PBS' Circus Documentary

About two years ago, I picked up a part time gig working as a Logger for Show Of Force; a small production company who exceled in making award winning documentaries. The project I was working on has now been release. Circus follows the life of the performers and crew of the Big Apple Circus for a season as they tour the East Coast.

I realize this post is a little late, as the show primered on November 3rd, but have no fear, you can catch up on what you missed by checking out video clips of Circus on PBS' website. The next episode is on November 10th (tomorrow) and I'm really excited to see what this episode has in store.

Working as a logger can be a little boring, especially on a documentary. There are literally thousands of hours of footage which need to be viewed, broken up, and carefully labeled in order for the editors to be able to find footage easily. Some of the footage is great, but some is repetative. I can't even remember how many times I've seen the Big Top tent being put together. However, there are some good things about logging.
1.) you get to see all of the behind the scenes footage which may not even make it to the special features section on a DVD.
2.) you get to try and figure out which story the final show will follow.
and the Bonus benefit:
3.) You know the back story behind what's happening in the show, and you can share it with your friends and family. It's a dorky bonus, but it's fun.

Finished Promotional Video

Here is the promotional video for the Bococa Arts Festival, kicking off in Brooklyn tomorrow. I shot, edited and color corrected the video using my Canon Rebel T2i, Final Cut Pro 7, and Magic Bullet Looks, among other things.


The camera performed outstandingly well, and I was working with a great group of people. The actors were upbeat, and willing to try different things. Eileen, the Producer was also quite chipper, and was great at getting what she wanted out of the actors.

Early on in the shoot, the group of us started thinking that the original script...well left something to be desired, so we made some changes as we made our way around Brooklyn, and I think the final short is better because of it.

The pigeon scene was actually the most difficult shot to get. Originally we tried getting that shot in an alley way next to Cobble Hill Park, but the trees were dropping seeds, and the pigeons had no interest in our stale bread crumbs.

We then shot the bridge scene, when I remembered from my college days, all the birds in the Brooklyn Bridge park, so we tried our luck there. At one point we had about 50 birds covering the BoCoCa sign, until a truck roared by and scared them off. The shot I ended up using wasn't 50 birds, but it still looked pretty cool.

In conclusion, it was great working with such a flexible, fun group of people. Film is a creative process just like any other art, and I've found the final product is always better when you involve members of your cast and crew in the process. When everyone is an active participant in the creative process, and not just standing by taking orders, the energy of the shoot is totally different, and I love it. That's how I like to work. At times I will draw the line and say something can't be done, but all and all, I like to go with the flow.

Oh, and next, sun block is a must. We all got wicked sun burn. It was difficult to hide it on the actors, and I think it can be seen in some shots. Oops!

A Question on Speed

I've seen and read lots of great tutorials on making beautiful slow motion, and awesome timelapse sequences with DSLR cameras. My question is, how do you remap the time of a clip, essentially combining the two? To clarify, I once took a clip shot on a Canon HV30, a consumer grade camera, recording in 24p to HDV tape. After all the transcoding, I dropped the clip in the timeline, and using the time remap tool in Final Cut Pro, slowed the clip down, and gradually brought it up to normal speed.
Is this possible with DSLRs, and how?

Granted, I've haven't done a lot of test with the camera, so I still have a lot to learn and figure out, but I've tried using the time remap tool, and despite looking cool, it doesn't look as smooth or natural.

For anyone with more experience, please feel free to drop some knowledge on me. To give another example of what I'd like to achieve: I have a clip of someone kicking a soccer ball. I like to have the player running up to the ball at faster than normal speed, gradually step down to slow motion as his foot contacts the ball, and then snap to normal speed as the ball goes flying off.

Color Correction, The Next Frontier

For the past two days I've been plugging away on this promo video I shot for the Bococa Arts Festival. For my first shoot with the camera, I'm happy to say that the footage came out much better then I expected. After putting some clips down in the timeline, and getting pretty close to the final edit, I decided it was time to do some color correcting.

Admittingly, I really don't know a hell of a lot about color correction in general, let alone how to do it well in Final Cut Pro. I know what images look good, and which ones don't, so that's general my method for correcting color.

I found this easy tutorial on using the 3 way color corrector in FCP. I gave it a shot, and it's not half bad. It certainly went faster then when I used Magic Bullet's Looks effect. However, I think looks has more of the tools I need to get the job done.

You see, I had read, that due to the compression on most DSLR cameras, it's better to over expose in production, and pull it down in post to keep good quality. On top of most of my shots being intentionally over exposed, I think I unintentionally forgot to set the white balance when I switch from indoor to outdoor shots. BAD DAVE!
Needless to say, I have my work cut out for me.

If anyone has suggestions for how to do simple and effective color correction, feel free to drop me a comment.