Talking Kit – a Rant and Two Reviews

When you first get into filmmaking, there’s a tendency to focus on the kit. Cameras, lenses, lights, mics, computers, software… Comparing specs, debating which thing is “better” and obsessing over the features and qualities your current kit doesn’t have (as if it’s going to make any difference to your work at this point)… 

And this behaviour’s understandable because when you start out you don’t know about the technical stuff. You don’t know the difference between colour depth and bitrate, or what a T-stop is or what a French flag or a snoot or a promist filter is for. And you know that you don’t know so it’s a tangible thing. And rather than focus on the craft of filmmaking (which many people don’t even know is a thing!), most new filmmakers focus on kit instead because it’s easier to learn about specs and features and model numbers than it is to learn about how to create the shots and tell the story you want to tell. Plus, the latter only really comes from applying the techniques on a shoot so it’s often gated off behind experience anyway.

Craft is difficult. Gear is easy by comparison. Particularly when your knowledge of it boils down to playing Top Trumps with camera specs on the CVP website.

And hey, I’ll hold my hand up- I did a bit of this too. Watching NAB coverage and reading camera reviews and previews. Spouting features and model numbers like a walking brochure. But because I went to uni and studied video production, I had been trained in the craft of filmmaking by the time I was obsessing over kit. So when I was buying gear (mostly second-hand on eBay because the budget indie filmmaker market hadn’t exploded at this point), I was in a position to vaguely know what I was buying and how I’d use it on a shoot. I wasn’t just buying it because I thought it would magically make my work better, or because I didn’t feel pro without it or because I saw other filmmakers using it and thought I’d copy them. I was buying it because I knew how it could be used and how that would benefit my work.

Putting my old fart hat on for a moment, most new filmmakers today don’t have this experience because many of them are self-taught. They learn by watching videos on Youtube and frequenting message boards, and there’s nothing wrong with either of these sources… but when you learn exclusively from the internet it can be problematic. Most of the online content regarding filmmaking is about equipment- reviews, comparisons, tech specs and previews. And when the actual craft of filmmaking is discussed, it’s in a video essay or an ad-optimised bite-size “tutorial” by someone who, in all likelihood, has very limited skills and experience themselves.

Yeah, I’m a cynical bastard.

But don’t just learn from online sources is what I’m saying. Watch DVD BTS or listen to the commentaries- they usually discuss how the film was made and what they did to achieve the shots they got. Read filmmaking books- these don’t have a kit focus because by the time the book’s been published the specific gear stuff is largely out of date. They tend to talk in general terms about kit and instead concentrate on how to use it to create the effect you want.

But to help those thinking about dropping money on gear, I thought I’d share the three rules I (largely) follow when buying kit- which I’m now going to dub…

BRANT’S THREE COMMANDMENTS FOR BUYING SHIT

1 – Thou can only buy kit with money earned from video work.

This means I’m not spending money I don’t have on stuff or putting myself in debt unnecessarily. It also ensures I keep working. Additionally, you tend to be smarter with your purchases if it’s tangible money you’re spending rather than buying it on credit. Obviously, when you’re starting out, you won’t have this luxury, but it’s worth adopting it as soon as possible.

2 – Thou can only buy a particular piece of equipment if you’ve needed it on a shoot at least twice.

This ensures it’s a bit of kit I will actually need and use regularly enough to justify buying.

3 – Thou can only buy a particular piece of kit if it either solves a problem or it creates an opportunity.

This is the most important one. It ensures that what I’m buying will actually be useful to me, either by solving a problem I encounter on set or by adding enough potential value that it allows me to get more work or develop my abilities.

And to illustrate these three rules, I’m going to talk about a couple of bits of kit I’ve bought over the last year or so.

BLIND SPOT GEAR’S SCORPION LIGHTS

I can’t remember where I’d first seen these, but it was probably on one of the filmmaking news sites like NoFilmSchool. They started out as a Kickstarter but then went on general sale and it was when Blind Spot Gear dropped the price on them (to make way for the new improved v2 of the lights) that I picked mine up.

So what are they? The Scorpion light is a large, single daylight balanced LED chip under a lens, housed in a solid open face head with barn doors at the end of a flexible, posable gooseneck. If that didn’t paint a word picture for you, here’s an actual picture picture:

The light can then be slotted into a Manfrotto style superclamp so you can mount it anywhere. It’s dimmable and powered by Sony NPF style batteries (also included in the kit). I bought the imaginatively titled Scorpion Duo Kit, which includes two Scorpion lights, two clamps, two batteries, a battery charger and a set of Rosco gels, all in a toughened carry case.

