Tag Archives: focus puller

El último día de rodaje. Fin de la primera parte…

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If you want to read the English version, click here.

Todos estamos muy contentos con el resultado del rodaje en la localización, lo que nos da un margen de confianza. El último día de rodaje llega. Nos quedan por grabar todas las escenas en Chroma Key. Día muy importante para los especialista de CGI. La iluminación tiene que ser perfecta para que no haya problemas con el Chroma Key y conseguir que el espacio generado no parezca artifial.

A primera hora de la mañana nos dirigimos a Brunel studio. La universidad nos ha cedido su estudio. Alguno de sus estudiantes nos ayudan asistiendo en el rodaje.

Esta vez todo va con más calma. Hay menos actores también, con lo que parece más fácil manejar la situación.  Los actores, Steel, protagonista principal, Wendy y Asif, personajes bajo el cristal, están envueltos en una atmósfera verde que se transformará en el espacio oscuro escondido bajo el cristal una vez finalizada la postproducción.

Grabamos el “descenso” de Steel al otro lado del cristal. Grabamos también el momento en que Steel es consciente de que no es el único atrapado en ese mundo desconcertante.

Todo va muy bien. Todos los técnicos son buenos profesionales que ponen todo su esfuerzo en conseguir un buen trabajo. La iluminación es buena después del gran trabajo de nuestro técnico de iluminación, Rob Collins. Nos convencen los planos y la actuación de los actores. Dave Barnard y Alan Marques, están controlando y procesando el resultado de las imágenes obtenidas a través de su ordenador. Mark Carey, director de fotografía, y Sam Rawlings, focus puller, están consiguiendo un resultado muy bueno en los planos grabados. Mark, el director, y Cati, primer asistente de dirección, dirijen a los actores y ayudan a que todo se cumpla según lo previsto. Los asistentes Ritvan, Rakesh y James están en todo momento dispuestos para lo que sea necesario.Todo está bajo control.

Carla, representante del Consejo de Europa, parece feliz con el resultado.

Liz Adams, la futura editora del proyecto, también está presente en el rodaje. Es la encargada de hacer el making of. Todos los involucrados en el rodaje son entrevistados. Es un documento muy interesante del que poder aprender en un futuro. Los técnicos nos cuentan su papel dentro del rodaje con el fin de que todos podamos entender cómo ha evolucionado este proyecto.

El rodaje termina antes de lo esperado, señal de que todo va bien y de que todo el mundo está contento con el resultado.

Para el recuerdo, esta foto final del equipo de rodaje de este video contra la discriminación “The Glass Ceiling”.

Ahora, la segunda parte del proceso comienza y cedemos el turno a la postproducción, que se encargará de dar forma a este video y hacerlo real.

Sólo me queda, desde Spectacle, dar las gracias a todos los que han participado en este proyecto, porque sin vosotros no hubieramos sido capaces de romper este cristal que, aunque invisible, muchas veces pesa sobre nuestras cabezas.

Si quieres ver las fotos del rodaje, pincha aquí para acceder a flickr.

Si quieres ver las primeras imágenes del rodaje, pincha aquí.

Para obtener más información acerca del proyecto “Speak out against discrimination”, pincha aquí.

Para obtener más información acerca de Spectacle, pincha aquí.

The pillars of the project

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Para leer este blog en español pincha aquí.

After having kept you in suspense with the “focus puller” problem, the moment has arrived to clear up all the doubts: Sam Rawlings has chosen to join us in the damp London instead of taking a short working trip to Italy. Well, that’s a relief!

Nevertheless, after doing the numbers we realised that something was wrong with the casting. We’re lacking two actors: someone representing the Middle East and someone from North Africa. The shooting will be in less than a week and there’s a weekend and a bank holiday before. We have to organise an audition and decide immediately who will be the new actors. We announce the second audition and in a few minutes we have printed out some new faces cv’s. We’ll risk our necks in a few hours and with a small sample of just eight actors. As if that wasn’t enough, we can’t use the same venue where we held the casting the first time. Fortunately, a charming Scottish security guy who greets us every morning with a “Buenos días, señorita”, suggests us to use the office next to ours. So we organise the audition and choose Rebecca Nasir and Rungano Nyoni, two young up-and-coming talents from London. Rungano forgot her appointment for the audition, right, but we know that she won’t forget the shooting day, will she?

