TRACES SIMONHUGHES SIMON HUGHES ADVANCED CREATIVE PRACTICE CAAD 6001
C O N T E N T S I n t ro d u c to ry Qu ot e 1 P r o po sa l 2 C ov er S p r ea d 3 - 4 T e sts / Fo ca l L en gt h 5-6 / L en s T ec h n i qu e 6-7 / W h i t e B a la n c e 8-9 / T i m e-l a p s e 10-11 / Wo r k flo w + S o ft wa r e 12-13 / As p ec t R at i o 14-15 / D eta i l S p r ea d 16-17 / Po st P ro d u ct i o n - Fla r es 1 8 - 1 9 / S o u n dt r ac k 20-21 A rt i st R efer en c e / P h i ll i p B lo o m / Dav i d Ly n c h / V i n c en t L a fo r e / Ru t B lees Lu x em b u r g
22-23 24 - 2 5 26-27 28-29
Inspired Edits / E r as e r h e a d E d i t / S t i l ls E x a m p l e / V i d e o E x a m p l e / L u x e m b u rg E d i t / E x a m p l e S p r e a d / V i d e o E x a m p l e
3 0-31 32 -33 34 -3 5 3 6-37 3 8-3 9 4 0-41
T u t o r i a l F o r m s 42 -4 5 C o n c l u s i o n 4 6-47
“When we define the Photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it represents do not move; it means that they do not emerge, do not leave: they are anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies.� Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. p57
P R O P O S A L
F
or this project I would like to explore the identity of the music venue as a space and its part in music culture. My concept is to explore the cultural wealth of the venue and the impact it has on the music scene and the society around it. It will be a time-based piece in a documentary style incorporating moving and still images, sound clips and a suiting soundtrack. I will look at the absence of people in the venue before and after a gig capturing the essence of the venue.
from the tutorials of Phillip Bloom over the course of the summer to improve my filmmaking. I have also been reading DSLR Cinema and websites such as 5DCinema.com
Based on photographic influences, such as Rut Blees Luxemburg, Joel Sternfeld and Richard Page, and Directors/videographers such as David Lynch, Edward Burtynsky, or Philip Bloom, I would like to explore a ‘sense of place’ using various photographic techniques and visual language to develop ideas that will lead into my final project.
My strengths would be my knowledge of shooting video with a DSLR, I have been doing this for over a year. This will allow me to think fast in the venue when it comes to setting up my camera and start recording quickly. One of my weaknesses would be time keeping and motivation; I would continue to pursue new artists and filmmakers to keep my creativity up.
I would like to explore using different methods of shooting to get the desired shots suitable for the type of film I am creating. These include dolly’s, monopods some handheld movements and if accessible, a steady cam. I will be editing in Final Cut Pro as I have a competent knowledge of it currently and wish to further expand my skills, I will be incorporating colour grading in my work, which I will use to enhance my visual language to suit the scenes. Initially I will take my inspiration from commercial photographer and videographer Chase Jarvis, his work encompasses the whole notion of turning a still into moving image. I have been learning
I have identified in my summer research my desire to shoot video which tells the story of people, initially I wanted to explore video portraits in a literal sense, instead I am doing it through the means of the music venue as a place.
As a musician in a band I am immensely inspired by the music venue, it is a place of energy and performance and the essence of place and its history feed in to the performance. Being part of the music scene allows me to get into venues before the public arrive; this will allow me to take a view into what’s hidden to the general public. I will shoot the venues that my band plays at before and after each show to convey the rise and fall of energy in the venue throughout the night.
FOCAL LENGTH
C O M PA R I S O N FO R V I D EO
Focal length examples of the lenses I own. Canon 17-40mm f/4 L Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM
Focal length is just as important in video as it is within stills photography, it can be used to emphasise the scene or show the full picture. The difficulty at shooting with longer lenses towards the telephoto end of the focal range is image stabalisation, the greater the focal length the more stabalising required. For this project I have used a maximum focal length of 50mm and the widest at 17mm. The wide angle focal length of 17mm allows me to make objects and people look larger in the scene and use the lens distortion to its strengths emphasising the shots.