They’re a novel design, for sure, but why did I buy them? Because they solved a problem. 

Over the years I’ve had a few different types of lights, from cheap and cheerful open face redheads to 1st gen 1×1 LED panels- I’ve even lit scenes with B&Q worklights! But they all require floorspace. They need light stands and power cables and get in the way all the time, particularly if you’re shooting in real locations. You end up having to frame shots tighter so you don’t see the lights or the stands, there’s a potential death trap of cables even if you tape them down and it’s very hard to get a backlight into the shot because there’s no space. I would often find myself packing a full lighting kit and then leaving half of it in the car just so I didn’t have to deal with all this shit. And yes, the quality of my work would sometimes take a hit as a result.

The Scorpion lights solved this problem. They were small and I could clamp them anywhere so my shots could be wider. I didn’t have to use light stands and there were no cables all over the floor. I could get one behind the talent easily so I could backlight things again. And they were in a lightweight case so I didn’t mind carrying them from the car. As a bonus, they also had a better CRI than my old LED panels so I didn’t have to faff about with minus green gels and correcting shots in post.

A Scorpion clamped to the soundie’s boom arm to give a hair light

On a multicamera music livestream- two Scorpions are clamped to a light stand behind the talent

But they also created opportunities for me to light things in new ways. I could get lights into small spaces and use them as accents. I could get them above the talent or even hide them in shot. My lighting skills would improve because I’d be able to try things and get creative again.

So rule number three was satisfied and these were issues I had experienced on countless shoots before (even if I didn’t know what the solution was), so rule two was clear as well. Rule number one was the only sticking point. I hadn’t had much video work for a while so I didn’t have much more than about a fiver in the coffers- and the Scorpions were not exactly low-budget kit at over £500 for a two head set. So I put the Scorpion lights on my wish list, bookmarked the site and carried on. A few months and a job later, I checked the Blind Spot Gear website again and noticed they were having a sale and knocking a huge chunk off the price of the Scorpion lights down to £350. I could afford the Scorpion Duo kit. Just.

It took a few months for me to get my lights- I think Blind Spot had been taken by surprise at how successful their sale had been so there was a backlog- but within a month of getting them I had a fully paid corporate shoot and a series of music performance livestreams to use them on. And they worked a treat. 

One Scorpion providing a hard film noir-style key light and another, clamped to a door, backlighting our actress

Clamped to one leg of the tripod to give a bit of fill for a fake through-the-back-of-the-wardrobe shot on “Instant”

To begin with, I just used them like any other lights, but over time I’ve become more experimental with them, using them to tweak the lighting in a scene or adding a coloured accent to a hair light. I’ve even mounted them to a gimbal to provide a bit of light for a steadicam shot. 

Do they have any negatives? Yeah… The gooseneck isn’t quite as posable as I’d like since the weight of the light head can bring it down and they’re not as powerful as larger LED single chip lights (obviously), but what they do bring to the table is flexibility and the opportunity to do something interesting with them. They are now an essential part of my lighting kit and they come on every shoot with me, without fail.

The v1 Scorpion kit that I bought on deal for £350 (down from £550) isn’t available anymore from Blind Spot Gear, but if you dig around, you might find some old stock for sale somewhere. Alternatively, the tweaked and improved v2 models are out now and you can order them from CVP or Blind Spot Gear directly for about £575. I’d say if you have a bit of money to spare or plenty of work coming in, they’re worth investing in.

The no-budget alternative (and I use the term loosely) to a Scorpion might be this little number from IKEA. Gooseneck design- check. Clamp at one end- check. Decent output, colour rendition, barn doors, battery power and professional build- not so much. But for £10, it might be worth a look for the filmmaker with more moths than monies.

FALCONEYES RX18T ROLLFLEX LIGHT

I first saw this light on DSLRvideoshooter’s YouTube channel where Caleb Pike reviewed it alongside a similar low-budget flexlight. Up until this point, I didn’t know that something like this existed. I already owned three LED panel lights (two from the now-defunct CoolLights brand and one a no-name model bought from H Preston) and all of them were the typical, bulky metal and plastic housing with rows of bulb-style LEDs in them. And all of them were a pain in the arse for the reasons outlined above. But the idea of an LED panel made out of flat, chip-style LEDs sewn into a  flexible canvas mat… that appealed to me.