Maybe the shooting day will arrive and we won’t have hands enough to set everything up and move all the furniture in the location, but we have at least our crew and actors:

– Mark Saunders, Director/Producer
– Mark Carey, the director of photography
– Sam Rawlings, the slippery focus puller
– Rob Collins, the gaffer who will light our path
– Pilar, Cati and Clair, as producer’s assistant, 1st and 2nd AD
– Steel Wallis, main face of the video, accompanied by Wendy Forbes, Hannah Raehese, Rebecca Nasir and Asif Dewan in the world above and below the glass.
– Completing the cast, Maine Auguste, Leonie Charles, Fan Yang, Daz Kaye, Denis Khoroshko, Rungano Nyoni, Angela Tennant and Víctor Zaragoza, inhabitants of the impersonal world above the glass

We have all that we need, haven’t we? When we visited the location it was clear that the frosted effect that we’d seen in the pictures is what we need for our shoot, but the glass floor is totally transparent. Actually, the pictures that we’d seen were from a glass door.

¿Existe una medida internacional de translucidez?

Is there any international frosting measure?

We have to find out how to get this look without damaging the glass floor. We find some stores next to the office where we can get a frosting spray, but we prefer a window frosting film that we’ve found in an online store, but we’ll need at least 3 working days to get it dispatched. As we said before, there is a weekend and a bank holiday before the shooting day. We’re running out of time, as usual. We call the providers and explain our problem. We give them the address of the location. If Karim isn’t there when they arrive, they can deliver it to Mark Carey, who fortunately lives in the same building. If he’s not at home, they’ll leave the parcel in his neighbour’s home. All the possibilities are catered for. We can just cross our fingers and hope Sam won’t run away to Italy, Rungano will remember her appointment with us and the frosting film will get to the location on time.

If you want to get more information about the project “Speak out against discrimination”, click here.

For more information about Spectacle, click here.



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Giving shape to the project

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Para leer este blog en español pincha aquí.

So what’s the conclusion from the director of photography after having visited the location with the glass floor? Does the CGI expert agree with this space? We now depend on these people to take the next steps. Once again we’re at a standstill and, considering that we’re running out of time, being unable to do anything is really stressful. The worst of all is to know that maybe the conclusion will be that we have to go back to our previous plan, forget about the location with the glass floor and order the perspex. This would mean that we’ve been wasting time that we don’t have just to end up going back to the starting point.
The day after the meeting, we receive these pictures from Mark Carey, the director of photography:

It seems to fit our requirements, but the CGI experts, Dave Barnard and Alan Marques, have the final say. Fortunately, after a few days, we receive some videos that make everything much clearer. They are the pre-visualization of the shooting in the location and in the studio. Alan has made 3D simulations of the shooting that are really useful. All the creative decisions now become technical decisions and the pre-visualizations wipe out the charm of the uncertainty, but I think we’ve had enough uncertainty so far, so we’re really pleased with these videos.

If you want to share in our happiness, download the videos from here:

Previs on location 1

Previs on location 2

Previs on studio 1

Previs on studio 2

Or watch them in our web site.

Thanks to this, we now know which lenses we need, the distance and angle of the shots… we even know how tall our actors have to be!

Finally, we can happily say that this is REALLY up and running.

Now we can go ahead and we all know that everything will speed up, but this doesn’t have to finish up in tragedy if we all know what we have to do and if we’re organized. We know which camera we need: the Red One; which lenses and lighting we have to order; which other props we have to get, like a black and a green cloth, a green rope, a window frosting film…

On the other side, the moment has arrived to speak with the owner of the location, and that’s something that we’re a bit concerned about. We’re really enthusiastic with the idea of shooting the video in that place, but… what if he is not as keen on it as we are? What if he doesn’t like more than 20 people wandering around his house, with a lot of cameras and lighting and food? (yes, it’ll be a long working day and we all need to eat at some point).

We visit the location wearing our best smiles and promising to behave. We take the measure of the glass, try different lenses and angles… and speak with the landlord. It’s a tricky issue because this location is his house, and he’s had bad past experiences with big production crews, so he prefers small photographic projects. He’s concerned about the implications for the neighbourhood. We get to an agreement and he even gives us some advice regarding the catering. Things are looking better… or are they?

Mark Carey (director of photography), Mark Saunders (producer), Dave Barnard (CGI expert) and Karim (landlord) working

Mark Carey (director of photography), Mark Saunders (producer), Dave Barnard (CGI expert) and Karim (landlord) working

Dave Barnard relaxing for a while and then discussing some points with Mark Carey

Dave Barnard relaxing for a while and discussing some points with Mark Carey below the "Glass Ceiling"

Suddenly a dark cloud sets over our heads. The focus puller calls saying that he’s been offered a 3 day job in Italy. We’re just offering him a 2 day job in Clapton. Mark, the Director of Photography, asks us to sort it out, even to put off the shooting day. No, that’s not possible. We’ve already contacted the actors, the Council of Europe, the other studio… Mark trusts in this focus puller and thinks he’s a key factor in this project. We’ll use state-of-the-art technologies and he only feels sure working with this guy. Few people know how to work with these equipments. Once again we see how many important people there are behind a film, while all we’ve dealt with so far is a few actors.

If you want to get more information about the project “Speak out against discrimination”, click here.

For more information about Spectacle, click here.