A disadvantage of shooting at a wide angle is being aware of what is in shot. 17mm gives approximately a 93 degree viewing angle on a full frame sensor such as the Canon 5D Mark 2. Shooting at 50mm allows me to view approximately what the eye see’s on full frame at a 40 degree viewing angle creating a more focused tighter cropped frame.
Another benefit of using a wide angle lens is that focus is more consistent. I use the Canon 1740mm L f/4 lens, shooting at 17mm at f/5.6 > f/8 depending on lighting conditions allows me to have a lot more in focus at these apertures than say using my 50mm lens at f/1.4 > f/4.
Still from ‘TRACES’ @ 50mm f/1.4 due to low light at the venue. 1/50 Shutter speed ISO 1250.
LENS TECHNIQUES
FREE-LENSING / LENS WHACKING
‘Whacking’ a Canon 50mm f/1.4 + Canon 5DMarkII
Manfrotto 561BHDV Monopod
To create a ‘tilt-shift’ effect without a tilt-shift also enter the camera when the lens is detached lens, I have experimented with free lensing, also and land on the sensor. known as lens ‘whacking’. Without a tripod or a monopod it is difficult to This is a very effective technique and creates hold both camera and lens together. In my tests a distinct look on objects and people, it is largely I have used my Manfrotto 561BHDV Monopod to used in landscape photography and certain por- steady the camera with its 4 stabilising feet while traits. Interesting light leaks and flares can add to I shift the lens away from the camera body. I also the footage straight out of camera, this is some- found this technique effective when using my Manthing which can also be done in post-production frotto 055PROXB tripod. using layers of stock footage film burns available online. Another difficulty is the inability to manually change the aperture of the lens once it is detached Creating this look also comes with a number of from the camera. This is possible on older lensdifficulties; es which require a conversion mount, eg.- using NON-AI, AI or AIS Nikon lenses. Removing the lens from the camera will remove any weather sealing features that the camera may have when a lens is attached (note, not all DSLR’s with HDVideo have weather sealing). Dust may
Free lensing still w/ 50mm f/1.4 lens
Free lensing video w/ 50mm f/1.4 Ungraded SOOC
WHITE BALANCE
Custom WB - 2800K
Auto WB - 3000K
Daylight WB - 5000K
Cloudy WB - 6500K
Shade WB - 7500K
Tungsten WB - 2850K
Fluorescent WB - 3800K
Flash WB - 5500K
While most of the scenes in my film will be colour graded to correct white balance, it is important to get the right look in camera as much as possible before shooting. As I have demonstrated the 2 extremes of colour cast which can be gained through incorrect white balance, this would be a big issue to fix in post-production. As a lot of what I will be shooting is under colour cast lighting I must get the skin tones correct. Test videos of White Balance can be seen on the DVD.
T I M E - L A P S E USING THE INTERVALOMETER SETTING WITHIN MAGIC LANTERN 2.3 Without having an independant remote for creating timelapse movements, I decided to look within the features of Magic Lantern. I had never used this feature before so it needed some experimentation. Magic Lantern 2.3 has an in-built intervalometer to create timelapses up to 500 photos without the requirement of a remote.
Once the stills have been captured, I then took them into Lightroom for processing. Once they have been exported from Lightroom I can then create a video from them using Quicktime 7 using its Open Image Sequence tab, selecting the first image from my time-lapse and selecting a framerate. Frame rates available range from 60fps to 10 seconds per frame. Depending on how many frames shot will determine how long the time lapse will be.
Using time-lapse is a great way of magnifying motion over an extended period. As these stills are created at full resolution of the camera there is Time-lapse can be seen as staple scenes in mova great amount of scope for transition during the ies such as Zeitgeist and music videos such as length of the time-lapse. A comparison of frame Parkway Drive - Dark Days. size between still and video can be seen below.
