On the Road Shooting Kardinal Sinners

December 21st, 2008


We packed ourselves top to bottom into two mini vans. One with the crew and gear and the other with five wrestlers and one unlucky, or depending on how you look at it, lucky crew member. Our our way to the nations capital, Ottawa, Ontario to shoot 3 wrestling shows and finish off shooting for our television show "Kardinal Sinners" for Rush HD.

This road trip wraps up shooting that has spanned over the last 6 weeks. Its basically the 2nd season of our "Wrestling Reality" show. But since the Fight Network screwed us over, Rush HD picked up the show and we changed the name to "Kardinal Sinners"- the name of the "greatest wrestling faction in history" of Brody Steele, Kowboy Mike Hughes and Trash Canyon. So essentially we were to follow those three, "Wildman" Gray Williams and Frankie Sloan (who hails from Liverpool, UK) to Ottawa where we were scheduled to shoot 3 nights of matches and everything that happens in between.

Shooting a documentary series like this is kind of like guerrilla warfare. The smaller and more mobile and tactical group (in this case, the filmmakers) maneuver, weave and bob our way around "shooting" the bigger, more powerful, albeit, less mobile group which are the wrestlers. Although I love following these characters around and have developed an unlikely friendship with all of them, its much like babysitting a group of large children. The good thing is, the more ridiculous they act, the better story you usually have!

One thing I have learned from shooting such this last year is that gaining their respect and trust is paramount to getting good content. I always make a conscious effort to be around them as much as possible in any given situation, to build a bond. Once you get that, then you can get the gold. They trust telling you everything, even when the camera is right in their face. Even when they tell you "don't film this", you do it anyway without them noticing. Not to exploit them in any way, because I would never do that, but to get as much "real" content as possible. (Im sure im going to get a black eye for doing this eventually).


I say "real" content because it's very difficult to actually capture something pure and real. Having a camera in any environment automatically changes the majority of situations when the subject knows the camera is present. Once they know a camera is there, they will most often act differently than they normally would if there were no camera in the room.

Thankfully for us though, our wrestlers are all excellent on camera. We often don't have to ask them questions, they will just say what we want to hear. Making our jobs a lot easier.


We shot this season with a 4 camera set-up compared to a 6 camera set-up last year because less of our attention was focused on the matches themselves. We used 3 Sony EX1's and 1 Sony EX3 ( third from the right). So for the events we had a 3-camera setup, then I was backstage with Greg on the main documentary camera. Then once the matches were finished, we would usually have two documentary camera's on hand at all times.

We followed the wrestlers everywhere...you name it. I once again volunteered for the first night shift in Quebec City following a group of drunk englishh giants around a beautiful French town in thirty below zero snow storm. This always makes for a golden opportunity to get some good content, cause they usually love the camera once they loosen up a bit. Its always good for a laugh and this year was no exception.


Things would have been a lot more interesting though for outdoor shooting if temperatures had been more favourable. We still managed to drag them out to the parliament buildings in Ottawa and when they went to get their afternoon tan, we stuck around to get some great shots of the city. It was so cold though. It's really hard to wear gloves as well when you are operating a camera hand held, so I remember my fingers in agony after 5 minutes of shooting. I still remember the look of anguish on Lauchlan's face when we were shooting. It was that "Are we really shooting in this weather?" look. Although he had more things in store for him (can't say anymore about the subject)




It's always a marathon shooting these run and gun style of documentaries, but its what we do best. We always manage to make it work and we do great work spontaneously.

It's an exhausting process though. Shooting 16-20 hour days, then staying up most of the night dumping and organizing footage, organizing gear, charging batteries, then crashing for a few hours only to wake up exhausted and do it all over again.

It's a process I don't think anyone gets used to, but I love it. Filmmaking always seems like such a glamorous process, when it fact it is the furthest thing from it. I feel so privileged everyday to do this and get paid for it. I never get sick of that...and after all the shooting is said and done and evreryone is exhausted and tired after weeks of shooting.....

I get to spend the next ten weeks widleing down over 100 hours of footage into six, 22-minute episodes of entertainment. Wish me luck!

Cheers.

Lighting Space.....Knights

December 11th, 2008

It's 7am and we're off to Ottawa this morning to shoot the last section of "Kardinal Sinners" wrestling show. I was at the office until 1am last night finishing things for other clients before we head out on the road. Not quite sure why im up writing a blog, but im having a little trouble sleeping.

I wanted to talk about lighting in this post. Recently Mark Hemmings and I went to FatKat Animation in Mirimachi, NB to shoot a series of 30 second commercials for their show "Space Knights".


