FILMNG HARPOOON MARLIN FISHERMEN IN TAIWAN - 'A TOWN CALLED SUCCESS'

In 2011 I was invited to do a talk at an event run by The National Taiwan University on science film making for international broadcasters. Other people speaking where commissioners from National Geographic, Discovery Channel and NHK and producers and execs from Infocus Asia - a major supplier of factual TV to these channels, and a company I’ve done a lot of work for. My job was to go last and talk about the cool stuff - hanging out of helicopters and diving with giant jellyfish - all in the name of filming science! So it was a lot more fun for me than most people and it seemed to go down well.

A few weeks later I was approached by a producer at Public Television Service Taiwan (their BBC equivalent) about working on a feature documentary they were making about the coastline of Taiwan. Every few years PTS make these high-end docs with the purpose of getting it out to as many international film festivals as possible and winning some awards! It sounded like a great project to be involved with!

So in February 2012 I flew to Taiwan for the first shoot. We had one morning to meet the team and prep the kit in Taipei before we flew to an island off the coast of Taiwan for the first filming days. The weather was terrible, and the characters we were filming didn’t really seem to be clicking and after a few days we headed to the next location unsure of how well the shoot was going.

The next stop was Chenggong in the south of Taiwan. That evening we were welcomed by the fishermen and drank a lot with them - as is tradition in Taiwan (in fact I’m yet to find a country in the world where drinking a lot isn’t an important ‘tradition’)!

The next day at 5am we were at sea with the crew, and the sea was huge. Their small boat bobbing around in the ‘black tide’ with waves crashing over the deck. They’d had film crews on the boat before and it seemed most of their experience had been of cameramen turning green in the first five minutes and spending the rest of the day lying on the deck getting in their way. So the fact that we managed to keep working all day seemed to impress them (although between you and me it was touch and go at times).

Between the evenings spent drinking at the karaoke and the days on the boat spent not getting sick they seemed to like having us on-board and welcomed us into their community so the rest of film was shot solely in Chenggong. 

The way they fish is, in a word,  extraordinary. Four men on a boat driving around in the largest waves they can find (this is where the fish are) looking for fish. That’s right, literally looking for individual fish. In an ocean. When they spot a fin the cry goes up and they chase the fish while the captain runs down from the bridge, along a plank protruding from the bow of the boat, straps his feet into straps right at the end of the plank and grabs a 20kg harpoon.
He then shouts directions to the guy who’s taken over the steering and eventually, with a lot of skill and a little bit of luck they harpoon a huge Marlin - usually weighing between 150 and 300kg. To say this technique is ‘sporting’ to the fish would be an understatement, if the fish dives even a few meters it gets away and often the fishermen go home with no catch. The fishermen also work with a local scientist who uses their harpooning skills to tag fish with GPS transmitters. An unusual alliance but without the fishermen's skills Dr Chiang can't tag the fish and without the data he's collecting there might no be any fish for future fishermen.

We returned five or six times throughout the year, filming in the community, at celebrations, with the fishermen’s families as well as a total of nine amazing days at sea. On the second shoot I gave the captain some prints of that first day at sea and even he seemed surprised that how big the waves had been that day.

Filming on the boat was incredibly hard. It’s small and has two levels, which meant climbing up and down with the camera. At the higher level the listing of the small boat is amplified so it's even harder to work to hold on a keep a steady shot. Simply walking along the deck couldn't be done without constantly holding on or even crawling - especially when I had the camera. The constant pitching and rolling meant anywhere I stood I had to brace with at least four points of contact and even then I’d often fall or slip when we were hit by a really steep wave. Toby the camera assistant and Frank the director often had to physically hold me down. After all the shoots the tally for items blown over-board stood at 1x lens cap, 1x baseball cap and 1x headphones, plus one broken viewfinder where the movement of the boat slammed the camera against a wooden support and then all my weight against the camera. Here’s Frank holding on for dear life on the first day -
 

There was constant spray and rain in the air. Each day I would go through two or three lens cloths by cleaning the lens almost every shot. In fact in the middle of one filming day the AP asked me to explain what filming on the boat was like and all I talked about was cleaning the lens - it must have been all I was thinking about! Here’s a video of this very interesting revelation...


