A Tale of (filming in) Two Cities
A filmmaker’s blog for solo documentary filmmakers.
One of the best things about being freelance is being able to say ‘yes’ to amazing opportunities. I’ve just completed one such gig involving a 5 day trip to both New York and Hong Kong. Below, I’ll go into detail about what equipment I took, how I approached the work and the challenges that came up.
As a solo operator, when working abroad, it’s important to me to remain as nimble as possible; to be able to carry my kit as unencumbered as is practical. This leads to my obsession with bags — I love looking at camera bags, can spend hours pouring over dimensions and features.
When getting ready for this gig, it provided the opportunity to deep dive into mobile, portable kit. To be able to fly around the world with nothing more than a backpack and a normal sized roller bag — the kind you usually stick in the overhead compartment on a plane.
The main kit bag I chose ended up being the ‘Manfrotto Pro Light 3N1–36 PL Backpack for Camcorders’. And it’s great, for reasons I’ll elaborate on. On a normal trip, this bag will contain:
- Canon C200 (assembled) with battery and 24–105 EF lens attached
- Rode RodeLink Filmmaker Lav mic
- Either the 11–16mm Tokina or the 100mm Macro (depending on the nature of the job)
- Rode NTG2 Shotgun mic
- Headphones
- One roll of fabric tape
- Spare batteries for both mic and camera
- Batteries for the light (see below — lithium batteries must not go in the plane’s hold)
- Lens cleaning pen (these things are amazing)
- Memory cards
This is the bag that never leaves my side. It passes through security no problem and goes straight into the overhead locker on any plane I’ve been on.
The roller bag gets checked-in. This contains:
- Aputure Amaran AL-HR672S LED panel light (so good)
- Manfrotto Nano Stand Black for light
- Manfrotto Befree Live Aluminium Travel Tripod with Fluid Head (holds the C200 fine but probably at the upper limit)
- Chargers for the light and camera batteries
- Minimal clothes (that are used to pad the light)
- Toiletries
Why the C200? Despite having used the excellent Canon C100 for around 5 years, this wasn’t just a case of sticking with what I knew. Around the same time, the Canon C200 and the Panasonic AU EVA1 came out and I was obsessively trawling the web to try and determine which was the best camera for me.
Note, I’m not saying which camera is best — can’t stand those arguments — simply which camera, when factoring in my filming style and needs seemed the best fit. I like to go handheld a lot of the time and the vast majority of my work is not for broadcast, so the whole 8bit vs 10bit distinction was largely a moot point for me. That said, this camera impressed the eyeballs out of me when it came to editing — remarkable latitude in the grade.
New York, a very sunny 29 Centigrade
First, make sure you have an ESTA, a document required for entry into America. I can assure you from a previous personal experience that showing up at an airport to check-in without one is an experience I’m not going to repeat.
I’d been to New York before but never really to the Lower East Side of Manhattan Island, where this job was based.
When filming on location, the first thing I make myself do after checking-in to the hotel and dumping bags is go immediately out again. For my films, I need to walk the streets, get familiar quickly, find out where people shop, who makes the best pizza, which corners are dodgy, where the coolest graffiti is, etc. I want to soak it all up like a sponge, to try and see what other people miss, to observe the way people behave, how they relax, where they go and why.
It’s too easy to fall back on the brief — the piece of paper that says, film x, y and z. That’s all fine and well but the colour of a film, it’s inherent sense of being alive and providing a strong sense of place, will come from the extra details you film, that catch your eye — the man walking his dog on a skateboard, the graffiti that suddenly takes on more ominous overtones when considered within the context of your film…
Next morning, I was out long before I needed to be with the client. Filming the life and scenes of New York waking up. These initial shots are really important to me, to very quickly acclimatise to the space and be comfortable walking around with the camera in hand.
During the main shoot, I was in a museum and boy, was it dark in there. If I’d still been using my beloved C100 I really don’t think I’d have been able to pull the film off. But with the C200 and C-LOG3, I was able to shoot in 4K, maximising full use of the sensor (later down scaling) and push the ISO as high as 5000 without seeing too much grain. Remarkable.
Serendipity is your friend. After the main shoot was over, I wandered south, towards Battery Park, hoping to get shots of Ferries and boats. Following the route on City Mapper (amazing App), I decided to detour as I could see water one block across. Suddenly, I found myself at a combined port and helicopter base, providing tours.
Immediately, the camera was out and I was capturing sunlit shots of helicopters in HD, 4K, 25p and 50p — shots that had a great production feel. This is where both the bag and the camera became perfect partners. I’d discovered that there was a way to store the camera such that the zips on the bag could provide quick access from the bottom only — this meant when I saw something I wanted to shoot, I could put the bag on the ground, unzip the bottom, get the camera out, re-zip and start taking shots, including camera boot-up time, in less than 45 sec.
And because the camera has an internal mic, for quick shots like these, I didn’t need to worry too much about capturing great audio. This also sped up the process as the shotgun mic stayed stowed in the bag.
By chance, I ended up right at the entrance to the Staten Island ferry and wondered about the possibility of getting shots of Manhattan Island from afar. I was a bit nervous about getting the camera out on the boat but everyone was totally cool — one of the staff even told me the best place to stand to get the best shots! This location happened to be next to a gent who I think may have been a bit tipsy but was happy to give me a guided tour of everything we saw during the trip. Here’s the result:
Hong Kong, a very, very wet 31 Centigrade
This was an entirely new experience for me. A strange uncanny valley in which, while everything is clearly ‘not the UK’, the power points are the three-pin standard, everywhere has signs in English and lots of people speak English. It’s like a future, more culturally enriched version of the UK.
Initial impressions of the island were wonderful, a place with vertiginous buildings towering over ancient temples, where the elderly are doing tai chi in the morning while commuters tramp up and down the never ending steep stairs and hills.
And away from the frenetic, smartphone obsessed centre of town, it’s a place of remarkable stillness. And this is what I wanted to capture — not the cliched Hong Kong of bright neon lights, skyscrapers and crowds but the more meditative stillness of the specific area I was staying in.
A major challenge in Hong Kong was the humidity. Every day, as soon as the camera came out of the bag, condensation took over for the best part of an hour while the lens equilibrated with the world. And there’s nothing you can really do — leaving the camera somewhere exterior wasn’t an option. So, that became the morning routine — get out fast, let the condensation do it’s thing, then shoot!
And it did rain. A lot. There were times I thought I’d never be able to complete the shoot. My best piece of equipment became a cheap, transparent umbrella. I’d taken the Star Ferry across to Kowloon in an attempt to capture shots of the city, similar to what I’d done in New York. Once there, I headed to a vantage point, hoping the weather would hold. It didn’t.
Faced with little alternative and a slightly stubborn streak, I decided that, despite the rain, I was going to get the shots I needed. The camera was set to 4K, 50p to smooth out my windswept, handheld footage. The umbrella, somehow wedged up my armpit, keeping me and the camera dry as I did my best to compose and focus on the shot. I must have looked ridiculous! Take a look:
Happy filming — be brave, love what you do and see the world as only you can.
