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Setup and Shooting the Documentary

Lesson 8 from: HDDSLR: From Still to Video

Vincent Laforet

Setup and Shooting the Documentary

Lesson 8 from: HDDSLR: From Still to Video

Vincent Laforet

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Lesson Info

8. Setup and Shooting the Documentary

Lesson Info

Setup and Shooting the Documentary

It's the first thing we don't want to do the slider is the idea is to do a sliding move when you go ahead and do it sliding move when I talk to you when you go ahead and do it sliding move if you're you know ok when you go into a sliding move they have no tally lights is no I can't tell who I'm talking to um going about that on if there's no foreground subject you can't appreciate the fact that cameras moving you're kind of doing it just for no particular reason uh the idea with with a slider move or dolly move is to appreciate movement of the environment so if we keep the camera this high there's really nothing in the foreground is if we bring it to the table level you can see there's a lot of miguel's work in the foreground that we can use this kind of storytelling element okay, so let's go ahead and have you guys help marcus lower the camera not the base is at the height of the camera but that the lens is where you want to be okay? So before you do that you want to maybe just grab a...

bear camera first and practice to move with your legs mckenzie and uh tell us where your starting point in any point iss and I'm thinking that look at look at the range of your slider as well three feet. So right now you're working in a six foot slider, you have a three foot slider, three feet right, what lens you're going for? Seventy. So we've got an eighty five on a seventy. So what, one point three times eighty five hundred something one thirty? Uh, so we're going to this is our, like, our wide establishing shot, right? So, yeah, stay white. How about starting e e e? We can reposition the art, you know, in a second, more the quicker ideas to try and figure out what kind of motion you think it works well, with that lens on a three foot span, something like that, I am sure. I mean, I said, this is where the hard part comes in is you've got to make a decision, stick with it. You kind of kind of set a point a and point b, you know, and just say that looks cool if you're not sure pulling one of your colleagues. Right by the outgoing e something from here and they were starting to come into here. Yeah, well, well positioned. What are you going to track this kind of at the table in there a little bit too. All right. Ok, so what's your point a what? Here. Okay, marcus you my marking it born mostly way and you want over the table uh is not gonna be able to get that straight right now is that you want to go right with you? Okay? And the land's highest beware off, okay? We're going take measurements were going to make the slider is the hardest thing because he has this feel right now, it's just a lot stressful, right? And why is that it's? Because I have to, like, make a decision quickly. Yes. And you have to communicate it also that's the hardest part when you transition this is like you may know what you want that's that's half the battle, you've got to communicate it everyone around you it's helping you do this, you know? So and precisely what I'd like the cameras start right here on a fifty and I want to slide about three feet to the right and and over here at this height and then your crew can help you just make that happen because you saw when you didn't set this height correctly it's just it starts this cascade of disasters, okay? Dan can still here with us right here. How do you think it's going to cut you see the motion? I wasn't actually church let's check it out that jersey on he's just gonna want gonna walk you through it. Ah, little foreground don't maybe we track in here d'leh rack focus onto him if he's referring all of these pieces or something like that. You know what you probably want to do, though, is maybe have him a little bit more and frame a little earlier just so it's. Not like we're landing on olson. We cut him and he's just saying the last word. Remember, hold a little bit longer once you stop just in case we need that will tail socially slide is starting point. Live it to the right maybe yeah, just like we're trying to set a master shot that's gonna work said a good start a and b point uh, what dance referring to is you don't want so much dead time, we're on the artwork. You kind of want the artwork itself to be a transitionary piece. So it's like at the start of the move, its transition you into the movie, then you for the most part, you know you're spending the majority move on him you know and you may have a choice of racking in and out of focus with one of this piece of artwork all right, so let's reconsider and take that into account and put that into effect something like here it's just we're going to start you now over here. Okay where's your end point way okay, michael let's go ahead said the slider over there they're working on it back there feel better now it is stressful though I gotta tell you the first time someone says right where you want to put the camera uh, it's it's like you realize you're making a very important decision were you creatively looking at that really looking at the way john mature is working, the light was working and everything is just kind of for all that aside no, I want I want to get some foreground in there it's a little of both you good because a lot of photographers that you do this they just completely forget about all their training because they're so focused on the move in the gear that they completely forget about the visual aesthetics you can't do that I feel like I did in the beginning I had this much slighter s I want to use all of it but then I shorted out even though we had it all how far away are we on on that guy? Perfect how much time do we have thirty minutes we got ten minutes till a rolling way needed to be shooting now okay um it is you know how to do it. Well, first of all, we need to make sure he's laughed but she is already ok they've got the boom mic and the boom is going to be just out of frame so john here is going to go ahead and make sure that the boom is his close to miguel's mouth it's possible pointing at it without being in this camera's frame or that camera's frame