I should point out that unlike the Scorpion lights, the FalconEyes RollFlex LED mats are not a particularly unique design. There are loads on the market now, most of them from Chinese manufacturers, and the paradigm for this form factor are the Westcott FlexLights. They hold their form so you can shape them however you need, they’ve got very high output, great CRI and TLCI numbers and are very well designed. They are also quite expensive. Worth it for some people, but not so much for me.

But the FalconEyes models appealed to me and more importantly, appealed to my wallet. And again, they offered a solution to a problem and the opportunity to improve myself. 

As well as all the problems I had with my existing LED panel lights (light stands, cables, bulky, pain in the arse…), the RollFlex also offered a solution to one of the possible issues with the Scorpion lights. I’d used the Scorpions on several shoots by this point and a couple of times, I’d had to compete with daylight coming in through large windows. The Scorpions are small fixtures and while their output is good, if I need a stronger, larger or softer light source, or just need to compete with bright skies, the Scorpions just won’t cut it. Normally, I’d use my old LED panels, but they aren’t super bright either, have less than stellar colour rendition and, as mentioned previously, come with a whole host of practical problems. 

LED mats are thinner and lighter- I could gaffer tape them to walls if need be or mount them on a boom arm to get them into places I couldn’t put the other LED panels. Plus, they were newer designs with better CRI figures so they’d match better with the Scorpions. If I was going to replace my LED panels, a RollFlex might be the way to go.

So I watched a few reviews (I know, I’m a hypocrite!) but still had to read between the lines a little. Most reviewers are reviewing them from the point of view of a YouTuber- one whose content is pretty much PTCs and interview style stuff- so they were all using them on light stands in a very standard setup. Granted, most of my corporate work is like this so the perspective is fair, but I wanted to know what people were doing with them on less sit-down-and-rabbit-for-an-hour shoots. Could you gaffer tape one to the roof of a car to light the interior? Could you prop it up just out of shot in a tiny space? Could you roll it up and use it like a china ball? All these things seemed possible- and many reviewers thought so too- but I didn’t know if anyone had tried it.

But the possibilities appealed to me. And these were possibilities you wouldn’t have with normal panels. So I added them to the wish list again. I had some money coming in from a couple of corporate jobs so rule number one was also satisfied and I figured it’d certainly be more useful than my other panels.

The RollFlex with shallow softbox mounted on a lightstand like a normal LED panel on the set of “Instant”

The bare light velcro’d to a curtain rail on “Instant”

The version I bought was the RX 18T. FalconEyes do several sizes for the lights (12, 18 and 24 inches) and daylight or bi-colour models (T and TD respectively). I went for the midsize daylight model since, like most lights in this price range, the bi-colour options use half the output for each colour and I’d thus lose one of my main reasons for getting it. The kit I bought also came with a thin, flat softbox and a domed softbox as well as a soft carrying case, which was a convenient touch. 

So, what do I like about this light? Firstly, the output is a lot brighter than my old panels and the softbox more effective than the spun diffusion I would use on the others. It’s also really lightweight and while I’ve not yet gaffer taped it to something, I have suspended it on a boom arm to mimic a streetlight- something I couldn’t do with the other lights and probably couldn’t do all that easily with the Scorpions. I’ve also hung it from a curtain rail using velcro straps (the mat has velcro bits all over it). On the downside, it’s a bit of a faff to set up if you’re going to mount it on a light stand and there’s an inline control box, battery unit and AC adapter to plug in to each other. But it’s not complicated- just not as plug and play as a simple panel. Like most multi-bulb LED panels, it’s also not a hard light, so you won’t be sculpting film noir cheekbones with it (hence no barn doors attachment), but if you’re looking for a solid yet flexible soft light source, you could do a lot worse.

I bought my FalconEyes RollFlex light from Amazon for about £250, mainly because it was the easiest and cheapest place- even though it pains me to put more money in Bezos’ pockets. There are loads of alternatives on the market now though, mainly from Chinese kit manufacturers, and they’re probably all very similar. I went with the FalconEyes because it seemed to be both a recognised model and repeatedly reviewed well.