On the very last shoot we were faced with a new problem. Health and safety laws changed in Taiwan so no one could go on a fishing boat if they didn’t have a fisherman’s license. After a whole year of filming, one more day at sea was all we needed so we found a way around - which ironically was by far the most ridiculous bit of health and safety we did on the whole shoot. We left the harbour on a tourist whale-watching boat then once out at sea we came along side the fishing boat. The waves were so big that the boats couldn’t tether together with out destroying each other. Instead, with some incredible boat control, the two boats held about a meter apart as they pitched and rolled in the large swell, narrowly avoiding crashing into each other. We had to pick our moment, waiting for the boats to align and leap from boat to boat, in a frankly awesome fashion!

My time shooting this film was really enjoyable and a great privilege. The fishermen and their families really let us into their lives and I hope they get as much out of watching the film as we did making it. I even got a Taiwanese nick-name, 'Lobo'. I never quite got my head around it but somehow it means both 'lucky' and 'white radish' at the same time. 

'A Town Called Success' will hopefully be shown at film festivals Worldwide in the near future so keep an eye out for it. It's a beautiful and non-judgemental portrait of life in Chienggong. The trailer is here (no subtitles I'm afraid - but the real thing will be subtitled into English).

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC 'ACCESS 360 WORLD HERITAGE' TRAILERS

Here's a promo scene and some trailers from a new series I've worked on this year. 'Access 360 World Heritage' The Amazon' goes out on National Geographic Channel throughout the world on 21st and 22nd September. There are more clips at www.adventuresinHD.com <>

KESSLER CINESLIDER AND ORACLE TIMELAPSE KIT - PRACTICAL REVIEW

I’ve now done two location shoots with the Kessler Cineslider and their Oracle controller. It’s been a learning curve to say the least and I think I’m now about ready put some words together about how I’ve found working with it.

The Cineslider isn't particularly new to the market and there are many existing reviews across the web. For that reason I'm going to write about how I've found integrating the Cineslider and Oracle into a busy location shoot schedule - not just in a test environment.

The shoots I’m doing are not ‘timelapse’ shoots. I’m not some dude going out into dessert for a week, sleeping in hammock next to a 5D clicking away all night and coming back with ten incredible shots to make a montage with a classical music soundtrack. I’m a cameraman who gets two weeks to shoot a hour of documentary television. The timelapses are something on the side to up the production value.

If you don’t know what the Cine Slider is then here's the Kessler site.

The Cineslider and Oracle controller's uses are wide ranging but the big selling point is the motion control element. This allows you to record a tracking move along the slider track and then re-play that same move over a specified amount of time – while a DSLR sits on top timelapsing. The result being a timelapse perhaps taken over the duration of a whole night which when rendered plays back in 15 seconds with a smooth tracking move thrown in for extra wow. And what about long-exposure time lapses I hear you ask - if the camera is moving then don't they go blurry? Kessler has an answer for that. The Oracle controller also acts as the camer's intervalometer. It moves the slider in increments, pausing before it fires the shutter, then when the shutter closes it moves on and repeats the process. Very clever.

The added advantage the Cineslider has over the smaller Kessler models (and most other sliders) is that it can also take the weight of a large body broadcast camera so you can do real time moves at full resolution and compression too.

Kessler gear is modular – there are lots of little bits and attachments that fit across their range. Which means that ordering a bespoke kit for your personal needs is a bit of a research mission (although they do sell a package of bits to get you going if that’s what you want). It also means the price starts to stack up from what you originally thought it would be. It’s not necessarily expensive but it did end up being more than I’d originally planned once all the peripherals had been taken into account.

The first thing you realise when you attempt your first moving timelapse is this thing isn’t a toy. It’s bloody complicated and very powerful. I’m only utilising a fraction of the possibilities that the Oracle controller is capable of and it’s already a stretch to get my head round.

This is not something that you can read the instructions of and then hit the ground running. You need a lot of time practising and refining. It’s a bit like playing a musical instrument - you need hours of practice before you can even play the easy bit of Stairway to Heaven.

And so that’s what I did (practice on the Cineslider that is, not learn Stairway on the guitar)! I sat in the camera room for hours, I took it to the park and then I sat in the camera room some more. The real time-eater is that with timelapses you get no instant feedback. You have to dump the card, render the individual pictures into video and only then can you watch it and realise to what extent you have hold of the wrong end of the stick.

