TRANSITIONS BLOG POST: RESEARCH

Research:

Treatment:
I was sent the treatment from our producer Carla and it gave me a good insight as to what the show's style, which is a comedy-drama, which contains strong language and violence. Another main aspect that I took away from the treatment is that the show was set in the 90s and I also took away the locations which were:

•  Night club - 
• Riverside Apartment - with a walk-in wardrobe, king-size bed, and mirrors all around
• Suburban Estate - white picket fences, 5 bedroom house, kitchen-dining room
• Dark Office on top of the night club: Leather chair, CCTV screen (Big brother scenario)
• Council Estate tower block - smokey pokey rooms
• countryside
• private school (Sophia attends)
• 2x Two up-Two Down Victorian house
• Plus other locations which are still TBC

All these locations are great and I know that with the right equipment I could get each location to have a specific tone through the placements of lights, however, for our production we will only be using will be the two up-two down Victorian house, with this information I will need a plan of the house we will be using so I can create a lighting plan for our specific scene. I also must remember that the scene is shot at night with a few shots being outside so I must find a camera which can allow more light in through the iris thus making the shot more visible.

This information has changed last minute and we will no longer be using a two up-two down Victorian house, instead, we will be using a motor home to film the dinner scene, so this means i will have to change my lighting plan to suit this new location.

My role and the impact on our production:

As stated for this production I am the DoP so throughout this blog I will be looking into specific shows that have a similar style to ours, I will also be looking into different equipment to see which ones would best suit our production, and finally working closely with my director to produce mood boards, shot lists, camera tests, and lighting plans to really prepare for the shooting day.

Different types of cameras:

In recent years Netflix originals have become a staple in content making as the company
gives the creative full control into what they can make, but they have specific camera requirements, for example, any camera used must have a "...true 4K UHD sensor..." (Roberts, 2019) and they must also be able to capture footage RAW to allow more leniency with clour grading. Here is a list of a few cameras that are approved by Netflix:

1. ARRI Alexa LF
2. Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K
3. RED WEAPON VV8K (Monstro, Dragon)

Alexa LF:

The Alexa LF has been used on many different Netflix originals the show that comes to mind and that is similar to our production is Top Boy. The camera consists of a signature prime lens with an LPL lens mount and PL-to-LPL adaptor which allows you to add other lenses to best suit the scene. The camera also records in 4.5K, which gives the camera a very crisp image quality this then allows filmmakers to express more immersive shots. Due to the camera's sensor being larger than the frame of the camera this allows the sensor to have a natural colourimetry, which means skin tones will look more pleasing.

Films & Shows that have used this camera:

•  Joker (2019)
• Top Boy (2019)
• When They See Us (2019)

Joker (2019)

Top Boy (2019)

Camera Features:

best overall image quality - 

• Large-format aesthetic
• colour science for natural, pleasing skin stone
• huge dynamic range 
• perfect for slow-motion (150 fps in LF for sensuous slow motion)
• comes with new LPL Lens mount
• improved image quality

What other Cinematographer think of the Alexa LF

"Using the ALEXA LF gives me a greater dimensionality, a combination of bigger field of view and a shallow depth of field. I easily could push the ALEXA LF TO 2000 ASA with no visible noise but a very pleasant texture" Greig Fraser (Known for Vice and Star Wars: Rogue One)

The video above has Top Boy cinematographer Rina Yang and she explains how the camera worked and she then goes on to colour grading, which is also a key factor in how the show will look and feel for the audience. However, I will go over colour grading later in this blog.


Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K G2:

The Blackmagic URSA Mini is a very high-end digital film camera, which is used for different high-quality work from television to feature films. This specific camera goes way beyond Ultra HD as it records in 4.6K resolution, which is slightly better than the Alexa LF. Due to this camera being the second generation of this type of camera it features a new super 35mm 4.6K image sensor, which lets the camera shoot in a higher frame rate. The camera also shoots in RAW which gives us more options for colour grading and other possibilities for the edit, shooting in RAW means that the footage is not compressed so everything that is seen through the camera comes out crisp. However, with all these perks there is one major fault with Blackmagic cameras and that is their battery life. They all have an awful battery life which means they are constantly running out of charge if the budget could afford and an unlimited supply of charged batteries then this camera would be great, unfortunately, this production is a low budget so having this camera would be a problem unless when it came to shooting

Films and Shows that have used the Blackmagic:

• Bright (2017)

Bright is one of the only shows I could find that used this camera to film for certain parts of the film, I can see why as the film has such a specific colour grading, which could be easily done by this camera as it films in RAW and the footage wouldn't have been compressed, also the film has a lot of visual effects so this could have been why they used this camera as shooting in RAW makes the process easier.

