Andrei Allen UCA Broadcast Media Blog

I came across this video on my timeline and thought that i would try and incorporate some of the techniques mentioned into my short film.

The main thing that i liked which I'm going to use is:

Tip number 4; using focus to create the shallow depth of field between objects, primarily using this technique when doing close ups of grant in the corner on his fight night, or if grant is on the punching bag and I'm filming him from behind another object whilst his practicing.

Also tip number 3; Perspective, by using a dirty frame to try and add depth into the scene. But also i may try out some different angles to record my action, to exaggerate the convergence of parallel lines within the scene, i.e fight night, if I'm filming from a low angle looking up it will create a kind of weird illusion of depth, with everything else that would be happening within the background.

Here's the video below:

This is the equipment I'm going to use throughout the whole shoot



Spare batteries x 3

Canon 50mm f1.8

Zoom H4m recorder

Headphones

This is the call sheet for the week.

Because Grant trains at same time everyday, there's no need for me to do a call sheet for each individual day. Where it says shoot start time/Wrap time and it has the black coloured number, that is to represent the start and wrap time for that specific shoot so i.e. 11am tip 1pm

In order to get ideas as to what type of shots i want to have in my film, i searched the web to see what i could find that i'd like, and what i think would work with the poem adaptation.


Below is footage that i like and the explanation for it.


Iconography

With this footage what i like about it is the fact that Chris Eubank Jnr is hitting the wall pad hard, making a loud THUD sound.
The location that i'm filming at also has such equipment, and with it i could use it as an iconic reference to the line mentioned in the poem
"Only the monstrous anger of the guns"
The good thing with this footage again, is also the fact that the pad is being aggressively hit but with composure whilst Chris is grunting, which would emphasise the word "Monstrous" even more in the poem.







What i find useful about this clip is that where Mayweather and the young kid is doing pad work in the ring, again, the sound from the pads could be used as an iconic reference to "Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle" 






The reason i chosen this specific clip out of all the heavy bag workout clips i found on youtube is that this clip has the rattling coming from the chain of the punch bag, which is a sound i want to be able to capture as in the poem it says "Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle" and the rattling from the punching bag could be an iconic reference to it.





With these two clips below, it's just a thought, but i was thinking of maybe doing Trainer POV with Grant (boxer). With the camera  focusing on Grants face as he's training, emulating the movement of his trainer. This scene would go with "Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes" 





At the gym where i'm going to be filming there is a gym bell timer there already, which i will make reference to it's sound when it's mentioned in the poem (at the end of the footage)







Technical


With this clip, what i particularly like that i'm definitely looking to use on my production, is the shallow depth of field in the gym training scenes. 

I also like the hand held feel as it makes the scenes a bit more authentic, in the sense that you feel like your involved with the training, especially since some of the shots are up close and personal.







What i like with this footage is the close up's of the sparring happening which was shot with the 135mm Ziess f2.8 prime lens. 
I also like the fast action cutting as well, however, im not too sure if i'd continually use that throughout my piece, i may use it on a few shot sequences.
Another thing that i like about this footage, i'm not too sure if it was intentional, but they had a dirty frame shot, which is a shot with something in front of the lens out of focus, to sort of provide another perspective to the scene. 

Dirty Frame

Again, i also like the close up's and shallow depth of field with this footage, almost like it is shot with a 50mm 1.8 or 1.4... I coincidentally came across this footage when i typed in Sparring Cinematography on youtube, and this was one of the search results

So that i could get a rough idea of the sort of shots that i could pull off inside the boxing gym, when i went down there whilst location scouting i also took some test shots of people training; to see how the footage would look, especially where i was filming on my new camera which i have not used before.


These test shots were done using my sony A7S with a 50mm f1.8 lens.

My camera setting was Picture profile 7 using Sony's Slog2 which is a flat colour profile and the native ISO for this profile is 3200 and my Kelvin setting was 3000K (incadescent)

I  was also recording at 50p (50 frames per second progressive with the AVCHD file format)


The audio was recorded using the cameras built in mic





I filmed at f1.8 because i wanted to have the shallow depth of field in my shots, and also so that i could rack focus only leaving a small segment of the footage in focus, where i wanted to give my footage that gritty feel, as i was also using my camera handheld.


When i go back to film Grant training, I'm going to ask for the music to be switched off, as it would mess up the continuity of the shots with the music being inconsistent.

I may also shoot at 25p instead of 50p to give the footage more of a move feel, as there would be a bit more motion blur on the shots where there's less frame being recorded per second.