I also pimped the kit out to suit my needs. I didn’t want to use the Kessler battery as it looked a bit bulky and I already have a box of V-lock batteries on my shoots – carrying an extra battery and charger seemed a bit silly. This meant I had to chop the end off their power cable and replace their cigar lighter socket (really!? In 2012? I guess in the desert you could power it for week-long timelapse from a car battery – so I’ll give then benefit of the doubt) with a D-tap plug so I could connect it to a V-lock plate. I got a small Manfrotto ball head to mount the 5D on. I bought spares of all the cables and connectors -mainly just standard computer LAN cables.

I managed to squeeze everything into a Pelican 1720 gun case. I think something slightly bigger would have been better (or two flight cases) but I wanted to keep it as portable as possible because of the kind of shoots I do. The Cineslider comes with a semi-hard case, which would be fine for road travel but I wasn’t happy checking it on international flights.

And so for the first shoot. Nothing like jumping in at the deep-end… three weeks in the Amazon rainforest during rainy season. I admit I was a little nervous about the Oracle controller and the electronics. It’s well built but it doesn’t have the really rugged, been-there-done-that feel that I like kit to have on this sort of job. In any case kit is either waterproof or it isn't and this isn't.

 

I was very careful with it. I didn’t get it out in the rain (of which there was much) and always put it on a ground sheet. I don’t trust LAN cables and connectors at all so I kept them as clean and dry as possible. At first I thought the use of these bog-standard system cables was a really weak link in the system, however I bet it kept the cost down massively and means spare parts can be bought easily at a cost of almost nothing.

At first I used the slider mainly for mounting the main camera on and doing real-time moves. I found it really easy to set up (I just attached the Sony quick release plate directly to the slider plate with a 3/8 thread bolt). I’ve used a lot of lightweight track before and one thing you can’t do is lay it on uneven ground. Although the Cineslider's move is short it really trumps in this respect.

This way of mounting does mean that you have no way to pan or tilt during a track - you’re limited to small crawls sideways. You have to see this in context though – to get any other sort of track move on this terrain you’d be talking about metal track, wedges, apple boxes etc – which isn’t going to happen in this sort of remote location. I have on order the Kessler hi-hat bowl which means you can mount a bowl head on the Cineslider to enable pans and tilts. I haven’t seen or used it but I suspect that once you’ve got the hi-hat, a Sachtler 20 head and full size broadcast camera on top it's going to be mega-wobbly. I’d like to be proved wrong about that. Even if is it too wobbly to do actual moves during a slide it will still make the whole thing easer to use as I'll have more control of the camera independently of the slider.

Now the biggy - timelapses. In all honesty trying to fit these in around ‘normal’ filming is very difficult. They take time to set up, time to run and then they don’t always work out how you expect so you have to do it again. This isn’t something that goes down too well with modern budgets and scheduling. You need a very understanding producer. I also screwed up a 'one time only' timelapse by putting a move on it - should have kept it simple I guess.

The work flow went something like this - I'd set a timelapse going and then go off with the main camera and shoot GV’s/B-roll or a sequence and then comeback at the end of the timelapse. This has a number of issues in reality, mainly that you need a spare member of the crew to sit with it (to stop it getting nicked and to stop inquisitive people ruining the shot) and unless you are very careful you often find you or other crew members need to walk through the timelapse shot in order to shoot the other things you’re doing. Also if something goes wrong with it and you’re off shooting something else you can’t just pop back and restart it.

One thing I found useful is to have two 5D’s. One on the slider and one on a tripod. This way you can leave two going and if one goes wrong it’s not a complete waste. If they’re both good then you’ve got double the footage.

Recording the moves that you want to be replayed during the timelapse isn’t as simple as it might sound. I understand why this is difficult (the way the motor/Oracle have to work) but it really is a pain in the arse, very difficult to get right and eats time. And you also can’t know if you’ve got it right or not until you watch the rendered timelapse back - in other words usually too late to do anything about it. Again an understanding producer is a great help. You can save three moves and then reuse them in multiple locations but I found that three wasn’t really enough to cover all bases.

Never the less over the last two shoots I have got faster, the moves have got better and my hit rate is on the up. So a lot of it is clearly down to practice - which is something Kessler does point out in the instructions. If you’re thinking of renting one for a couple of days shooting I wouldn’t bother – it’s only worth it if you’re going to invest a lot of time in it. I’ve had the production company asking me to advise other cameramen on how to use it and no one really understands that it’s just weeks of practice time you need. Which is basically not going to happen unless the other guy is an owner/operator too.

