ghost out and I don't want to lose the detail in her black outfit. That's when you need a light. Normally I would prefer indirect lighting, bouncing the light off a wall for instance but that won't be possible tomorrow, I will have to camera mount it. It will be worth a try though. The light is very .... well .. light so if it doesn't work out I can just throw it back into my pack
I've been packing my GoPro, it's so small I almost always do. I have yet to use it but perhaps I will find a way tomorrow. I like to set it up with it's wide angle and shoot long shots for time lapses. In the chaos of the Fan Expo I was leery about setting it up but I'll have people with me tomorrow
The way I'm shooting right now is entirely opposite how I would shoot a promo video. If it was based on an interview or central subject I would shoot that first then go out to shoot B Roll to match the interview. B Roll is cutaways, used to illustrate what the subject was talk about. What I did this time was shoot the B Roll first then shoot the subject.
But then, what I'm doing with Nadia is not really an inteview. It is true cinema verite, just letting things happen as they happen and recording that. A lot of my B Roll will work, if nothing else, as establishing shots: Here is the Expo, here are people other than Nadia at the expo etc. The interviews I've done, I'm not sure how they will fit in. Complimenting Nadia's experience? Contrasting it?
I'm letting Fate write this script. God, I better go talk to her agent
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