Time-lapse of 500 shots taken out of a window at home, pieced together at 10fps. Can be seen on test section of DVD.
Time-lapse of approx 120 shots taken at Sin-City, Swansea. 12fps - 10 Seconds. Can be seen in my movie Traces and on test section of DVD.
ED I T I N G S O FTWA R E FINAL CUT PRO OR PREMIERE PRO? I N C L U D I N G W O R K F L O W My main experience with video editing has come from Apple’s Final Cut Pro 7, I have watched numerous instructional videos on how to use it correctly in my time as a videographer. It also comes with drawbacks, it is extremely slow to render and while you can preview effects and colour correction in real time (providing you are editing with Apple’s ProRes422 codec) it is relatively old software now. This has lead me to move along from using Final Cut Pro into the Adobe suite Premiere Pro CS6, it can work natively with DSLR footage which with the rise of popularity in these cameras is excellent and makes editing more accessible to anyone who owns a DSLR with video function. However, Canon DSLR’s shoot using the H.264 codec which is unsuitable for editing but excellent for playback and web publishing immediately after shooting/editing. This leads on to my decision to work using a ProRes422(LT) codec and then output for H.264 once my edit is complete. Once the footage has been imported onto my computer from the compact-flash card, it must be converted using a free piece of software known as MPEG StreamClip available at http://www.squared5. com/ . Files are imported into a named folder and my workflow looks like this; DESKTOP/FOLDER_NAME/RAWVIDEO Converted footage is them put into a new folder after its been run into MPEG StreamClip DESKTOP/FOLDER_NAME/PRORES The main folder is then transfered to an external scratch disk, keeping a backup on 2 drives as security for the footage. The workflow then looks like this; SCRATCH DISK/FOLDER_NAME/RAWVIDEO (KEPT ONLY FOR BACKUP) SCRATCH DISK/FOLDER_NAME/PRORES (REFERENCED IN NON-DESTRUCTIVE EDITOR SUCH AS FINAL CUT OR PREMIERE PRO)
OR
Conversion process; SOOC H.264.mov’s converted to ProRes422(LT). mov’s. Frame rate is left untouched, any changes to frame rate is done in post-production. ProRes422 is a faster format to edit although the file sizes are larger. Once editing is complete the file is then outputted from Premiere; 1080p - 25fps - H.264 / 5000kbps Data Rate.
FINAL CUT PRO 7 I initially started out editing this project inside Final Cut Pro, as the program is several years old and was missing some of the plug-ins that were needed for this project I switched to Premiere Pro CS6.
ADOBE PREMIERE PRO CS6 As well as having advantages of switching to Premiere Pro, I have also faced the disadvantage of not knowing the quick keyboard shortcuts like I did with Final Cut Pro.
A S P E C T R AT I O ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN
Using an anamorphic crop in post-production allows me to create emphasis on the scene. While adapters and lenses are made to create this look, it is not possible for me to do it in-shot so instead I complete the look in post-production.
Popular anamorphic crops include 1.85 : 1, 2.35 : 1 and 2.55 : 1. Using a crop marker on my camera via- Magic Lantern allows me to film with the crop in consideration. Adjustments can be made to the axis of the shot in post to correct any discrepencies. 1.85 : 1 Examples of these masks can be seen opposite.
2.35 : 1
5D Mark 2 w/ 17-40mm L Lens Magic Lantern 2.3 running Cropmarker @ 2.35:1 2.55 : 1
1.85 : 1
2.35 : 1
2.55 : 1
PO ST-P RO D U CT I O N TRANSITIONS Using a transition is a traditional technique of moving from one scene to the next, common transitions include cross disolves, blurs and swipes. Many of these techniques are used in George Lucas’ series Star Wars. Throughout my tests I found that these types of transitions didn’t suit the style of my film as I am aiming for a gritty/scratchy style to my scenes. I feel that traditional disolves and blurs would be too clean and polished and would also not suit the tempo of my edit. Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 which is my chosen suite for editing includes a number of stock presets for creating these transitions.