Camera Features:

Good features:

• Super35 size sensor
• Built-in ND filters
• user changeable lens mounts
• The LCD panel is now easier to read
• the camera will record in 4.6K, 4K, 4K DCI, Ultra HD, 3K Anamorphic, 2K,  and 2K DCI
• Shoots in RAW

Bad Features:

• Magenta cast (Requires additional colour correction to get normal skin tones)
• Battery Life (easily runs out of charge)
• Bad in Low light
• Awkward iris dial placement

There are many good and bad features to this camera and with clear thought and ideas about how our production is going to look like this camera would not suit the style the director wants. Even though the camera has a reasonable price at just £5000, but due to our low budget it would be more affordable to just rent the camera for the specific shooting days


RED WEAPON VV8K (Monstro, Dragon):

RED WEAPON VV8K (Monstro, Dragon)

The RED WEAPON VV8K is the most expensive camera that I will be looking at, even though our production is low budget it will be interesting to find out about this high-level camera and why it is so well recommended. This specific was only used for smaller projects like TV, however, back in 2014 Marvel announced that they would be using this camera for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 this was the first time this camera had ever been used for a feature film. The camera comes in a small compact form and for a camera of its size, it is very impressive "The 8K WEAPON captures in 8K at 75 frames per second (fps), 6K at 100 fps, or 4K at 159 fps in REDCODE RAW" (RED, 2016). The camera has a huge dynamic range when it comes to colour as it gives your footage that extra life and dimension as it has depth in shadows which brings shots to life. Like mentioned above due to the RED'S power in capturing 8K this then gives VFX artists (visual effect artists). However, this camera is a very high-end camera and we can tell this because the price is way too much, the budget for our show is roughly £50,000, which is the price for this camera alone.

Films and Shows that used this camera:

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
• Krisha (2015)
• The Disaster Artist (2017)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

The Disaster Artist (2017)

Good Features of RED VV8K:

• Dynamic colour range
• Motion stabilisation 
• Shoots in RAW
• Can record in 8K
• Allows more possibilities for VFX
• A compact body which allows more freedom in moving shots
• The camera doesn't weigh a lot unless it has a cinema lens on.

Bad Features:

• The price is just too expensive as it's roughly £50,000

Overall Opinion on these cameras:

My overall opinion on all three cameras I looked into is that they all have their perks and downfalls, I personally would love to use all of them as they all have their specific benefits. However, I believe ARRI ALEXA LF would be the best suit for our production the reason I think this is because of what Rina Yang said about the camera as I was a huge fan of Top Boy and when I read the script to Brotherlidge I instantly thought about Top Boy and the style and camera work of the show. With the other two cameras, I know that they would be great as well, but there was not enough evidence to suggest that they would be the right camera for our production.

Even though these cameras are all great and I would love to get my hand on them, unfortunately, it would not a be for me to use these for the production as I have never used them before, I would need to have vigorous tests with them and we obviously don't have the budget for any of these cameras, but if we had an unlimited budget these would be the cameras I would potentially go for. However this is not the case so the camera we will be using is the Sony A7 iii, which is still a great camera as I used it for some test shots for a previous project and it was great at filming in low lights and has a lot of presets designed in the camera for colour grading.

Hiring cameras & other equipment:

Due to our production being a low budget production it would not be viable to buy camera equipment as that would easily eat away at the money we have. Luckily, my producer Carla has made a very reliable budget breakdown, which will help me have a template as to how much money I will have to hire out certain equipment. I also broke down the script with our Director so I knew how he wanted to show to look like, doing this will help me know what type of equipment we will need for our shoot.
Here is a list of what camera I will be using and the equipment we will also be using:

Cameras:

• Sony A7 iii
• 24mm Lens
• 35mm lens
• 50mm lens
• Fish Eye
• Go Pro
• Drone

Equipment:

• Tripod
• Car Mount
• Mounting Pole
• Steadicam (Ronin DJI)
• Lights

For the Drone, I will not be able to do operate it as I do not have a licence so we would need to hire in a drone operator so that would come under some of the expenses I can use, this will need to be taken into consideration and to see if it is viable for our producer.

