Photo By Ian Greenwell

Photography certainly isn’t on the back burner for me, I’m very much keeping it alive but I have been dividing my time up to pursue my love of filmmaking and allowing it to take up a larger portion of my schedule. Most recently I have signed on as the Director of Photography for a short film here in Perth called “The Manuscript” directed by the Perth Film Network founder, Debbie Thoy.

The film is about… well.. just wait and see!  It’s an action-comedy and it’s actually not that short. It will probably end up being a 30-45minute film which so far has taken up 14 days of filming and we still have quite a few to go. It’s been pretty intense so far and a steep learning curve for me, but thats what I love. I learn fast then I step up.

Photo By Ian Greenwell

THE HURDLES

So as the DOP, I’m in charge of the camera and lighting departments. I guess one of the hardest things starting out was that film lighting was completely foreign to me.  Light is light, and it’s pretty universal to understand, but film lighting equipment and the tools used are very different to still photography.  So being able to know and have a “feel” for all this was a hurdle I had to jump over quickly.

When I’m taking pictures I know exactly how many Watt seconds of light I need for certain situations and I have experience with a lot of different types of flash systems big and small to know how to achieve what I want. It all changed a bit with this film though. I had to learn what each of the lights we had could do, how much power they each had, and what that would equate to on camera. I’ll post more about the lighting in a later post including what we used and how we used it.

Another hurdle that I’m still slowly making my way over is the language barrier. The film industry speaks in a completely different language to the photographic industry and they have silly little names for everything.  I usually pick these kinds of things up very quickly, and I had to.  I still consider myself quite a newbie in this field so to work effectively on a film set with over a dozen other people this is something I had to pick up fast as well as understanding the roles of all the other people including my own.

I hate handheld but sometimes it’s warranted and easily possible with HDSLR cameras. Here’s me going handheld for a quick and tricky over the shoulder shot of Priscilla Forder playing the role of Chantel, one of our main characters.

Photo By Ian Greenwell

Obviously with me behind the reigns, this film has been shot on a HDSLR camera, the Canon 5DMKII. We used my camera for the entirety of the film and had a backup 7D just incase but we also intend on using it to shoot some slow motion. The downsizing to 720p for the slow motion was something we had to live with as we were unable to obtain a better alternative, and the slow motion shot is a crucial one! I’ll be making a post about the camera gear we used very soon!

Photo By Ian Greenwell

Thanks to some help from Camera Electronic we had all professional Canon L Series glass to go with our 5DMKII. The main lenses used were the 24-70mm 2.8 L, the 70-200mm 2.8 IS L, and the 16-35MM 2.8 L. These are my favourite lenses to shoot with in stills and motion.  I cant work as fast as I like to with prime lenses, but I still love primes.

Here’s me being me, sporting one of my Arri leather gloves, crucial for setting up and adjusting lighting equipment to prevent burning my skin off.

Photo by Elliott Vassila

Below is Taufan one of our camera assistants operating the slate / clapperboard.  For those that don’t know this is used to sync the audio and the video together in post production, because they are both recorded on independant systems. The audio recorded by the 5DMKII is used for nothing more than a reference for the real audio recorded by a sound professional, which in this case was Peter R. McIntosh.

Photo By Brodie Butler

Have to place a big thank you to Camera Electronic, who as per usual have been extremely supportive of me and this production and have helped us out with equipment and continue to do so. Thanks Saul, Howard and all the team. Don’t forget guys, when you can’t afford to buy it, Rent it! You can rent just about anything off the showroom floor from Camera Electronic, and I know they’ve got a competitive price if you’re ready to buy.

Stay tuned for more in-depth posts about the camera and grip equipment we used, as well as the lighting!

B.