Apart from being a cinematographer and editor for my project of Sunday League, I decided to also help around by being the cinematographer of another project called I Pull The Strings, from Vittorio Falcucci and Ruby Rogers. This was actually a very good and nice experience because it happened a couple weeks after my shooting week, which allowed to explore a bit more working with a different team, different camera, different story and in a different environment in general. This allowed to see things that could have done different in my shoot, but also things we did right and how in this other one they could have been done different to make things easier. I think in this second one I did a better job in some aspects, because I had learned of some mistakes from the Sunday League shoot, like double checking the focus, taking my time and all that, which actually made a lot of difference. In I Pull The Strings, Vic was in charge of doing the lighting he wanted, but I was also there helping him with some inputs and my opinion on how it looked in the camera depending on the tone he wanted to set.
The first thing we did originally was to have a meeting where we went through the script, the story and the logistic of it. It was good to have a read at the script because it allowed me to know the type of scenes I was going to be involved with and also to understand the mood that in which the filmed developed, which actually made my job easier as I knew the kind of stuff I was looking for. On this one, I worked a lot with the director, Vic, as he knew pretty well what he wanted and at least the outcome of the shots, which allowed us to film more takes and different shots. The coverage of it was pretty big, we did a lot of different angles for each scene and Vic reviewed at least 90% of the shots that I filmed and more importantly was that within a day we had already built a trust relationship where he was trusting me in what I was doing and I was trusting that he knew what he wanted. This was probably one of the most important things, because one thing that no one really likes is someone behind you every minute checking if you are doing your job properly or not and although the director is meant to be checking the shots, if he had to hold a light or get out of the way in a shot, he trusted me, then reviewed it and said if it worked or not. It was actually quite good having a second opinion and another pair of eyes there at the moment checking every shot not only while filming, but also right after, going into playback and making sure that the shot was good.
The second thing that worked for me very well, was learning different techniques and working with a Canon as well, which I am not very fond to, since I think they are more photography cameras rather than video filming. The first thing I did of course was getting used to the camera. I took it and played with it, made sure I knew where all the settings were, specially the main ones like your white balance, ISO, focus and zoom. We worked with two different lenses, one of them being a wide one and the other one more of a zoom one. The wide one was used in just a couple scenes where the room was small or I was too close to a wall, giving the illusion that the room was bigger or just to get more of the room in the shot. The zoom one was more of out standard lens which actually came put to be quite good. One of the things I didn't like in general about the Canon and the way of focusing with the lens, was that things get out of focus really easy. It is great for depth of field and getting some nice and sharp images, but also can also be a bit tricky when you want just a simple shot and slight movement gets people or objects out of focus. The tricky part with the Canon is that the focus ring is very small and since there is no guide of numbers for the focus, it is really hard to move and get someone in focus at the same time as you have nothing to guide yourself with. What I did in this case was to practice the shot a couple times with the movement from me and the actor so I could have an idea of how much I had to move the focus ring and in which direction in order to keep the image in focus all the time. It was really tricky to be honest and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but I think that was probably the hardest thing to do in the whole shoot.
The third and last thing I learnt and liked about being on I Pull The Strings, was the importance of setting up not just a shot but a whole scene. Very different to our case as Sunday League, they were a bit less limited in time in due to the majority of the locations being unrestricted and or unpaid, meaning that we had more time to set up every shot from rehearsing with the actors, to lighting, makeup, camera practice, etc. Sometimes we took about an hour in one same scene just shooting it over and over from different angles and different takes, just reassuring that we had what was needed for the final piece. It was good that I had a good relationship with the director as well and that he listened to me as his cinematographer as well, because although he knew well the majority of times what he wanted, there were cases in which a decision needed to be made or something was working or I had an idea for a shot and he actually listened and a lot of time took on board my opinion. I think that the most important thing in a shoot is that people actually work as a team and they are able to listen to each other, because the stress and the pressure a lot of times can get easily to you in this type of situations, preventing you from seeing things clearly and needing for some extra help.
One last trick that we used for the camera was the use of tape at the top and bottom of the camera screen, to keep them as guide of what we were going to see if you added a widescreen frame to make it look like a movie, which was their case. This actually allowed me to know exactly where to frame and not leave anything to chance to be cropped in post when making the clips wide (See picture below). It was definitely great working with them and understanding how other people work because it allowed me to explore different ideas and learn different tricks and tips for any future shooting in which I could be involved.
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