Example film disolve in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, completed by layering 2 video tracks over eachother and then adding the disolve to the end of the top track which then lowers the opacity over a keyframe timed period to create the disolve into the scene below.
Instead of using these transitions, I have chosen to use ones which simulate traditional 35, 16 and 8mm film burns. I downloaded a pack of freeware low-res filmburns from YouTube and also a smaller pack of royalty free 720p film burns. In order to use as a transition, the clip must be placed on a track above the clips you wish to transition between then set a blend mode similar to the layers palette in Adobe Photoshop. I have found that blend modes such as Screen and Soft Light work the best to achieve the film look I am creating.
One disadvantage of using these film burns is that they are of a lower resolution than the film I am creating. I will have to scale the film burns up to match the 1080p sequence settings, this in turn will also create a problem of losing quality. To counter this I have added a layer of blur to the clip to remove any pixelation that occurs in the up-scalling. An advantage however, is the flexibility in colour grading the film burns to create a different look to the stock colouring they originally had, this can be seen opposite in a still from the film’s introduction.
SO U N DTRACK This Will Destroy You - Burial on the Presidio Banks Initially I wanted this song as the soundtrack to my film, it is slower in tempo and of the post-rock genre. With the slow build up of the music into chaos I wanted to portray the venue as a space that is transient. Through feedback in tutorials I came to the conclusion to move away from this song and onto something more up-beat with a faster tempo.
BRAND NEW GASOLINE When looking for an up-tempo track I came across Gasoline by Brand New. The song features massive snare hits and screamed vocals which would be effective to use in timing my music to as well as convey the story of the venue as I want it to come across. I will further mix this into another song to give the video diversity over the 2 minute length of the film.
PIXIES WHERE IS MY MIND? Famously seen in David Fincher’s Fight Club, I chosen to use Where is my Mind? as it has an eery sense to it, I will cut it into my edit after a build up of chaos, much like Fincher’s movie did. I will be using roughly between 20-30 seconds of this song before bringing the chaos back into the video with fast cuts and a suitable soundtrack to end on.
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE SONGS FOR THE DEAD I chose to end my film with the intro to this song as it is a built up of drum chaos which will then descend into black at the end. The song has a pulsing energy which I found I couldn’t find in any other song to match the feel of my film, the tempo of the song will help my edit and create a panic and energy which could be matched at a venue.
PHILLIP BLOOM PORTRAIT OF A BOXER
One of the main videos I have come across which references place and it’s essence is Phillip Blooms ‘Portrait of a Boxer’ which comes from his ongoing series ‘Portrait of a…’. Phillip Bloom’s videos have been instrumental in my development as a videographer and almost everything I have learned so far has been through his DSLR educational videos.
The video tells the story of boxer Festim, narrating what his sport of boxing means to him. Bloom does an excellent job of establishing the boxing gym as a place of immense speed and its history, the walls are clad with photos of the gym’s boxing champions and the shots of solitary objects magnify the wealth of the venue. This is a large part of what my project is about so I will try and emulate Bloom’s shooting style as well as the ethos of this video.
