Confluence: documentary I shot on 5DmkII and 7D now available on Vimeo to watch for free!

Documentary DSLR Films Films Other


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EDIT 23rd April 2014

Great to see this available for free and therefore available to a wider audience. It’s been a while since I saw this. It just reminds me how damn good the 7D and 5Dmk2 can be, especially when graded so beautifully here! I wouldn’t consider using these cameras now if this project was commissioned today of course, as I have moved on from those two cameras…still no 7Dmk2 yet! I would most likely use a C300 or perhaps a 1DC if 4K was considered for posterity’s sake. The F55? Too big and intimidating for a project like this, perhaps, where these people hadn’t been on camera before? The most important thing is to shoot with a camera that ticks as many of these 3 boxes as possible:

Shoots great images

Great internal audio

Doesn’t get in the way of your storytelling and makes your life nice and easy.

You have one or have access to one to use! 🙂

Please sit back and take in this compelling documentary. I am very proud of it. Great to see it again after all this time.

You have access to using one!

Confluence from Morris Hill Pictures on Vimeo.

www.facebook.com/confluencedoc

Directed by
Jennifer Anderson
Vernon Lott

Cinematography by
Philip Bloom

Produced by
Diana Anderson
Gina Lott
Kenneth Merrill Sr.

Original Music by
Peter Broderick

Film Editing by
Christian Kinnard

Sound Recordist
Steven Bechtold

Additional Photography
Preston Kanak
Mark McKnight

Color Grading
SpyPost

Colorist
Chris Martin

Audio Post-Production by
Jason Devore

Available now on iTunes
itunes.apple.com/us/movie/confluence/id469764569

Amazon Instant Video
amazon.com/Confluence/dp/B007K5FV8E

DVDs at www.confluencethemovie.com

Back in the summer of 2010 I shot a documentary in Lewiston, Idaho for directors Vernon Lott & Jennifer Anderson. Influenced by the style I shot “A day at the races,” in they hired me to DP their movie.

From the blurb

“The Lewiston / Clarkston valley has a rich history. It is here, at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers, where Lewis and Clark camped on their westward journey over two hundred years ago. Residents boast that the valley is the gateway to Hells Canyon, that Lewiston was Idaho’s first capital. However, the valley also has a much darker past, one that many know about, but few publicly acknowledge. From 1979 to 1982, five people disappeared. Only three of the bodies have ever been found. All share one suspect.”

Don’t mount your pocket dolly to your head like I did!!

It’s an intense and very moving documentary. My sometime assistant Preston Kanak was my assistant for this (the first time we met) and also did some pick ups for it after I left. Further pick ups were done by Mark McKnight. Sound was beautifully recorded by Steven Bechtold and the masterful editing was done by Christian Kinnaird.

Having Christian at the location made things so much easier for us. We would shoot an interview and he would ingest the footage and make a shot list of things we needed to shoot based upon what was said by the interviewee. A really efficient way to shoot a documentary under a tight time constraint.

The music by Peter Broderick, available too on iTunes, is haunting. Check out the video below the trailer for more of it.

This was the first feature documentary I had shot fully on the Canons, it came just after the Red Tails shoot at the absolute height of DSLR mania.

Were they the right cameras for the job? Absolutely. There was nothing else on the market that came close in our budget. A hugely cinematic look with a small footprint, something that also required very subtle lighting which is key when shooting docs. Would I shoot with them for a similar project today? Probably not. With a C300, F3 and FS100 in my arsenal, it would make more sense to use one of them. The 12 minute recording issue was a major pain, as was the dual system recording. It just would be easier without them, and my current cameras all have better image handling than DSLRs, so it would make sense to use them today. But if that is all you had? Absolutely. As you can see from the trailer and the film, the image is gorgeous. If shot well and coloured well, DSLR footage bats way over its average.

I had a very simple system for getting past the 12 minute issue. As the director’s questions were not needed for use in the film, at the 6 minute mark I waited for the interviewee to finish their current answer. That gave me 6 minutes for them to finish before it cut out. For 99% of the time, these was enough time for that to happen so I could simply press STOP START on the camera and start another clip. The sound was not stopped but kept recording the whole way. Nice and neat. Pluraleyes then came in and auto synced the whole lot!

 

 

CONFLUENCE Official Trailer from Morris Hill Pictures on Vimeo.

Peter Broderick – Old Time (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

Helicopter 5DmkII FCP smoothcam test from Philip Bloom extras on Vimeo.

Shot with a Canon 5DmkII and a 24-105mm IS resting on a pillow!

Smoothcam test done with it.

DVDs for sale at confluencethemovie.com

Credits

Directed by
Jennifer Anderson
Vernon Lott

Cinematography by
Philip Bloom

Produced by
Diana Anderson …. executive producer
Jennifer Anderson …. producer
Gina Lott …. executive producer
Vernon Lott …. producer
Kenneth Merrill Sr. …. executive producer

Original Music by
Peter Broderick

Film Editing by
Christian Kinnard

Sound Recordist
Steven Bechtold

Additional Photography
Preston Kanak
Mark McKnight

Audio Post-Production by
Jason Devore

Trailer Edited by
Alan Canant

 

25 comments

  4. Hmm, was really looking forward to seeing this one. But when I try to rent it on the US iTunes store it tells me “The item you tried to rent is no longer available.” Has it been pulled down for some reason?

  6. Wow the colours are wonderful and the footage are sharp too.
    Is it possible if you can please give some more info as to what lens and filters were used, and what was used for the grading also?

  7. Ok, I was finally able to rent it. Really incredible work, Phillip. Very captivating story with beautiful cinematography throughout. And that soundtrack…amazing.

    At several points during the film I found myself falling back in love with my 5D and 7D. Pretty incredible what you can get out of these cameras. I was wondering if you has done any blog posts about the technicalities of creating the images for this film? I would love to know a little bit about how you approached this project when it came time to setting up your cameras, lenses, and audio.

    Thanks!

  8. I’m interested to know your basic set-up for this documentary?

    I’m shooting one in the coming months on boxing using a dslr. What did your lens kit look like?

  11. The Smoothcam makes it extraordinarily soft… but other than that a true delight. A feast for the eyes – your images really complemented the story so well. Love the grade, too!

  13. I’m such a gear-head………. I am endlessly mired in the trap of thinking I can buy my way into being a good filmmaker. I see this, and I wonder…..why all the too-hah about C300’s and FS700’s, et al? This stuff looks fabulous……today, more than ever, it really is the creativity of the cinematographer and the director, that makes the movie…….not an expensive camera.

    1. cameras like the C300 make our life easier…indeed they wont make you any better but they can make things easier to do in certain things…but having just shot a little doc on the 1DX and loving it there really is still a very strong place for DSLRs for video

    2. C300 and FS700 have better color space for grading and most cameramen want 4.2.2 color space over what they get out of a DSLR 4.2.0 color space. Also people want sharper images these days. And some DSLR camera like Canon have a soft image. And then some DSLR camera still have moire and aliasing. For the most part C300 and FS700′s fix most of all these problems.

      2. I’d still rather use the 5d mark III than the FS700. The FS700 looks like video and has quite bad ergonomics. Have you actually used these cams you are talking about? I have. Actually shot a music video on both. FS700 as the A-cam and 5d as the b-cam. The 5d more often had “the thing” than the fs700.

  15. I finally saw the Documentary, It must had been difficult putting the story together and making is so interesting to follow . I hope that one day they find the killer.. incredible. I don’t think it was the theater worker who also end up dead.

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