If you’re doing timelapses in this way - on a tight schedule and doing other things at the same time - you probably aren’t going to get the absolutely stunning all day long perfection that you might get if you were concentrating solely on timelapses. But you can still get some visuals that will catch the viewer’s eye and have them wondering how you did it.

The Cineslider and Oracle are undoubtedly great pieces of kit. Most of the difficulties I've had with timelapses are because of the nature of timelapses - not because of any problem with the kit. The Kessler kit really makes it as simple as possible to do something really quite complicated. Having the Cineslider on shoots to quickly pull out and use with the main camera has been great - and has upped the production value in locations where taking more than the bare minimum kit can be difficult.

It's taken two shoots but I think I’ve mastered Stairway. Next up is Bohemian Rhapsody. Scaramouch.

LOOKING AFTER WET CAMERA KIT IN RAINY SEASON AMAZON

For people who live in the Tropics this post might be old news, but if you don't and you're going on a shoot somewhere humid it could keep your camera rolling and your shoot moving.

I've filmed in humidity and rainy season before. I had two memorably wet nights with fishermen on a rock in the middle of the swollen Mekong river in Laos, and a week crocodile hunting in the southern Philippines amongst other things. The thing with these places is that however deep you go into the jungle in South East Asia you can pretty much guarantee you'll find some sort of accommodation with walls and a roof and maybe even aircon. The weather is also generally very hot which means that even in rainy season it is often hot enough to dry kit out between rain storms. These moments of respite from the rain and humidity are essential to allow your gear to dry out.

The Amazon basin is different. There's more rain, more humidity, more water (where we were there was almost no land), fewer people and almost no guesthouses. It was also a little cooler than Asia which meant that instead of hot and humid it was often cool and humid which basically just meant the air felt very damp.

In order to have somewhere to sleep we had to take it with us - in the form of a boat which was our transport, dormitory, restaurant and kit room. It was covered but didn't have sides which meant the all pervading damp set in pretty quickly and didn't fully dry up for the whole time we were there. We were filming through rain storms almost every day so the kit was actually soggy most evening too.

So how do you keep kit dry and working in a situation like this? You need two things - a large waterproof case and a lot of silica gel sachets.

Every night we would break the kit down completely (a pain in the arse when your kit is Sony PDW700, two broadcast lenses, EX3, nano flash, sound kit, 2X go pros, 2x 5DMkII, 2X radio mics, 416 boom mic). We'd separate out the soggy non-electronics (rain covers, camera jackets, Rycote softie etc) and hang them out as normal. During a wet night these wouldn't dry at all but I'd brought two rain covers so I could choose the least wet one and give the other a few hours of daylight to dry out.

The electronics were then all put in a large Pelican case and loads of silica gel sachets added. For a European putting wet kit away in a box feels very counter-intuitive. But come the next morning the the kit would be dry, and most importantly working. Some of the silica gel sachets had actually turned into bags of water - I've never seen that before.

As for the batteries - where possible I was trying to get them on and off charge before we went to bed. This way I could put them away in drybags for the night. Most nights I had to leave one or two charging though. To protect these I built a little tent out of a tarp' so they were sheltered from the damp and condensation but the cooling fan on the charger still had some air around it. The tripod and other bits of hardware got an occasional spray with WD40 which seemed to be enough.

All this meant every morning and night the camera assistant Paulo and I had a full gear strip down and re-build to do. Which along with dumping the cards from the 5D, GoPros and Nano Flash meant a lot of extra work on top of the shooting day. But it kept the kit going so I guess it was worth it. We had actually taken a spare, or at least an alternative, of every single kit item just in case - even a spare camera body. Thankfully we didn't need it.

For keeping the kit dry during the day I had absolutely everything in dry bags or Pelican cases. Zip lock bags, bin bags, tarps, small drybags, big drybags - anything water proof. I have a fully water proof backpack/run bag which was essential. I thought I'd taken a lot of this kind of stuff but it turned out we used every single thing I had - you can never have enough it seems. It's also good to have ways to hang your drybags off the ground - it's one thing to leave a dry bag out in the rain, it's another thing to have a bag full of kit and rushes sitting in a puddle.

By following this gruelling regime we had almost no water related issues with the kit, which was a small miracle. The only problem came from a Gopro which had a temporary humidity shutdown - after a night when it hadn't been put away in the dry case.