Budget Breakdown for 'Brotherlidge'

Above is the budget breakdown for our production and as you can clearly see the technical department, which would be me and I would have £12,000 to rent out the equipment, but I will also need to take into consideration that not all of that would be for the DoP some of those expenses would be for the sound department.

To hire out this equipment it is important to know what types of renting companies there are and to find the cheapest yet most reliable companies to get the right equipment.

Different types of renting websites

There are many different types and companies for renting out cameras and specific types of equipment for shooting a production. For our production depending on the equipment, we would normally ask our university storage to see if there would be anything there to get before looking into renting out anything, just so that we can easily stick to the budget. After looking and knowing what equipment we would need there are a few that I know the university has like the Sony A7 iii and a standard tripod, so these will not be needed for hiring out from another company. However, the other equipment would, so looking into different companies around London area would be best for our budget as we wouldn't be spending a lot of money on travel, but I will be looking at every piece of equipment so I know for future reference.

There are many different companies in-and-around London such as; DV Camera Hire, Fat Llama, and Apache Rental.


How much to Hire cameras and equipment from the few rental companies from above:
All equipment would be priced at a daily rate:
We plan to film this production for over 2 days:

DV Camera Hire:

Cameras:

• Sony A7 iii -- (1 day hire £65, weekend £100, 7 days £220. however, this is for the mk2 as the website did not have mk3)
• 24mm Lens -- (N/A for this website)
• 35mm -- (N/A for this website)
• 50mm -- (N/A for this website)
• fisheye -- (N/A for this website)

• Go Pro -- (N/A for this website)
• Drone -- (£750 which includes full aerial insurance, CAA clearance, 2x operators)

Equipment:

• Tripod -- (1day £25, weekend £45, 5 days hire £55, and 7 days £65 Plus 20%VAT)
• Car Mount -- (N/A for this website)
• mounting pole (N/A for this website)
• Steadicam (Ronin M) -- (1 day hire £99, weekend £150)

Overall using this website would roughly cost our budget £1045, however, this is just with the equipment I could find on this website this is not an accurate price.

Fat Llama:

This website shows the cheapest options, however, we would have to travel to different locations to be able to get the equipment so we would have to hire out the equipment for days that we would not need them for just so we can have all the equipment at once, this is depending on travel time.

The prices are daily rates, also the prices vary as it depends on how much the owner wants.

Cameras:

• Sony A7 iii -- ( I found an offer which includes the camera, DJI RONIN-S, and a Sony FE 24-70mm, and a Sony Metabones MK V smart adaptor for only £70 a day, or £200 a week. This would include most of the equipment we need.)
• 24mm lens -- (Found above)
• 35mm lens -- (Found above)
• 50mm lens -- (Found above)
• fisheye -- (£10 a day, or £51 a week)
• Go Pro -- (£9 a day)
• Drone -- (£30 a day, or £135 a week. This does not include the operator)

Equipment:

• Tripod -- (£15 a day, or £45 a week)
• Car Mount -- (£7 a day, or £35 a week)
• Monopod -- (£3 a day, £12 a week)
• Steadicam (Ronin M) -- (£35 a day, or £151 a week)

Overall using this website would roughly cost our budget £656 this is if we booked all the equipment out for a week as you can see this is quite cheap compared to the previous website.

In conclusion with hiring out the camera and equipment, I think the most cost-effective would be to rent out the equipment from Fat Llama as it is £400 cheaper than the other website.

Colour Grading:

Even though I won't be editing the production it is my job to help with colour grading for what I shoot, but why do we colour grade? Personally, I enjoy colour grading as it's a chance to manipulate the audience into feeling subjective emotions so they would know what the scene would involve. However, every colour can have different meanings and audiences can interpret them in many different ways. It is important that I can find the right colour to make the show appealing to the target audience.

