Poppie’s Day 4/7 of Principal Photography
Yesterday marked Day 4/7 of principal photography for our Poppie project.
Since we only had access to the location on Monday during this week and had to leave at 16.30 at the latest again, it turned out to be stressful day on set again both in regard to time and equipment.
Equipment Restrictions
This was further emphasised by the fact that the previous group returned their equipment one hour later than agreed, which left us with one hour less of filming time.
Furthermore, the previous group had booked out all of the V-Locks, apart from two that were charged in the stores. Whilst we were given the two charged V-Locks, upon arrival it turned out that the previous crew had not charged their V-Locks (all of which were depleted) and thus returned empty ones. And although these empty V-Locks were put on chargers immediately, this massively impeded our shoot for the rest of the day, as we were relying on at least three charged V-Locks for our camera and lighting setup to keep continuity running.
As even the quickly charging V-Locks amongst them would still require at least three hours until full charge, it was obvious that I had to tweak my lighting plans for that day.
Tweaking Lighting Plans and Lighting Issues
Since we could not afford to lose another three hours of our shoot day (or afford the camera to be turned off around the same time), I made the decision to kill one of the lights that I had initially put behind the counter to enhance the colour of the brick-walled background.
Whilst I disliked the fact having to do this, it was the only choice left as the remaining two V-Locks were reserved for the camera and the effect light that I required to put into the background to balance out the re-painted, now salmon-coloured wall that had already attempted to break our continuity. I settled for the lesser evil and moved on with the busy shoot day.
However, due to me working on finding the smartest lighting solution at this point, I sadly overlooked that some of the lights in the background of the café had not been turned on for some of the shots that we took afterwards, challenging continuity further. This became apparent when we watched the rushes back yesterday together with our lecturer.
Although this would not be too massive of a problem narratively – all the shots we took back then are depicting Benjie as he specifically enters the café BEFORE it opens, thus the lights could very well still be turned off – it still did not look good. Gratefully, our lecturer recommended filming a cutaway, which shows said lights being turning on to solve the issue, which I noted on my personal list of things that need filming.
My Arch-Nemesis: The Return of Overexposure
Watching back some other rushes, I furthermore realised that some of the outdoor shots just were not working and would have to be reshot as well, due to my arch-nemesis of this entire project: background over-exposure.
It was the same ‘old’ issue I already encountered early on in this project. Whilst I followed tips and tricks from research that I conducted last weekend, the results sadly did not improve considerably. Since it seemed that the time pressure on this project would remain a constant issue and that there was limited time for experiments, I was looking up guidelines on how to deal with overexposure quickly and efficiently.
The 48 Hour Film Project
According to this website, the solution to cancelling out overexposure can be overcome in only five steps, which are:
Lower your camera's ISO Lower the value of the ISO to make it less sensible to light – good for overall overexposure.
Stop down your lens This does limit the amount of light coming in, however, it also affects the DOF, which would not have been a problem in our case.
Use an ND filter They work like overall sunglasses for the camera while preserving the DOF.
Add more light This was the only logical consequence after attempting all the steps above. However, due to the V-Lock issue we were limited to only one light that was nowhere near enough to solve the issue.
Take away the light Although being a good idea in general, it is very difficult to block indirect sunlight in the type of shot that we set up without using massive scaffolding. Since we additionally did not have access to flags, this option was not viable either.
After lowering the ISO and experimenting with lowered aperture, I tried using a 2-stop ND-filter and a 4-stop ND filter. However, with 2 stops some parts were still overexposed while with 4 stops the foreground of the image turned out to be too dark
However, since the foreground was then completely black with either one of these filters, we used that single light that we had at our disposal V-Lock-wise that day. The redheads could not be used then as we did not have long enough power cables to feed them all the way through the front door – that part of the equipment has been double-booked and was still booked out by another group. Although we had been given a replacement, it turned out to be too short for the distance that we needed to bridge.
However, even applying that one light that we had, did not solve the problem, but essentially created more as it caused was still far too weak to light our actors face but sadly still strong enough to create reflections in the glasses of our main actor. This was further complicated by the fact that these reflections were not visible on the small LCD display but appeared in the rushes later that day.
It seems like I will have to dedicate more time and experimentation towards solving this issue.
Lack of Sharpness – Don’t Trust Focus Peak Blindly
Another issue that really bothered me to no end when watching the rushes was the fact that some of the outdoor shots were rather soft. However, this was a surprise for me, as I usually tend to check focus before each and every take and was sure that I also did this when filming outside.
Cause usually, I would look out for the focus lines that Blackmagic Ursa’s software conveniently provides and make sure that the image was in focus where focus was supposed to be. For this, I usually digitally zoom into the image by double-tapping the LCD screen. This allows me to even see the slightest details better on the screen and thus to adjust focus some more in case the shot should have turned soft then.
Although I was convinced that I did the same for these outdoor shots (I remembered the focus lines around our actor’s glasses, indicating the focus peak), the soft rushes later on however painted a different picture.
Since this did not leave me alone, back home I looked at the handbook for the Blackmagic Ursa Video Assist that is available online and read up on the system for focus peaking.
And this is where I found the issue:
For, according to the manual, the BlackMagic Ursa’s internal focus peak software can encounter issues indicating the focus correctly in high-contrast environments.
Such as we had experienced outside earlier that day…
As it stands now, with high-contrast images, the software can sometimes misinterpret the boarders between the bright and dark parts of the image as a focus point, especially if the reflected surfaces create what seems like a sharp, defined line. Which would explain the result despite the application of focus peak.
Don’t Discriminate the Slate!
Another mistake of mine that I further realised was the fact that I was sometimes too quick and careless with properly recording some of the slates.
While I felt that I always wasted a lot of time on set filming the slate and getting it into focus, it turned out that this perceived internal eternity is sometimes really not much more than a second. Due to that, I accidentally cut off slate markings and or shot numbers or missed to record the actual slate.
While it might feel like wasted eternities on set, it saves much more time in post-production, if the editor does not have to check the entire storyboard for reference or hunt down either director or cinematographer to find out which shot number any given shot had
The same goes for pulling focus on the slate – I realised that I tend to let this fall under the table during the strongly time-pressurised shots, which made some of the markings difficult to read.
My Learning
For reasons of brevity, this is just a quick summary of my learning from yesterday:
Don’t trust focus assist in high-contrast environments and – if in doubt – rather turn it off and check the focus manually
Be more careful filming the entire slate. The same goes for pulling focus on the slate.
You need to learn how to conquer overexposure.
There is still a lot left to learn after all!
References:
The 48 Hour Film Project (2017) Five Ways To Avoid Overexposing Your Shots [online] http://www.48hourfilm.com/en/news-articles/112/[Accessed on 24 March 2019]
BlackMagic Design (2016) Video Assist Installation and Operation Manual [online] documents.blackmagicdesign.com/VideoAssist/20161117.../Video_Assist_Manual.pdf[Accessed on 24 March 2019]