So there you go, that's how to keep your camera going in the Amazon. We had an awesome shoot - filming in some of the hardest conditions I've ever worked in. When we returned to civilization at the end of the shoot the smell of the kit, team and soggy washing was so bad we didn't allow the hotel cleaners into our rooms!

A little more on aircon - 
It's common for people not to use aircon when storing kit in the same room. The theory being that if in the morning the camera is cold and then you take it outside into the humidity it will suffer from condensation. This is completely true.

However, aircon units do also work was a dehumidifier so I'd argue that in some circumstances (drying kit in humid weather for example) it's probably better to have it on. The trick is not to have it on too cold - if possible set it just below the outside temperature. That way you get the dehumidifying effects and the camera won't fog up when you go outside.

If you must go from very cold aircon to humid outside it is always best to turn the camera on and allow it warm up before you leave the aircon. That way the temperature difference is reduced.

ACTUALITY AND CHARACTER BASED DOCUMENTARY IN 3D

Just a little note before you read on - this entry was written at the end of 2011. As eluded to in the blog, technology has moved on enormously since then so if I was going to shoot 3D now I would do it very differently!

At the start of any shoot I always have a little bit of trepidation about how it will go. Will we get what we need? Have a picked the right kit? Have I thought of everything for the region or terrain we’re shooting in? But rarely have I started a shoot without knowing if what we’re setting out to do is even possible.


The show was commissioned by a major international documentary network and was one of their first 3D shows. Like me they considered most of the 3D programming made over the last few years to be little more than 3D wallpaper. They wanted to do something riskier, grittier and new. As far as I'm aware only huge budget feature productions had previously tried productions like this in 3D. We were going to attempt it on a ‘normal’ broadcast doco budget - a great risk for the producers and broadcaster.

The limited nature of recent 3D factual programming can be attributed to the complicated technical process and the fact that it’s so new no one really knows what’s possible or how to do it. The technology is big, slow and expensive. Broadcasters and producers have rightly been playing it safe as they get to grips with the format.

3D technology and knowledge is now progressing so fast that things change every month. The best route to take at the start of job might no longer be the best route at the end of job. New technology is being released almost monthly and the learning curve for crew, producers and broadcasters is so steep that the knowledge gained from just one job can be a radical step forward.

And so after proclaiming at the end of my last 3D job, “Don’t even think about observational film making in 3D” I found myself at the start of this project being briefed, “We’re going to try as much hand-held as possible and make an observational doc.”

I came to the project after stereographer Karl Schodt had already made the decision to use the Genus Hurricane 3D rig. Probably the single most important, door-opening decision of the whole shoot. We were also going to use Canon AF-305 cameras.

Karl and I met in Singapore to prep the kit and shoot tests. I was amazed when the Hurricane rig came out of the box. Compared to the last rig I used it was tiny and most importantly a third of the weight. Our first challenge was to get all the peripherals (Inition Stereobrain, Black Magic Genlock, Nano Flash 3D recorders and battery power) mounted onto the rig. Normally these items can be separate from the rig but as I was going to run around with this thing on my shoulder we needed to make it self-contained. We ended up with boxes and cables lashed into every nook and cranny of the rig. The Stereo Brain was tucked in next to my ear and runs really hot - especially in the 32 degree heat and 90% humidity of rainy season Thailand. The occasional ear burn kept me alert throughout the long, grueling days.

We shot tests both for technical stuff and aesthetics and it also give me chance to practice with the rig on my shoulder. I managed about 5 minutes before I was drenched in sweat and couldn’t hold it any longer. I think the whole thing was around 20kg but it was entirely front heavy. There was no way to get any weight on the back to counter balance it, in any case there’s a fine line between counter balance and simply too much weight.

My first solution was to run straps from the back of the rig down my back to a waist belt to take some of weight down my back. This worked a little bit but I found them the most helpful for actually keeping the rig on my shoulder rather than taking load. I could lean and tilt forwards safe in the knowledge that rig wouldn't fall forwards.

We then moved to Bangkok to start recces and have a field test day. Here I added a handle from my Zacuto shoulder mount kit to the front of the rig. I bought a harness designed for photographers to carry lenses around their waists and adapted it so it hung around my chest. I got the strongest looking lens bag I could find and attached it to the harness. I could then put the Zacuto arm-handle into the lens bag and distribute some of the weight down to my chest. I also bought a back brace and wore my Hippychick support my back and spread more weight to my waist. I also used my Zacuto shoulder pad which I preferred to the one supplied with the Hurricane kit. I did however use the rather nice wooden Genus handles. If we'd had a little more time, money and I lived somewhere where high-end kit was more readily available I might have been able to put something together using a steady-cam vest and other bits. But again the whole idea behind this shoot was to achieve a lot on a limited (in 3D terms) budget and I was pretty happy with my homemade harness.