From what I understand the show cartoon is about 4 'power ranger' type super heroes who are trying to save the world. But they aren't exactly politically correct superheroes....and one of them is gay and in a wheelchair...not that there is anything wrong with that! I just think its funny for a superhero. I guess that's why the show is a comedy.

So they wanted to shoot 4 public service announcements to help promote the show and had FatKat employee's dress up in the Space Knight costumes and act out the parts in live action.

It's so much fun to go up to FatKat. They have such a cool spot and always treat us so well. We seem to really connect well with them when we are there and the owner Gene Fowler always has time to welcome us and crack us up a thousand times over. Im glad we have formed such a good relationship, which such a talented and creative company.

It's always such a pleasure to shoot anything with Mark as well. I respect his abilities so much, especially when it comes to lighting. He just knows how to paint a scene so meticulously. Lighting is such a crucial part of shooting anything...whether is be photos, video or film, so setting up any shot with Mark is fascinating!

It took us about an hour and a half to set up this first scene. Below you will see how we did it.

They really wanted a nice warm feel to these first 2 scenes. So we brought a giant white bed sheet and suspended it from the roof to create the same effects of a giant soft box.




We then shinned 2, 300 watt and 2 500 watt lights directly down through the sheet. The result is a nice soft light that falls on the subject (as you can see in the picture at the top)

We then filled behind him with a 500 watt softbox with a blue gel. The blue gel is used to create the illusion that light is coming from the window. It gave us some really nice defined edges around the shoulders and top of the head.

We then used 2, 1000 watt lights you would buy at any hardware store and bounced them off the reflector to create a soft key light on the subject's face.

I then set up our Sony ex1 with the Letus extreme 35mm adapter. Used a 50mm f 1.4 nikon lens, which is near perfect! It gives such a perfect depth of feild...especially for this camera. I used 8 feet of track and set the camera up on our dolly. Our final image was lit perfectly. The Space Knight in the chair was clearly and softly defined. Because the chair was a darker red than his suit, the foreground was slightly darker than the subject. It made the image stand out even more and almost looked like there was a soft vingette in the bottom third of the picture. (that's me with the space helmet on!)






We headed down to the bar next and shot the final 2 commercials. One was of the space knight getting wasted in the bar talking about how to treat your woman.


Then we shot the green knight in the wheelchair in a janitors closet. Talking about how disappointed he is that he is always left behind. Mark again lit this beautifully. To top it all off he swung one our our lights from the ceiling to really give that storage closet effect. It turned out amazing!


Everyone was really pleased with the final images! We shot everything at 24p and FatKat is editing the footage and adding all the sound and voice overs in post.

It was actually really nice to only have to shoot something for a change and not have to edit it at all. It was a 17 hour day by the end of it for Mark and I....seems pretty good for 4 commercials, considering all the tear down and setup required. Hopefully I will be able to post some of the shots once FatKat is finished!

Cheers.

Under Appreciated Art Form

November 10th, 2008



Today was a nice day to have off. In the 6 previous days to this I logged more than 100 hours of work...way too much I know. I don't really want to do that again. I don't think anyone should have to work that much! It's just not healthy...but in this case I didn't have much of a choice.




I was cutting our latest documentary "Airplane Journals", which documents Greg's adventures in the world of coaching. He has been coached since he started the company by a guy named Dave Veale. (www.visioncoachinginc.com). As Greg has travelled the world he has interviewed countless numbers of coaches. Everything from executive coaches, surf coaches, acting coaches, hockey coaches, wrestling coaches, vocal coaches...you name it. Getting all of their different philosophies on coaching. All the while his coaching sessions with Dave tell the story of how our business has grown with the help of Dave's coaching.

On top of that I was finishing up a pretty big corporate project that turned out awsome! And I was also doing a bit more directing for our Jessica Rhaye DVD. Both of which were very time consuming.

But back to the doc....

I had basically started editing this doc on Wednesday and it was due Sunday morning at 6 a.m.
Not a lot of time, especially seen as the goal of this film is to be a television hour: 45-52 minute range. Greg had roughed out how he wanted the story to go, but there was a tonne of work to do on it. I didn't think it would be possible to cut it in such a short amount of time...but I dug in!


It had to be done. Greg and Dave were heading to the International Coaches Federation Annual conference in Montreal. A perfect place to screen it for the first time. Especially seen as the world best executive coaches were in the film and would be there.

