Holiday in NL May 30, 2007
Posted by joost in : film , comments closedI’m enjoying my term break, a week in good ol’ NL! Visiting friends and family, catching up, hanging out. Join me for a drink on Friday the 1st of June somewhere in a pub @ Cafe Thuys in Amsterdam West, or Saturday the 2nd for some drinks and sunshine in the Westerpark…?
Natural high May 25, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA, reflection , comments closedIt’s weird; I’m tired but can not go to sleep. The rush is too present to ignore. I only slept 4 hours last night, got up at 06:30 and was busy with my film, the debriefing and cleaning things up from 07:30 to 21:00. After that me and fellow dip11 survivors blew off some steam in the pub. It’s 01:40 now and the adrenaline is still rushing. Or maybe a natural high is a better description. I’m really really happy, about today especially, about the past two weeks and about my first term at the LFA.
The 2 minute films have been a great experience. Exhausting but very rewarding. I tried to give more than 100% every single day, and this attitude really paid off. I was enthusiastic and observant, kept concentrated, tried to help out others where possible and received help where I needed it. We really bonded much more as a group due to the 2 minute films. You are “forced” to work together and communicate, no matter if you can get along with somebody or not.
And if you think about it: this was only an exercise. The real deal is yet to come 
A day in the life of a director May 24, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedWhat a feeling! Two weeks of filming, new roles and experiences everyday, and now it’s done. I finished my schedule with a day of directing; for most people including me the most exciting and challenging day. The whole day is “about you”, or better said, about how you perceive the script and about your vision on how to turn it into a short film.
The day begins with meeting the actors, doing a readthrough (reading the lines of dialogue to each other from paper), chatting about the characters and their background and blocking the scene (finding the rhythm and “internal logic” of a scene). In the meantime the director thinks of the best angles and shots to cover the scene.
After this rehearsal, the actors play the scene for the entire crew (8 students and 3 tutors in this case). This gives everyone a basic idea of the story and geography. The director then describes which shots he wants to do in order to cover the entire scene. The crew starts preparations for the first setup, while the director has more time to rehearse the scene with the actors.
The first setup usually takes a considerable amount of time (1 hour or more) because all the lights have to be set up, the camera has to be assembled, the frame has to be fixed, etc. When the set is lit and camera and sound are nearly ready, the actors are called in again. Lights are adjusted after seeing the actors with makeup doing the scene, the frame might be adjusted, and the boom mic has to record the dialogue from somewhere…
The actors do a couple of rehearsals, for themselves and the director, but in our case also to give the students an opportunity to for instance practice a focus pull or boom swing. When everybody is happy and feels ready, you go for a take. We have to be very economic with film stock because it’s expensive! – we get 400 feet which equals a little over 10 minutes of super16 footage. This is not much because it boils down to a 1:5 shooting ratio (for every minute you shoot, you end up with 12 “usable” seconds of material in the final cut), which sounds better than it actually is. Yet another reason to rehearse a lot, just to make sure that the one take you are going to do in the mastershot will work.
When satisfied with the take, the camera team checks the gate and you move on to the next setup, where the same steps take place.
As a director you constantly have to make decisions. Is the camera position and frame correct? How many rehearsals do you need? Is it ok for the actors to move from A to C instead of A to B in order to make it easier for the boom operator? Are you happy with the take or do you want to go for another one? Do the actors need more guidance or more freedom in their performance? Is the crew concentrated (enough) or is it better to have a break, even though you’re behind schedule? Can the make-up artist work on the actors now, or does she have to wait? Etcetera.
I really felt that I could rely on the team that helped me to realize my film today. It helped that it was the last day and that everybody was more experienced than two weeks ago, then again, most people were pretty tired because of all the long hours and giving it their best everyday.
I felt quite relaxed during the day and achieved what I set out to do: focus on the actors and their performance, tell the story in a simple and elegant way and do some fun shots as well as the necessary ones.
Work in progress of a fun shot on my set
A day in the life of a boom operator May 23, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedBeing a boom operator means more than just holding up the microphone that is attached to a pole. The boom operator is in general responsible for placing mics in the best possible way to record the audio. Sometimes this means a boom, other times a radio mic, or a fixed mic that is concealed from the camera’s eye.
The boom operator constantly “worries” about getting the mic as close as possible to the actors without disturbing the picture. Boom shadows plague his existence; shadows that the boom casts on the set – or even worse: on the faces of the actors – due to all the lights that hang or stand there. This causes some weird stretching or swinging moves at times when the boom operator is following an actor that is moving on the set, avoiding lights, set pieces or other obstacles.
At the same time the boom operator is focused on the “top edge”. This is the top edge of the frame that is visible on the screen. The boom operator tries to keep his boom just above this top edge. The easy way of doing this is keeping it a foot or more above, the challenging way is to try to keep it as close to the edge as possible but not below.