can you do that yet is that cameras were actually wait utilized but we're not going to move in on your passion in his a lot of money because that's closer to no problem mouth gives clean okay and we'll use the booth right? So third camera as soon as marcus is ready, I'm going to go ahead and help him by pulling it out here guys when she goes, bring it over there to the right we're not going to use sticks but we're gonna have sticks available just to get it set up ways to get moving right this way but the sticks right over here because we're not going to use it we'll pull it out when you guys ready um who's going to operate this camera you're interviewing well, are you operating okay, what lends you want let's give you fifty and a hundred macro you switch back? Of course that makes sense okay, so we're gonna give will a fifty one hundred macro pretty smooth a hundred macro and fifteen e think so quickly so if you're teaching and stuff you gotta teach everybody so let's pull the camera over what this is here is a castro slider uh it operates with a hand crank just like any slider I'm worth perfectly well we've just added a motor to it um because we could and because it makes it much easier attack actually control your speed right here precisely. And you can add dampening as well so that when you release it gradually releases as opposed to stopping abruptly are you guys able to see the controls over here? You'll see that you know, obviously this is going to move very fast change of speed if damn things off you can see how it stops immediately and mumps, right, which is not good if you turned happening on, it'll ease into the move and he's out of the movie. All right, so it's just a very easy way to quickly and effectively get repeatable moves without any mystery. You know, hand cranking is is difficult to do smoothly, all right, uh will also allow someone to, uh, do rack focuses by hand here very low tech and the motor is not gonna be inhibited by that motion. Okay, so to that effect, I'm gonna have you marcus stick with um uh and have you guys set your a and b points make sure your framed right? Um we're going to be plugging in the feed into that camera at some point and I'm gonna go over here and work on this last camera you start off one hundred macro after trying to cool perfect, uh, lens discipline is you never, ever, ever put a lens on the floor because it gets kicked? It always stays, you know? You find a way to put it somewhere uh, you keep it in the case where you have someone like john, you are his first a c right now you're gonna have travis to it that you are so travis you're going to stay with him and you're going mind that lens and helping with any concerns you'll notice, of course, that this cps ice um has a much wider range of focus, but more importantly, for right now is already geared comes like that whereas this'll ends here one hundred macro is not years we've gone ahead and and added is a kudo ring around it so that it will interact with fall focusing unit okay, the's little rings are always like what kill you because you never have the right size. It takes you a long time to put him on me once. Which lenses? Um just why I really like to work. Alleges that are already here. It's one less thing to worry about you can see his time is just like flowing out of our blood stream here, every little thing and save you time is cool. All right, you got the camera on. You got an image on your on your monitor. Watch the surface of that print. It scratches really combined you. Okay, go get an image. Your exposure should be similar, if not exact. That camera there, both seventies. So five, six at fiftieth of a second at one sixty eight picture at the same degrees. Calvin marcus said you said their duties. Calvin on that camera, they happen to be a fifty, six hundred coastal markets already kind. Did you work for you, let's? Make sure that camera set to fifty, six hundred of these. Calvin. Okay, fifty five six, one. Sixty. Perfect. Okay, the aperture doesn't really have to match it's. Not as important, but you definitely have to make sure the degrees calvin matches. Yes, it is nice of the image quality looks the same and definitely shutter speed, trying to some artistic uh we don't have a filter in front of you don't you know don't in fact unless you want to get really fancy and stop down um we don't want you to lend shade either you find yourself wanting to go to have to they were one hundred macro probably not right? So let's go ahead and remove leave it for now don't have time right? So you're ready to shoot okay, why don't you go ahead and you're a team together you're gonna go ahead and take this office sticks and start practicing a little bit around him to get comfortable with it. All right, so you saw how we got three cameras together? Uh, how much time do we have left until we start interviewing told we're dead actually, so we're off off their way of twenty minutes. Really? Okay, twenty three you got three minutes till we start the interview. Okay, uh he's ready? Are you guys ready way have the ht my cable to plug in these cameras randomly cool. Jeff is going to be doing the interview. The last thing we have to do real quick and I'm going to call grace a little bit here is gonna have marcus walked do quick on slating procedure and we're also going to talk about audio real quick, all right? Generally personally, I always used a boom mike in conjunction with a laugh so I have two audio sources to go off of the lab audio is always, you know, it's close to the mouth of gently better but it is subject to interference, so if someone's cell phone or satellite goes for the interference uh where in trouble so being hard wired with that boom mike in frame would have made me more comfortable um, someone in the control room decide this is good enough it's good because we're doing his life thing, but I always have to different sound source of degree jeff it's kind of a good idea as a post relying on just one exactly if you scratch is generally bumps his chest, you've got nothing to cut into. Is there any reason we can't put the boom in there? There is a reason, right? So we're going to get it's a creative, live kind of bigger production shoot, so we're going to move forward but just know that if we weren't doing a live broadcast simultaneous to this shoot, we bring this boom mike and as close to him as possible based on what's that now