Bloom’s video, available on Vimeo (see below for link) was shot as a commison entry for Sony’s Extra.Ordinary using their Super 35mm format Behind the scenes videos detail the technical FS100 camera and Carl Zeiss optics. aspect of the shoot. Shots without any fight action are shot at 1/50 shutter speed which is the Phillip Bloom is prolific for his use of tripods and traditional filmic speed to use, action sequences uses them to a large extent in the establishing are shot at 1/100 or 1/125 speed. Like Bloom’s shots of the gym, afterwards he moves on to a video I will also shoot at 1080p 25fps and use a shoulder rig to create movement which isn’t too standard shutter speed of 1/50. streamlined or steady but neither is it rigid like handheld video. https://vimeo.com/39453069
D AV I D LY N C H E R A S E R H E A D David Lynch’s 1977 black and white movie is as surrealist cultural icon Salvador Dali and Max set in an industrialised world centralised around Ernst. the life of Henry Spencer coming to terms with the birth of his mutant alien child, his relationship with An industrial soundtrack accompanies the his girlfriend and his own mind. movie and is used to create tension and drama amongst the scenes. This, as well as the aesthetic The movie features a dark tone of aesthetics, monochrome and grain elements of Lynch’s craft deep blacks often contrasted with blown out for this film is what I intend to take into my own highlights. Lynch uses his directing as a strength project. The creation of long scenes void of human in this, one of his earlier movies. Long drawn out interaction will be magnified by a fitting soundtrack scenes with little to no dialog leave the viewer as to complete the composition of each scene. bamboozled about Henry’s life as he is about it himself. The movie uses an 1.37:1 aspect ratio which I feel may be too wide open for my short film. I As with many of Lynch’s movies, there is a intend the scenes to be more focused with a surrealist element to the storyline; the lack of tighter cropped composition using the widescreen dialog and the sometimes whacky lines of Mary’s to my advantage to keep the viewers eyes where I family. This could be a reference to artists such intend them to be looking.
VINCENT LAFORET N O C T U R N E
Vincent Laforet’s ‘NOCTURNE’ is one of the The film demonstrates many technical aspects original cinematic movies made using the CANON which were unknown to me before seeing it. I was 5D MARK II, which is also the camera I use to unaware that ISO6400 would look useable as it shoot my work. does in Laforets film. Shooting with lenses wide open is often tricky Laforet worked as Director and Director of Pho- in maintaining focus so cranking up the ISO will tography (DOP) on this film commenting on the allow stepped down apertures such as f/4 and upfilms use of only ambient natural light available at wards to be used - creating a larger field of focus. the time of shooting, at night. As well as visuals the film has a considered This is another similarity to my own project as I soundtrack, this is something I had difficulty with too will only be shooting at night in venues, using originally when starting the edit of my film. Timing the venues house lights as my only source of light- is critical to the mood of the film and without the ing. Different lighting affects the scene and Laforet right soundtrack, that is lost. uses the street lamps along with careful colour grading to emphasise the narrative.
https://vimeo.com/7152063
R U T B L E E S L U X E M B U R G
Rut Blees Luxemburg - Towering Inferno (1995)
The work of Rut Blees Luxemburg has become the heaviest source of inspiration and research for this project as well as my extended essay. I decided to look into how artists and photographers pursue a world void of obvious human signifiers through art; creating a portrait of society without featuring an actual phyiscal human.
curtains in Luxemburgs image opposite entitled ‘Towering Inferno’ (1995). This image is possibly one of Rut Blees’ most popular images, appearing in popular culture as the sleeve for debut album ‘Original Pirate Material’ by The Streets.
My short movie will be shot indoors largely with a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR, despite the smaller forLuxemburg is one of a number of artists and mat I am able to shoot a lot of this project privately photographers I chose to comment on due to the without any obviousness to what I am doing. The depth and the shear wealth of the subject her ex- venue lighting will help me to emulate the aesthetploration has covered. The series that Luxemburg ic quality that Luxemburg gains in her imagery, has been creating on her 5x4” format camera over often over saturated due to the colour temperathe last 15-20 years is rich in social commentary ture of the lights at night. This is something I could which describes the places she photographs with- choose to do straight in camera or during post proout us, the viewer needing to be there with her. duction in a non-linear editing software suite such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro. In terms of technique, Rut Blees has confirmed that its not the process behind her photography which drives her. She does not know a terrible amount about the photographs nor does she require to, she uses photography as a tool to convey her analysis of the scene, as if we were seeing it through her eyes. As my project will be shot digially as a moving image I cannot mimick her 5x4 format photography, instead I will be taking the scale and focus for commentary into my own work. Although this is a body of stills work I am able to see a lot of movement in the images I have chosen of Luxemburgs, I aim to make my short film appear as a still with sudden moments of movement and emotion from the scenes. There is a blatant human presence behind the
INSPIRED EDITS
This original image taken at Undertone in Cardiff is a still from the video piece. I wish to explore the things that people leave behind or in this case bring along to the venue before it begins. Here is the bands equipment while setting up, this includes amplifiers, clothing and merchandise which the bands use to make a living. The original image is shot using the Technicolour Cinestyle picture style which allows maximum dynamic range in the shadows, this is helpful for me as the videographer to show what lies underneath and what is often overlooked. The main inspiration on the edit I intend to do to this image is to replicate David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’. This image tells a lot about the people who are in attendance at the venue, their presence is obvious. The moving image will be cropped to a 2.55:1 ratio widescreen image to thoroughly focus the attention on the belongings. There is a noticeable flickering flourescent bulb in the background, this gives the moving image a glimpse of presence.
