It's been haunting me. Taunting me, really
It sits there, taking up space on my exterior Hard Drive. I try to ignore it, I tell myself that I've moved on, but it's difficult to ignore. There is just so damn much of it. 383 Gigs, over 900 clips, over 3 and half hours of raw footage. It's the fucking elephant in my hard drive
My original plans for a documentary on Fan Expo Toronto and fandom in general of course did not quite work out. I wanted to "shadow" a fan in costume at the expo but that person did not quite, well, she was a fetish queen in a totally awesome costume who was done with the experience as soon as it was over
So no follow up interviews, no further participation, no context
So that original concept is thrown on my scrap heap of unfulfilled creative ideas. Damn thing rivals Everest at this point
And yet, there it is; hours of footage from four days at Fan Expo last summer. And much of it is good footage. Mostly cutaways but a few interviews too. My shoot with Nadia was on the last day of the show and I filled up those first three days pretty well. Of course I did, I'm full of it we all know that
Ahem
The problem is, this is all B roll, the footage that goes around and under the principle clips. But as we all know, I ain't gots no principles
Ahem
But I began to wonder if I could put all this footage together to define something else, something new. What that would be, I was not sure. I did know that I did not want to do a Fan Expo promo "Fan Expo is a convention of all things fantastical that happens over four days in late summer in Toronto Ontario"
Yeh, been there down that. Like, a hundred times. My promotional videos rucksack is full. I took on this project to do something new, something I've never before done. A documentary. I've never created a documentary, never even worked on a crew And I wanted an opportunity to expand my knowledge of visual tricks and techniques Take advantage of the fact that for once I have no client and have no need to design the project to their needs and taste
Well, I have a client you could say but he works for beer. A lot of beer
So here I am with all this footage in search of a premise. And I think I have one. Or enough of one to begin the creative process.
That process always begins with a script. In most cases I'd write the script, go take the shots, edit it all together, throw some pixie dust in the air, make a sacrifice to August Lumber and hope that it all works out
With docs, of course, the process is a bit different. A doc starts with a concept, instead of writing a script per se, you assemble interviews, B roll, research etc to help you build your story. You shoot, you shoot a lot and let the shooting write the story
My problem is, all the shooting I've done was towards a perspective, that of a fan expiring the expo for the first time, that is no longer relevant. So what do I do with all this B roll. First thing is to start going through all the clips and seeing if there is some kind of new story in there
That required some organization. When I shot the footage I organized them into folders, what Final Cut calls Bins, in my project by the day of the shoot; Thurs, Fri, Sat Sun and Interviews.
Normally what I would do is generate a shot list, listing every shot, it's duration and some comment about it, Good Take, Bad Take etc. Well, I wasn't about to do that with over 900 shots. Hey, I have a life, there are reruns of Archer to watch for the 5th time.
Instead I decided to make Bins that would help me identify shots in categories as I began to work on the script. So, a Comics bin that would contain all clips related to comic books, guys on the convention floor drawing, shots of the comic dealing booths etc. Of course I have a Cosplay bin, shots of people in costumes. Star Wars got its own bin because the 501 Legion, a massive Star Wars cosplay group did their annual photo shoot, featuring literally hundreds of storm troopers, Princess Leia's, Darth Vaders and Emperors ... yeh, more than one, scary. All the interviews I did got their own bin
That will make it a little easier for me to find shots as I do the script. Normally I would create a couple of kinds of script. A master script that would have the Narration (VO) matched with the corresponding shots. With any project I like to match the VO to the clips and especially with this one, I ain't doing any retakes, the price of the Expo has elevated to Donal Trump status.
On projects where I was using a Narrator I would make him/her their own VO script. I use an old style that was taught to me years ago. All caps and spelling phonetically when necessary. At this point I'm not sure if I will do the VO or con, I mean coerce (no I mean con) someone into doing for me
At this point I will do a "scratch track". I will record the VO myself and use it to assemble a rough cut, I really won't know how everything will work until I start plugging in shots. The script may need to be adjusted for the shots, as in, gosh Vic that was a beautiful bit of narrated poetry but you totally do not have shots of Unicorns in Kevlar armour making out with a Valkyrie on the subway. Rewrite that scene
Once I get the narration hammered out then I will decide if I need someone who can actually enunciate to do the VO
So that's where I am at this moment. This project is dead but I'm gunna hammer on its chest to see if there is any life in there
CLEAR!!