we can put it in ok working magic yes, he contrast to stop about free stuff and you get correct, so who is I'll do this feels like the old days okay? Now our number one concern is that it is not new three of the cameras that pretty much locked down cameras easy. Our main concern is the wide wide shot right there so they can see can you let me know at what point the boom mic is out of frame as you can see, I am not an audio engineer. Ok, go back down a little bit uh, down or up the boom can come down a little bit, but that second yeah, let's go and get in there you want do it for me. Just the awesome fish out of water on this way, the fact that we're almost ready to shoot twenty minutes ago is like a miracle because you understand this crew has never worked before together, no idea their level experience. Um and I'm actually relatively happy this is why you were with a professional crew when you do these things and be hopefully crew you've worked with before you all want to work with people, you know? So they kind of shorthand things go quickly whenever you bring new people in there's always a bit of a learning process. Okay, jeff, you want explain quick very quickly what you're how you're pointing it's a shotgun mic versus anomie yeah it's very directional so it's a little bit on the wrong angle here it's gonna it's gonna get bad way sound chatter it's very common for africa to have the camera crew or the cinematography crew not along the sound crew because the sound operator the bumpers are always getting in their frame and creating shadows there trying to get close to frame is possible to the edge and of course the cinematography cruz wants to make sure that they have as much leeway as possible you don't have to worry about the sound guys but the truth is once they go through their job uh you're all stuck that look good could we get an okay let's go and have you just talk from a dizzy just spell out in the alphabet let's ask the engineers in the back if they can hear you ok on both uh both setups go ahead a b c d e f g a lot we're gonna plug in game over do it backwards right now how's the last like at least was lab my good x it's going out good uh I believe they just plug the shotgun mike let's give that a testing at a b c d e f g h I j k l again sure q r s t u v we're getting all right audio's good like don't anything start until the other goes all right are you set mackenzie with your set you get your moves set all right? Do we have the online cable for creative life to go from camera to camera yes, I don't think it's going to reach our parking okay all right um so we'll have to live with that and we'll just leave it plugged into this camera so cable length is always the killer um and uh basically we're a few feet short of reaching our third camera so you will get to see that when we do the actual the actual cut just fine. All right? So marcus, before we get going can you give us a really quick slating convention? Um uh lesson and off we go. Sure. Um how how do you tell you've got four minutes. Three all right, man. Okay, um is here this late you gotta clapboard six many different things and you've seen italian holly iconic memorabilia, but it serves a big purpose. Um it's it's actually mostly to do with sound editing not so much a camera even though camera systems are mean people to be using them. Basically, this is used to help sink a double system audio track, which is what vince talked about a little bit yesterday, which means there's one audience source recording audio and there's a video source recording video completely separately. So what that means is, uh this is used to help sync up those two tracks in the president andi that's done by traditionally by audio by just going in just it's taking that spike in away form and matching that with the closing of the sticks on the video or film track what we do today we're going to be using today is time code and that's a little bit more of a complicated process, but basically I'm sure dan will take us more through how to match up audio and video using time um and beyond that, all the information on the slave just corresponds to the scene number that we're shooting every single time you start and stop the camera so that again the editor can easily match this stuff up to the audience takes as well is pertinent information such as the title of the director of the camera person uh what frame right using the dates and filters if any trees all things that are helpful for the other to know and for uh you to know if you need to recreate this, send up some other time some other place and there's a bunch of different tricks you can use um I guess uh depend on does that mean tales like tom hotels? Um usually usually slated begin of every take that sometimes it's necessary to slate at the end of the take because of the actor, big stunts and area of something like that and that means that you have to bring in your slate upside down again to take uh with sticks open and then some people say you have to clap but then I like to flip it and then clap it on that's just to alert the editor of that this slate is supposed to go on that actual take but that it didn't come out ahead. So what we might want to do to save time today is will tail slate second everyone's gonna have to we're gonna run while everyone's gonna have to do when you get that close to that twelve mark on your judgment kick in real quick now you don't actually lose a lot when you go when you when you stop start it's actually pretty you know pretty quick so let's just tell say at the end of that twenty four if we even get to the twenty four before you stop it and that way we don't have to reset it for a second front state on the first one and going to be two shots and run continuously unless he stops okay? And then we'll just tail slate the absolute last one so I don't have to reference points I think it's gonna be the easiest to do today is that makes sense with you get it's it's for you so whatever works that on these are alive so that's it too loud or etiquette is kind of a ticket you call me tio give me one minute quick tips all right um don't slate really loudly next to an actor's face because it makes them not just noise on that khun basically take them out of their character and so you have to do things like quietly slated usually say like soft sticks so the audio person can bring their like really close to the stick so they