The Digital Filmmaking Handbook

DSLR Test Shoot

April 13, 2012 By: Sonja Category: Cameras, Directing, General, How-to, Preproduction

No matter what your project is, scheduling a “test shoot” before the start of your principal shoot can be one of the most valuable pre-production tools available to you. Plan on anywhere from a half day to two days, depending on the complexity of your tests. Ideally you’ll have the director of photography present, and a selection of gear especially lights and grip equipment (the camera goes without saying, right?) and if needed, a stand-in or subject so that you can see how it all looks with a human in the shot. It’s hard to be both director and stand-in so it’s worth getting a friend to sit in for you.

For me, the first test shoot was very simple because I’d never used the video features of my DSLR camera. I knew it was notoriously good in low light so I tried shooting in my house at night without additional lights.

Last night’s video shot turned out great considering it was in very very low light and I was just using the kit lens. The dark areas were noisy but still in the range of acceptable. It almost feels like a miracle, seeing full-res HD footage coming out of this little camera and this tiny SD card. Also, bear in mind that this is the first time I’ve picked up a camera and shot something myself in ages. I forgot how much fun it is.

Here are some more stills, the video (mp4 so obviously not full res) is at the bottom of this post. Everything was shot with existing light from my laptop and the light fixture has a 40 watt bulb. It’s noisy but I was still pleasantly surprised.

The hardest thing for me to do is make myself sit at home and make phone calls. Today I need to call an acting coach who has casting recommendations for me, my insurance company (I already have a standard liability policy for my office but need to figure out if the shoot will be covered and equipment rentals). I also need to email a director of photography and look into buying more storage media for the T2i and also a media drive for all this HD footage I’m about to start generating.

We need some materials for a pitch reel to put up on our website about the film. Not a trailer or actual footage but something for people to look at that drives home the concept of the film and the style and the comedy. I’m planning to use casting to do double duty and shoot some of the improvs that we’ll have the actors do. That means I need to figure out sound recording for the T2i, which is clearly its weak spot.

Last night online, I found an article about how to get around the T2i’s automatic audio gain control. Supposedly if you get a splitter, you can send 60hz tone into the left channel and even though the audio won’t get recorded it will effectively disable the AGC. Supposedly this can be done by creating a 20 minute mp3 of 60 hz tone and putting it on an ipod Shuffle (which I happen to own) and hooking that into the left input of the splitter. Sounds too good to be true. But if it works, then all I need is to borrow a lavalier mic to send audio into the right channel. It’s not gonna be good enough for the real shoot but it is good enough for these casting videos.

There’s no headphone jack on the T2i so I’ll just have to trust that it’s recording, which is a little unnerving. So more test shoots to come.

UPDATE: Although you can’t monitor audio as you’re recording, you can play back the HD clips and listen to the sound on a very tiny speaker. Not as good as a headphone jack but at least you can shoot a test shot, check that the audio is recording and then hope for the best.

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Starting Small with DSLRs

April 11, 2012 By: Sonja Category: Cameras, Directing, Film Business, General, Preproduction, Producing, Production

Every big project is the cumulation of many small projects, right? At least that is true for feature films. For any director or producer there are many careful considerations before taking on an ultra low budget indie feature film.

If you’re coming into the project a little bit cocky and you should try to keep that in check. Thanks to my experience with reality TV, I know that a lot can be done very quickly and that you can also make something out of nothing as long as you are openminded and see the potential in surprises, accidents and other unexpected occurances. If anything, I’ve been well-trained with dealing with the unexpected but have learned to rely a little too heavily on “winging it.” Every first time director or producer has skills such as these that can be assets but also danger zones.

I’ve been meeting with the film’s writer over the past few weeks. She’s the one who brought the project to me and I liked the concept. It was also a truly low-budget idea, something I’ve failed to come up with on my own, and both of us were really excited about something we could get shot within a couple months. Since then, she’s been busy doing a rewrite and I’ve been reaching out to producers, other indie film directors and casting agents. It’s a little embarrassing making that initial call or email but so far everyone has been incredibly generous with their time and suggestions and it feels like we are making headway, getting actors lined up for casting, along with some potential crewmembers.

Miraculously, we have a new draft of the script as of today and I’ll be reading it tomorrow. Suddenly, there is something to work with. I’d talked with a friend who’s a DP and told him I have a DSLR that shoots HD video. ”Which one?” “A Canon Rebel T2i” “Oh, that’s actually pretty good.” I bought the camera in April after my T1i got stolen and I haven’t been truly happy with it until today. Not because of the camera itself but because I had to buy two cameras within a 12 month period. But today I was really truly happy with it because I started doing some test shooting with it to see how it feels (strange but cool) and to start to get to know the controls. And it just really sunk in that even if I am penniless on day 1 of shooting, I have the means to shoot a film sitting right here on my desk. It’s a bit unreal. I might have been one of those people who hung on to the idea of shooting on film because it’s beautiful, and it truly is beautiful, but as far as I’m concerned right now, I love HD.

So that’s my small start for today. Testing and experimenting with the T2i.

Next up: Audio for the T2i; looking into the digital slates for the iphone, thanks to a suggestion from Ben, and gearing up to shoot our casting sessions that begin next week.

Some slates for the iPhone: FilmSlate, ToySlate, DSLR slate, and the best (and unfortunately, most expensive, one) Movie Slate.

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