Shooting Beibhinn (with a camera, you fiend)

So, the shoot is done, and my work on 7 Minutes with Beibhinn, complete, and I must say, I'm rather proud of myself. It was tough, physically as well as everything else, considering I had got an injection a few days before, and had to hold up the weighty camera and tripod for the majority of the shots, I'll need to rest a bit before my next shoot, but that makes it all the more rewarding. I'll start from the start, this is going to be a long post so, hold on to your hats!

   Day 1 and Day 2:   
I arrived to the bar in a timely fashion, allowing me to get everything ready for the shoot. Stephen and David run a tight ship, so I knew there would be no messing around.

(Well, a little messing around).

We stowed our gear in the backstage area, and I set up the lights, while the rest of the crew set up their respective equipment, and we got to the standard practice of testing out shots with the sound guy as a stand in until the cast show up. And show up they did. We were set up to get the first shots, the small speed dating segments, immediately.

 

 First Lighting set up.

These first few shots were very similar: Static over the shoulder shots on the level with a key, back and fill lights, then a simple reverse of the shot. While the shots were similar, setting them up meant moving the lights to a new location each time, which meant moving all of the plugs, and the tables. I decided it was best to have crew members stand in as subjects while we blocked out the lighting, so the actors wouldn't get restless. My technique for each of these shots was to close the tripod legs, plant it roughly where I wanted it, set the exposure and white balance, then hit record, lift it into position, and signal to David that I was ready for action. The most difficult thing about these shots was keeping the camera from canting to one side, I had to keep an eye on the lines in the shot and use them as anchor points. This would have been made much easier with a proper counterbalance system for the camera, or a shoulder mount.

This shot of the event announcer was a bit more tricky. Besides the actor fumbling with his lines, meaning we need quite a few retakes, he was quite animated while he talked, I had to anticipate and follow his movements. I found it became easier with each take, and the subtle movements gave life to the shot. Afterwards, we filmed a shot of the crowd from his perspective.

Later on,  we did some more shots with camera movement, including the focus pull I mentioned in an earlier post, some quick zooms, a simultaneous zoom out and pan (which required 2 people on the camera), and some detail shots to use as cutaways. After the shoot, we transferred the rushes to Stephen's laptop while we were still in the bar and reviewed some of them. Looking good!

Tune in next time of part 2 of the 7 Minutes with Beibhinn shoot. I was going to put them all in one but this post is long enough as it is!