What do colours mean:

Red:

• Aggression 
• violence
• anger
• love
• passion
• Hot

Orange:

• Warmth
• energy
• humour
• warning 
• caution
• Barren 
• hopeless
• apocalyptic.

Yellow:

• Happiness
• relaxation
• jealousy
• betrayal
• Danger
• judgement 
• assertiveness

Green

• New Beginnings & survival
• New life
• Luscious greenery and earthly tones

Blue:

• Faithfulness
• loyalty
• Sadness
• Cold
• Reality 
• Sanity

Purple:

• Ambiguity
• extravagance
• mysterious 

Pink:

• romance
• Love
• passion

There are many other colours, however, these are the key ones to get emotion, however, "There's no right or wrong way to convey sadness, happiness, or fear... there are subconscious levels of primal emotion in your audience that can be triggered if color is used correctly" (Baker, 2016) so it all depends on how I want it to look and I should know the emotion in the scene better than the audience as I have broken down the script to understand what I have to shot.


LIGHTING RESEARCH:

After speaking closely with the director it has come to our understanding that we want this production to look very cinematic, to do this we obviously need to be able to operate the camera to a high-level to get the best quality shots, but I also need to know how to light the scene correctly. After looking into my favourite cinematographer Roger Deakins I want to have some of his style of lighting in our production, he likes to have very naturalistic lighting so using props around the scene to light the subjects and also to use the sun and to bounce the light onto our actors.

Different styles of lighting:

There are so many different lighting styles to choose from and I could write them all down, but I want to exclusively look into the techniques that I will be using for our production. The techniques that I would like to use are:

• Soft lighting
• Hard lighting
• practical light
• natural lighting

Soft Lighting:

I would like to use soft lights on the actors when they first arrive at their mother's house and when they pull over in the car. "Soft light is more of a term that describes the size of a light source rather than a placement itself" (McGregor, 2016) what this means is that the light source comes from a fixed light and the light is placed through a diffusion sheet, which would make the shine on the subject, but does not cause any harsh shadows on their face.

Hard Lighting:

This is the opposite of soft lighting as it involves a smaller light source, but it will bring more shadows onto your subject. In many cases, cinematographers don't want hard light in their shots, but I want to create some in our production for the CCTV camera style shots, even though we will not be able to see the actors very clearly to give it the effect of being  CCTV but we want to create hard shadows of the subjects.

Hard lighting 

Practical Lighting:

Practical lighting is some of the best lighting in my personal opinion as it shows that the DoP/cinematographer has put a lot of thought into the scene they are shooting as they place props around the actors to keep them lit. a good example would be from Goodfellas the well known "you think I'm funny" scene. The reason I want to look at this technique is that there is a scene where the two brothers are having a meal with their mother and I thought the best way to light the scene is to put a lamp or some sort of light source in the middle of the table. Doing this would hopefully keep all the subjects lit, by doing this it should also create some soft lighting for al 3 characters.

Natural Lighting:

Natural lighting can either be really easy to pull off or extremely hard. What it intends on doing is using and manipulating the light that is around you to light your scene. This would take a lot of planning before deciding whether or not it would be a good idea to use natural lighting. one way to know if it will work is by going to the planned location for the shoot and taking the camera there to do test shoots to see how well the camera pick up the light. Another aspect that can be taken into consideration is to look online to see what time the sun rises and sets. For example when shooting in 'Golden Hour' this makes the light softer and is usually done for a specific moment where the character might have a change in personality.

The Revenant

Vision Statement:

why make the show now? 

Our producer wrote this show many years ago now and she believes that this specific unit was a great opportunity to start to plan to shot some sections of the show. I decided to help out on the show as I was struggling for an idea for this unit as I knew I wanted to be a DoP, however, there was no point in being a DoP and not have anything to make. Luckily Carla, our producer, has seen a lot of my previous work and she believed that with my work that her show would definitely look good as I try and take as much time dedicated to all the jobs I am given.


How will it contribute to achieving your goals?

My goal for this production is to make it the best work I've done individually and not had spare hands-on standby next to me. I want this to be very cinematic so I can then use the footage to promote myself when looking for other work. We have a lot of really high-end equipment to make this production look amazing. I've worked hard with the director to make a shot list that I can easily do, but due to the locations, the lighting will be difficult to pull off. Although this will be a challenge I know I have the ability to do this and when the final product is worthy of watching I know then I will have achieved my goal of making the show look as cinematic as possible.

