My third week in the job started quite quietly, much to my appreciation and i was handed a list of photography jobs covering the next few days. They were all fairly standard with the exception of a diamond wedding during which i was fed cake and tea by the staff at the home. One of the benefits of my job is i get to travel around a lot and meet a lot of different people from different backgrounds making all my days, school days!I also had my first big live video job at an annual awards evening. What made it interesting was the fact that i would be taking photos too. Usually when i have shot an conference type event, it has always been a three camera setup. one on wide shot, one on close up of the speaker and one on crowd reaction. Unfortunately we only have one camera and one operator. Me. I arrived slightly late due to a google maps confusion trying to take me down a road that doesn't exist, but still got there with enough time to evaluate the shooting space and get setup. After collecting some pre talks b-roll footage (cutaways used in the edit to make it look interesting and set the scene) I arranged myself in a sneaky position at the back of the room with a straight view to the podium. All the talks went smoothly and the footage turned out grand other than me and my purple jumper running into shot every five mins or so to take photos of the award winners. Now all that was left was to gather some shots of people eating and looking sociable and then i would get my reward; The corporate buffet. To my mild disappointment the food was served in bowls smaller than my hand although it was very tasty and did filled the required gap. I then shot home as my shift was verging on ten and a half hours and i had a long day photographing ahead of me. The next day involved me covering another wide range of areas including the construction of a new high school and gathering some very uninterested teenagers for a shoot, all in all a successful day.
This week i had also had a new toy arrive in my life in the shape of a video mic by Rode. This is a simple condenser microphone that sits in the hot shoe of my camera and provides a much greater range for recording sound. I had to test it out. It is awesome. The sound is so much clearer than the onboard mic and gives you more freedom with the ability to add a high pass filter (allowing you to remove rumble and other low frequency noise whilst recording). I have managed to use it for a project i am currently working on and has definitely added a more professional touch to the finished film.
I have also been experimenting with different timelapse techniques after watching some truly epic films. Namely, The Mountain by TSO photography, http://vimeo.com/22439234 and Landscapes Vol 2 by Dustin Farrell, http://vimeo.com/29950141. I've always wanted to capture the stars in a timelapse, as i find it fascinating that you can watch the world move through a camera and depending on the location you can sometimes pick up full milky ways!Not the chocolate bar! So off i set to test it out. Being Scotland and the summer only lasting for around about 2-3 days it was scandalously cold but i braved it for a good forty five mins before retiring to my warm flat to check out the footage. Im not going to lie i was well chuffed, the finished piece didn't look as good as i had hoped but you could still make out the stars, i just need a wee bit more practice. The test piece can be seen on my vimeo page: http://vimeo.com/30765617.
A happy end to a busy week.
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