Our Time Lapse Productions team film different projects around the UK every day- so we thought we’d give you all an insight into how our we plan, organise and carry out our film shoots. This should be of interest to those trying to break into the film industry themselves, or perhaps any of our clients who are curious about the creative processes that go into excecuting a successful film shoot.
For this Diary of a Shoot entry, we’ll be focusing on the recent filming work we carried out for Nottingham City Council’s ‘EV Champions’ film, which aimed to showcase some of Nottingham’s own citizens who had made the switch from Petrol/Diesel cars to ‘ULEV’ (Ultra Low Emission Vehicles). The films focus was to explore how the vehicular change had positively impacted them and those around them. This film was part of Nottingham City Council’s Go Ultra Low Nottingham initiative, which aims to promote the uptake of ULEV’s in Nottingham, to help reduce air pollution. So without further ado, lets break down the different stages that went into the video shoot.
planning and PREPARATION
After planning our film shooting schedule with Nottingham City Council, we had a meeting to decide how we would set up the different filming days most effectively. The film shoot was to take place in Bilborough, Nottingham, and was to focus on a couple who were both using ULEV’s.
Something we do prior to every shoot, is carefully look at the timetable/timeframe we’ve been provided to work within, whether its a construction timetable plan or just rough guidelines as to when and where our subject will during shooting. This helps us visualise opportunities for different types of shots before we even step foot on site. In this case, we knew the husband would first arrive at his home to meet us, where he would go inside for around 20 minutes to get ready, before using his ULEV to drive to a nearby school to pick up his children. So we knew that we had a reasonable window of opportunity to actually capture establishing and close up shots of his which we thought would be . This would then be followed by an interview with him and wife back at their house regarding their ULEV usage. Most notably, we saw an opportunity to grab a long, dynamic shot from the back of one of our van’s which would capture him driving his car for the duration of the journey.
For this we installed a custom roof rack on the back of the intended van, which we then attached to a Ronin. This was then operated via remote by the second film maker in the passenger seat. The Ronin was also connected to a small monitor which was also positioned in front of the passenger seat, so the operator could also see how to shot was composed at all times. We took it through numerous testing to ensure it was working well. This shot turned out to be one of the stronger shots in the film, and it was only made possible through planning, preparation and visualisation.
the shoot
The shoot started with us meeting the subject at his house in Bilborough. As we were aware that upon arriving home, he would take around 15 minutes to get ready before leaving for the ‘school run’, we used this brief time to film some establishing and close up shots of his ULEV car. From here we left to go on the school run, where the planning and preparation for our tracking shot came into practice. It terms of our filming kit, for this project we were equipped with a variety of filming equipment. Firstly, we had two Canon EOS C100 digital cinema cameras, one which was attached to a Ronin Stabilisation device so that it could be mounted on our vans roof rack effectively and one which was sat on a Manfrotto tripod for a quick and easy operation. We also had a XC15 digital camcorder, which we used as a secondary filming camera during the scheduled interview due to size and ease of use. We also had a Canon 6D DSLR camera, which we used for photography, as we’d also agreed to snap some photos of the ULEV’s and their owners during filming across all the shoots. We were also armed with 4 Canon 1200D’s DSLR cameras, which had the sole purpose of shooting time lapse during the shoot, as they do during every shoot. As always, we were armed with an array of Magic Arms with K-Clamps, Gorilla Pods and Tripods. Our equipment for the interviews was: .. That might seem like a lot of equipment for a half a day shoot, and we didn’t necessarily use all of it, but as film makers we often bring any equipment that we feel could have some application during filming. Even with all the planning and preparation that goes into a shoot, there are still aspects of the shoot that only become clear during, so we do try to bring a wide range of equipment to all of our shoots, even if we’re not sure we’ll use it all, it means we’ve always got what we need in case the oppurunity to use particular equipment arises.
Following this, we returned to his house as planned. It was then that his wife, our second film subject, arrived as planned. We were expecting this so were able to capture some establishing shots of her and the ULEV she was driving as she arrived at their house. After a brief few moments we spent taking a few more establishing and detail shots of her ULEV, we then filmed an interview with both subjects. This interview took place inside their house, where it was nice and quiet, and our subjects could feel more comfortable and at ease.
We planned out our interview questions with Nottingham City Council in advance, so that they were easy to understand, engaging and relevant, which is essential when it comes to filming and hosting interviews. The questions were mostly related to their switch to ULEV’s from Diesel/Petrol cars, the benefits they’ve incurred since making the switch, along with the benefits they feel that their new transportation choice has on Nottingham’s air quality.
For our interview setup, we used the C100 camera for our main, medium shot angle, and an XC15 for a secondary, close up angle…Typically if we are filming an interview from multiple angles with multiple cameras we ensure that both cameras start recording at the exact same time- in doing so this syncs up the video footage, so that the exact same video and sound is being picked up at the same time stamp with each video. This makes seamlessly splicing the different angles together much easier in Final Cut Pro during post post production stages.
The interview lasted around half an hour, and was one of the most successful interviews we’d carried out, thanks to minimal noise disruption, and friendly interviewees who provided thoughtful, concise and clear answers to our questions. After this, our successful and productive shoot was all wrapped up!
To find out more information about this project and view the final film that came from this along with the two other shoots we carried out for this project, click the below Case Study. We hope that this has given you some insight into how we manage our shoots.