A day in the life of a first A.D. May 22, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedFirst A.D. is short for First Assistant Director. This person is the right hand of the director and tries to execute the vision of the director. Practically speaking this means that the first A.D. acts as a floor manager on the set. The first A.D. makes sure that all the departments do their piece of the puzzle in order to setup, rehearse and film every single shot. As a first A.D. you try to move things along because you want to finish the day’s shoot on time according to the shotlist / call sheet. Eliminating waiting time is key to stay on schedule.
Since we’re film students with rotating new jobs every day, waiting is unavoidable. Because this is the second week, most people have gained a basic feeling for the pace on a day and the number of setups (unique combination of camera positions and lenses, i.e. shots) that one can reasonably achieve within 8 hours of shooting.
It helps to have a director on set who knows what he or she wants, who knows what shots he/she needs and who is able to communicate this to the rest of the crew. Ideally, a director should never have to watch through the eye piece of the camera and/or on the monitor, because the camera operator will give him the frame and shot that he asked for. In our case, the directors verify almost every shot when it is set up, because it can be quite difficult to not only explain clearly what you exactly want, but also for the (inexperienced) camera operator to give him that exact shot.
Same goes for the DOP or the sound department. It’s a new day for everyone so that means that tutors come in and for instance adjust the lighting setup or boom position.
On our shoot, the work of a first A.D. therefore consists of a lot of checking whether people are happy, how much time they think they need in order to start with rehearsals, and whether they need another rehearsal before we go for a take.
Because the first A.D. should be in control on the set (I think I did OK today despite the flu that was bugging me), everybody else has to ask him for permission to go to the toilet or to get a cup of coffee, and he has to be notified if crew members leave the set to get an extra light for instance.
Because the first A.D. is one of the few people who have the big picture (pun intended) in mind, one of the main tasks is to be informed and to keep everyone else informed. Not only of the current but also of the forthcoming status / events; “The camera team is sorting out a problem with the camera, we hope to start rehearsals in ten minutes”. And yes, some first A.D.’s shout a lot in order to keep everybody informed…
The first A.D. is also in charge of taking care of the actors. Well, in our case at least, on big productions they have a Second Assistant Director (the assistant of the first assistant), or even two of them. Yep, that’s the “infamous” 2nd 2nd A.D. you will sometimes spot on the credits of films!
A day in the life of a sound mixer May 21, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedNo, my day had nothing to do with Henny Huisman’s Soundmixshow … Although it was me with the fingers on the buttons today. The sound mixer is responsible for recording the dialogue, live sound effects and other ambient noises on the set. On the set one or more boom mics, fixed mics and/or radio mics are put in place to record the audio. The signals of these mics come together at the sound mixer, where the gain (volume) is controlled, adjusted and recorded. On professional sets the sound mixer sometimes has to take care of 4 to 8 simultaneous incoming signals, acting as a true DJ spinning all the dials 
For us it’s way more simple with only one or two mics.
Because it’s the sound mixer’s job to record the best audio possible, he instructs the boom operator(s) to (re)position the boom, the actor’s to speak up by 5 or 10%, or to pause slightly to give the boom operator a better chance of recording lines spoken by different actors.
The audio is stored on DAT or on flash. Later, this is synced in an editing program such as AVID to the material that has been filmed. The clap of the clapperboard is used to sync up the sound with the picture.
For further editing purposes, sometimes a “wild track” is recorded. This is a recording of specific sounds, for instance footsteps, the slam of a door, or some other effect. On professional productions there are people who create all these effects afterwards, called “foley artists”. Since we don’t have the budget to afford them and in all honesty don’t really need them for the simple kind of productions we do, it makes sense to just record all these sounds on the set itself.
After completing a shoot, you record a “buzztrack”. This track consists of 30 seconds of ambient (“background”) noise of the location. Every location has a different base noise, so it is very useful to record this “sound” while you’re there. During editing you use such a track to seamlessly blend audio segments together (otherwise you would have gaps or hard cut-offs) (hmm, I don’t know if I make myself very clear, maybe I’ll try to explain this more clearly later).
During the recording of the buzztrack, everyone on the set has to stop doing what they’re doing (usually getting their gear together and/or chatting) and be still and silent for at least 30 seconds. Quite an achievement for some people It has a nice touch though, a small serene moment at the end of a day’s hard work.
My day in the life of a sound mixer wasn’t too bad. It involves a lot of sitting, listening and waiting. Considering all the other roles on the set, this is one of the best to have when you have a bad case of the flu, as I have had since Saturday. I made it through the day, thanks to a multi-vitamin pill, plenty of food, fruit juice, and a nice drug that contains paracetamol, asperin AND caffeine. It also helped that half my group was ill as well.
A day in the life of a clapper / loader May 18, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedThe clapper / loader does two things…: clapping and loading.
He is in charge of loading new unexposed film in the magazine and unloading (“canning”) it after the roll is used or the shoot is done.
The clapper part is holding the infamous clapper board denoting the production info, the roll, slate and take number, and clapping it when the camera is up to speed. In case you did not know: the sound of the clap made by the board is used for syncing the sound that is recorded on a different medium (DAT or flash, more about that next week).
