Liverpool Pre Shoot Reccy

Practice shots

Saturday 3rd March, Today I went into Liverpool and started location scouting and looking for potential shots that will feature in our final documentary. Both cutaways and vox pops/interview spots. Here are some test shots that I took that day.  

SHOT LIST.

Here I have put together a shot list for the group..

Documentary Shot list

Connor Elliott, Katie Watts, Ben Wilson, Ben Brown & Lucy Smith-Jones

Artist interviews x 3

SHOT NO	DESCRIPTION – INT Shots for artist interview session
1	Establishing long shot.. tracking around room and artist
2	Macro pull focus of objects/ examples of work around room
3	Medium close up – facing forward. Artist face still – no vox
4	Close up. Tattoo example – arm? Pulling up sleeve to reveal etc
5	Extreme CU pan of tattoo.
6	Mid shot. Framed to the left. – Full interview. Tattoo equipment

Vox pops x 12

SHOT NO	DESCRIPTION –EXT interviews with people from the public on their tattoos / view on tattoos.
1	Long shot slow track. Member of public stood still looking at camera / smiling.  Pull focus from background to foreground (member of public)
2	Mid shot. Framed left. Person facing camera smiling.  (interview overlay upon this shot )
3	Close up of tattoo. High depth of field.
4	Mid shot (whole interview)
5	Extreme close up of face? Zoom lens.

For these vox pops members of the public will be stood in the foreground with background being a Liverpool landmark or a range of differing background to display a range of culture and variety.

e.g. Liverpool one, Albert dock, Liver building, Liverpool cathedral,  Radio city (low angle), Beatles museum, busy high street, Anfield (LFC), quiet ‘Grassy’ location (open field next to Liverpool one), Skate park – skate location, Office building, single framed shop (for shop owners) The river Mersey, construction site.

Liverpool Location landscape shots 

SHOT NO	DESCRIPTION – Shots of Liverpool as a place – could be used for cutaways / filling. EXT
1	Long shot pull focus. Albert Dock à liver building in the distance
2	Mersey river long shot.. of ferry
3	EXT Beatles story museum. CU à Mid shot logo upon wall. Pull focus
4	Matthew street (busy high street) long shot and long take (for time lapse)
5	Cathedral long shot.
6	Anfield long shot pull focus from gates.

Pierre Deschamps

Pierre Deschamps is a documentary filmmaker who exclusively uses dSLRs. I felt it was relevant to cover this film maker as it has given me a greater understanding into the use of a dSLR to a high standard within a documentary – highlight the pros and cons of using one etc. 

Deschamps starting using the Canon 5d Mark II dSLR upon release in 2008 and since then has won several awards for his work with his camera. Following watching his documentary called “Man of the Soil” (February 2009) I found myself seeing the possibilities the dSLR holds and possible shot ideas including one interview which is framed almost extreme close up in the lower right hand corner. This gave a sense of mystery to the one being interviewed and see it as a possible frame within my own film.

After reading an interview with Deschamps

“In documentary it is almost impossible to prepare each shot as you would do in fiction – you have to go with the flow and capture the situation as it unfolds.”

From this statement I can take away to record as much as possible and record EVERYTHING as the real gold dust of rushes/recording can come at any time, especially with the genre being documentary. I consider Pierre Deschamps to be an inspiration.

The article was found on this website.

http://www.dslrnewsshooter.com

The website is all about filmmakers who shoot using a dSLR with the genre being documentary based. Therefore I expect this website to come into use a lot over the next couple of weeks leading up to the shoot.

Tattoos ?!

Today within our group meeting we discussed the idea of basing our documentary around tattoos. Primarily the reason behind this idea is so that not only we can stylise visually like James Lees’ pockets – extremely set up vox pops, soft focus, high levels of depth of field etc but also has potentially to fit into Liverpool directly also; Liverpool hosts the Liverpool Tattoo convention – so we plan, to contact the people behind such events. Also Stigma tattoos of Sheffield are a tattoo studio which employees around 5 tattoo artists all of which could work to be a potential interview and also Stigma tattoo’s owners are opening a tattoo museum within the next two years so this could work as a great overlaying story. 

Documentary Ideas

Documentary ideas – Liverpool

Liverpool was the European capital of culture in 2008 and happens to be where we will be filming our documentary. Liverpool has a huge range of subject areas and potential documentary worthy stories and current affairs.

·       Liverpool FC winning the Carling Cup | February 2012

·       Liverpool European Capital of Culture | 2008

·       Liverpool’s Tattoo conventions (Europe’s only)

·       Liverpools Indoor skatepark (Rampworx –  UK’s Largest indoor skatepark)

·       Big fat gypsy wedding (Dress designer is from Liverpool)

·       The Beatles – The cavern club, The Beatles story & the museum of Liverpool.

·       Albert docks (historical location of Liverpool)

I plan to visit Liverpool a few days prior to the start of shoot and scout out possible shots/locations that we could use within our documentary such as Liverpool cutaways and vox pop locations with the likes of the Albert Dock in the background of the interview for example.

James Lees 'Pockets' - 2008

What's in your pockets? Filmmaker James Lees asks Londoners to share what they're carrying in their pockets and what it means to them.  James Lees is trying to portray that every object tells a story, revealing more than expected about its owner. From tiny treasures to the downright bizarre, the contents of Pockets provides a quick and charming social insight.

This 3 minute short had the largest impact on me visually as an aspiring cinematographer. The soft focus, high levels of depth of field and the perfected colours had me in slight awe by the time it ended. I saw it as unique in terms of the documentary genre and thus put forward the idea to the group of a similar sort of style in terms of cinematography. The simplicity of the piece and the quality of the shots is why this short doc works so well. I feel that at this point a piece similar to this would be a possibility – revolving around a single object or subject matter which could open up to vox pops etc.

Although I enjoyed the piece I felt that some shots were irrelevant or made little sense in the contribution to the subject matter of pockets and whats in them. I.E. the close up of the old man laughing. Visually such shots are good but can’t help but feel it pushes it away from the documentary genre and leans towards experimental in a sense. Regardless, I see this piece being a huge inspiration at least in terms of cinematography within this documentary assignment. 

Documentary initial planning

Initial planning

We arrange ourselves into groups of five and began talking about possible ideas and general layout the documentary will form. We discussed our strengths technically when it comes to filmmaking and bounced off that.

Connor Elliott (myself) – Cinematography.

Ben Wilson – Editor.

Ben Brown – Director.

Katie Watts – Producer.

Lucy Smith-Jones – Sound Design.

I put myself forward as camera due to owning a dSLR and having vast experience working with it at film making level. We also as a group wanted to create a piece that holds a quite soft tone / focus – and after recently purchasing a new 50mm 1.7f lens for my dSLR with deep depth of field possibilities it would be a wasted opportunity not to use it.

In terms of the documentary style / narrative it will take, we wanted something different in terms of format – at this point we are still unsure of precise details but feel that James Lee’s 3 minute documentary called ‘Pockets’ could be a strong influence.

I also put forward the idea of producing this project as I am from the Liverpool area and therefore would be able to sort location ideas and possible people that we could interview. However Katie has much more experience with producing and the possibility of using my dSLR we decided to keep to the original set roles and instead will work closely with Katie and advise and provide help where required