ER AS ER H EA D ED I T
The first of the inspired edits is for David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’. Although the film is completely monochrome in aesthetic, it has a depth of narrative through the colour and the story is saturated despite the black and white. My edit appears to be too blown out in the level of the highlights compared to the look of Eraserhead, this is something I will fix before the final edit of the short film as well as adding the 2.55:1 widescreen bars.
Monochrome test - screengrab
LUXEMBURG EDIT Analysing one of Luxemburg’s images, the viewer will be overcome with the saturation and hues that she has managed to achieve in her large negatives. To recreate this digitally in stills or moving image I will need to do one of a few things. Firstly I will need to change the white balance of the image/video correcting the whites to the same colour temperature to that of fluorescent tube lighting or street lamps. Secondly a tint needs to be applied to accent tones in the image, balancing the image to be yellow primarily and then adding a green tint to the shadows. The shot opposite is a stairway I encountered in Cardiff at a venue named Bogiez (formally known as Cardiff Barfly). This is the back entrance to the venue for bands only, immediately as I walked down the stairs I could feel the history of the venue soaked into the decaying concrete steps I was walking down from the many bands who had headlined previously. I felt that this image needed to be edited in the Rut Blees Luxemburg style as there is an obviousness in the presence of the people who have been there although we cannot see their essence, only motifs they have left behind with the graffiti and stickers.
C O N C L U S I O N Over the course of this project I have developed further as a videographer, I have shown examples of learning and crafting the final look of my film to the best of my ability.
more and get many different types of shot which I have been unable to achieve in this project. In further I will also take on tutorial feedback more seriously as I feel my own practice has been let down by not actioning every piece of tutorial instruction, Using relevant film makers in the same field as I only selectively working. am, using HD-DSLR’s as the medium is beneficial as well as a draw back. My biggest drawback was In the next portion of my project I am to branch the limitation I had with lens focal length. For the into After Effects and incorporate text syncing to continuation of this project I plan to invest or rent the soundtrack as well as motion graphics effects suitable lenses to craft the look I desire. to further emphasis the wealth of my film. I have recently purchased a GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition Camera which will allow me to have a wider field of view when shooting in small venues with its fisheye lens. Due to its discreet size I will also be able to film incognito so that people are unaware they are being filmed which can often create difficulties. The GoPro is also a time-lapse too so I can create timelapses much easier, the camera is also weather shielded and waterproof. I feel that by moving from Final Cut to Premiere over the course of this project has also been an advantage and a disadvantage. It has added a great deal of speed to my workflow however, as i am new to the program I unfortunately have taken a long time learning the keyboard shortcuts. In continuation of this project I hope to shoot
Critically, I believe I could find more relevant film makers to further inform my practice however I feel the ones I have chosen have been relevant and informed to this current video. I would like to explore further into music culture and further my studies of the venue as a place and consider notions of non-place. I am interested in telling the story of a band or specific subculture for my major project. Test footage can be seen on the DVD.
TRACES