What would you do to get the shot?

When it comes down to it, it's not about what camera is used to obtain a shot but what the actual shot is of. Many filmmakers go the distance by sending their cameras into the air, under water, or even attaching it to their pet. But this filmmaker has to take the cake. Having stumbled upon a rattlesnake pit, they attached their GoPro to a stick and dove in to receive some amazing footage. 

As you can see these reptilian beasts reacted surprisingly well to camera for a bit, but eventually started to strike. I've never seen any sort of footage of the sorts.

It felt like a horror film as they began to attack the camera, but nonetheless the technology that we have at our fingertips these days is what enables this sort of filming making. A camera attached to a stick is all it took to enter this rattler nest and that hockey stick is what also enable the filmmaker to get it out after it fell off its mount.

It's because of the accessibility of this sort of technology that results with these immersive videos. It makes you not only wonder if the camera operator is crazy but also how you can take a simple set up and capture something brilliant. You won't be finding me near a snake pit like this anytime soon but I definitely will take the concept of this video and apply it to my work. Live the moment and think outside the box because this may just be the reason you walk away from a day of filming with a viral video.

The Background of White Collar

One of my favorite shows, White Collar had its season finale just over a month ago. Throughout the six incredible seasons, we watched the characters grow and the story unfold. An aspect of this show that I thought was amazing was the beautiful background of New York City. They creatively use the city as a source of visual language. Having a constant city background can get monotonous at times, but this show executes it flawlessly.

There are so many lovely shots within each episode that sometimes you feel like the characters are inside a work of art. I find this ironic since the main character, Neal Caffrey, was originally in jail for art theft and forgery. Many of the shots used throughout the episodes are wide shots that show the beautiful architecture of New York City and it gives off such a powerful dynamic.

White Collar Director of Photography, Russell Lee Fine, explains that "The way I've built White Collar is to be super fast…We match our A and B cameras on set. I know I can set the cameras here and there, and rehearse it once, and know I can correct on the fly. Sometimes we don't rehearse at all." The way that this show is set up makes the setting stand out even more. Since it as set up to be super fast, the dynamic of New York City adds to the chaos of the show. Fine also stated that, "we do absolutely no lighting on exterior streets." This means that they rely on the sunlight and the cameras to film in natural light in the daytime. The cameramen for this show are also always on dollies and move quickly with the pace of the show. Overall, the setting of New York City contributes greatly to the show White Collar and the decisions that Russell Lee Fine decided on really enhance the outcome of the episodes. 

The Film 'Birdman' Looks to be One Long Continuous Shot

*No Spoilers, I will just go over the way this film was shot

Birdman was shot in a way where the entire movie felt like it was one long shot as well as one take.  After seeing all the Nominations and Awards this film is getting I decided to watch it for the first time over the weekend.  I have never watched anything like this before! I am amazed by the amount of preparation and practice it must have taken to pull this off so well.

Here is a scene from the movie so you can get a feel of how this was shot in an unorthodox way.

After doing research about how this movie was filmed I was surprised to find out that they shot the film within thirty days. They shot in portions of seven to fifteen minutes. 

Here are quotes by Star Michael Keaton that shows how in sync the cast and crew had to be for this film to work: 

"Anything—a misremembered line, an extra step taken, a camera operator stumbling on a stair or veering off course or out of focus—could blow a take, rendering the first several minutes unusable even if they had been perfect.  You had to be word-perfect, you had to be off script, and you literally had to count your paces down to the number of steps you needed to take before turning a corner," "Everyone would apologize perfunctorily if they messed up ... mostly because we were aware of how hard it was on the camera operators, and the camera operators didn't want to screw up because of us."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/birdman-how-it-was-filmed-2014-10#ixzz3PVkiC100


Unfortunately the Director Alejandro González Iñárritu & DP Emmanuel Lubezki didn't give away too much about how they shot this movie so fluidly, but did mention they used quick "Pan" shots as their cuts.

Project Update

Hannah, Courtney, and I finished all of our shooting on Wednesday. Due to the wind and the time of day, it was a difficult shoot, but we were able to get all the shots we needed. Even though it was sunny on Wednesday, the angle we were shooting from caused us to need to wait for cloud coverage. As a result, some color correction will be needed for a few scenes, but they are very brief shots, so it should not be too difficult. We are going to work on that portion together and use the processes we learned in class in order to make sure we do it correctly.

I have most of the project edited together as a rough cut and the only scenes missing are the two new scenes we shot on Wednesday. So I will be making our final edits to the rough cut and then editing it down even more today and tomorrow. Once I finish the editing process, Hannah, Courtney, and I are planning on getting together to work on final corrections, transitions, and color correction. I want to make sure we are all happy with the outcome since we have dedicated so much hard work and effort to the project, so that's why we will definitely have a group meeting before the project is due. We will also be working on all the necessary paper work and plan to be done by tomorrow night so that if anything goes wrong, we have Sunday to fix it. Overall we are on track to finish by tomorrow night, and as a group are very happy with our overall content and product.