could hear it because otherwise you're gonna hear it if they're across the room and you don't know it's um uh there's rules of thumb like obviously you want to make it as easy as possible for the first day see to focus in on this late before it takes actually starts so generally stand at defined distances from the camera depending on what lens you're using so we were using a thirty five actually this case reason eighty five millimeter lens with a traditionally science slate on thirty five millimeter frame I would stand out position myself three and a half feet away from the camera that way I know that this latest bullies in the frame and a c generally knows to focus about three feet too it's like ok perfect and then last day once you're done slating you automatically put take to there so you don't forget sure which is always myself thank you tell you to the a c generally how they like to do their thing but yeah ok cool so we're ready to shoot yes, yes wait if you need me, I'll be ready did you shut down like that? Yeah go ahead it's covered question come from you have used before right here to hi how are you determining too high is our rule rain blows to the person's mouth as possible without being in the camera's frame. Okay, so in this case the lightest camera is this camera right here? We're expect so this camel germans and how close boom become in cool thank you. You make sure you test the entire motion of the camera, right? They may not be in the france star at the end of the movie and maybe in france so if we can't solve this issue would be a good time to take a break. Is creative life having a technical issue? Should we take a fifteen minute break? Ok. All right. We're going to take a fifteen minute break because there is a live tv issue we gotta fix we're ready to go but uh way made are set goal interesting questions if you want to figure this out I could get a journey I could do q and a on break let's go. All right. Okay, okay questions just do something for these people are stand back over ready my next question from lucky studio um you have a map box on your camera what kind of filtering do you use to use do use a diffusion filter on camera or during and post editing? I don't use the fuel filters. Um, I would do it in post, uh, the end anything we're gonna put with the nd filters in there right now, but in this light were perfect at five six, and we don't want you to have four or two way too, too, because integrate, when you're focusing issues potentially so we're just treating it straight, okay, great question from our gibbs earlier was is thie editor always on set during the shoot a taking notes, making suggestions, you are on jai productions, they are and it's a fantastic thing that had because they're working with you and it's, a luxury and there's a reason you call luxury that most often does not happen sequin minor wanted to know if you could give some tips on getting the interview ito look into the camera lens and not appearing around the camera. Well, if you look straight into the camera, then you do what you're effectively breaking the fourth wall, meaning they're talking straight to the audience and they're no longer talking to the interviewer it's actually very disconcerting, and they would not work, so there are times we want to do that in cinema, where you kind of want to have that moment, uh you know where matthew broderick is talking straight at the audience because it's no longer a film he's directing, connecting with you is acknowledging the fact that they're in a film and making that contact and that works perfectly there's definitely other uses that for the most part, you rarely ever want to have the actor looking directly into the lens almost never you want to have him looking at the other character and very the eye line, depending on lands and distance. Yeah, thank you. Question from the chairman earlier was, did you discuss what rack focuses on if I have not discussed one of this yet so we can show them with this camera? I believe the signals live. Uh, iraq focus simply means that, um, you will go ahead and, um, no, exactly going to do this. This is where my focus point is and I'm in iraq in and out of focus, but if so, I don't have a camera out of here if you want to come and show them someone jumped right in on this, not brought over here before we're going to go. One of the things we're definitely always do is used the ten time magnifier on these cannons and find when daniel is perfectly sharp, all right, are you seeing that image on creative life? Yeah and you'll see that this white mark right here on the o'connor is where that point is and you're gonna go ahead and lie in these two guys up right there all right? So no matter what happens focus forward or backward thing align those two guys up you know that that distance will always be sharp go ahead and jump out of the hundred ten times and rack out and then back in and land right there that's what iraq is the real purpose for iraq it's kind of a creative use sometimes it's to go from a foreground subject to the back and sometimes is purely just to kind of add movement to a stale image all right um next question um teapot alberg asked what if you only have one camera can you still pull off the main slider in the handheld shots? Um no just you could if you wanted to uh it gets very complicated in terms of cutting stuff together uh you know you can create it just depends how seamless you wanted to be. If you only have one main camera you could have your main camera on a slider you could have the main camera handheld or on amman a pod we're just trying to show you how to make it work with three but you just because you can doesn't mean you should and more often not you should not um and yeah case you want to know how you know higher end crew would do it and how we accomplish it in some of the some of the issues that we face and make sure way take care of before they create problems most interviews and damages one camera a vast majority of productions one of these cameras with a little bit of modification camp yeah you never know who's going to operate this camera daniel daniels operate the camera who is going to be the first day see you're offering this one right? So your cameras now go ahead once had a little accident okay, this is a two person job who's operating the camera with him travis you're you're already spoken for you're doing with okay