6. Filming Gear p5: Aputure Amaran light box

One last piece of gear that I got very late in the production was a light box. The first place that I was going to shoot Ramon was inside a dark church. to show you how little I know about any of these filmmaking technical requirements, it didn't even dawn on me that I needed a light source; Ramon had to remind me. So on my way to the church for the shoot, I stopped back at B&H Photo, since they were so helpful before. This time I went to the big lighting department. I told the guy what I needed, and he told me that everything he had was way too expensive for what I was trying to do. Instead he directed me back to the camera accessories department to find a smaller light box. Talking to the girl behind the counter, she pointed me in the direction of this small battery powered light box that was equipped to be placed on cameras. 

Knowing that I had an iPhone, I knew this wouldn't work, so she suggested that I still get the small light box, but that I also get a tripod. These two pieces of equipment were the most important things I could have gotten for the whole shoot. Because I wanted to be portable, it didn't have enough power to illuminate someone across a room, but it did have enough power to light a person from about ten feet away. Since I knew I was only doing stationary interviews (for the most part), this was plenty.

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5. Filming Gear p4: Zoom H1 Recorder and Senal OLM2 Lav mic

The other nice piece of gear that I got was a recording device. I wanted a devoted sound recording device because I knew that I was going to try to shoot the subject from certain distances, or even outside. Both of these options would mean that the built-in audio recorder from the iPhone wouldn't suit me very well. Furthermore, I had no assumptions that it was a high-quality recorder. But all this also meant that I needed a microphone, too. When I think of audio gear needs, the first place that came to mind was Guitar Center. I thought that the folks there would be informative, and help someone like me (who doesn't know what he's doing). I was wrong. They didn't have a great selection, and they merely assumed that I would want an option to plug directly into the iPhone. 

But I wanted to devote the iPhone to video recording, and then another device for audio recording. One reason for this was because I just didn't have the memory on my iPhone for this sort of task (I only have a 16gb iPhone). I was lucky, however, because there was a customer there who helped me a great deal more than the people behind the counter. This guy was very informative, and understood what I wanted to do. He directed me to a specific lav-mic that they didn't have a Guitar Center. Although I got a Zoom recorder at at Guitar Center, I had to go to B&H Photo for the lav-mic.

The folks at B&H Photo were amazingly helpful. While I went there for one thing, the guy directed me to a different mic that was better, given my goals, and was a bit cheaper, too. Further, he reminded me that since I wanted to record outside, I would also need a windjammer. Anyone who has talked to someone on their phone outside with heavy wind can understand the value of a windjammer. I hadn't even thought of that!

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4. Filming Gear p3: Tripods

I already knew that another essential piece of gear for this project would be tripods. Over the years, I have collected a couple. The first one is very cheap, and only goes so high. The second tripod is a bit better, and has many different points of articulation, stands taller, and is more sturdy. However, the problem is that neither tripod is suited for iPhones. In fact, iPhones don't seem that they are built for tripods at all. I wondered if there was an iPhone case, or a specially suited tripod for iPhones. I couldn't find one after a quick search, so I improvised.

However, the improvisation came easy: the OSMO gimbal has a built-in jack for tripods, so that solved one problem. But what about the second iPhone? There were a bunch of silly hack-things that I saw online. But none of them was stable enough or versatile enough to really serve what I was looking for. So I used rubber bands to tie the iPhone to the tripod. To keep it from being scratched, I put my driver's license and several tissues between the screen of the phone and the tripod. The hassle here is that the rubber bands are wrapped around the phone and the tripod in such a way that articulating the tripod isn't really possible. That was fine with me.

I also needed a tripod for the light box. So that means for each shoot, I set up three tripods. That means for each shoot I had to lug around three tripods. This was a bit of a pain. 

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3. Filming Gear p2: DJI OSMO Gimbal

When my friend heard I wanted to film with my iPhone, (the same friend who shot the travel videos) told me about a gimbal to help minimize the camera shake. So I went out and bought the OSMO gimbal for the iPhone. I had no idea how the thing worked; I had assumed that it was all analogue, and that I could figure it out very quickly. This wasn't the case. I was frustrated because I had scheduled a shoot with someone else that same day. I pulled the OSMO right out of the box before the shoot, and I could figure anything out. It turned out ok, anyway, since all I ended up doing was putting the iPhone on a tripod. But I was unable to get the walking shots that I expected to get. Perhaps that was my first lesson in filmmaking: make sure you know how to use the gear.

One huge advantage of the OSMO is that it automatically attaches to tripods. That means that it is easy to use the OSMO to attach the iPhone to a tripod, and thus take steady shots. 

However, I had to improvise when trying to attach the other iPhone to a tripod. I ended up using rubber bands to tie it to the base of the tripod. To protect the iPhone surface, I placed a tissue and an old drivers license in between the iPhone and the metal of the tripod. I still don't have a scratch on my iPhone. 

  

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2. Filming Gear p1: Cameras and iPhones

Again, I don't know anything about any of this, so I had very little idea of where to start, even. I had seen a lot of ads on tv and in the media about people using Apple iPhones6 to shoot high quality images and video. I knew that my iPhone6 had a better camera than my simple point-and-click Canon Elph, so that was a nice place to start.

Another welcomed addition to my filming arsenal was a second iPhone. My girlfriend has a job where they gave her an iPhone, since she travels so much for work. I am lucky because that means that when she is not traveling, I get to use it. I love the freedom of using a second camera, because it allows me to add a bit more variety to the final product. Instead of viewing the subject from only one angle, I get to move around, from one angle to another. The second advantage of using more than one camera is that it allows me to better edit-out parts of an interview that express some kind of dead-air. That is, if I want the pace of the discussion to increase, I can edit out certain parts of the interview, and the final product will look more smooth, as if I didn't cut out a chunk of the discussion. This goes for long sentences that I want to cut out, or even the briefest of pauses.

However, due to storage limitations and other emergencies that might come up, I also carry around my point-and-click Canon Elph that is several years old. The problem with this camera is that while I have a ton of storage (on a backup card), the video is limited to hd720. 

One thing you'll notice in this photo is that I simply rubber-band one iPhone to the tripod. I like to improvise. One stupid limitation of using iPhones is that they don't easily attach to tripods, so I have to come up with things like this. 

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1. Listen To The City Breathe: Introduction

My latest project was to produce a short documentary film. To make it easy, I decided to focus on a friend, Ramon Catalan. He's a musician that I've worked with many times over the years, and with whom I've produced several operas and other musical shows. I felt like he was an interesting guy, so I hoped I could relate some of that to the documentary.

To be sure, I've never produced a documentary before. For that matter, I've never produced any live-action films. All of the short films I've made were animated. (You can see my latest animated film HERE) I decided to see if any of those skills would translate over.

Another motivation was seeing my friend Dan Phan's short films. (Dan Phan's Vimeo page.) He produced little films during his travels. I thought they were really neat! I had tried to produce some sort of short travel oriented show in the past, but that came to nothing. After seeing his shorts, it burned a little fire under my butt, and so I felt now was the time.

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