I worked 17 hours per day on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday on it and made good progress. I had 17 minutes locked by then, with 24 hours left...A long way to go to get to that hour! But the first third of the doc was really thin on images to tell the story. You have to have coverage for what is being talked about. So I had to be creative in ways to tell this story. That meant adding a lot of old photos, newspaper clippings, and documents. It was extremely time consuming, not to mention the animated maps I made in after effects that illustrate Greg's globetrotting. It was successful though at creating the proper visuals for the audio.

If you look below and above at the screen shots from my editing suite, you can kind of see how it works. The blue and yellow blocks are the video tracks, and the green are for the audio. Then the computer reads what is always on the top line. That is what you end up seeing on screen! It also plays the all the audio tracks.




The reason I feel like editing is such an under appreciated art is that no one has no idea how much influence an editor as on a film. Unless you have actually done it, or watch someone do it, it would be hard for you to understand how much time it takes to cut 50 hours of footage down to 50 minutes, or how an editor can take a film in so many directions, depending on the vision of the director. I really feel like the edit suite is where the film is truly made.

Im lucky cause Greg gives me a lot of creative control when i'm editing his pieces. We're really on the same page. So he gives me a lot of room and trust to cut as I see fit. Something as simple as choice of music and when you bring it in, when you fade it out can completely change the feel or meaning of a scene. It's perhaps my favorite part.

Its such a puzzle. You take someones interview and rip it to pieces. You mix and match their dialogue so much. Take a piece here, put it there,. Take a couple words and add them somewhere else. Take out all the umm's and ah's. (people do that a lot). Basically you have to get their point across as quickly as possible. So, a point that may take a minute to say in the raw footage of an interview might be mixed, mashed, and slashed so it lasts 10 seconds. That's why coverage is so crucial. If you put images over top of their interview, no one will ever know it was manipulated. Without it, all interviews you see would be filled with jump cuts.

So Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and got to work on cutting the remaining 30 minutes. It took me 24 hours! Straight! Not the first time I sat in an editing suite that long and won't be the last. It got a little lonely at about midnight. So I went to Steve's for some grub. Then back to work! I ended up finishing it on time, then proceeded to sleep the rest of day, naturally.

I really love editing though. I love the challenge of telling a story, and evoking emotion from the viewer. It's an amazing feeling. Especially when your scene really works. It moves he story forward, looks great and more importantly sounds great. In my opinion editing is about %80 audio, %20 visual. You can not fool people with bad audio. You have to be able to watch it with your eyes closed...then if that works, then you make the visuals fit.

When it all comes together though, its a beautiful thing! It really is a piece of art, a creation. Kinda like painting a picture and writing a novel all in one. It feels so good to sit and watch something you know is great. I tend to watch scenes I've cut over and over and over. Then when the film is finished and ready for people to enjoy, I don't really want to look at it again! A nice dose of irony don't ya think?

Cheers,
Andrew

Colour Correction

October 27th, 2008

I recently went to Power Post in Halifax to do what is called an "Online Edit" for the Chris Cummings music video, "Welcome Back", with Power Post colourist, Reynold Gregor.

In production, often there are 2 types of edits, "offline" - which is where the entire sequence of your project is peiced together exactly how you would like it...its locked. The "online edit" is when the final bells and whistles are added to a project to get it ready for broadcast. Often high-resolution titles are added, its up-rezed to the best possible quality and most importantly, it's colour corrected!

A couple of people asked me. "Is colour correction that important?" Yes it is! It's one of the most important steps you can take to get your project looking professional. Most, if not every single thing you see on TV, and on the big screen is heavily colour corrected. Not only to correct errors in colour balance and exprosure, but to give the piece a certain feel.

For example in the series "Band of Brothers", they de-saturated a lot of the colour because most of what we see from the 1940's is black and white. They wanted to acheive the feel of what we are used to seeing from that time period, but still make it colour. So lowering the saturation works perfectly!
It also gave the series a certain 'dark' feeling to help convey what it must have been like to go through something horrific as war. Check it out (www.hbo.com/band)

Basically though, colour correction makes everything you produce, look a million times better! The image at the top of the page is a perfect example. The left side is not properly white balanced and is overexposed. Because there is still detail in his face though, the "chrominance" (colour) can easily be tweaked to give his skin a nice warm tone. The overexposure can be fixed by adjusting the luminance (black and white). First adjust the 'setup', which makes the blacks, blacker, and then raise the 'gain' which brings out your whites. Then the image has a nice contrast!