the two of you together on this camera you're going to be by yourself on this camera I think I may help you a little bit that we need to will you take it off? You're ready to go and, uh I'm ready to go. Yeah, wait don't worry about your focus for good. You guys ready to roll? Okay, markets just for sake of efficiency would you be cool enough to slave for us on this one? Yeah. Thank you. Um all right, so we're going to take twenty minutes from now to do the interview um exactly uh we're adding a light in last second which is like never a good idea we're going to see if you can make it work in the time we do this jeff is going to be interviewing uh miguel uh directly um you remember to try and answer every question as if though you are with complete statement exactly is both the city and so fantastic no yes knows our wondered answers they really suck um so typically just so you guys know you know, we took advantage of miguel here because this is a cool guy to sit here the whole time you do not want your subject to witness what just went on you want you're subject to walk in, you know, maybe sitting for the pre light then you go walk out, relax and then come in the interview with all the camera stuff is ready and set to go and it's just you know, maybe jeff has hung out with him a little bit kind of warmed them up and it's just about jeff and handing out about all this stuff going on ok, at a certain point we will hit the twelve minute mark and dan has said we're going to swing interesting, which I've never done that's quite intelligent is when we hit twelve minute mark you're going to see the record button go off of your camera mackenzie same thing will wait to see the record button go off your camera just hit record again all right and marcus will not forget to tail slate that second clip at the end there right right so at the end when a rapid twenty minutes I'll say you know and cut hold for slate so that marcus can come in you guys aren't actually stopping your camera is very important because if that's like that never comes into your chute you're out of your luck truth is with floral eyes you might still get away with it all right how you feeling? Good I'm gonna stop watch what you wear there's a piece of software called pleural eyes that kind of lines up audio and I have a uh yes yeah that's the problem the twelve minute mark yeah so usually what I do is I will tap uh jeff shoulder when we're in the ten minute area so it gives enoughto wind down and if he feels like he needs to uh stop are like slow down the interview because we're going to a really good point just naturally wait on the next question and we'll all know is a crude just stop and roll and just seamlessly moving in the next shot um do you have the info up so you could see the time ok, they do not like here tio just a little bit okay, you guys ready before we go you obviously are gonna be you know on your own and you will quietly switch between lenses all right, I would suggest you start in one hundred for a few minutes when you feel like you to go to fifty go to the fifty and then switched back to one hundred or whatever at least you have a good combination it's going absolutely are are you sharp? Have you checked that for sure. Okay. And you checked it both at your start an end point it's going to be the same because it's not that big of a move but don't forget to do that regular production that you're sharp both with the start of your slider move and at the end of your slider move. All right um can I get who's going to who's gonna be our time around here? Well, you're operating yeah, if you could. So if that ten minutes from the start time we start let's go over and tap daniel on the shoulder and mackenzie uh they'll know they're the ten minute rates actually. And jeff most importantly sorry just jets shoulder in ten minutes but also both operators here so they know it's coming the next few minutes there cameras going to run out and we can make a call to stop or we could keep going and just kind of work it work it over it's okay to keep the interview going and just talking I can I can speak up in the middle of it as long as they don't like it some like incredible life changing story moment. Okay, so who's counting twenty minutes from this point on cool on and you're gonna jump in and do this lighting for all three cameras? Um most important thing right now in terms of senator kit is that no one should be moving. Everyone should be absolutely still every sound that you make will be picked up every emotion that you make will distract our subject that's a big problem. All right, we've got one, two, three, four, five cameras going here and x amount of people it's just trying to have really good set discipline and let these two former connection do their interview in twenty minutes. We have that little twelve minute issue with these cameras and that's pretty much the only thing I could stand in our way. All right, I'm gonna let you guys go ahead and I'll let you just do the first eighty thing and call everything okay, can you operate or you going on and you are free to operate so you can just loosen this one here, okay? And go follow him. Okay, okay. Make sure you lock it every time most important thing is getting all the numbers obviously is the way you guys read the number. Can you read the numbers ok, because that can't okay um so can we roll sound in the booth on the sound devices roll sound rolling and everybody roll cameras roll roll all right this is us one a one take one abc coming worker right get everyone in position everyone's going to settle I'm gonna call camera a b and c and just going to say set when you're ready camera camera b so ever see ok it's all yours jeff everyone quite on set all right you go. Um sweetie you started off with a brief bio who you are and when you do buy yeah um sure I was prepared for a brief filed um I'm a photographer and sculptor in seattle spent a little time in a retail which is where I grew up kind of trying to spend a little more time sculpting their um photography is kind of what I've been doing the most of fur you know, seventeen years or something I've sculpted a little bit along the way but in the last couple of years I've kind of re focused and really I put my energy into that I still loved to shoot but sculpture is kind of what I'm up to these days great and sculpture with metal we see we see metal all around us here