What is the show about?

The show is about two brothers James and Charlie who are from different races but are raised in the same home together. Both brothers work as doormen for a club run by a gangster called Sinclair, who is deep in the empire of organised crime. Sinclair, like any other boss, gets others to do his dirty work and his best right-hand men are James and Charlie are the most reliable to get the job done; intimidation, terrorise, extort, and brutal murders these are just some of the jobs the two brothers have to do. However, what Sinclair doesn't know is that over the years of working for such a horrible person the two brothers have decided enough-is-enough as they work together to bring down his business and to destroy the empire Sinclair has built.

What will it look, feel, and sound like?

The format of the show is a comedy-drama with this taken into consideration we can understand how the show will look, feel, and sound like. Firstly, with the treatment sent over from our producers she has made it clear that the show is set in the 90s, with that we will now know how the show will look. We can get a sense by the era, in the 90s there was a specific fashion trend that we could use to easily show that the characters are in the 90s. The show will also have other era represented props within the show and as the DoP it is important that I think about this before filming. This is because I want the audience to look at our show and instantly recognise the time period.

Due to the show now being a comedy-drama, the feel of the show has now changed slightly to what I thought it was going to be, however, this does not change the feeling that I wanted to create for the show. To get the right feel of the show the actors need to be able to have more freedom in their work, but for me to be able to get the comedy-drama aspects I could use lighting to determine how the scene will play out. So for the scene, we will be doing a bag of weed falls out under the table whilst the brothers are having dinner with their mum, so I could use the camera to get shots that would make the audience feel the right emotion.

The sound of the show will be the easiest to create this 3D environment and to keep it in the correct time-era. Using music from the time period will help the audience understand what time period the characters are in. 

What is it similar to that will give an idea of style and tone?

When I was reading the script and was told about the project by our producer I immediately thought about similar shows and how we can watch these shows and then have a similar style and feel. The shows that went into my head first was Top Boy: SummerHouse, Peaky Blinders, and the Netflix Top Boy. The reason I thought about both Top Boy's is that Top Boy: SummerHouse was made on a real low budget just like ours so that show would look and feel a lot like Brotherlidge. However, the newest season of Top Boy has a more crime drama feeling and the show adds more depth to all the characters, which I really liked. Obviously, with Peaky Blinders, I just enjoyed the cinematic style of the show, which is a factor that the director and myself have discussed as we want the show to look very cinematic.

The reason I think the show is similar to Top Boy is that it follows two main characters and their rise the top doing this by taking down any other competitors but in Brotherlidge the Brothers are trying to take down a crime lord, whereas in Top Boy they want to be crime lords. The tone of the show will have more aspects from the new Top Boy as this new version of the show adds more comedic elements to the show, which is what we want as the treatment says that we are doing a comedy-drama.

Who is it for the audience, platform?

The age rating for Brotherlidge as stated by our producer would be 15, which then gives us a target audience from 15 onwards and is suitable for anyone over 15. However, the show should also be suitable for older viewers as well due to the shows comedic element. After close talks with producer and director, we came to the decision that we believe this show would either be a Netflix original or it will be on Channel 4. Personally, I would prefer the show to be a Netflix Original, due to the fact that creatives have a lot more freedom in what they are able to make.

What are you bringing to the party that's different?

I'm bringing youth and experience to the team as I have had a lot a work experience shadowing other cinematographers and DoP's, for example, I shadowed a cinematographer on a feature film I worked on and using what he taught me in this production will definitely give me some confidence when going into filming. He taught me about patients when thinking about the shots needed for the scene, and he also informed me that it was vital to have everything I need to be organised. I have also worked on many other shoots and one of them being filming sports, which was a challenge because we only hade one opportunity to get everything we needed, as there were no second chances. Having this experience meant that I needed to know my camera to a high-level. This is what I will be doing for this unit, but I will need to learn a new camera I have not used before, which is the Sony A7iii to do this I will need to do test shoots to learn the ins and outs of the camera.

Bibliography:

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