So what’s the takeaway with all this? Well, the point is, if you’re looking at buying some kit, don’t just do it because it gives you a gear-chubby. Be pragmatic. Learn your craft first. Make sure you have very good reasons for buying kit. And above all, know that the kit itself is by far and away the least important part of filmmaking.

DISCLAIMER – I should point out that I wasn’t paid, sponsored, coerced, teased or mason-handshook by either Blind Spot Gear or FalconEyes for these not-quite-reviews. I bought them with my own money and for the reasons outlined above. Like everything else on this blog, they’re my opinions and should be treated as such. Also, while I’ve linked to where you might get your own lights, they’re not affiliate links- not because I disagree with affiliates on principle, but because I’m a dumbass who can’t work out how to set them up.

Investing in Myself

Back last year, I went and bought a new camera. This camera, in fact:

For those who don’t spend all their time looking at filmmaking websites getting camera-boners, that’s a JVC GY LS300. It’s got a super35mm sensor, a very flexible lens mounting system, shoots HD, UHD and Cinema 4K and has a log profile. Still nonplussed? Never heard of it? Well, don’t feel bad if you haven’t, it’s probably the most underrated camera on the market in its price bracket at the moment- but that’s a post for another time.

The real reason I mention my purchase is why I chose to buy a new camera in the first place.

I’ve mentioned buying kit before, waaaay back at the beginning of this blog, and my view is still the same- buying kit is an investment. Sometimes it’s a case of money in, money out (you buy a camera because having it will get you more work) but this is a bit of a gamble because that new shiny is only bankable while it’s new on the market and desirable. The moment something new and more desirable comes out, you’ve lost your bargaining chip. Original Red One owners know the pain of that one…

But that wasn’t really why I bought the camera. No-one’s beating down rental houses’ doors for the latest JVC camera (they possibly should be, but again, that’s for another post…) and even though the camera shoots 4K, that’s not going to win me loads of jobs (although it may help!). I bought the camera to invest in myself.

I’ve never considered myself to be much of a cinematographer (I’ve also never considered myself to be much of a writer, but apparently I’m not terrible at that!) and have always felt I could learn to be better if I had a better tool to learn with. Now I know that sounds like an excuse- poor workmen and their tools etc- but there is some truth to it. If all you have is a hammer, all your work will look like nails. Aside from a short-lived dalliance with a Canon DSLR a few years ago (a short-term fling that wasn’t very productive- we both wanted different things from the relationship!), my previous camera was a Sony Z1. Still produces nice enough pictures, but the thing shoots to tape. Tape! Even the most out-of-date luddite clients know tape cameras are old tech, on a par with wire recorders and the invention of the wheel. I constantly had to load the camera in the car before I got to the shoot and hope I didn’t need to change the tape when the client was around! The Z1 was a workhorse, though, and I learnt to focus on composition and storytelling and getting the lighting right with it. But the big problem with the Z1 was what I couldn’t learn from it that other filmmakers were learning from their newer kit. Little things like shallow depth of field, lens theory, picture grading and using Log profiles. The filmmakers who were getting into it on the back of the DSLR boom were learning and putting all this stuff into practice.

And producing much nicer work than I was as a result. Work that got them more work.
I know I can learn to be better at this stuff. Not because I want to be a better cinematographer per se, but because I want to be a better visual director. I want to know why I might use an 85mm for this close up over a 50mm. I want to know if we need more lights to pull off the depth of field I want from this shot. I want to know what can be done with picture grading so I can put the right coloured mis in the to-coin-a-phrase scene.

I want to learn.

This is why it’s an investment in myself. I am going to get better at this if I keep practicing and have a better tool to practice with. If I can get a better grade of job or earn more money from gigs because of said tool, then happy days!

The face of a man with a new toy!

Storyboarding “Bless of an Angel”

I’ve been storyboarding again!

I’ve mentioned before how useful I find storyboarding. That it makes you think about your story visually and through editing. That it’s like a first pass at making your film. Yeah, it takes ages to do and you frequently find yourself cutting illustrative corners (the end scenes of so many of my flicks were boarded with rough, wireframe-like sketches), but the level of preparation it gives you and the opportunities to try things out in relatively cost-free safety is invaluable.

I’ve also discussed how I’ve gone through a variety of approaches over the years- lots of little frames to a page, three to a page, one big image over a sheet of A4, hand-drawn, photoshopped, drawn in pencil, drawn in ink, designed like animation elements so you could create an animatic… But now I have a new way. And in my opinion, the best way to storyboard.

