DSLR Documentary:
One of the topics to come out of this week was the recent surge in documentary filmmakers using DSLRs to capture footage. After being informed about Philip Bloom I began to conduct some research around him and the concepts of DSLR filming.
Philip Bloom:
2 nights in Mallory Square from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.
After spending some time exploring Bloom's website (Philipbloom.net) I found an archive of films filmed on DSLRs, many of them are experimental, several are time lapse videos and others are social commentaries on various cities and places, all of which demonstrated the strength and capabilities of filming on a DSLR. While watching the films I began to take notes on the common characteristics which were recurring throughout the films:
- Small depth of field in most shots, rarely shots with a long depth of field.
- High use of music, probably due to the limitations of sound recording on a DSLR.
- High quality imagery.
I started to investigate the technical side of DSLR filming by exploring a few websites with information about the pros and cons of choosing a DSLR to film with.
Pros:
- The shallow depth of field that the cameras are capable of adds to the quality of the imagery.
- They are small and compact which makes them idea for documentary film making.
- The ability to capture footage and stills means its very versatile.
Cons:
- Separate sound recording is needed as a DSLR's on board microphone will not give professional results, this could cause problems when editing if we do not research into sound synchronisation.
- Storage space becomes an issue when recording for long periods of time, as the file sizes are very large.
- Focus becomes an issue when the depth of field is too small, when filming interviews with people their outline may be out of focus.
Websites:
http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/video/articles/119646.aspx
http://www.pcworld.com/article/220415/how_to_shoot_great_video_with_a_dslr.html
Logo design:
This was my original mock up that captured what I was trying to achieve with the logo. I used Adobe Photoshop to create the text and cut a small section of a sourced photo to get the circular shutter. http://www.123rf.com/clipart-vector/camera_lens.html - Shutter element  I then found the Red logo (right) which gave me some inspiration on how to improve the aesthetic attraction of our own logo. I wanted to incorporate a red centre to the shutter that represented a record button, much like the centre of the Red logo. At this point I also decided to delete the footer text as it served no purpose when the smaller red text advertised our company name. |  I then set about constructing a final logo for use on our Facebook page which we had recently set up. I tried to simplify the logo by using block shapes and less detail. I did try to create my own camera shutter shape by cutting a section off a circle and copying and rotating it to form the shutter shape however I found it impossible to create an accurate circle. I instead sourced a tattoo design. To finish the logo off I added small text around the outside of the shutter, this was done to make the logo more visually interesting.  |
Bullet & Action Cameras:
As part of our filming we are going to have to apply new techniques and equipment in order to capture the cloest sense of realism. I plan to reaearch into bullet and action cameras which we could possiblily invest in for our production. Bullet cameras have a number of advantages for this project, firstly they are small and compact which will reduce the intrusiveness of the camera, it also eliminates the need for a camera crew, we would need to carry out an extensive set-up and test the equipment. I emailed a specialist from DCS systems who specialise in action camera soloutions, I explained our situation and asked how and what to use in order to get the results that we wanted.
DCS Systems ltd."
Filming in-car footage:
Our taxi idea had several elements that will create issues around filming, firstly to capture the taxi driver at work we won't be able to have production crew sat in the car with him and secondly the positioning of the camera would be difficult in such a small space.
There are some elements of Educating Essex that would be beneficial to look at when we are making our documentary. The use of mounted cameras to film in the school provided the majority of footage. Although the camera set-up in Educating Essex is on a much larger scale and budget the theory behind it could be used to inform our taxi driver idea. I like the idea of using bullet camera to record inside the car because it’s less intrusive and will minimise the manipulations of the subject’s actions.
We took a look at the action cameras and bullet cameras available at the loan counter however the sound was very low quality, this forced us to think about investing in our own multi-bullet camera set up.
This is first draft of our camera and microphone set up plan. The layout may change after we have done a location recce. In our current plan I have allowed for two cameras, one will capture the driver and any passengers sat in the front seat, the second will capture the back seats. The cameras that we plan to use are the Sony HQ2 580 bullet cameras which have a 82 degree field of view (roughly to scale on the diagram).
We are planning to use three V-Gain microphones mounted in the car which will give us complete coverage from all angles. The microphones are mono however with a simple stero microphone splitter we could use two to get a stero recording. In our current plan only camera 2 has a stero input however we could very easily conver camera one to stero. The cameras and microphones will be powed off a 12v Li-ion 8400mah battery pack that will be able to power the equipment for over four hours.