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Monday, September 29, 2014
FAN EXPO DOC: NOW WHAT DO I DO
At this point my Fan Expo Doc project is stalled. I have not been able to get any response from Nadia since our shoot in August. This could mean that she is busy, that she is out of town or that she just has no more interest in continuing with the project. Or at any rate, no interest in going on cam and providing narration for the footage of her which I shot
Without her input there is no context to that footage. It's just me following around a couple of cosplayers. Certainly not enough to be the heart of a documentary
I've not totally given up on Nadia but I need to answer the question What do I do if she no longer wants to participate
I have to go through the footage to see what is there. Unfortunately, because Nadia was the last day of the shoot, I geared the previous footage towards her being the heart of the video, as in mostly what I have is B roll. The good thing is, this B roll is fairly generic, the bad thing is, it's fairly generic
I do have some interviews. The interviews with the cosplayers are short and really just like introductions, "I am ... I am playing this character ..." A few of them talked about why they were there and what they liked about the show. Again, fairly generic
I did a few other interviews with people who were at the Expo to promote a group and/or raised money in its behalf. The Toronto Steampunk Society, a Ghostbusters group, a LARP (Live Action Roleplaying) group, an X Men group that raises money for charity
There could be something there, it's actually fairly interesting stuff. These are fans who have taken their love of a certain genre and turned it into something beyond a simple hobby. If I chose to explore that avenue though, I would need more. I would have to contact one of all of these groups and get interviews with them, follow them to other events, get the history of their groups etc.
That could be interesting but it's not what I intended in the first place. I wanted something more from an individual's personal perspective rather than that of a polished and practised group. I wanted more documentary, less promo vid .. I've done those thank you very much
Another option is to try to execute my original concept, find a cosplayer and follow them through the expo and have them comment on the experience in VO. Fan Expo is over but Comic Con will be up in March; it's a different event though, usually much smaller and instead of taking up both halls of the convention centre, using only one. So I don't know how much of this current footage I'd be able to use
So what I'm left with is logging the footage and seeing if I can make something out of it. It won't be the first time
Without her input there is no context to that footage. It's just me following around a couple of cosplayers. Certainly not enough to be the heart of a documentary
I've not totally given up on Nadia but I need to answer the question What do I do if she no longer wants to participate
I have to go through the footage to see what is there. Unfortunately, because Nadia was the last day of the shoot, I geared the previous footage towards her being the heart of the video, as in mostly what I have is B roll. The good thing is, this B roll is fairly generic, the bad thing is, it's fairly generic
I do have some interviews. The interviews with the cosplayers are short and really just like introductions, "I am ... I am playing this character ..." A few of them talked about why they were there and what they liked about the show. Again, fairly generic
I did a few other interviews with people who were at the Expo to promote a group and/or raised money in its behalf. The Toronto Steampunk Society, a Ghostbusters group, a LARP (Live Action Roleplaying) group, an X Men group that raises money for charity
There could be something there, it's actually fairly interesting stuff. These are fans who have taken their love of a certain genre and turned it into something beyond a simple hobby. If I chose to explore that avenue though, I would need more. I would have to contact one of all of these groups and get interviews with them, follow them to other events, get the history of their groups etc.
That could be interesting but it's not what I intended in the first place. I wanted something more from an individual's personal perspective rather than that of a polished and practised group. I wanted more documentary, less promo vid .. I've done those thank you very much
Another option is to try to execute my original concept, find a cosplayer and follow them through the expo and have them comment on the experience in VO. Fan Expo is over but Comic Con will be up in March; it's a different event though, usually much smaller and instead of taking up both halls of the convention centre, using only one. So I don't know how much of this current footage I'd be able to use
So what I'm left with is logging the footage and seeing if I can make something out of it. It won't be the first time
Monday, September 8, 2014
FAN EXPO DOC: POST PRODUCTION ONE
It would be nice if you could shoot a bunch of footage and just dive into the editing
Well, sometimes you can. When Collette and I are at some festival and I want to cut the footage into a music video, I can do just that, pull the footage into Final Cut, lay down my music track and start cutting
That will not work for this new project. There is no script for this video, not formally. I have a pretty solid idea of where I want things to go but I have yet to finish shooting. I'm still waiting to do my final shoot with Nadia, where I will have her narrate her footage from our day at the Expo
Still, I want to start organizing things. Post production is a lot more than just editing and music and graphics.
Right now, while I'm waiting for my final shoot, I'm concerned with two areas: Logging footage and Legal.
I'll deal with Legal first. I have no intentions of the finished video ever going to broadcast. But I will be posting it on social media (and perhaps some unsocial media) and I will be sending it to whatever "film" festivals I can get away with. That is a different level of legal concern than broadcast but it's still a concern.
Film festivals, amateur or not, like everything neat and tidy. You have to prove rights to your footage, your music, locations and to all principles involved in the production.
I will of course have Nadia and Brandon (her Spiderman) sign a release form that I've worked up. They were not the only people that I have on cam. The interviews I did at the Ex break down into two categories: Fan streeters and Organization Interviews
The streeters were just fans I corralled and had give me a minute or two on cam. I am not terribly concerned with these. I made of point to record them as they gave me consent to film them and that should cover it.