Since the film has to be processed later, the clapper / loader also logs some relevant data as the lens and aperture that is used in the shot. The rest of the day is mostly waiting until everything is set up and everyone is ready after the rehearsals. I didn’t find it boring because I had plenty of time to see how everyone works on the set.
After the daily debriefing and watching the rushes from the day before (the scenes that I lit as a DOP look great!), there was one more job to do: dropping the exposed film off at SoHo Images. We visited that film lab BTW a couple of weeks ago, a classmate of mine took pictures, when I copy them I’ll put up a short journal of that visit. Old skool!
Finally, at 21:15, we were back in Fulham again and enjoyed a couple of well earned drinks after a week of long hours and hard work.
This week has been a very rewarding experience I must say and I am looking forward to the next week! Hopefully I can avoid the flu that is going round at the LFA, several students and staff members were ill in the past two weeks, and since yesterday evening my throat is becoming sore… 
A day in the life of a director of photography (DOP) May 17, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedThe director of photography (DOP) is the head of the camera department. He works closely with the director in order to achieve a specific look and feel for the film. This stretches a long way, from lighting the set and actors, to the choice of film stock and specifying the type color grading.
For our 2 minute films, being a DOP mainly means coming up with a lighting scheme that suits the director, rigging the lights (because we have no gaffer (DOP assistant) on most days), applying color gels, diffusion, scrims, and other tricks to achieve a specific kind of lighting (mood).
I had a great day as a DOP. We had a screenplay that consists of five short scenes that take place in the same office, where the secretary increasingly tries to get the attention of her boss who always ignores her and does not say “Good morning”.
My director wanted a distinctive look on four of the five days that underlined what the scene was about. Playtime!
In the previous weeks we were taught the three-point lighting technique. Since our set today had no room for (direct) backlight, I used the opportunity to use the kinoflos for the basic, soft office lighting.
Later on I tried to achieve a mood that I described as “somewhere between a romantic candlelight diner and a brothel”. In this scene, the actress sits on her desk, opens her shirt, shows her bra and looks seductive. I was quite pleased with the result, it was fun to see the reactions of people when they sneak peaked into our studio and stood there lingering Although I have to admit that it was probably the pretty actress that garnered the attention and to a lesser extend my lighting
I also lit a scene that, after editing and applying digital color grading on the AVID, will be (near) black and white. Simple but effective.
Although it was a long day (7:30 until 20:15) it was definitely worth it. We had great fun today and the scenes really worked, largely due to good actors, a director who knew what she wanted and hopefully also to a DOP that tried to make something fun to look at!
A day in the life of a camera operator May 16, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedThe person who is in charge of the camera is called the camera operator. He or she is the one who translates the wishes of the director (“a medium close up of the girl”) to the appropriate frame and camera movement that you (hopefully) will eventually see in the finished film. This role not only demands a good eye for composition and anticipating and compensating for movement, but also good communication with the director, the director of photography, the rest of the camera team and the boom operator.
The camera operator tries to realize the director’s vision, but has some freedom within those boundaries to create an interesting frame. He can also suggest a different approach, lenze or movement if there seems to be a better way.
I had a great day as camera operator. The director wanted some very stylized shots, so I amongst other things I got to do two cool handheld shots (with a camera that weighs 20+ kg!) and an improvised tracking shot using a desk chair
Camera setup in the studio
Day 1 of the 2 minute films May 15, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closedThe first real day of shooting. And boy did we find out! As was to be expected, everybody had to adjust to shooting ourselves for the first time. Of course we receive support by our tutors, but they run up and down the stairs every half hour or so.
We had several severe technical difficulties today. The camera started making “irregular noises” (C) during the first take, which quickly turned into “weird noises” (TM) during the second take. The camera looked fine as did the magazine, but checking the magazine revealed a crippled messed up and useless first 60 feet of exposed film The clapper/loader probably loaded the film incorrectly.
After reloading, the camera still made an odd noise. After a second opinion, we decided to unload the film and load the unexposed film in a new, hopefully not so faulty, magazine. Because the guy who was clapper/loader today didn’t really know what he was doing, yours truly got handed this assignment. I think I did alright.
However, after that the camera decided not the stop recording after doing another take. We had to cut by removing the battery… After some deliberation, we got a different camera. Which was a different model with a different type of magazine, which meant more unloading and reloading! Wahey for the clapper/loader guy. The rest of the day went alright with regards to this “new” camera (which actually is one of the oldest) and with regards to my job as a focus puller. I did not have to do any really complicated focus pulling, just a lot of disassembling and reassembling the camera, checking the gate, measuring distances and checking the focus / depth of field.
We wrapped up around 1830, which is not bad considering the fact that we lost quite a bit of the morning and two good takes. The other production apparently went very smoothly and wrapped around 5 pm, hopefully tomorrow will go a bit smoother for us.