National Geographic-"Africa"

Based on the successes of  “desert adventure” (http://www.vimeo.com/9978386), I was asked to produce/direct/film/edit the next NG film to be presented in NG megastores, exhibitions and at distributors’ point of sales - “Africa”.

The initial idea was to go to Africa…..Then, budget and time forced us to come up with a more down to earth creative idea.

How bout a nice, easy going, fun music video?  True, it is 180 degree away from NG’s DNA but actually why not? The decision was, let’s do it. It is different!

The fun began by asking Carol Alston-Bukowsky who is an amazing person/singer/Jazz teacher at Vienna’s state opera ballet school to join and help me create a dance that will “bring” Africa in our urban jungle life” incorporating the new National Geographic Media Bags collection.

Next, we choose our talented dancers, all (but one) recently finished Vienna’s state opera ballet school and now are dancing in different companies around Europe.

Yehuda Ashash, who did a great job during the first “desert adventure” film, was asked to help and write an original music that will support the feel and mood of Africa/urban jungle. The endless nights and “back and forth” exchanged ideas evolved into a master piece which I love!

Fast forward, skipping the two long weekend rehearsals and achieving all the right location permissions, the day had come.

Now, if you never been to Vienna, it is a great place to live and very photogenic to film (in this clip I had no intention to emphasize the location, so Vienna’s beauty is simply none exist). The problem is, weather even during summer can be un-predictable. Luckily weather was great BUT the partly cloudy sky made us waste some valuable shooting time ….

Originally I considered a multi camera shoot but then, with careful preparation and planed storyboard I made up my mind to shoot it alone.

Equipped with the flowing equipment:

Canon 7d, Zacuto Z-finder, Canon 17-55mm f2.8 IS USM, Canon 70-200mm f4 IS USM, Fader ND mark II and Vocas rig (all nicely fitting into Kata’s resource 61) we met early morning and started a long shooting day. With me on the set were cpm3 who shot the “making of” and Alfred who assisted when needed.

The location I chose for shooting had the two advantages I was looking for:

1- Highly reflecting bright floor, helping enhancing the clothes colors and relatively dark bags.

2- It is an extremely busy place full of people during weekends. My aim was to “feel” the people but not to “see” them. It was a “must” to completely avoid shooting “recognizable people at the background”. The 7d+the lenses I chose helped me do the job.

The clip is made from two main sequences. The main one was shot during full sunshine at 1080/25p. The other, during late afternoon (to help the “rainy feeling”) at 720/50 to be slowed down later in editing

I hope you can tell by viewing the “making of” that this project was all about simplicity and fun!

http://www.vimeo.com/14636588

Editing was done on Adobe Premiere CS2
All files were converted before editing to Cineform files using the Neo 4k plugin.
Color enhancement done with Cineform “First light”   

Evolution? No. Revolution? Yes indeed!

A bit more than a year ago, encouraged by Dan Chung’s “Nikon D90 in Tibet”, I picked up my first VDSLR. As a BBC freelance cameraman this camera obviously imposed lots of restrictions on pure “news work” but soon I discovered that there are a lot of uses for this little wonder camera and the Nikon D90 became a perfect working tool for some testimonial and marketing videos I did for other respected customers like bag manufacturer Kata.

For me, the main advantage when shooting with the D90 – other than its compact stealth form factor – was its limitations… Those limitations made me at the end of the day a better cameraman by learning, understanding and implementing workarounds to come out with nicely done footage.

Fast forward to the present time and I am a proud owner of the Canon 7d. This incredible camera for its price range is a game changer as far as I am concerned.

The Canon 7d shares the same advantages of other VDSLRs in terms of portability and very clean low light performance but adds multi frame rates selection, SD recording (if needed) and other goodies.

My freelance work at the BBC is split between a few different departments. I would not use the Canon 7d for pure news work since the camera is currently not up to that task, but it turn out to be ideal for short features. There are few important points to consider before adopting a camera as your main working tool for some assignments. I have already mentioned good picture quality, portability and low light performance. The other three most crucial factors for me are: good viewfinder, sound and camera handling. As a viewfinder I am using the Zacuto Z-finder  and though not so impressed (partly due to the Canon 7D LCD resolution when being magnified and partly because of an average Z-finder design) I don’t see another better alternative in the market. Sound wise, we are all aware of the camera limitations (noisy camera pre-amp and no sound level control) and my solution like many others is working with an external audio recorder. Handling wise, I am currently using the Vocas solution, though imposing some limitations while working (try to do a quick switch from hand held shooting to tripod and you will find one of the biggest limitation of this rig) it is the one who work best for me. More on this rig on a separate review I will publish later this month.