most mostly metal I mean I do a little bit of wood stone elements led these solar panels but I mean predominantly metal but I think there's more wood on the near horizon great. How did how did this all start with you as a kid I know that you you spoke to me about about things that happened with the kid and you're into um well, my dad was an inventor and a builder and built the shop and I was just kind of always around tools my parents build their own house uh and it was very encouraging environment I think we have some some b roll shots of me starting to build things like five or something like that um and it just kind of never went away. I mean, it's ebbs and flows guess right on and and what about during high school in your eyes areas you're getting to be a teenager? What kind of stuff? Ten others. Well, when I was like when I was when I was about eight after ten or something like that my dad took a piece of half inch conduit and tape the end and show me how to make a blowgun darts. And then a little while later he showed me how you could tape a pin in there and they would like the stick in the wall and out of that uh my friend desk and I started cold fortune like just hammered flat pieces of closing or wire and filing those and then that just sort of evolved way got really into logan's actually for I'm not sure how many years that was like logan's was sort of a primary activity but that was sort of the beginning of the metal working part before that when I was like five and six and seven stuff that kind of was into wood and then at one point my dad got a forge and then it went from blow guns two knives and that also is mostly weapons in high school right on um uh what about photography? You know, you you were exploring this is as a kid you're getting into the so photography actually it started when I was about twenty or twenty one I did take a photo classes so that oregon state college but I came out of there like an f what's in it with the f what like I just I knew there was enough something but I didn't there was no correlation between the variables of, you know, exposure and everything else um and I moved up here with a girl and she was in a band and started taking pictures of her band and then another band song they asked me to shoot some stuff and then I got a picture in the paper it's like go away should figure this out so I bought a at an old nike a map from my dad that so I'm shooting and dark clubs and it's got the the needle that it's not backlit so it's like what's the exposure here like turn to the light and get it totally wrong um so then I bought a nikon six thousand six and started looking at the manual that's when I realized that I had no idea what I was doing it all and bought some some photo manuals and just kind of started reading and that's tell that journey begun right um you you're with your photography that way can see that your metal work your sculptures they're all part of your photography and and they're connected how did that transition happen? That connection we'll photography is I mean I've been a study jewelry university mexico I've always built things and enjoyed building things but photography was my first like passion or just like thinking about it all the time and reading about it and shooting it is just like every day it was what was on my mind and it's I still totally love it and always be my first love and it's it's kind of the glue of my creative process now I build these sculptures and then I take pictures of him and the building and the place when I'm placing a sculpture in the park or whatever you know I'm framing it for the photo to you know it's it's always the final image is always part of the process pretty much they not when I'm in the shop you know building one of these or something I'm not think like with a fifty millimeter I mean it says you know but as I get to the tail end in placement stuff that's that's a big consideration right um could you describe the process is you go through to create your sculptures I know that you explained a few of the sculptures some of the bigger ones and how and how they different get visual aids on this um so there's I don't know if that can I grab something here can you see this at all this work yes now radio okay, so this piece here was built um the marquette is right here so I build these out of half inch tall and that's kind of what I'll be doing today um and so I kind of go out different different ways this this round piece here I built life size um just as I went um this is building in miniature has been sort of what I've been doing till sometime last year lately I've been studying three d modeling on the computer um so my process kind of is evolving you know photography has been my main thing sculpture has been going really well but it's I'm still you know figuring out the way that I like toward the best how moving to seattle you've been here for several years now how does this city facilitator foster foster your part um I you know, I do. I do love seattle. I've gotten a lot of people around here, and I think having a strong community of people that you khun, relate to and create with and collaborate with his is definitely a key part of the process. Um, but, I mean, I think that could happen anywhere, it's, just kind of where I've been. Um, there's also really pretty great group of people in new mexico that I connect with and try to do more of that as well. Um, the business side of being an artist, you know, you're uh uh, you have to make money. Everybody's got to make money to survive. But how do you just let us know how you approach the business side of it and how you can keep those things going that the creative side on the business side enough to keep doing that's the top this's? Um, well, I you know, when I started this whole artist journey years ago, I had a lot of a lot of friends that were doing that to in many of the senate's going off. Got your jobs and stuff you know, I think the biggest thing is into our voices this is just and talk about stuff going on scene going on in there just you know you got to go the distance we've got the white clyde right there they were like do you know what's going on and people really like make their money from their work ran to the label uh the same operator that pressure from your artwork was busy fiddling with his notebook was like, you know, you are a gentleman who is not bring this camera you should