On an iPad.

Now, I’m not an Apple fanboy. Very rarely does something come out of Cupertino and give me a hard on (although the new mac pro does raise the pulse a little) but I tend to adopt a “best tool for the job” attitude for the most part. I do use macs exclusively and have done for over a decade, I edit on Final Cut Pro (including the new, marmite-like prodigal son FCPX) and 18 months ago, I bought an iPad. Why? Shits and giggles I guess… But I soon realised that by using a stylus and a half decent drawing app, this stalwart of the gadget freak and clueless pensioner alike would become a very useful storyboarding tool.

When I first blogged about this I was using an app called Penultimate to draw storyboards with and described it as “a hipster MS Paint” because of its retardedly basic controls, limited options and moleskine-esque notebook stylings. You couldn’t zoom, shading was impossible and, like those small boxes of crayons you used to get bundled with colouring books, you only got about five colours to work with (and one of them was “rancid yellow”). But it got the job done and I could export the images to the camera roll where other apps like Celtx Shots could import it.

Concept art drawn in Sketchbook Pro

However, I soon found that there were better options for drawing on an iPad. Sketchbook Pro was the first I tried and with its varied toolsets and photoshop-like layers, was actually a very good app. You could actually zoom in (as opposed to the frankly pitiful magnifier loupe thing the Paper app promotes as a better alternative), you had a pencil tool that actually looked and “felt” like a pencil tool and you could export the full file, layers and all, to something like Photoshop if desired. Downside? It was optimised for the weird dimensions of the retina display, meaning that if I wanted to export and print anything, I’d end up with a large chunk of space on A4 paper and possibly some scaling artefacts. I also couldn’t import images from elsewhere, like storyboard templates, and draw over the top of them- which meant I had to draw the bloody frames in the app itself. Not ideal, but then, this is a drawing app not a storyboard drawing app so I can’t be too harsh.

My current app of choice for drawing storyboards (and anything else for that matter) is Procreate. Unintentionally hilarious names aside, this app has all the functions I need as a storyboard artist. There’s a setting for A4- which means I can print the images properly and at the right resolution. You can import images too, which means I finally get that storyboard template I want and since its A4, I can fit the right number of frames on it. The pencil looks like a pencil, the pencil shaders feel like pencil shaders… The whole app seems geared towards artists being able to create the sort of work they could if they had paper, pencils, paint and other things beginning with P.

Using Procreate and the Cosmonaut Stylus

Anyway, I’ve been using it to storyboard the music video for “Bless of an Angel.” Being a dramatic music video with actors and performances and visual storytelling means that storyboards are a necessity. Particularly since I’m not the one operating the camera, so it’s a great communication tool for me and Ashley, the DoP. It’ll also help when Emily and I start putting together the schedule because we can work out the set-ups based on position and lens used. Actors like to see storyboards as well- in my experience because it gives them confidence in the script and in you the director. Like everyone, they get to see how the film will look (or more accurately, how it could look!) and their role in bringing it to life.

I’m lucky enough to be able to draw well enough that there’s little distance between what I see in my head and what ends up on the page (or in this case, screen). But storyboards don’t have to be elaborate, detailed or pieces of fine art (although if you’re trying to impress cast, crew or investors, that might be wise…), they just need to tell the story and show your vision of the film. Just like the script, they’re not blueprints. They’re a starting point, a way of exploring what the film could be and a way of communicating that to everyone else.

And I’m only about halfway through them, so I really must get back to doodling…

My Love-Hate Relationship with Editing

Couldn’t resist.

I have very mixed feelings towards editing. On the one hand, it’s the defining part of the filmmaking process and where the film actually becomes a film. On the other, it’s a massive ball-ache where you have to dredge through hours of footage, find ways to mask or fix continuity and sound issues and tread that fine line between systematic and creative approaches. And don’t get me started on NLEs and their buggy performance issues.

The strange thing is, my history with editing is pretty much my history with film and video production in general. Although I was innately a storyteller, I don’t know if I’d have taken to the craft of the moving image quite so readily were it not for the availability of consumer editing software.