Besides talking to fans, I talked to a few orgainizations/groups who were at the Expo to promote themselves. Groups like The Toronto Steampunk Society and Superheroes for Charity were at the Ex to raise awareness of their group and to raise money for charity. I also talked to a non profit LARP group (Live Action Role Playing) who where there to drum up new members
For these people I'm going to need release forms, not just for the person but for the group. And I'm going to want proper contact info so I can credit them. They of course gave me consent to film but because they represent a group of people, I want to make sure I'm covered and beyond that, I support their causes and want to credit them. No matter how organized they are, they are fans and they are not looking for a profit
The other legal concern is locations. Very often film fests want to make sure you have permission to shoot in any venues in your film. Fan Expo itself is very liberal in its allowances for video. It's really a fantastic thing. You see camera crews all over the Ex and not just from TV and online stations. I felt very comfortable shooting there and never had an issue from the event staff .. except when I was standing in the wrong place. Hey, welcome to my world
Still, I will probably send them an email, let them know what I'm doing and get a response. And, again, I definitely want to properly credit them. After all, the Expo itself may emerge as the "star" of the video
The other location concern is the venue that hosted the Expo, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. This is just as important, perhaps more so, than the Expo. This is the physical venue in which I was shooting and what film festivals are concerned with. Again, I'm hoping I'm covered because of the event itself. And I also want to credit them
I want to start this process now. I am a long ways from a finished product but while I'm waiting for my shoot with Nadia and before I get lost in the editing, I want to make sure I have this covered.
Now we come to logging footage. I began this process when I took the shots off the cam and put them on my computer. My cam can shoot in a variety of formats. For this shoot I chose HD 1080p at 60 frames per second. This gives me the best possible quality and because most web hosting sites want to compress your video (usually to 720 sometimes 1080) I feel that shooting at double the normal frame rate of 30 frames per second gives me the best chance of keeping my footage as clean as possible Plus, the slo mo is awesome
My Sony records the footage to its own internal hard drive. It compresses, or wraps, the footage to MTS files that can not be edited, not by Final Cut, not by any editing system. So I have to unwrap the files in order to be able to edit them. I use a program called Clirpwrap and unwrap the files to Apple's ProRes 422 standard, which keeps the files at their original resolution and makes for easy editing in Final Cut
After each day of shooting I downloaded the files to my computer, unwrapping them in the process. This cleared off the cam's hard drive and allowed me to do my initial orgainiztion: I targeted the unwrapped clips to a folder for each day of the Expo. Labelled them Thursday, Friday etc.
In traditional edits, like for a drama, I would log all the shots, pen and paper or with a computer logging program, describing each shot and it's location so that later, in the edit suite, I can quickly assemble these shots to match the script. In this case, at this point, I don't have a script. Eventually I will write some narration and if Nadia does her VO, that will constitute the script. What I need to do now is figure out what I have to make that latter process easier. In a sense, logging the clips is like writing a rough draft of a script
Some of the how I want to organize is obvious; for instance I want to put all the interviews into one location. That way, not matter how the video goes, I can easily find those clips. Now, you can do this kind of organization right in Final Cut. I can bring in folders from the computer, like the folders of clips organized by day and then create new folders, what FC calls Bins. I would rather do this work in my Mac's Finder. I created a folder called Interviews and dragged all of those clips over from the Day folders. It's easier to do in the Finder because I can expand the clips in the graphic interface so that they are easily identifiable.
This will be a rinse and repeat process. I can sub-folder this (yes, I just made up a verb, deal with it) as much as I desire. Folders for all cosplay, a folder for all footage from the North Building, a folder for all footage from the South building, a folder each for Celebs, Comics, Horror, etc Hopefully this will make it easier later on as I'm assembling the video
OK, this was probably a boring post and it deals with some of the less exciting aspects of video creation but it's all essential stuff and honestly, I enjoy this process. It gives me a chance to review all the footage, I can organize it, mark it and in some cases just trash the clips that will never be used
In the meantime, I did cut a little music video/trailer video that can be viewed here on my other blog
Well, sometimes you can. When Collette and I are at some festival and I want to cut the footage into a music video, I can do just that, pull the footage into Final Cut, lay down my music track and start cutting
That will not work for this new project. There is no script for this video, not formally. I have a pretty solid idea of where I want things to go but I have yet to finish shooting. I'm still waiting to do my final shoot with Nadia, where I will have her narrate her footage from our day at the Expo
Still, I want to start organizing things. Post production is a lot more than just editing and music and graphics.
Right now, while I'm waiting for my final shoot, I'm concerned with two areas: Logging footage and Legal.
I'll deal with Legal first. I have no intentions of the finished video ever going to broadcast. But I will be posting it on social media (and perhaps some unsocial media) and I will be sending it to whatever "film" festivals I can get away with. That is a different level of legal concern than broadcast but it's still a concern.
Film festivals, amateur or not, like everything neat and tidy. You have to prove rights to your footage, your music, locations and to all principles involved in the production.