feel free to move it and should not have units open it should not have a notebook and a pen in your hand should actually be demanded of a camera on I explained to him that you know, it was absolutely everybody to go ahead and pan and tilt and the two other two operators on the water can how do you feel about we're just calling you back and forth left right, left, right, left right on I said are you guys doing iraq's office like I want to go ahead and throw that in uh then as I was seeing their frame coming other camera I found that white mask was really distracting that whenever you want white very bright sun in your competition that's always the first place the eyes going toe to personally I'm not trial, but I would have put that there what's very important understand, as even this take online part would have been to pull that mask of the frame if you pull that mask out of the game, you've got a terrible continent issue. Dan is not going to use go talk over there, so I'm gonna cut off for a cycle where and, uh, throughout all us, you hear? Reset the reset the cameras. You guys want to do that? All right, now, wait, wait. Um, miguel, if you could just tell us any anything that comes to mind something, uh, experiences you had when, when people of that have been looking at your art and when you've been productive with that fly in the wall and you know where your there you see somebody interacting with george in some way something that surprised you or or or whatever. Um, I had a couple pieces at the flower in northwest flyer in garden show this last week, and the one that kind of sticks out the most is to two women and they're like fifties or sixties and they stop and they look at it it's too modern and kept walking. I mostly I feel pretty lucky and most people respond really positively to my work, and I really enjoyed that, but it's I do enjoy the counterpoints of of people on their reaction and interesting experience in new york a guy wanted to like really engage me and art speak and just like make up stuff that I didn't mean and I just kind of walked away from that one um I I like to make things that are beautiful I'm starting to work more conceptually than I used to but I think it's funny when people wanted to find their universe based on your like just make this convoluted story that isn't necessarily there which doesn't mean that it isn't for other artists but I'm very process driven and it's you know when I'm they're building it it's about that piece and some of the some of conceptual stuff often comes once it's done and you kind of reflect on it like a poetry class where you used told the analyze the pull of a certain way and pull it just was writing a poem right? You know that yeah it's interesting um could you tell us the quote briefly that you have on your website do you think valeria read off for you? It says intuition time and chaos are the co conspirators in my creative process could you repeat that for us and just center is that just even say the three things and time time chaos into into into it yet time chaos and intuition or definitely um a big part that that was sort of a statement when I was wrapping my head around a lot of my photography years ago, but it's still definitely plays in tow. What I'm doing now, which kind of goes back to what I was saying before it's it's a very intuitive process, and you know, that that evolves over time, I think of a word that I would use as much now as any of those is his innovation. If, if something's been done, I'm not very likely to do it like there's. So much beautiful landscape photography out there, I can totally appreciate it. And that's, not something I'm gonna go invested much of time in, um, where do you see yourself going with your art? And what? What kind of things are you? You know, do you, uh, uh, where do you see yourself taking your art in the future? Um, my sculptures are going to be going a lot more interactive. I've been studying this little device called arduino, which is a a little sort of open source computer software, you make robots and interactive sculptures and stuff I wanted, I'm starting to be a little more conceptual in the way that my pieces react with people, and I'm kind of starting to be interested in in feedback and how the audience affects the peace affect like so you might have like an audio loop that goes through and then that you know affects a mini controller that then rings a bell that there's you know these different cascading layers of so your presence to the piece effects it and it affects you when it's sort of this this loop so that's sort of the direction I'm going it's still pretty new but that's definitely where I'm headed right no that's uh that's pretty excited about that uh do you have any advice for artists you are inspired by you and uh motivated tio to try and do things like you do you have advice for these people on how to get there how to keep going how to keep motivated how to keep inspired um just just keep doing it and do try to not think about like when you're do what you like I found myself a little while ago starting toe compare myself like my photography to what what are the new trends and photography and stuff like that and I realized that that's not you know I mean I guess that's where some people but stayed true to what if it excites you then it's gonna be better work than if you're listening to your neighborhood okay what you know what are they doing do what I've been doing is kind of going on with all the different statements saying what they're shooting for our and after ten minutes of thing left right or if you kind of know you have enough um they've gone ahead and they've done some rack focusing lock down that slider camera just uses a fixed camera and do some rack zooms, punching it out with zoom and have a second person also met with focus just to get the under more pieces together when the only issues I think im thing really is that people there have been people, clothing things, you know, dropping things way have creative life crew that's been bumping into things just tell me what happens when you have two people in that environment it's really hard to manage one shoot that on to silent angel shoots um this has to stop that kind of kills you and people always say what could have been with me in years if you was possible because the more people we have a lot more issues, you're going tohave with sound distractions