When I started paddling in the pool of filmmaking, the first things I shot were fight scenes. It soon became obvious to me that the camera-sat-unmoving-on-a-table style of cinematography I was using was not only dull visually, but playing out the whole thing from this one angle made it doubly so. I realised I needed to shoot things from different angles and edit them together into a sequence. At this point I knew only what most people know about editing- that it’s just about “taking out the bad bits” (a definition so narrow, Victoria Beckham would have trouble walking down it). The only source of information I had on the subject was a copy of Jackie Chan: My Stunts on VHS and the brief sequence where he illustrates, amongst other shooting techniques, how continuity of motion was achieved with editing. This was “cutting on action”- one of the basic principles of continuity editing- and I had learnt it, even if I didn’t know the name, from a man who falls off things for a living.

(I couldn’t find the exact clip, but you get the idea…)

Since digital camcorders and consumer NLEs were new and I was shooting on Hi-8, my first attempts at editing were done between the camera and a VCR. Anyone old enough to have experimented with this method knows how much of a ball-ache it is to pause the recorder and frantically find the next bit of footage before coordinating the play/record button presses so things actually go to plan. I’m fairly certain that splicing on a moviola would be less stressful. Would I have chosen film as a career based on this experience? Doubtful. While it taught be how to plan a shoot and see something edited in my head before I shot it (both excellent and necessary skills that new filmmakers don’t always pick up right away), it was a real pain and just wasn’t as immediate a creative process as I’d have liked.

Needless to say, when I got the money together (courtesy of getting fired from my first full-time job and payroll accidentally paying me twice for the last month!) to buy a DV camera, a FireWire card for the PC and some editing software, things became much more malleable.

Urgh. Just urgh.

The first NLE I used was Pinnacle Studio (later called Ulead). It was a fairly simple drag and drop affair with clip boxes rather than a timeline and very limited sound options. But it enabled me to cut clips at a frame by frame level, assemble them into a sequence, add some music and shitty titles and create a digital file of my creation. It also allowed me to add a myriad of crappy transitions, but even then, naive as I was, I knew that starwipes were tools of the devil and stuck to straight cuts or dissolves if I wanted to transition from a scene. It was from using this less-than-impressive software that I learnt about the importance one frame can make to a cut- as Tarantino said in an interview it’s like the difference between a sour note and a sweet note in music. I also quickly realised by shooting these fight scenes that there were only certain places I could put the camera so things would edit smoothly. Person A needed to stay on one side of the screen and Person B on the other otherwise no one would know where the hell things were in relation to each other. Yep, the 180 degree rule. Again, from fight scenes. I realised if I wanted to shoot from the other side, I needed to either move the camera during the shot or cut to a direction-neutral shot in order for it to work. I also intuitively discovered cutaways and inserts by shooting these fight scenes, the former for bridging gaps in continuity and the latter for highlighting details. My education in editing had begun.

At this point, I still had no formal training. My interest was martial arts and kung fu movies and while the internet was definitely a thing and we had access to it, I was only interested in the martial arts fights amateur stunt teams were shooting and editing. So even though filmmaking was a topic of discussion on these sites, it was rarely beyond the concept of shooting angles and editing techniques.

Somewhere along the line, I decided that I wanted to study film and video production properly and enrolled in a course at the local college. Immediately, I felt out of my depth. Everyone else had done some kind of course before. They knew the terminology, they knew the process and they knew Final Cut Pro- which was the editing system of choice at Reading College. I struggled to keep up, desperately trying to internalise lecture notes, read up on things I didn’t understand and try stuff out with my friends on our next fight scene shoot.

Eventually, after about eight months, I quit.

I got a full time job which I hated. I saved some money. I started to get over my depression. And I got withdrawal symptoms from not doing any filmmaking.

Realising I might have made a mistake in quitting, I bought a new camcorder since the old one had died, my first Apple computer (the hernia-inducing eMac) and a copy of Final Cut Express. I shot a short action film with my friends and realised I had actually learnt things from the course. I had learnt more about shots and composition, about continuity and storytelling and I had learnt a bit about Final Cut Pro. This was the first real project I edited in Final Cut and the process was several magnitudes of difference from Pinnacle Studio. I had a timeline, I had a viewer and a canvas, I had bins and filters and colour correction and audio tools. I could do L and J cuts (again, something I figured out for myself rather than being taught it) and I could do admittedly crude slow motion- I think that might have been the holy grail for me!

But Final Cut was a bit of a beast. Like before, it took ages to capture my footage from tape, but this time I felt compelled to log it as I went, setting in and out points, naming scenes and shots. This was something I hated, but it did mean I was viewing my footage as I went looking for the good take (this was 2003- I only had an 80Gb hard drive and DV took up 1Gb per 13 mins so it paid to be frugal).