All this meant that I was very much the bionic man when built into the rig. It wasn’t easy to get in and out of so once I was locked in I would stay in it for as long as I could hold it for. These stints got longer as the shoot went on. The camera assistant Singha could also take some of the weight of the rig between takes whilst it stayed on my shoulder. Karl would get the runner to pass me bottle of water after bottle of water to rehydrate. It was extremely physical work especially in the Thai heat.

Very rarely on a job have a relied on the support of the camera team so much. I couldn’t do anything without the help of Singha, Karl, and often the second unit and 2D cameraman Lau. Just getting the rig on my shoulder was a three man job.
We also had an amazing gaffer and two sparks on the days when we had big setups.

After a few days getting to grips with the kit and work flow we really got it down. I would set the focus and exposure on the top camera and call my settings to Singha who would set the bottom camera. Simultaneously Karl would measure, set and check the 3D. We got it down so we could roll very quickly if needed. Amazing really compared to previous 3D shoots I'd been on.

Once the cameras were set they couldn’t be touched during a take. There was no budget for duel follow focus units so it meant we couldn't pull focus or touch the iris during takes. We had to shoot with wide depth of field in mind for this - not easy when we were almost always nearly wide open.

When doing hand-held in 2D I’m used to predicting people’s movements and preempting action but in 3D this is doubly important. It’s not just about keeping it neat and tidy and in focus - in 3D it’s about keeping the shot technically usable. One slight misjudgment and the whole shot could become unusable.

For example, if the lens inter-axial had been set for a 1.5 meter subject, that meant I couldn’t go nearer to anything than 1.5 meters. In a developing set-up, where perhaps I would be following someone between rooms, in order to keep the shot usable I would constantly have to maintain frames which had similar properties to the existing 3D settings. If someone was about to step into the foreground of the shot I would have to preempt it and take a step back to keep the shot useable. If there were foreground or edgy objects I would have to be constantly aware of them and chose my position and frame accordingly.

I also had to be extra careful with the rig when it was on my shoulder. The upward facing camera hung very low beneath the rig and was easily knocked. If this happened it would all have to be realigned. Realignment is common on all 3D shoots and is one of the added elements that slows production down compared to 2D. On the big fight nights the stadium was rammed and we were working to their schedule not ours - 10 mins realigning the cameras could mean missing the knockout shot so we had to be ultra careful and keep realignments to a minimum.

The Canon AF-305’s held alignment very well - much better than the EX3’s on my previous 3D job. The main down-side of them is that they’re not great in low light. This coupled with the light-loss of the rig’s mirror and the fact that I’d chosen to shoot everything at 1/50th shutter to hold the fast action slightly better caused us to need to light almost everything but the brightest exterior. I had the Gaffer’s work cut out when we needed the entire crowd of a stadium lighting just so it wasn’t a black hole on camera. We initially tried to use four 5K HMIs but we couldn’t get the light even enough and the direct light was blinding people trying to watch the fight. Instead we opted for twelve 4 bank Kinoflos rigged into the low ceiling. They weren’t enough to get a full exposure but did enough to pull the crowd up and give the background some detail.

Karl is a great ‘can-do’ stereographer. We both agreed that if 3D is going to be a success this time around it has to fit into the current conventions of television production. It's no good forcing rules and regulations upon production to the point where the final production is dull - but in 3D. The only way 3D will survive is if captivating and exciting television can be made in 3D. That’s what we tried to do on this job - never say no. 

The most challenging location was a training camp half way up a mountain in Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand. This was a back-to-basics hill camp with no electricity, basic accommodation and access via a 1km steep climb up a mud track and through a river.
 
There was no question we would need lights up there - and Litepanels weren’t going to cut it. Eventually we took a 1.2 HMI Par, 2X Kino Flo, a few battery powered Litepannels and, back breakingly, a 7kW generator. A village of porters had been booked to help us carry all this up the hill. But at 5am the next morning it was raining hard. Our vans drove through rivers and landslides slipping across the road. The porters, having more sense than us, only sent the village teenagers and stayed in the dry themselves. This meant two killer trips up and down the mud path for us and about four each for the kids. Three hours later we were soaking wet and covered in mud - each having fallen more than once. We were shattered and we hadn’t started shooting yet. It was totally worth it though as the location and characters up there were great and we shot some beautiful natural scenes the likes of which I’ve rarely seen in 3D before.

