It has been a busy week. Today is the first day I could sit down and write. I was down in Eastbourne last weekend, doing a day’s work on a feature, and I was called in last minute to shoot a music concert. These were all paid jobs, with me camera operating, so that’s more money in the bank for the film.

So last Saturday I was down in Eastbourne shooting slow motion shots for a feature film for Stephen Southouse. Stephen was the director of “White Admiral”, the feature that was shot down in Cornwall. (See Inspirations) I have to say I wasn’t looking forward to it. I was doing this one for the money. Last time, the experience was interesting. Each day would go from feeling really happy to feeling really frustrated. This is down to the way Stephen directs his films. He leaves a lot of the decisions up to the actors and crew around him. So if you asked him for his opinion, he would say that your idea is better than his and we should do it that way. So if I wanted to shoot the scene upside down, he would be up for that, though it wouldn’t fit the scene. For most of us on the shoot this was disconcerting, as we are used to going to the director for all the decisions - for guidance and we weren’t getting any. Some of the actors were particularly worried about their performances as things kept changing.

So this time I was going in knowing very well how Stephen’s works and I just wanted to get through the day, but do you know what - I actually enjoyed myself this time. It was actually very freeing to have no strict direction. Everybody who was there - Stephen, the actors Andrew Flux and Liz Knight (see the photo), and myself - were all working from the same page. so it was more enjoyable. I got some beautiful shots. Last time there was a bias against Stephen’s style of directing, “that’s not how you direct a film” being one of the main complaints, but there was none of that this time. I think because the film is an abstract film, as in it plays more like a dream then a story - jumping from scene to scene. Which I think fits Stephen’s style more than White Admiral did. White Admiral didn’t make any sense. This film doesn’t have to make sense because it is abstract.

I was only going to do one day on the shoot, but now I will go back and do the rest. Stephen is shooting the film one day at a time. The next date is the 21st July and he reckons he will be finish shooting in October. He shoots when he has the money to. Hopefully I will be free to do the rest.

The journey home was bad. Public transport at the weekend is shit. All the tube lines are being worked on and of course the bombing at Glasgow Airport didn’t help. To top things off there was the rain. I got home pissed off and drenched. I need to get a car. I rather sit in traffic, then be stuck on a tube train.

Onto the next job. Tuesday I get a phone call from Matteo Prezioso. Matteo is a DOP (Director of Photography) who has worked on a few of my shorts.  He had been offered a job to operate a camera (1 out of 4) for the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It was to film a performance of school kids, who had learnt to play the trumpet and trombone from scratch in 10 weeks, with an orchestra of students at the Royal College of Music. Matteo was working on another job that day and couldn’t do it. It was happening the next day and could I go in his place? Matteo is good like that and has gotten me a lot of work of late. I asked him for all the details he could give me, especially the start and finish times. If it was in the evening I couldn’t do it, as I had to go to work. It was during the day (9am to 3pm). Cool. I tell him I can do it. Matteo tells me he has done it before and that it’s a piece of cake. Famous last words.

So I turn up at the Royal College of Music on time and I am greeted by the composer. She is really pleased to see me as I am going to be the only one operating all 4 cameras. She quickly tells me the plan, as she has a million and one other things to do. Mobile calls regularly interrupt our conversation. They are rehearsing in the morning and then the main performance is for the afternoon. I am to used the rehearsals to grab close ups of instruments and musicians, as I can actually get on the stage and in amongst the musicians. Then for the main performance I am to get the wide shots. So once they edit the video together, it looks like the event was captured with lots of cameras. Like the BBC does for live events.

So what I did for each part was to set up 3 stationary cameras on tripods and use the 4th camera hand held. For the rehearsals I was doing a lot of running around. I hadn’t heard the songs before, so I didn’t know who would be playing which part when. I had to do a lot of readjusting of cameras and rush back to my original position. The main performance went a lot smoother, as they were all wide shots. All I had to do was set the 3 stationary cameras up so to capture the whole stage and then with the 4th camera I would get shots I couldn’t get from the rehearsal. As you can imagine I was very exhausted at the end of it, but that’s more money in the bank.

Also to see those kids playing on stage was inspiring. They played really well for 10 weeks of practice and that made the performance even more amazing. I guess having a goal like the concert focusing the mind on a task. A lesson for us all.