I will of course have Nadia and Brandon (her Spiderman) sign a release form that I've worked up. They were not the only people that I have on cam. The interviews I did at the Ex break down into two categories: Fan streeters and Organization Interviews
The streeters were just fans I corralled and had give me a minute or two on cam. I am not terribly concerned with these. I made of point to record them as they gave me consent to film them and that should cover it.
Besides talking to fans, I talked to a few orgainizations/groups who were at the Expo to promote themselves. Groups like The Toronto Steampunk Society and Superheroes for Charity were at the Ex to raise awareness of their group and to raise money for charity. I also talked to a non profit LARP group (Live Action Role Playing) who where there to drum up new members
For these people I'm going to need release forms, not just for the person but for the group. And I'm going to want proper contact info so I can credit them. They of course gave me consent to film but because they represent a group of people, I want to make sure I'm covered and beyond that, I support their causes and want to credit them. No matter how organized they are, they are fans and they are not looking for a profit
The other legal concern is locations. Very often film fests want to make sure you have permission to shoot in any venues in your film. Fan Expo itself is very liberal in its allowances for video. It's really a fantastic thing. You see camera crews all over the Ex and not just from TV and online stations. I felt very comfortable shooting there and never had an issue from the event staff .. except when I was standing in the wrong place. Hey, welcome to my world
Still, I will probably send them an email, let them know what I'm doing and get a response. And, again, I definitely want to properly credit them. After all, the Expo itself may emerge as the "star" of the video
The other location concern is the venue that hosted the Expo, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. This is just as important, perhaps more so, than the Expo. This is the physical venue in which I was shooting and what film festivals are concerned with. Again, I'm hoping I'm covered because of the event itself. And I also want to credit them
I want to start this process now. I am a long ways from a finished product but while I'm waiting for my shoot with Nadia and before I get lost in the editing, I want to make sure I have this covered.
Now we come to logging footage. I began this process when I took the shots off the cam and put them on my computer. My cam can shoot in a variety of formats. For this shoot I chose HD 1080p at 60 frames per second. This gives me the best possible quality and because most web hosting sites want to compress your video (usually to 720 sometimes 1080) I feel that shooting at double the normal frame rate of 30 frames per second gives me the best chance of keeping my footage as clean as possible Plus, the slo mo is awesome
My Sony records the footage to its own internal hard drive. It compresses, or wraps, the footage to MTS files that can not be edited, not by Final Cut, not by any editing system. So I have to unwrap the files in order to be able to edit them. I use a program called Clirpwrap and unwrap the files to Apple's ProRes 422 standard, which keeps the files at their original resolution and makes for easy editing in Final Cut
After each day of shooting I downloaded the files to my computer, unwrapping them in the process. This cleared off the cam's hard drive and allowed me to do my initial orgainiztion: I targeted the unwrapped clips to a folder for each day of the Expo. Labelled them Thursday, Friday etc.
In traditional edits, like for a drama, I would log all the shots, pen and paper or with a computer logging program, describing each shot and it's location so that later, in the edit suite, I can quickly assemble these shots to match the script. In this case, at this point, I don't have a script. Eventually I will write some narration and if Nadia does her VO, that will constitute the script. What I need to do now is figure out what I have to make that latter process easier. In a sense, logging the clips is like writing a rough draft of a script
Some of the how I want to organize is obvious; for instance I want to put all the interviews into one location. That way, not matter how the video goes, I can easily find those clips. Now, you can do this kind of organization right in Final Cut. I can bring in folders from the computer, like the folders of clips organized by day and then create new folders, what FC calls Bins. I would rather do this work in my Mac's Finder. I created a folder called Interviews and dragged all of those clips over from the Day folders. It's easier to do in the Finder because I can expand the clips in the graphic interface so that they are easily identifiable.
This will be a rinse and repeat process. I can sub-folder this (yes, I just made up a verb, deal with it) as much as I desire. Folders for all cosplay, a folder for all footage from the North Building, a folder for all footage from the South building, a folder each for Celebs, Comics, Horror, etc Hopefully this will make it easier later on as I'm assembling the video
OK, this was probably a boring post and it deals with some of the less exciting aspects of video creation but it's all essential stuff and honestly, I enjoy this process. It gives me a chance to review all the footage, I can organize it, mark it and in some cases just trash the clips that will never be used
In the meantime, I did cut a little music video/trailer video that can be viewed here on my other blog
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
FINAL FAN EXPO SHOOT
So Sunday was the last day of Toronto Fan Expo and thereby (duh) the last day of my shoot. It was the day I was supposed to meet up with Nadia and follow her through her Fan Expo experience
When I first envisioned this project I was thinking I would follow around some ardent fan as they interacted with the rest of Nerdom. Well, that is not what I got. Nadia is not a fan nor a nerd nor a geek. She came in costume as Black Cat but she is not really a cosplayer either. She is a roleplayer but not the sort you would find at a family friendly event.
Nadia showed up complete with her Spiderman, her own photographer and a couple of other superheroes. Not to mention a backback filled with handcuffs, riding crops and caution tape she later used to bind poor old Spidey up.
