Yesterday I found myself with Chris Carr at a shoot on a London council estate…which makes a change.
On this occasion I was there purely as a spectator. Chris is producing ‘Victims’ a short film about domestic violence, starring Hattie Morahan (Outnumbered, Sense and Sensibility) and Briana Corrigan (formerly of The Beautiful South) and invited me down to meet the cast & crew and see the new Sony F3 in action.
When I arrived, they were rehearsing a scene in which ‘Gavin’ played by Rob Talbot is beaten up by a gang of yoots. As Rob lay on the ground, amidst the dumpsters, surrounded by the youths, who were practising kicking the shit out of him, a random duo whizzed by on the back of a BMX shouting ‘you don’t know how to do it properly’. Everyone’s a director…
Shortly afterwards, two policemen turned up in response to a report that someone (Rob) was being assaulted. However, they did not offer any technical advice on how to do it properly.
After they had disappeared, a passing resident informed Chris, ‘You need to leave by 7 coz datz when da guns come out.’ Then, bang on cue, just as the crew started filming the scene (with iPhones, interestingly) two more policemen and an ambulance driver proceeded to chase a robbery suspect across the estate, whilst a Police helicopter hovered overhead. What a perfect way to spend a sunny Sunday in London.
In between takes I couldn’t resist having a play with the Sony F3. Since the standard set of Sony primes were not wide enough for the confined interiors in which much of the short was being shot, Zeiss CP.2s were used. These are essentially the excellent Zeiss ZFs that I used on the Toadlickers shoot, rehoused in proper film casings, with gears and much longer barrel rotations, to allow ultra precise follow focussing. Not only do they look and feel the part, but they sit on the Sony F3 perfectly.
This combination of gear was complimented by a Convergent Designs nanoFlash, connected to the Sony F3’s HD-SDI outputs, to accomplish 10 bit 4:2:2 recording at bit rates far higher than the F3’s internal 35MPS codec can deliver and a TV Logic monitor that offered waveforms and vectorscopes. I look forward to using a similar setup on a future shoot.
If you want to know more about the film, you can follow @VictimsFilm on Twitter or visit the Facebook page.
© 2011 – 2015, Paul D. All rights reserved.