Somewhere along the line, editing stopped being fun. It became a slog. That necessary evil that has to be done so you can enjoy the fruits of your labour- like changing the bedclothes before you hump in it.

And I started to hate it. Mostly.

I still enjoyed the magic of making something work and seeing it how the audience would and I still enjoyed editing when I was in the zone at 2am, trying to get the narrative to flow. But like a panda in London Zoo, I was rarely in the mood and frankly, it all looked too much like hard work.

Van Damme couldn’t believe just how long this render was going to be…

When I re-enrolled at Reading College (now the diet coke university TVU), I found myself to be far more experienced than many of my classmates. This meant that I could help them with the things they found difficult, but it also meant that I had the time to expand and develop what was being taught rather than scrabbling to just keep up. I still hated editing for the most part but I also acknowledged that editing was where the film actually became a film. And I wound up doing a lot of editing myself because I was much more comfortable with Final Cut than some of the others but also because I frequently shot stuff with the edit in mind. And for someone who wasn’t me, this was often a problem.

Editors are both craftsmen and creatives. They’re like engineers, using a complex series of tools to assemble something else. But they’re also like collage or mosaic artists, taking tiny bits and putting them together to make more complicated, much better pieces of art. It’s a real straddler of a role and it relies on having a range of raw materials to work with. The problem is, I would frequently save time or energy on set by knowing how I wanted something edited and only shooting the material necessary to make that happen. So when the editor sat down to edit it, he found that the footage could only really be assembled one way, thus robbing him of his creative involvement, or worse still if he couldn’t see that end product and only saw insufficient footage to edit it how he wanted. On The Good, The Bad and The Undead, a movie I co-produced, DoP’d and somewhat visually directed, the editor frequently found I hadn’t shot the coverage he needed to assemble the scene. I’d shot enough to assemble it my way, as per my storyboards, but I’d left no room for leeway or his creative choices. And I didn’t exactly deal with the situation well either. When he pointed out I didn’t have enough coverage for the main fight scene in the flick and said it flat-out wouldn’t cut together, I took the footage, cut it and mixed it overnight into a pretty good fight scene just to cuntishly prove him wrong. This antagonism was probably one of the reasons why that film took ages to edit but it left me with this feeling that if I was going to shoot things this way, I needed to be the editor. Not for any sense of auteurism, but because I didn’t want to annoy and frustrate an editor.

So for every project I directed after that, I did the editing. Even Persona, where Don Allen the producer really wanted to get someone else in to edit, I insisted because I knew that at the pace we would be moving I was likely to cut corners (and I did) and for an editor, this would be a nightmare. Strangely though, I have grown to like shooting coverage more and more in the last few years- in the main because I don’t need to plan as much as I used to and I can pace things better and add to the performances in the edit if I have a reasonable level of coverage. And if a particular shot is definitely what I want to use, I will structure that coverage around it, making it integral to the scene, but giving myself (or another editor) some degree of flexibility.

Now we have a new generation of NLEs. Final Cut Pro X was hated by many professionals on its launch (I have to confess, I didn’t like it much either) but over the last year I’ve grown to like it, even as I find its new ways of doing simple things frustrating and liberating at the same time. One thing I have found though, is that I’m a faster editor with it. I used to be a slow, picky perfectionist with editing, but FCPX is very much a slam-it-together-and-see-what-sticks NLE and I’ve found this means I put together an assembly quicker and then spend my time tweaking and tidying it rather than plodding through it on Final Cut Classic. L and J cuts are actually easier, stuff doesn’t go out of sync as often when I’m in full-on tweak mode and thanks to the codec-agnostic engine and background render, the whole video format thing is something of a non-issue.

Given that the tools are somewhat improved, you might be surprised to learn I still have my love-hate thing with editing. I’ve mellowed somewhat and I like it a bit more because I’m better at it with the new tools, but it’s still Vicks in my Vaseline.

I’ve always thought that, as a director, when working on a project you end up making your film several times over- each draft of the script, each bit of concept art, the storyboards, the shooting script, your vision of the film in your head, every subsequent edit and revision… each is a new stab at telling the story. And I think a lot of my negativity towards editing is because by the time I’m sitting there with the timeline, the script, the continuity notes, a big bag of crisps and a 2 litre bottle of pepsi max and everything else in front of me (or next to someone else who’s going to do much of the donkey-work), I’ve already made the film several times and really can’t be fucked to do it all again.