Yeh, not your average fan.
She was very much in "play" mode and was not very interested in stopping and talking to me. Some of that had to do with her entourage, they quickly became lost and disorganized without her. Most of the day was spent me following Nadia as she was stopped every four feet to have her picture taken, being asked for interviews etc
It did not take long for the play bag to get opened and soon Spidey was handcuffed, wrapped in caution tape, collared and led around by Nadia on a leash. I was curious to see what the reactions from the giant crowd would be and they were overwhelmingly positive. There were a lot of giggles, many "holy shit look at that" and from one little boy "Daddy, what did Spiderman do???"
It was interesting how some of the dedicated comic nerds seemed to totally disregard the fetish aspect of the scene and concentrate on the nuances of the costumes "That's the Black Cat from Issue 20" "Oh no, I would say it was from earlier than that" etc etc
Although mainstream comics probably do not dabble much in fetish it certainly is a large component in the fan scene. Nadia was attracted to some of the cosplay elements like corsets and waspies of course but there was also a lot of art on display that almost mirrored her play.
I know that that fan fiction, stories written purely by fans, often veer into the erotic and two of the most popular areas are LGBT and fetish. Fifty Shades of Grey, after all, started out as fan fiction based on the Twilight vampire books
An interesting moment happened when Spiderman (real name Brandon) asked Nadia to reverse the roles. So he collared her and led her on the leash. Miss Nadia was clearly unamused. More interestingly, there was very little reaction from the crowd. They seemed much more interested when Nadia was in control
As I followed them around I began to wonder how all of this would fit into my video. As I stated in an earlier post it's counter intuitive to shoot all the B roll before you do the principle shoot. How am I going to bring all this together; hours of convention footage and interviews with eager fans and Nadia playing our her fetish games on the convention floor
What I need is context.
My first instinct was to gather some shots of Nadia as she encountered certain events on the floor, showing her the footage and getting her reaction on cam. Then I could cut that into the video, perhaps mostly as voice over. Then I could contrast that with the other interviews I have, showing the diversity of experiences people are seeking when they go to the expo
Or, I could further explore the fetish elements of fandom, from costplay and art (which is ripe with stilettos and corsets and chicks getting tied up) to the fan fiction to roleplaying. That would require more info, back ground research and really, more interviews with people into the fan-comic-fetish scene, not just Nadia's perspective. That sounds like a whole other video to me, and perhaps I will go there but that would be a larger project with much more work ahead
At this point I need to touch base with Nadia, get some interviews from her, try to get that context before I can even determine if I have an actual video here
When I first envisioned this project I was thinking I would follow around some ardent fan as they interacted with the rest of Nerdom. Well, that is not what I got. Nadia is not a fan nor a nerd nor a geek. She came in costume as Black Cat but she is not really a cosplayer either. She is a roleplayer but not the sort you would find at a family friendly event.
Nadia showed up complete with her Spiderman, her own photographer and a couple of other superheroes. Not to mention a backback filled with handcuffs, riding crops and caution tape she later used to bind poor old Spidey up.
Yeh, not your average fan.
She was very much in "play" mode and was not very interested in stopping and talking to me. Some of that had to do with her entourage, they quickly became lost and disorganized without her. Most of the day was spent me following Nadia as she was stopped every four feet to have her picture taken, being asked for interviews etc
It did not take long for the play bag to get opened and soon Spidey was handcuffed, wrapped in caution tape, collared and led around by Nadia on a leash. I was curious to see what the reactions from the giant crowd would be and they were overwhelmingly positive. There were a lot of giggles, many "holy shit look at that" and from one little boy "Daddy, what did Spiderman do???"
It was interesting how some of the dedicated comic nerds seemed to totally disregard the fetish aspect of the scene and concentrate on the nuances of the costumes "That's the Black Cat from Issue 20" "Oh no, I would say it was from earlier than that" etc etc
Although mainstream comics probably do not dabble much in fetish it certainly is a large component in the fan scene. Nadia was attracted to some of the cosplay elements like corsets and waspies of course but there was also a lot of art on display that almost mirrored her play.
I know that that fan fiction, stories written purely by fans, often veer into the erotic and two of the most popular areas are LGBT and fetish. Fifty Shades of Grey, after all, started out as fan fiction based on the Twilight vampire books
An interesting moment happened when Spiderman (real name Brandon) asked Nadia to reverse the roles. So he collared her and led her on the leash. Miss Nadia was clearly unamused. More interestingly, there was very little reaction from the crowd. They seemed much more interested when Nadia was in control
As I followed them around I began to wonder how all of this would fit into my video. As I stated in an earlier post it's counter intuitive to shoot all the B roll before you do the principle shoot. How am I going to bring all this together; hours of convention footage and interviews with eager fans and Nadia playing our her fetish games on the convention floor
What I need is context.