Don't be fooled though, not all images can be corrected properly. You always want to capture your image as best you can when shooting. The image below is a perfect example.



If you look closely on his forehead, there is no detail at all. The exposure from the sun is just too great for the camera to recognize any detail, so it just sees it as white. Therefore, when you try to correct it, no matter what you try and do in your colour correction tool, his forhead will remain white.

This of course can be corrected by closing the iris on your lens slightly, using a neutral desnity filter, cranking your shutter speed, or if you have a lot of time on your hand, bringing it into photoshop and correcting each frame of video individually!

So whether you be a filmmaker or photographer, remember every professional uses some type of colour correction on every piece of art they create, so you should to! You'll be amazaed at the difference!

Cheers!

The Hawk is Howling

October 6th 2008

Hey Everyone...

I guess I didn't keep my promise of my original blog which was to write more often. Its crazy to think it is October already! The summer just seemed to fly by without a chance to sit back and enjoy it. Although its easy to say that when the temperature is dropping as rapidly as it is now.

There was a summer though. It just seems like with all the things I had to deal with, especially regarding events that affected those I love the most, made it seem like the summer didn't even exist. Not really subjects I care to talk about in any more detail....sorry. Those who know, know what im talking about. But these events somehow managed to mask some of the magical energy that surrounds summertime.

I did spend a lot of time on my native soil of Prince Edward Island. Retreating (for the most part) with Julie and my family to our cottage on the North Shore. Out of all breathtaking the places i've been privileged to see from the Southern tip of South America, to the top of Scotland, right through to the heart of China and beyond, there are very few that touch my soul like this Island. This area of the North Shore just seems to run endlessly east to west. Most of the time with very few lucky enough to enjoy it. Standing on top of a fifty foot sand dune, the Atlantic disappears into the horizon seemlessley. I can't help but feel perfectly connected when I'm there. Everything makes sense...and I never want to leave it.


The days are long and slow and every night the sun sets over the ocean firing fireworks of orange, red, purple and blue streaks as it fades away. I always promise myself I'm going to take my camera for the weekend and dedicate my time to capturing this feeling. But my rubber arm is always twisted and the little man on my right shoulder tells me to "relax and enjoy it for yourself instead". Especially when 80 plus people from my father family show up for "The MacCormack Family Reunion 2008". What a weekend that was! So amazing to connect with that many people I don't see nearly enough.



Days filled with golf, booze, and beach, blending in with late night jams, dancing and debauchery....the good kind of course! So amazing to connect with that many people I don't see nearly enough. The MacCormack roots run deep!


When I do make it to PEI, I'm usually coming off an insane amount of time in the editing suite. A spell where I have way too many things to finish and end up taking them way too seriously. I always become so passionate about every little project I have my hand on at HHP. This typically winds up with me spending way too many nights at the office trying to get things taken care of. Slowly though im learning to take my job less seriously, because at the end of the day, its only a video, right? Ah....yeah....easy to say it now eh? Each little piece though, big or small is a piece of art in itself. I take a lot of pride in that. Sometimes to the point where I become very irritable and suddenly turn very short with guys at the office. God Bless them! They know when I'm stressed though, and they always give me my space.

I wish sometimes professionally I could me more like Greg. He never seems to be that stressed. Of Course i've seen him wound up, but its rare...very rare. I admire that about him. But alas, for those of you who don't know...I am not Greg....so....I can't expect to react like he does....although its still nice to try!

Im trying to think of work related things to talk about, but because I'm comfy at home right now, I don't really feel like it. We have been coming a long way though. It's starting to feel like we're really growing into what we envisioned. We invested in a bunch of new gear, including key upgrades to our computers, a portable dolly (which is amazing to have 24/7), a new camera the Sony EX1 and the Letus 35mm adapter. These two a fore mentioned new goodies are really fun toys! The fact that the EX1 provides such stunning full HD picture, combined with the depth of field proper prime film lenses on the Letus, is helping our productions really step it up a notch. I guess its like anything though. The better you get, the better your equipment has to get too. Or else, you're just treading water.


I am super pumped though that our music video for Chris Cummings "Welcome Back" is ready to go. I just put the final touches on it today. It will be pretty cool to see our work on CMT. I'll talk more about that in a video blog which will be up very soon. But big props to the director Warren Sonoda of 235films in Toronto (www.235films.com). I learned so much from him from day one, and even more when he saw my first cut of the video and told me to scrap it and start over again! Talk about humbling....But in the end it was definitely for the best. I really appreciated his honesty. (its the only way to go in this business) When he liked something, he let you know and when he didn't, he let you know. So when he gave the final thumbs up on the video, it felt really great! A huge relief, and happy that I could carry out the final stages of project that had some many great people working on it. Considering he has directed 135 music videos in his career and this was the first one he didn't edit himself...we deserve a pat on the back for that one. Not saying I'm satisfied though...Cause then how would we make anything better?