But then that magic happens. That moment when a scene comes together and feels natural and effortless and… good… and suddenly you forget all the waiting and the procrastinating and the software bugs and the format issues and the swearing and the frustration and realise that you’ve made a film. And it works. And you keep going because you can’t wait to see how this thing unfolds in the next scene.

And by the time you stop because the screen is blurring and your eyes hurt like someone’s poured lemon juice in them, it’s 4.30 in the morning and you have work at half 8 and you really really should get some sleep…

…I’ll just finish this next scene… I’m in the zone…

Toys and Wishlists

Like a child going through the Argos catalogue in late September, I’ve been looking in longing at shiny new toys to hope for (in lieu of spending my nonexistent money on). And as with a lot of filmmakers, it’s a camera I’m in the metaphorical market for.

My current camera is the ageing if ever-reliable Sony Z1. I’ve had a few good years of use out of it but I really need to join 2012 and get a “proper” HD camera that records to something other than a strip of magnetically charged plastic ribbon. I also need a camera with a larger sensor so I have more leeway to create shallow depth of field- given that I shoot a lot of drama, this is something of a necessity.

But I’m poor. Or flat broke if I’m honest.

Which makes the prospect of buying a new camera daunting and stupid which is why I’m a) looking at the cheaper end of the market and b) just looking. Which is a tough scenario to be in when there’s this nagging (if largely unfounded) feeling that you’re hired for work based on the kit you bring to the table. I need something that gives me the creative control I need to produce the work that will get me hired again, it needs to look professional (clients are often as shallow as the ideal depth of field) and it needs to be low cost. I also need it to have pro audio inputs, monitoring aids and an image that doesn’t fall apart with a whip pan.

Which is why DSLRs have never figured in my game plan. Lovely though the image can be, they’re just a bit of a ball-ache to use and work with in post (on a related note, it’s always amazed me that the people fellating DSLRs for video always seem to bang on about great grading as well- you’ve really backed the wrong tool for the job there guys…). At the budgets I work at, I’m often finding workarounds for things on set- angles, production design, lighting, performances… I just don’t need the camera and it’s weird ways to be an extra arse-ache I have to work around:

Very very wobbly rolling shutter effect with moire and aliasing. Arse-ache.

No NDs, no zebras, no picture or audio monitoring. Arse-ache.

Extremely awkward video codec with compression in all the wrong areas and a nightmare to edit with. Arse-ache.

Dual system picture/audio and syncing in post. Ache of true arse-like proportions.

Add to that a form factor that’s understandably only useful for taking stills and needs a meccano kit of Zacuto gear to give such things as a usable EVF/viewfinder, shoulder rig and follow focus and they really weren’t on my radar at all. So I’ve been left to look at the low-pro large sensor cameras like the Panasonic AG AF101 and the Sony NEX FS100 and their £4K+ price tags. And by “look” I mean just that…

But recently, the choice of large sensored video cameras has broadened in both price directions- Canon’s C300, the RED Scarlet and Sony’s FS700 have filled the higher seven grand plus bracket, Black Magic have unveiled their Cinema Camera (with a stupidly low price, a beautiful image that DoPs will love and missing audio features that self-shooters will lament) and last week Sony announced the NEX EA50, a semi-shoulder ENG style camera for about £3000. Which to be honest, is more in my price range.

Okay, so it’s aimed at event shooters with its form factor, power zoom lens and not-unmanageably-shallow APS-C sized sensor and I shoot primarily drama where this doesn’t really matter.

Okay, so the sensor comes from the NEX5- a still camera- and possibly suffers from the same image issues if all the forum slandering is to be believed.

Okay, so just like Sony’s other “affordable” camera it hasn’t got any built-in NDs and I, like many shooters, find NDs really really fucking useful, Sony…

…but it’s three grand. A whole thousand pounds on average cheaper than the next best thing, Panasonic’s AF101. Which for a filmmaker with little to no money matters a lot. I for one will be interested to see what the camera is capable of when it’s released in October. As long as the image is less problematic than the DSLRs, I can learn to use a matte box and ND filters like the film boys do and feel happy about my investment.

Just need to scrape some pennies or finance together and I’m good…

“So about that loan, Mr Bank Manager…”