My first instinct was to gather some shots of Nadia as she encountered certain events on the floor, showing her the footage and getting her reaction on cam. Then I could cut that into the video, perhaps mostly as voice over. Then I could contrast that with the other interviews I have, showing the diversity of experiences people are seeking when they go to the expo
Or, I could further explore the fetish elements of fandom, from costplay and art (which is ripe with stilettos and corsets and chicks getting tied up) to the fan fiction to roleplaying. That would require more info, back ground research and really, more interviews with people into the fan-comic-fetish scene, not just Nadia's perspective. That sounds like a whole other video to me, and perhaps I will go there but that would be a larger project with much more work ahead
At this point I need to touch base with Nadia, get some interviews from her, try to get that context before I can even determine if I have an actual video here
Saturday, August 30, 2014
FAN EXPO SHOOT DAY THREE
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
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
Friday, August 29, 2014
FAN EXPO SHOOT DAY ONE
Yesterday, Thurs Aug 28 was my first day at Fan Expo. It was the opening day, a half day really, from 4 pm to 8 pm
It's always big but this year it's even bigger, taking up both halls of the Metro Convention Centre. I have two purposes for attending the Expo, making my documentary and attending panels and networking to promote my graphic novel concept, The Howl. There were no panels in which I was interested yesterday so I went with film making in mind
I had to put some thought into what gear I would taking. I'm a one man band as it were (and we are glad that that is only a euphemism, me in any kind of band would be beyond nightmare) so I have to bring gear that will get me what I want but that will also allow me to travel light.
There was not doubt that I was going to bring my Soney NX cam. It is tiny, it is tough and I love the image quality. It allows me to shoot in a variety of HD formats, from 20 fps (frames per second) to 14 to 60. I knew I wasn't going to shoot in 24 fps, the oh so beloved "film look". The quality of that speed on the Sony is pretty good but it is most suited to exterior shots, particularly night or fall type lighting. Inside, in artificial lighting I actually prefer to shoot at 60 fps 1080p.
It does not look like a film. Well I am not shooting a film, I am shooting a video. The images are bright, clean, sharp and vibrant. The film look has its place but I like shooting video. And I think for this project, this clear sharp video is exactly what I want.
The NX is a remarkably stable little cam. It has a floating lens and very good image stabilization but nothing replaces a tripod for steadiness, especially if you plan to do interviews and "streeters" which I certainly wanted to do. There are many stabilization options out there. I have several of them.
Fan Expo attracts a lot of video crews, both official and unofficial. The trend these days is to use a DSLR just so you can get that film look. I like the image quality of these cameras but for me, they are not EFP (electronic field production) cameras, that is cameras that you can use on the fly, on the run, in fluid situations
DSLRs are, after all, still cameras. And although most of them have image stabilization is a common feature it is stabilization for still photography. The rigs that these DSLR shooters use make me giggle, not only is the cam in a big cage (with a video return monitor, mics) it seems the operator is as well
For yesterday's shoot I decided to bring my trusty Monfrotto monopod. This thing is old. At least twenty five years. It's a bit bit up but it's a beast, you may be able to kill it but you can't wound it. It is made from high quality aluminum, it is light but tough as hell, I have put some very heavy cameras on it without hesitation. It has three sections with quick release tabs so I can extend it and retract it very quickly. It does not have a quick release head, which sometimes is a problem, but generally I screw it on to the cam and leave it there; fully retracted it's a little under two feet long and makes a nice handle.
The one thing the Monfrotto lacks that I would love to have is a pan and tilt head but I'm working on that.
My next concern was audio. Like all camcorders the Sony has a built in cam and it's not bad. Far better than any built in cam of any DSLR. But I wanted to do interviews and in a big noisy environment of the Expo, the little condensor mic would not cut it. My old Sony handycam was a consumer cam and id not have mic inputs. The NX, for all it's diminutive size, is a pro cam. It comes with an audio deck with XLR (big boy audio) inputs and a shotgun mic. It's a good shotgun mic but I have a Rode mic that really is full on pro and and I can clamp that to the Sony.
I shot a couple of interviews last night in very noisy areas were I could barely hear the person but the mic did a remarkable job, overall very clear and with a bit of filtering in post, I will be very happy with the results.
One of the days of the Expo I will probably bring my new stabilizer, a wierd looking thing with counterbalances that allows graceful, smooth tracking shots. It's a bit cumbersome to pack but the monopod works well in its retracted position, giving me extra stability.
I'm off to the Expo today. I will take my gear of course and shoot as much as I can (the Sony has a 90 gig HD that allows for, at highest quality, about 9 straight hrs of shooting which should do very well) but today will be more about panels and networking and trying to sell the graphic novel script.
