{"id":15312,"date":"2011-10-10T21:19:06","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T21:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philipbloom.net\/?p=15312"},"modified":"2011-10-12T04:10:26","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T04:10:26","slug":"kesslerdoc1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philipbloom.net\/blog\/kesslerdoc1\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting a documentary with the RED Epic, AF100 and F3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethics statement: Kessler are my main site sponsor and great friends. They also make my signature slider so any reference to their gear being the best take this statement into account. Mind you even if I wasn’t sponsored by them they would still be the best! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

There is going to be Kessler gear mentioned in the below post but also LOTS of useful shooting information I hope.<\/p>\n

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Eric Kessler asked me to make a film about his company Kessler Crane. “I said sure, what do you want?” He wasn’t sure…so I said the key to a corporate documentary for me is to make it fascinating enough and entertaining enough to be watched by anyone regardless of whether they have heard of Kessler Crane or even have any interest in grip gear!<\/p>\n

So I made a rough plan of what I wanted and thought would work. A documentary of around 20-30 minutes that could easily be updated as and when needed. Something that wouldn’t date too much and something that looked of course looked great. It needed to tell the story of the company through Eric. As the main protaganist who built the company from nothing his story is key. He is the effectively the main narrator. To add to this I needed to do a number of interviews with key people within the company and users of Kessler gear around the world. The documentary would have no narration, completely told through the interviews. This of course is much harder and requires you to make sure you have exactly the right sound bites. Without them you have narrative holes.<\/p>\n

The first question of course is what to shoot on. With a number of cameras at my disposal including the RED Epic, my F3 that I own with Eric, the AF100 and of course all the DSLRs what is the right cameras. Initially my thought was every interview on the F3 with the KiPro mini. The F3 is a fantastic camera. Superb picture, superb features and with the AJA KiPro mini an incredibly powerful camera. The only downside is the 720p slow motion. I have S-log on the camera too which helps enormously.<\/p>\n

Kessler have a number of cameras in their studio including DSLR, an AF100 and an Epic. They also had the lights I needed. Litepanel 1x1s, Kino Flo Diva and a Dedo. All I need for an interview setup.<\/p>\n

With all this in mind I set off for Indiana for the 5 day shoot. I took with me the F3. My Zeiss and Nikon Lenses for the F3 and to work with the Epic. Eric had a beta Canon mount for the Epic which would take his EF lenses and my Nikon mount lenses with an additional adaptor. He also had a number of CP.2 lenses with PL mount, in additional I brought my Duqclos modified Tokina 11-16.<\/p>\n

Sound wise I was going to record in camera, I also brought my Tascam DR100 for any off speed recording when the camera goes mute. I also brought with a Rode NTG-2 for recording shotgun with the Tascam as it does not drain the device and an NTG-3 for use with the camcorder as it’s phantom powered.<\/p>\n

Lav mic wise, two Sony UWP mics and 2 Sanken COS-11 wired Lav miss which are superb sound. I rarely do sit down interview with wireless mics. Wired are so much better and safer!<\/p>\n

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The key thing when shooting a doc is do the interviews first. This gives you a shot list. As Eric was the main talker he was more or less the first thing I shot. Lighting wise I used two point lighting for all of the interviews. The dedo 150 as a backlight and the litepanel bi-clour 1X1 as the key. It’s a very simple lighting setup and easily replicated. I need other shooters to do some of the interviews around the world \u00a0so I wanted a simple set up. I also chose to use a black background, again nice and simple and very uniform for all the interviews. Eric wanted some gear in the background, I said best not to. It would make the shot cleaner and more importantly not date the interview if a piece of gear was changed or replaced.<\/p>\n

I shot all the interviews on the Epic in the end in 5k. Why? Well the camera can record sound in the camera just fine and by shooting 5k and editing in Premiere Pro with a timeline set to HD I could edit with the native files (I also have just got a Red Rocket for real time playback and transcoding) and simply zoom in for a reframe when I need to without any loss of quality. Perfect to butt join two grabs together and to vary the framing. All the interviews were shot on an 85mm Zeiss ZF F1.4 at around F2.8 to keep the depth of field shallow\/ deep enough for the interviewee to move slightly without going in and out of focus.<\/p>\n

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