First Time On Location - The Abbey Theatre

Why the Abbey Theatre?

The locations we chose to film at were outside The Abbey Theatre and Stockingford. The Abbey Theatre and along Pool Bank Street we chosen because of its gritty, lower class and realistic feel that the area portrayed. This ticks off one of the key points of New Wave filming, personal realism. with this said the documentary feel of new wave can also be seen in some of the shot (which I will discuss further later). 

            Good examples of the realism are shown through the graffiti of sigh posts, litter in and around the park, unkempt and over grown bushed and the run down eroded buildings. 

Over Grown Shrubbery

Graffiti

Run Down and Eroded Garages

Left Pan - Durex Wrapper to Condom from Simmone Dudley on Vimeo.

Filming On Location

Location: Outside The Abbey Theatre

Date: 17^th September 2012

Brief: To practice filming in real life locations and everyday situations with the following new wave conventions; realism, handheld and innovative camera movement and youthful iconoclasm

·      Equipment Used

·      Canon 500D x3

·      Tripod

·      Fluid Head Tripod

·      Dolly

·      Four 4GB memory cards

·      8GB memory card

·      Experience

I enjoyed being out on location and filming among people who wouldn't necessarily know what was happening. with this said it made filming certain place harder, like the park, as sometimes the children would walk into shot, this helped with the realism feel, but without the parents permission I felt a little uncomfortable filming the children, as the parents may not have wanted them to be in shot.  

Girls On Round-a-bout from Simmone Dudley on Vimeo.

·      Footage analysis

            Audio

 Only one of the cameras had audio on, so all of the footage from the other two cameras had no audio. This was a large problem as the two cameras that were recording questions being asked and answered were the two that had no audio, and the one camera (the one that Lewis and I were using) had the audio on, but we did not need it as this footage was just to fill the gaps between speech or have voice overs (voice overs monologues are used commonly in British new wave cinema, so this is why I chose to do footage that would later require a voice over. i also feel that a voice over would give a more documentary feel to the final edited piece, and this hits one of the new wave criteria, to have a documentary overtone). 

Girl Talking No Audio from Simmone Dudley on Vimeo.

White Balance

Another problem that occurred, which was with one of the cameras with out audio, was that the white balance wasn’t correct so the white light bounced back wrong, causing the footage from this camera to have a blue tint to them.

Off White Balance

Correct White Balance

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    Aperture

The aperture on the 500D cameras used is automatically set low on about f5, giving a shallow depth of field, allowing a lot of light to get into the lens and as a result the foreground has a clear crisp focus. Whereas on this setting, when trying to focus on distant objects in the background the image is clear and focused but does not have that crisp look to it.

Background in Focus - Clear but not as crisp

Foreground in Focus - Clear and crisp

To make the comparison fair i used images with the same white balance, so both images here have a slight blue tint to them. 

               To correct this problem next time I will set the camera with a higher aperture, but in order to do this I will have to adjust the ISO. This is because on a higher aperture less light is able to get into the lens so adjusting the sensitivity will allow for and counteract this problem. 

      Camera Movement
              When I used hand held I feel that it gave the footage a more realist feel and fits in with the new wave genre conventions as this technique is used a lot. Hand held gives the footage an none smooth texture like real life its self. This could mimic the ideas in New Wave that life and reality doesn't have a smooth transition from start to finish, and that there isn't a distinct beginning, middle and end; in-between and along the way it becomes bumpy and unpredictable.

Hand Held - Bike Track from Simmone Dudley on Vimeo.

            I used the tripod more than hand held. I found it smoother to work with compared to hand held, but I use the standard tripod and not the fluid head, but what I learnt from my previous experience using the standard tripod I was able to make the clips as smooth as they would have been had I used the fluid head. 

            I did this by keeping loose the keys that allow the camera to move left to right and up to down. With this said some footage provided from the camera used in the fluid head tripod was also a little jolty in places. 

Pan Right - Fluid Head from Simmone Dudley on Vimeo.

            An aspect of New Wave cinema is using innovative ways to move the camera, instead of just the usual tripod, dolly or track. Examples of this are in both The 400 Blows and Breathless. To get this way of camera movement into the test shots we used the round-a-bout that was in the park at our location. 

Will on Round-a-bout from Simmone Dudley on Vimeo.

   New Wave Conventions Checklist

·      Hand-held ✓

·     Long takes/tracking shots ✗ 

(Even though a long tracking shot was not taken in this location, several short tracking shots were taken)

·     Youthful iconoclasm ✗ 

(This was sort of capture with the young children that were filmed but I don’t feel that it was to the extent that most new wave films did; not a big enough statement was made in this case.)

·      Political and/or social troubles captured ✓  

(This was captured a little with the graffiti, litter and unwelcoming environment showing how lower class areas are not regularly renewed or tidied unlike more middle class areas like Whitestone for instance where the grass is cut weekly.)

·      Homemade accessories/innovative camera movement ✓ 

(One main innovative movement was used but in several different ways; this was using the round-a-bout. It was used by placing the camera on the round about and spinning it, by standing on the round a bout with the camera and spinning to capture the surrounding and the final way was by placing a person in front of camera both moving in time with the round-a-bout. The final technique I have just mentioned gave a very creative and unique effect, where the background becomes blurred. I felt that this gave a great-unexpected effect.)

·      Documentary feel ✓ 

(I feel this was done slightly due to the fact that there were people and children there who didn’t know what was necessarily going on or how to react to the cameras)

·      Friends used to act or as crew ✓ 

(This was done very well, students from the college studying preforming arts were used as the actors and the crew was made up of the HNC group.)

·      Unbiased and personal realism ✗ 

(In this case the realism wasn’t completely unbiased. The reasoning for going to this articular location was to show the gritty realism, so I only focused on capturing that element of the area, when in fact there were some nice and picturesque parts of the area, such as the field in the background, perfectly mowed with families and dogs playing on it.)

·      Real locations/ environments ✓ 

(As this was the main brief it was checked off straight away)

·      Improvised dialogue ✓ 

(The actors were asked questions, so the improvised dialogue came from there responses. However these questions and answers were all done on the cameras that had the internal microphone switched off.)

·     Take the audience out of the film/direct address to the camera ✗ (

(This was not a focus of this particular location shoot, so in this time it was not met.)

·      Establishing shots ✓ 

(All of the establishing shot were from ground level and captured the essence of the area, I felt that it helped reflect that inward pull that this kind of society has on those that were born and live there. This is a major issues among the people how live in areas and communities like this, and how they feel or don’t try to better themselves , instead accepting what other people think about them and the stereotype persona that they carry.)

·      Rapid movement ✓ 

(Rapid movement can be seen from the innovative camera movements on the round-a-bout and in s hot by itself of a rapid upward and downward tilt.)

·      Unusual camera angles ✗