Here's some still's from the test shot video i created

The main thing i like, and what i want to aim for with my short film is the Dirty frame feel for most of my shots, having something in the foreground out of focus whilst I'm capturing the main action in the 'mid ground.

Where i like the flat look on the footage, i may stick with it, as it makes the footage look washed out, kinda of desaturated and dreamlike, especially where there's a nice lens flare coming from the tube light above the boxing ring.











This is the look that i want to try and aim for throughout my film, hopefully i can keep the look consistent.

Footage from inside Brompton Boxing GYM





York Hall, 5 Old Ford Rd, London E2 9PJ
020 8980 2243








Images from inside the venue during boxing event

These selection of images is taken from

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/04/04/white-collar-boxing-at-the-york-hall/



    



The main reason i've gotten footage and pictures from inside york hall is, whenever im doing a job at a venue i've never been to before (or don't have access to before doing the job), i always look at the previous work that has came out of the venue, such as footage and pictures. When i look at these things, the main key points i look out for is lighting, Framing (perspective and angle of image), lens used (rough guess) and also potential angles that i could do myself whilst working in this new environment.

To break down these sections more so that you understand my trail of thought:

Lighting: are the colours in the picture natural or are they flooded out with a bright light (washed out colours) this lets me know if a fast lens or slow lens was used.

If there is to many shady/dark parts in the image this will let me know where the key area's for lighting are and are not.

Lens: With lenses it's mainly for image distortion, so for example, if a wide angle lens is used the perspective between the background and foreground will seem further, where if a zoom lens or lens with a narrow depth of field was used such as a 50mm+ the perspective of the foreground and background would seem a lot closer. Baring this in mind, i usually look at the framing of the composition and judge what type of lens was used to pull of what ever image it is that i'm analysing. To then see if i'd like to replicate such shot, or prepare not to get such a shot.

With lenses, it's also to see how the lighting of a shot looks, for example with this picture,

You can see that the lighting is coming from over the boxers as there's a shadow casted on the ground beneath them. No flash has been used because you can see the red tint slightly covering the boxer who's wearing red. Also a fast shutter speed was used, fast enough to not make any motion blur on the boxers actions, however, not fast enough to capture the adidas logo on the gloves very clearly.

Because of the no flash situation, that means that this TOG had to rely on a very fast lens, wide at that because of the perspective, and also a high iso to increase the intake of light he/she was working with.

If i was to have a rough guess, i'd guess that the lens this TOG used for the event was a 16-35mm f2.8 lens iso would be around 1200-1600 and shutter speed would probably be 1/160th of a second

What this tells me is, if i wanted to film at this venue and wanted to capture footage similar to this picture, i would need a fast lens which is f2.8 or faster, and possibly a camera that handles high iso without producing to much noise/grain.



Framing: When it comes to the framing of the composition, i only really look at this element when i'm thinking of potential angles of coverage that i could go for when i'm working at the venue, then i'd think how i'd make the shot look better from that angle of coverage.... For example, the shot might look under exposed because not enough light is being let into the picture, and this could be due to the aperture of the lens used, or the limit for the camera iso to raise to before grain/noise is noticeable.





Conclusion

Hopefully with all this information, it should be enough for me to be able to prepare the equipment that i would need to work at these locations.

With this screenplay it's not traditionally formatted as i'm using it for myself, so i've formatted it in a way to which i understand.
As i'm not working with no professional actors or crew, i'm literally a one man band doing everything myself, so this script is just a blueprint for me to stick to, with some suggestions as to the type of shots i may want to go for as i'm filming specific scenes.

Also, because of the nature of what my film is going to be about (showing a boxer training) i've spoken to Grant and his training coach Verron in advance, to get a rough idea of what his training schedule is and what he does for each session. 
Grant and his training coach Verron gave me a rough idea of what they're going to be doing, to which gave me the basis for constructing this script, however, i thought it would be best if i turned up and watched/filmed their training sessions anyways just incase if anything i capture might give me more ideas to use in the script.

This script is just a guide and suggestion of shots i'd like to capture in order to make the story complete, some shots i have already, and some shots i'm yet to get.


The locations i have for this script is mainly two places, which is going to be Brompton Boxing academy and also York hall in essex.


As mentioned briefly earlier, this script is a blueprint/guide for me to stick to, and may be subject to change at any moment in time because it is mainly going to be an actuality film, with maybe some acted out scenes.
So in order for me to keep on track as to what i'm doing, this script is my map to guide me where i need to get to!