But yeh, I will definitely still be in my annoying-old-guy-with-a-cam mode. Beware, nerds, beware
It's always big but this year it's even bigger, taking up both halls of the Metro Convention Centre. I have two purposes for attending the Expo, making my documentary and attending panels and networking to promote my graphic novel concept, The Howl. There were no panels in which I was interested yesterday so I went with film making in mind
I had to put some thought into what gear I would taking. I'm a one man band as it were (and we are glad that that is only a euphemism, me in any kind of band would be beyond nightmare) so I have to bring gear that will get me what I want but that will also allow me to travel light.
There was not doubt that I was going to bring my Soney NX cam. It is tiny, it is tough and I love the image quality. It allows me to shoot in a variety of HD formats, from 20 fps (frames per second) to 14 to 60. I knew I wasn't going to shoot in 24 fps, the oh so beloved "film look". The quality of that speed on the Sony is pretty good but it is most suited to exterior shots, particularly night or fall type lighting. Inside, in artificial lighting I actually prefer to shoot at 60 fps 1080p.
It does not look like a film. Well I am not shooting a film, I am shooting a video. The images are bright, clean, sharp and vibrant. The film look has its place but I like shooting video. And I think for this project, this clear sharp video is exactly what I want.
The NX is a remarkably stable little cam. It has a floating lens and very good image stabilization but nothing replaces a tripod for steadiness, especially if you plan to do interviews and "streeters" which I certainly wanted to do. There are many stabilization options out there. I have several of them.
Fan Expo attracts a lot of video crews, both official and unofficial. The trend these days is to use a DSLR just so you can get that film look. I like the image quality of these cameras but for me, they are not EFP (electronic field production) cameras, that is cameras that you can use on the fly, on the run, in fluid situations
DSLRs are, after all, still cameras. And although most of them have image stabilization is a common feature it is stabilization for still photography. The rigs that these DSLR shooters use make me giggle, not only is the cam in a big cage (with a video return monitor, mics) it seems the operator is as well
For yesterday's shoot I decided to bring my trusty Monfrotto monopod. This thing is old. At least twenty five years. It's a bit bit up but it's a beast, you may be able to kill it but you can't wound it. It is made from high quality aluminum, it is light but tough as hell, I have put some very heavy cameras on it without hesitation. It has three sections with quick release tabs so I can extend it and retract it very quickly. It does not have a quick release head, which sometimes is a problem, but generally I screw it on to the cam and leave it there; fully retracted it's a little under two feet long and makes a nice handle.
The one thing the Monfrotto lacks that I would love to have is a pan and tilt head but I'm working on that.
My next concern was audio. Like all camcorders the Sony has a built in cam and it's not bad. Far better than any built in cam of any DSLR. But I wanted to do interviews and in a big noisy environment of the Expo, the little condensor mic would not cut it. My old Sony handycam was a consumer cam and id not have mic inputs. The NX, for all it's diminutive size, is a pro cam. It comes with an audio deck with XLR (big boy audio) inputs and a shotgun mic. It's a good shotgun mic but I have a Rode mic that really is full on pro and and I can clamp that to the Sony.
I shot a couple of interviews last night in very noisy areas were I could barely hear the person but the mic did a remarkable job, overall very clear and with a bit of filtering in post, I will be very happy with the results.
One of the days of the Expo I will probably bring my new stabilizer, a wierd looking thing with counterbalances that allows graceful, smooth tracking shots. It's a bit cumbersome to pack but the monopod works well in its retracted position, giving me extra stability.
I'm off to the Expo today. I will take my gear of course and shoot as much as I can (the Sony has a 90 gig HD that allows for, at highest quality, about 9 straight hrs of shooting which should do very well) but today will be more about panels and networking and trying to sell the graphic novel script.
But yeh, I will definitely still be in my annoying-old-guy-with-a-cam mode. Beware, nerds, beware
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
THE NEW PROJECT: THE FAN EXPO DOC
I've been lucky in my video career to have worked in a variety of environments.
I worked as part of a production crew for Seneca College Media Productions where we produced video training tapes (yes, tape as in video tape Google it) and promotional material for the college. It was a great first job; my principle duties were as a VTR op doing everything from logging tapes to operating the decks in the A/B Roll edit bay .. don't google that, I suspect you won't find out what the hell that means. But I was also able to go on shoots, getting valuable hands on experience in lighting, audio and some camera work
I have had brief forays into TV .. and we should all be glad they were brief. I worked for YTV as a VTR op and quickly learned that the control room of a TV enterprise was not for me.
My other TV gig was as the on-air promotions writer at the Shopping Channel. This suited me much better, drawing on my skills as a writer and my background in Promotions. Alas, all good things come to an end as it did one Black Friday for about 40 of us
For a year I ran a training program sponsored by the Bramption Youth Initiative and the John Howard Society .. don't ask me why, it just was. I loved that job, spreading my bullshit .. er .. knowledge to people learning the basics of video production and creating some very good videos for community public service organizations
Then I entered the longest phase of my career, working as an editor and writer for Videopulse Productions, creating a wide variety of non broadcast video: Promo, corporate, training and live event. Lots and lots and lots of live event, principally weddings.
