The Beginning and the End

The first parts of the film have started to take shape and I must say I am pretty pleased with the look. I went to see Tasha today to have a look at what she had got so far, she had made a start on the intro and the ending and a rough cut of some of the Tregothnan footage. I got her to cut down the spinning cups to make it a lot faster and to slow down the charlottes tea house shots to make them look more cinematic with fades to black inbetween. Tasha is going to continue editing over the christmas break with the instructions I have given her. We decided the 3 questions that would work best for the piece were:
1) Why does Britain love tea?
2) What are your earliest memories of drinking tea?
3) What feeling do you associate with tea?
I think these will give a good selection and diversity of answers. I have every faith in Tasha's editing skills so I'm sure I will like what I see next time.

Now time for a break... or perhaps not!

Edit Nightmare - Glad That's Over

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So maybe that Tregothnan message wasn't such a quick side project as I had first anticipated! Tasha and I spent days locked in the edit suite and carried on at home once we'd been kicked out. It was the colour that was the main problem, as I have said before I shot this piece with the settings on flat as 'everyone' says it is best to do so and you get the 'best' results. What I didn't know is that you should only do it if you are very confident that you can colour grade it. The flat footage straight from the camera looks terrible, especially with the fact that it was a miserably grey day anyway, poor Jonathon looked dead! 

After hours of pulling our hair out trying to sort it out I decided to email Philip Bloom not expecting a reply at all but to my amazement he emailed me back almost straight away. It definitely brightened up what was shaping out to be a quite a catastrophe of a day. He was extremely helpful and even had a go at editing a short piece of the video and then told us how he did it. What a legend! After this Tasha then graded it using his tips and it ended up looking much better than the original. He also told us how to get the sharpness back in it, I think in hindsight I won't shoot with the sharpness all taken out of the video, but I guess you don't know these things until you try them.

Tregothnan were very pleased with the film and said it was exactly what they were looking for. I think it turned out well and I believe I played my roles to the best of my abilities. This is the first client film I have made and it feels really good to have done something that was not to do with my course. I hope I get more clients in the future. Fingers crossed the video is well received in India.

Now on to the 3 Minute Wonder edit... Lets hope this is not as painful!

We're interviewin' in the rain... Just interviewin' in the rain... What a glorious feelin'...

The Tregothnan shoot went really well :) We were faced with a slight problem when it started to rain, but I had gone prepared as I had purchased some tarpaulin earlier that morning. We were able to wrap the equipment up so nothing got ruined. I had one umbrella with me which I gave to Jonathon to use while he answered the questions and I used a reflector to keep the camera dry. I had Natasha use the LED light from the side and had Jamie use a reflector on the other to try and get some half decent light on Jonathon's face as it was a generally drab day and lighting was not helped by the black umbrella.

Originally I was really annoyed that it was raining but in the end I actually really like the effect it created. You can't get much more British than rain and after all the video is about Britain's Relationship with Tea. We also filmed a message for Jonathon to send to the Indian Tea Forum in Darjeeling, I'm really excited at the prospect of my work being seen in another country! I can't wait to get stuck in to editing it now, I hope it's not too stressful for us.

It's where the Witches was filmed didn't you know...

Today we had a shoot at the Headland Hotel in Newquay, I am really pleased with how it went. We interviewed the restaurant manager and the head pastry chef. They both gave us great answers which I am sure will make it to the final cut!

The hotel is surrounded by beautiful scenery and I tried to get some nice cutaways but it was very windy so I don't know how well they will come out in the end! 

The hotel were really accommodating to us, they showed us around the hotel and said we could film where ever we wanted. I really like the room we chose, it had a long table, huge windows, big plants and luxurious wallpaper. We set the interview chair up with the table running down the side, glasses all lined up in a row. Using the natural light from the window and a reflector we practise the lighting before the contributors turned up. 

They made us an afternoon tea which looked amazing and made a great prop for cutaways and worked well in the interviews too.

I am really pleased with how we are working as a team even if there was a slight disagreement today I think it was resolved well. As the director I tried to diffuse the situation to the best of my abilities, I'd like to think I helped but I'm not very good when it comes to confrontation.

I am really happy with the footage we have captured so far and the variety of contributors we have got on board! The only problem being the fact that we have so much footage and lots of that is really good! I am not very great at being ruthless and cutting clips I like, lets hope the rest of my team will be better at it than I am. 

New Beginning

We re-shot the beginning sequence today, I am happy with the final outcome, I prefer the setting compared to the first attempt. I think the colours are much better and the items in the background make much more sense. Have a look at some of the stills below. It did prove pretty fiddly to set up but well worth it in the end.

Tea Party with Teddies

We went to Pete's house today to film his daughter and her friend having a tea party! It was great fun and the girls were so cute, they just did as we asked and ignored the fact that we were there. They set up the tea party with all their teddies and gave them cups of tea and cakes. 

Heres some pictures of me filming the girls and having a cup of 'tea' with them. I think the footage came out really well, I especially like the still below. I like the depth of field and with the girls out of focus drinking tea in the background. I think it is going to look beautiful once it is edited. I think the shoot went well and I am really happy with the progress we are making as a team! Everyone is working well and I think this is a key part of producing a great final piece.

Natasha and I also attempted to film the beginning sequence again but we ended up running out of time because we had to leave for Pete's. I was glad that she got to see how much work went in to it though, it is surprising how fiddly it is! I like the new composition and colours better than the first lot of footage.

There was a bit of bad news today, the audio for the footballer interview is non existent! It's really annoying because I was so happy with the visuals, it was so different to any of the others with it being at night and I liked the footballers in the background out of focus. But never mind we may be able to use some of the footage without audio, we did get a shot of him drinking tea from a thermos. It's all part of the learning curve, I should have checked that Mike was ok with the equipment as I am director but I was distracted by trying to keep the camera dry! It was a last minute shoot, which is why Jamie could not make it and we did the best we could.

Afternoon tea with the ladies at the WI

Well this was fun! Along with all the team I spent this afternoon at the Womens Institute in Falmouth! I used a dolly for the first time and I think it worked really well, I like how it adds such depth to the shot and makes it look cinematic. Can't wait to see what the edit will look like. I attempted to use the dolly while we asked the ladies questions about tea but I am not sure if it will actually work for the final piece as it was difficult to keep the camera on the person that was speaking most. I do however really like the track I did around the ladies while they were drinking tea and this may work with the audio overlaid. 

Later Michael and I interviewed a guy who had just played football in the pouring rain. I really like how it looks with the rain and the people playing football in the background. The lighting is not  great and could have done with a reflector as well as the LED light, but we did the best we could with one of the other footballers holding an umbrella over me and the camera while Mike asked the questions and recorded the sound as the rain poured down on us. I like how this vox pop is very different to rest, I love how it is at night, I think it will work well in the final edit.

Charlottes Tea House

Such a quaint little place is Charlottes Tea House in Truro and the perfect place to end the documentary! Today I shot the final sequence... well at least I hope I did. Using a waitress and a willing customer I played out tea being served, made and drunk through different camera angles. The lady that was contributor for this part was really televisual and gave us a great final shot of her smiling to camera. I think it will work well but we will have to see how the edit comes out.