Now! I have talked the talk and I’m a great believer in walking the walk (thats why my last name is Walker) Ha Ha! Sorry! and so that’s what I decided to do in my long tracking, walking shot! (See what I did there?) hehe. sorry. Down to business!
I planned the shoot to happen on Wednesday the 13th of May but after two people not being available I decided to move the date a day forward to suit. I enlisted the help of my friend and fellow students (It’s amazing what the promise of free pizza will do), i felt i didn’t want to engage any actors in the process as i felt that I didn’t want them to invest themselves heavily (as i have) because the goal of the scene is to experiment and I didn’t want to bring actors in who were expecting a conventional narrative, to emote and to expect a student acting award. I will in future enlist actors to assist with my projects and test but for now I believe that my friends and fellow students could do an more than adequate job (AND DID THEY EVER!!!)
I engaged the local council to discuss permissions and all that and they basically waved me through because of the low impact of my shoot which was a great relief. Logistically I knew that I needed 4 actors and at least another crew member aside from myself. I got Mollie Cowell to play the angry girlfriend who has been a good uni friend of mine for a number of years, her boyfriend who I have met many times to play the main protagonist, my high school friend Angus to play the friend and my Housemate/ Personal film composer Lewi to be the Musician. For the crew I was unsure about how i wanted to go about it, and I realised that I would have to shoot it myself due to the fact that almost none of the operators I know actually knew how to work or shoot with one and on top of that, if i got another person to shoot it I would be following them around anyway, creating shadows and asking to watch every take afterwards. I always like to give up the camera operating when i am directing, i hate directors who can’t relinquish creative control over the camera or who can’t trust someone else to illustrate their ideas! BUT! For this exercise i had to become something that I hated just for the ease of the project. So i enlisted Sarah Petrie who is in our class and who was in my first year of TAFE with me at RMIT three years ago, to be the AD and her roll would be to grab my vest if i was going to fall over, if I was going to be hit by a car and also to signal the actors.
Before we started shooting I parked my car in the car park, we all met there and in my boot i had three warm pizza’s waiting.I have learnt from experience in the past that crews work on their stomachs, they need to be fed to perform and if they are hungry, it comes across on screen! Trust me!! So while we ate pizza and chatted I took the time to quietly talk to everyone about their role and what they would be doing this evening. I then got my laptop out and got everyone to huddle around and watch the pre-viz so that they could get a better understanding of what was going to happen in the shoot. I felt that this was integral to the success and streamlining of the shoot as it put everyone in a good frame of mind and put everyone on the right track by including them and showing them an outline of what was going to happen.
leaving no one in the dark is a massive part of directing!
After we finished our pizza I got the crew to follow me to the start point and we would walk through the scene so that everyone could see the walk and understand the route. As we did this i explained each facet of the move and how it would work (more on that later) while walking through I was also checking my camera exposure and appeture to make sure i wasted no takes on technical error, which is deadly in a cold car park. you say “sorry, was underexposed!” after a three minute take in the chilling cold and you’re gonna lose people’s enthusiasm very quickly!!!
After we got to the end I addressed any final things that needed addressing and we walked back to the start point, each person stopping at their location.
Now! here is the plan of the move. Myself, Sarah and Dan begin at the top of the hill, across the road. We talk across the road to the car park (making sure not to get hit by a car) then once in the car park, I wrap around the pole to give Sarah time to cue Mollie to come out from the side and abuse Dan. It was explained to Mollie and to Angus that they were meant to stay with Dan for only 15 seconds and then peel away, which would be signalled by Sarah.
After Mollie peeled away we continued our walk and mollie joined along at the back, far enough away so that her footsteps aren’t audible. once on the straight in the carpark, Angus will be waiting at the far side of the carpark in the car. Sarah will signal as much as she can to get Angus to begin driving slowly and meet our walking party in the centre of the straight. Now as you can see in the first and second takes, this was the hardest to time as Angus’ vision of us was quite obscured and it was very hard to drive up, park an get out in a way that timed well. Nonetheless we got there in the end take!
Important to note is that Angus driving past was meant as a cue for Lewis down the alleyway, as we had no way to cue him, he could only tell when we were nearby, from when Angus drove past. anyway, as Angus approaches and parks he gets out of the car as quickly as possible and goes to chat with Dan, meanwhile Sarah and Mollie peel off to stay with the car incase it is in the way/incase someone sees that it’s running with the keys in it. After Angus does his lines he too peels off and goes back to the car leaving me and Dan left to continue the walk to the alleyway and then down and past Lewi (who had been signalled by Angus driving by) to the end frame on Dan’s back.
Overall the flowing of the scene worked very very effectively and I was impressed by the professionalism and the efficiency of the people around me, i really was just a man walking along with a camera and these amazing people had constructed this engaging event around me! I was very stoked! The timing of the car as mentioned was the biggest challenge and left the most room for error, however! We pulled it off effectively in the last take! Huzzah!
What worked very well in the continuous take was that the crew flowed with the scene as well, it wasn’t just one person standing in the cold by themselves, they would wait, perform and then join the moving shot. You could almost say that they were adding to it in more way than one! ha ha!
Something I have to mention is Dan himself! The hoodie he is wearing is his own hoodie and I felt was perfect for the part as it wasn’t the prettiest of all hoodies but it didn’t need to be, his character wasn’t like that. I had brought a few hoodies for him to wear but we decided to stay with his. AND! his hair, which was strange, shaved around the sides, suited the character further because it showed a strangeness to the character. The character wasn’t a short back and sides man, and that was reflected effectively (and accidentally) in Dan’s own choice of haircut! ALSO! That man can walk fast! In the Pre-viz me and Lewi thought we were averaging a reasonably speed but on the night Dan managed to shave 30seconds off the time! This also worked better for the scene as one of my biggest worries in the pre-viz was the space between the musician and the friend. I have to say that the straight in the car park is a VERY long walk and when me and Lewi did it, it felt long, but having Dan striding through, it made the scene feel more fluid and continuous.
One more thing on Dan, a few times he would pick a different path to walk, only slightly, and so i would have to wrap around to allow for this and it in a way made the scene more dynamic! It wasn’t exactly how i envisioned it as being, but having the camera wrap around gave this great depth to the take!
I sound like I’m singing the praises of only Dan BUT the ENTIRE crew did a great job on something that was no easy feat. A continuous shot with a few tricky choreographed moments is hard for people who have rehearsed it and i think that involving everyone by briefing them individually, feeding them, showing them the pre-viz and then doing a walk through and being supportive really got everyone on board and primed to create something marvellous!
Without the vest, I feel i would have been stuffed, it took three takes to get the take that I decided to use for the final product and even by then you can see the wobbles of fatigue, even with the vest on! I would have had no chance without the vest! I’m going to buy one tomorrow! However, I didn’t choose the last take based on the steadiness of the shot, the first one is rock solid, but by no means the best! The second is steady and has very good content but the third has slight wobbles with AWESOME content! So i decided to choose the third because thats what the take is about, it’s about the relationships of the actors on screen and their relationship to the space, regardless of how steady it is!
One of my loves is VFX (don’t worry I’m not going to prattle on about compositing and rotoscoping…yet) but my VFX tutor alway said to me “The visual effects should not dictate the story, the story comes first, then from that comes the VFX” And i realised that the same could be said about this exercise. The Story is what come first, not the way in which it is done, that becomes secondary to the story.
Overall the result was astounding, I have found a new love for using long tracking shots (when they are necessary in the narrative) and I loved the relationship it fostered between my characters and the space they were in. I loved it, I’ll be back sir! And well done again to my cast and crew! they were Excellent!
KFW.