Echoes of Silence: Filming With Lvl6

After our production meetings today, I was then invited to help with a test shoot on Lvl6's production 'Echoes of Silence'.

As our lecturer said, that project is really leapfrogging me into a better quality of production, even though I will still have to wait on my practical application of my newfound knowledge. I was mindblown by the professionality and quickness of our senior students - as well as their technical knowledge, creativity, and keen eye on the cinematic part of filmmaking. I realised how efficient a trained and skilled team is and of how quickly I could learn if I put all of my energy into it. For when I see Brad's and Liam's work, I feel inspired and thrilled to learn more and quicker.

I hope that I will have reached their levels when filming my Final Major Project, for then I definitely know that I made the most out of my degree. Moving on to lighting and cinematography, both were simple in their set-up but highly effective in their combined outcome.

Liam rigged a red-head on top of the set with the help of a magic arm and flooded the entire set with tungsten light that was supposed to work as a fill and back light, depending on the angle of the shot and the position of the actor. And that demonstrated to me how effective simple lighting can be. Cause although Liam did neither gel nor diffuse that light with scrim, it created such a beautiful atmosphere in tandem with the rest of his lighting.

For he also placed an oblong LED-light underneath the table to give off indirect light that emphasised the sci-fi aspect of that scene, turning a simple table in front of a wall into a science-fictionesque working space of sorts. I took quite a while to get the settings on that LED straight to make it emanate blue light instead of strobing various colours as if on a dance floor.

This was due to the fact that the light's own display and menu is quite confusing to use and install settings with. As the lights themselves (since we do have at least five of them) have been gifted to the college in used condition but without manuals, brand name or serial numbers, we did have no immediate solution as how to solve that issue apart from manually and systematically going through each step of the menu and attempting to solve it by means of trial and error.

While Sarah followed that procedure, I was taking a photo of that LED and uploaded it via the image search option on Google to see whether it would find a similar LED in built, thus leading me to the brand name, product or serial number, and - hopefully - eventually also to a manual. But nothing similar or helpful turned out in the search results, and even searching for keywords did not bring up that kind of LED light at all.

Eventually, Sarah was quicker in her procedure and finally managed to set the LED to that blue science-fiction light Liam and Brad wanted to achieve. We pushed the light back under the table and positioned it in such a way that it would cast a lovely soft blue glow onto the wall behind the desk.

A couple of practical as well as decorative lights were set up afterwards (as in the first image above) and lit to create a more sinister feeling and then we were ready to start filming!

While Liam safely rigged the red-head on top of the set walls, I received a quick but nonetheless splendid introduction into the use of an Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6k and even had a change to get to know it a bit better by actually preparing the setup. And what shall I say? It's a beauty beyond compare.

What I really like about the URSA is the quality of the image and the design not only of its body, but also its user menu. URSA comes with a variety of helpful functions which I will elaborate in another blog entry soon.

And, again, I was fascinated to experience again how much more professional images look when you don't shoot on an AVC. But that might be my personal bias against AVC kicking in, so I will just let the image speak down below

Since the AVC does not have detachable/exchangeable lenses, there is only so much you can do to create a shallow depth of field (and that usually contains using physical distance to your advantage, which is not always doable depending on the location/set at hand).

The tracking shots this time were not shot on a tracking dolly but on a pedestal that Liam navigated with quite some effort as the wheels did not always align where Liam needed them to go and the image was quite shaky. I don't exactly know why the production did not go with the tracking dolly first, but as far as I have understood it, Liam wanted to experiment and see whether the pedestal produced smoother footage on that flooring. And although I did not see any issues looking over his shoulder, he was unhappy with the outcome and decided to revert to a tracking dolly as this still seemed to be the best option.

However, even though most of the shots were considered rehearsal or practice shots, I am more than convinced that - quality wise - this crew had already shot some footage for the final film there. I am really looking forward to the final outcome!