Set up, Sell out, and wear a Sari! *try not to get run over in the process!

I arrived in Delhi last sunday, so I’ve been here over a week. I sold out – corporate style- and set up ready to work. On my first day in the “office”, (where I’ll be filming for the company), I was informed that I would be flying to Mumbai the next day, and Chennai the day after that, and back to Delhi that night – they wanted coverage of diverse offices!

Luckily I wasn’t dragging around a z1 kit – just my nifty little 5D camera bag.

At the airport, I had some small issues getting through with everything as hand luggage – everyone has their own stories about sneaking gear in through security – tripods are especially suss. I was also lucky due to the fact I had three bags, when you’re only allowed one! I just said they all fit into my KEEN backpack – was risky, but it passed.

By my 3rd flight back to delhi, I simply tipped my backpack upside down and poured everything into the boxes for the Xray scan. That worked – no questions asked!

I recommend to other travelling film-makers to always bring your expensive gear onboard as hand luggage – which means your going to be lugging around

some pretty heavy bags, but it’s

not worth the risk. You can never have enough foam, bubble wrap and drysacks – to bring a’plenty. If you’re really on a shoestring, clothes, plastic bags and gaffer tape do the job fine!

Some more advice for fellow filming travellers is to buy a the same backpack I have – IF your not going into rainy climates. Ok, I know, it’s stupid – the bag doesn’t exactly close. But hear me out; having a bag which is designed (I guess?) for bike riders – the only access to the bag is via the top – through a cord string and metal latch. The curve of the bag makes it almost impossible for anyone to steal your gear – without taking you with it! I feel totally safe carrying my laptop, mic and other expensive gear on my back – but only with this pack. (Sucks if it rains though!)

Plus, KEEN is an awesome brand ~ their stuff just lasts. Mine, like most keen bags, is reinforced with a rubber underneath, so it never wears out.

SO – The shoots went well – but it was super fast. I would fly in – get driven from the airport to the first location/office – shoot everything I needed, have a bite to eat, then drive to the next office before flying out again. Not an easy task. But luckily enough, with spare batteries, and two 16 gig cards, there was no hassle waiting for ingesting or charging.

Now – normally I shoot on Manual – but with such a strict timeline, and literally running from office to office, I found using AV (Aperture Priority) really useful.

Basically, this mode allows me to change the f/number I’m shooting at. So if I run outside to get a nice wide shot of the office building, and need everything in focus and sharp, I bump up the f/stop to something like 8 – 10. (Depending on how wide, and how much image I need in focus) Then, when I run back inside, and need a dirty close up of an employer, I drop it back down to f/4. *For more detail on Aperture and Camera Shooting techniques – keep tuned. I’ll put up some “how to” videos and blogs for everyone starting out

The camera then takes care of everything else like Shutter Speed – but be aware – I highly recommend using Manual Controls, especially shootin

g Video as shutter can be quite an issue. But if your strapped for time, constantly changing locations, or doing some foreign correspondent style freelancing in a war zone – then yeah, sometimes automatic controls can be helpful.

Later down the track, I will also be going into the famous “rolling shutter” issue with the Canon 7 and 5D – a very misunderstood issue concerning all potential Canon 5D owners, and rightfully so. But I will explain why this shouldn’t hold back your decision to convert to DSLR videography ~ because it’s worth it.

I wont go into massive detail about the corporate video – basically that’s my ticket to film my documentary in Nepal! So I’ll try keep the focus on that. But just quickly – the editing went well, and fast thanks to the new plug in for final cut! (See earlier post).

I managed to cut a 3minute, 1 minutes and 20 second piece – ended up using one and a half / two cards 16G cards a day, so sorting through it was pretty tough – I started the converting on friday, then again on monday. Finished the assembly on Monday night and had it all cut together by tuesday to present.

Now it’s Wednsday – and I’m copying everything onto a Hard-drive for the company. BUT CHECK OUT THIS BEAST!!!!! >>>>

LaCie D2 Big Disk Extreme 500G vs LaCie Rugged 500G – which one would you choose? OH! And DID i mention that weighs more than my laptop?? A little behind India!! C’mon! You’ve gotta catch up!! I haven’t seen a 500G hard-drive that big in years…

Anyway. Enough whinging.

SO just one last thing in regards to corporate videos – I’ve attached a template for anyone looking to get into corporate work . This is basically a good starting point for anyone wanting to approach a company – but not sure what to ask them. The trick is – they often wont know what they want until they see it, so providing them with this type of questionnaire can be very helpful to you both. Check it out: template-project-outline

I recommend to everyone to work together with at least a crew of 4 even for small projects. And get a proper assistant editor or wrangler to make sure all footage is captured/ingested and logged correctly. I had to skip that process for now – which is highly annoying  – because it means I’ll have to go back to the footage to name everything. But in 2 days to produce 4 clips, when I only had 3 days to shoot travelling over 3 940 kilometres…!!! I’m pretty happy.

Anyway! I’m packing my bags for NEPAL!  So DEFINITELY keep your eyes out for this blog – because now it’s going to start getting iiinnnterreestting…..

Cheers,

~

j