and all those kind of removed the attention away I'll be working you're getting pretty much close to wrapping this up. You've seen the editor dan take notes on what he thinks are the key points he's been at it off that's really important? So if dan was not in the room, if you really want to have the director or producer or someone right there, the nurse saying light of it we thought we're going to need for b roll second we tol cut here if you wait for the tail slate we're gonna have a list of things to go and shoot so says we're done with this point I'm gonna go back on and talk for thirty seconds to a minute and then we're going to lunch and come back and shoot all the b roll uh that hopefully complements what he's been talking about it let's go back over there less finishing and it's just sort of a true reform um but when I'm building something bigger that has weight that it needs to support their safety issues and stuff you would then grind these you put a bevel there so there would be a spot to put your filler material um and you could use either tyg or mig which is a wire feed and make stands for metal inner gas and take stands for uh tungsten inter guests on so I guess that the tyg you've got that gas pedal then you've got the torch and it doesn't it's that there's a little arkan it doesn't actually touch the metal so there's just this little arc of of electricity there and you're melting the steel and normally you would have one of these phil arrives and you would add to fill a rod and so it's foot it's kind of a three handed thing um yeah that's great don't stop I understand we have brought the camp about three minutes I want you to do one shot if we could just from the air are going to see a friend and then I just want you to say that directly to the camera your name on my nose miguel edwards and I am an artist you didn't seem clean but someone say my name is to go where time my name is miguel edwards time chaos and intuition video innovation how are you on the questions keep rolling everybody I'm feeling pretty good I feel like way got everything we need for you great uh any technical issues that need to be aware of besides the shut off so we needed to detail slate before anyone cuts for us we're gonna release miguel and then when you get what's called room tone ok so I'm the guy you go ahead take a break to do what you need to do and they were gonna actually okay this is one of the two abc become market right ever cut good job guys now you have something to match some of those points as they heard with department so its stable of town are we rolling let's do this natural quick come on over here with me dan and we're going to basically everyone stay absolutely still thing just said that they were gonna roll thirty seconds of room time yeah ready room town three seconds in town uh and great job guys for a team that's never worked together before great maven within their work with these cameras we pulled it off we're a little behind which is fine uh but it wasn't a total disaster which could have been a result of this actually went really quite strongly uh I did not listen to a single word of the interview just you guys know so I have no idea how good the interview wass and I was just kind of busy going between different cameras I try to do a little voice over but I think there were some issues with my signal chopping in and out so I was trying to stay away from the audience um we did a quick little overview here I would go to the different crews daniel started off with a notebook and a pencil in his hand because he told me right but then you became the camera operator and I was like, daniel, you don't need these anymore in the camera operator um and then you know, I made sure he knew he was allowed to pan until the camera uh these young men they did a great job uh I missed the issue where is it when you change lens? You lost that signal but you did so it wasn't an issue fantastic uh this career was great I just told him that after twenty minutes of going left and right back and forth with rack focuses, we probably have enough and maybe locked the camera down and pretend like it was on sticks and they play with zoom a little bit and the rack focused in simultaneous see just trying to add variety, you understand that you definitely want to have different pieces. We're going have a lot of the year old to cut to, um, there's one thing, it distracted me. I thought this big white skull in the foreground was like disaster because you're I always goes the brightest thing in the frame, so I've never removed that and I almost I almost went like like this, but you know what would happen if I remove the skull continuity and I kill his option like he's can either pick the early part of it or the end part of it, but you can't pick both there's going to be so glaringly obvious for most people. Uh, the only thing I was disappointed in frankly was like the discipline in the room, but that's, you know, that's that's, why we're always trying to keep the crews and the amount of water as small as possible to set a time yeah, and then we had a second year everything live from like you gonna happen? Yes

Class Materials

bonus material

ShootingSchedule.pdf
Storyboard-Template.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Great Workshop.. Totally worth it, for the sheer amount of Information and seeing everyone work together, seeing the master himself at work and breaking down each and every aspect of film-making while shooting, so people like me can learn the Magic of film-making. Loved every part of all 3 sessions.. Awesome CreativeLive ... Awesome Vincent Laforet.. Awesome stuff, to everyone involved, including the ladies asking "interweb" questions and the creative live camera crew.. Also, when and where can we see the final product shot on Session / Day 3... "Choice"..?? Thank you..

a Creativelive Student
 

This is, without a question, the best education model I've experienced. The small snippets of details, the interaction, the experience, was indescribable. I don't know how to thank you enough....especially after winning a prize! [Hugs]

a Creativelive Student
 

Hi guys, great series, nice educational tool, especially when you in remote places. Just wondering where is session 2, since i paid for all, cant find it. anything on that? Cheers bvkfilms@gmail.com

Student Work

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