This production was a headfirst dive into unknown territory and we came out the other side having achieved more than we ever thought possible. We managed to shoot some really lovely unplanned moments and followed fighters from pensive back stage warm-ups all the way to the bloody glory and disappointment of a fight night.

I haven’t seen a cut of it yet but I hear it’s going well without too many technical issues. I can’t wait to see it, but what's more it's the content I'm interested to see. The fact that we managed to get so much great actuality regardless of the number of dimensions is a real credit to the production team. That we managed it in 3D is the icing on the cake - and that's how 3D production should be seen. The medium is not the message.

 Crew - Camera department - Karl, Singha, Lau, Gaffer Mann and his team of sparks and Mikey on sound. P/D Donovan, PM Michelle, AD and second unit director Kenny and fixer Tuktaa.





Singha on I on a lunch break - just out of shot is Karl in the same position.

THE DAY AFTER THE BANGKOK RED SHIRT CRACKDOWN 2010

I took these photos on 20 May 2010 in the streets of central Bangkok. I'd pretty much forgotten about them but talk of what might happen after this weekend's Thai general election brought them to mind so I thought I'd post them here.

20 May 2010 was the day after the Red Shirt rally was ended by force by the Thai military. Over five days of fierce fighting on the streets roughly 90 people were killed. The tens of thousands of Red Shirts who'd spent over two months camped out in largely peaceful protest against the government fled.

If anyone is interested they were taken on my Minox ML 35mm camera.

Lower Sukhumvit (the Bangkok equivalent of Oxford Street or 5th Avenue) was silent, no traffic and fume-free for once. 

This soilder was alone guarding nothing but piles of rubbish.

All the equipment from this beauty salon was strewn across the pavement. The beauticians had reported to work dressed in pink uniforms.

With no river taxis the dark boiling waters of the canals were unusually calm and reflective. It seemed to match the mood of the few people who were out trying to make sense of what had just happened.

The remains of Central World - one of the biggest and most modern shopping centers in Bangkok.

Amongst it all there were already signs of normal life returning.

The clean-up had already begun. The day after this 5000 Bangkok residents took to the streets and helped.

ADVENTURES IN 3D

A couple of months ago I did my first 3D shoot. It involved 12 days in Tokyo, 10 days in Singapore and 12 days in Shanghai. These might not be the most remote places on Earth but shooting them in 3D for over a month was an adventure in itself - especially as we were in Tokyo during the earthquake.


Shooting factual TV in 3D is such a new thing - there were many stumbling blocks throughout the shoot but we got through it and came home with 350 decent shots and a good programme. In 2D this is to be expected but based on the horror stories I’ve heard in 3D it seems to be quite an achievement!

There’s no real consensus on the best way shoot 3D documentary TV. New technology is coming out every few weeks and I think that even people who seem to know their stuff are winging it much more than they let on. The one thing that holds true though is that there are certain rules of physics (which I won’t go into now!) to shooting 3D which no technology can circumnavigate. If you’re going to shoot 3D you have to read up, choose the gear that’s best for you and take your time to get it right.

We opted to use a large rig which could be changed to shoot both in mirror alignment and side-by-side (see the rig here - www.pro3D.tv). I’ve heard of a lot of other factual productions using side-by-side only rigs, which is easier and cheaper but very limiting. As we were filming character based stuff we shot in the mirror set up almost exclusively. This slowed us down a lot but meant we were shooting technically good, useable 3D.

We used two 5D’s mounted on a bar to shoot 3D time-lapses to provide dramatic cityscapes for the show. This worked really well as there simply wasn’t time to get the big rig away from the ‘content’ set-ups to shoot GVs.

The news from the edit is that our stuff has ‘muxed’ really easily and there have been very few headaches (literally) to report. Which is great news.

In side-by-side mode shooting Pudong area of Shanghai from a boat.

On The Bund shooting Tai Chi at dawn.

The crew at the end of the Singapore leg of the shoot.

Rig/derig/rig/derig X 350.

The empty aisles of Tokyo's convenience stores for days after the earthquake.