After about 10 yrs that company folded and I went freelance. Mostly I earned my living as a live event editor with the odd promo video thrown in. For these videos I was able to do everything, writing, camera as well as the post production.
Add to that my college "movies" I consider myself very lucky to have worked in and create a wide variety of videos. I have also created several videos for film festivals, some of which brought me some success. The video below won third place at the Amplify Me Video Festival in Florida
Are You There from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.
The one area in which I have no experience is the documentary/reality field. Well, let's change that.
I have been attending comic cons and the massive Fan Expo in Toronto for many years now. I usually go for a day, buy some comics, some games, some art and shoot video which I turn into music style videos for my own amusement
Here's one that I did for Comic Con last year
Toronto Comic Con 2014 from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.
I worked as part of a production crew for Seneca College Media Productions where we produced video training tapes (yes, tape as in video tape Google it) and promotional material for the college. It was a great first job; my principle duties were as a VTR op doing everything from logging tapes to operating the decks in the A/B Roll edit bay .. don't google that, I suspect you won't find out what the hell that means. But I was also able to go on shoots, getting valuable hands on experience in lighting, audio and some camera work
I have had brief forays into TV .. and we should all be glad they were brief. I worked for YTV as a VTR op and quickly learned that the control room of a TV enterprise was not for me.
My other TV gig was as the on-air promotions writer at the Shopping Channel. This suited me much better, drawing on my skills as a writer and my background in Promotions. Alas, all good things come to an end as it did one Black Friday for about 40 of us
For a year I ran a training program sponsored by the Bramption Youth Initiative and the John Howard Society .. don't ask me why, it just was. I loved that job, spreading my bullshit .. er .. knowledge to people learning the basics of video production and creating some very good videos for community public service organizations
Then I entered the longest phase of my career, working as an editor and writer for Videopulse Productions, creating a wide variety of non broadcast video: Promo, corporate, training and live event. Lots and lots and lots of live event, principally weddings.
After about 10 yrs that company folded and I went freelance. Mostly I earned my living as a live event editor with the odd promo video thrown in. For these videos I was able to do everything, writing, camera as well as the post production.
Add to that my college "movies" I consider myself very lucky to have worked in and create a wide variety of videos. I have also created several videos for film festivals, some of which brought me some success. The video below won third place at the Amplify Me Video Festival in Florida
The one area in which I have no experience is the documentary/reality field. Well, let's change that.
I have been attending comic cons and the massive Fan Expo in Toronto for many years now. I usually go for a day, buy some comics, some games, some art and shoot video which I turn into music style videos for my own amusement
Here's one that I did for Comic Con last year
This year, the 20th anniversary of the Fan Expo, I decided to change things up a bit. I'm going for all four days of the Expo (well three and a half) with the intent of shooting not a promo/trailer style vid but a documentary
My new Sony NX handycam is proving to be a pretty amazing cam for such a small package, I have some solid audio and stabilizing gear and I think this will be a great opportunity to really see what the package can do
My new Sony NX handycam is proving to be a pretty amazing cam for such a small package, I have some solid audio and stabilizing gear and I think this will be a great opportunity to really see what the package can do
Documentaries tend to be made as they are made, that is as you shoot and collect footage, the story is written. But I still like to have a direction. I will have a lot of access, with this time available to me, so I can shoot stuff I never have before, telling the story of the expo in a general sense. I hope to encounter people who may be willing to quickly jump on cam and talk to me, what we call "streeters" or "man on the street"
But as Oliver said: "But I want more" And that is Oliver Twist, by the way, but it could equally be Oliver North
I wanted to go beyond the sound bites you get from streeters. I wanted to find someone who was coming to the Expo, get their permission to "follow" them and document their experience. I would mix it in with interview footage that would give some background on the person, why they went there, what their interests are etc
But where would I find someone who would agree to this? Hello Craigslist my old friend. I put an ad on the site basically outlining what I was looking for. I guess I was envisioning some young person, an avid fan of comics/anime/sci fi/cosplay who was going to the expo to show off their costume and hang out with their friends
What I got, was Nadia
What I got, was Nadia
She is a young woman attending the expo for the first time. She is going with a guy who has been around the comicon scene for a while, she will be Black Cat to his Spiderman. Nadia has very little background in comics or fandom but comes from the fetish cosplay world.
We met and I found a very bright, very excited, very cute girl who was happy to enter into what, for her, is a new world and was very happy to have me follow her and record her reactions, her thoughts etc.
Not what I expected but I think it may give me a new perspective on the situation. So we are going to meet up Sunday and spend the day at the Expo together. I predict that it will not be dull.
One thing I know about documentaries, the post is important and it can take a while. I do intend to shoot a lot of footage (really Vic? No shit) so the process will take a while. But I intend to document, as much as I can, on this blog.
So, stay tuned, same Bat time, same Black Cat With a Whip channel
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