Oh and do yourself a favour and check out "Mogwai's" new album entitled 'The Hawk is Howling"...these guys are way too good!

www.myspace.com/mogwai

EnJoY!!!!

Cheers Folks!

Andrew's First Video Blog

Well Overdue: My first blog Ever!

Well, this is my first official blog posting ever! I've kept journals before, but never have I displayed my doings for all to see!

I’m just sitting in my living room of my apartment in Saint John witnessing an amazing sunset over the city. The sky is the most brilliant purpley-pink grade that doesn't even seem real. Especially as it always seems to be so foggy you can't even see the building across the street...so this is really nice!

Anyways...I digress. I don't even know where to start really. So much has happened since I joined this company 15 months ago. I just feel so blessed to be paid to do what I love. I know so many filmmakers who struggle to find the resources to bring their visions to life, so to do this and earn a living is a real privilege. I guess I’m apologizing to myself and co-workers because I’ve been really un-inspired and grumpy at work the last couple of days, which is never the case. So, I guess this means I’m over it?

So since I have so much to talk about, why don't I start at the beginning and pick away at the last year for the next few blogs until I get up to date. I have learned so much about this business in the past year, but none more than I did working on our TV series Wrestling Reality. (photo below by Mark Hemmings) Check out his website...his photography is world class! www.markhemmings.com



So this was my first project with HHP and we went on the road to begin shooting only a week after I moved to Saint John. I was originally supposed to be a production assistant, but was quickly thrust into an assistant director role, shooting the majority of the documentary footage on the show.

I just followed the wrestlers everywhere they went, which sometimes meant staying up all night with them while they partied hard! Nothing I wasn't used to though, so it worked out really well. I found that the more I partied with them, the closer I got to the wrestlers. The more they trusted me, the more gold I captured in the camera! This was no more evident when I actually filmed Brody Steele doing steroids. To our knowledge this was the first time it had ever been broadcast on television, which created quite a buzz. I didn't seem like a big deal when I was shooting it, until I saw the clip all over country on TSN, Entertainment Tonight, you name it. It was pretty cool to see it get such publicity.

Post-production though was the most rewarding part of the whole project though. Greg was supposed to edit it, but seen as he produced it and directed the whole show, he just didn't have the time to cut the it, so he gave that duty to me! I was a little intimidated at first, no question. I had never tried to cut such an enormous project. Sorting through 150 hours of footage was a bit overwhelming, but Greg gave me so much confidence and was was so positive throughout the whole thing, it made my job a pleasure.

I can't really remember how long it actually took, but the last few weeks before going to broadcast were absolutely exhausting! We just kept on having little technical issues that seemed so unfair at the time. So much work was finished and technology was keeping us from completion. I can remember a few times working 44 out of 48 hours in a row! Just time to sleep for a few hours, then spending the rest in front of the computer. I never worked so much in my entire life! I never knew it was possible. In the end though, we produced a fantastic show and we are all pumped to shoot season two in England very soon!

After all that crazy work around that show, I tossed the idea around of going to China for 6 weeks over Christmas to visit my girlfriend Julie, never really thinking it would be possible. Then one day Greg told me he thought it was a good idea I went on the trip....I think he lived to kind of regret the decision because production ended up being really busy in December and January, but they managed fine without me...and the trip to China was amazing...travelling is just way too much fun!!! Here are a few pics. It was such a marvelous place for photography....

So there you have it, my first official blog. I'll do my best to write another one soon, unless I get a bunch of comments telling me how boring it is! Hope you enjoyed it. I'll take a page out of Lauchlan's blog too and recommend some music. Do yourself a favour and get the latest from "Fleet Foxes". At first I thought they sounded so much like "My Morning Jacket" (which isn't a bad thing), but they have an amazing sound with wonderful vocal harmonies....enjoy them!

Cheers

Well, this is my first official blog posting ever! I've kept journals before, but never have I displayed my doings for all to see!

Im just sitting in my living room of my apartment in Saint John witnising an amazing sunset over the city. The sky is the most brilliant purpley-pink grade that doesn't even seem real. Espeically as lately it always seems to be so foggy you can't even see the building across the street...so this is really nice!

Anyways....