Film experience with the Easter trilogy

For the last year or so I've been doing a fair amount of (unstructured) learning about film-making and video production:  I've read a few books, and watched a lot of YouTube tutorials:  the topic is very suited to the medium; can show examples of shots, depth of field, and etc.

But, I haven't had a lot of hands-on experience.

However, this whole "C-19" thing has changed that:  because my church (like all other churches) is currently not allowed to hold "in-person" services, we've shifted to an online format.  And because our vicar knows that I know a little bit about video things, I've been asked to assist.


They had already shot a few services before I was brought onboard, but it was fairly low-tech:  using a smartphone, and hitting "pause" each time they changed shots or location.

The first thing I was asked to do was assemble an equipment list.  I knew that getting decent sound is important, so I suggested getting a small stand-alone voice recorder:  it has a built-in mic, but also has a mic input for lapel mics (we've ordered them; haven't yet arrived).  Because we have a limited budget, instead of ordering cameras that can zoom, I suggested getting some inexpensive (AU$99) "action cameras" (i.e. GoPro-style) with a fixed focal length:  my reasoning is that we would just set up the shot by moving closer to, or farther away from, the subject.  And instead of zooming, we could just pick up the tripod and walk forward.  And they had surprisingly decent resolutoin.  We also ordered three tripods.

Since it's important to have decent lighting, we also purchased some AU$30 LED worklights from the big-box hardware store:  they're clip-on, rather than having stands -- which I figured would let us mount them to ladders and other tall things.  And we'd also need a few extra power strips/power bars (whatever you call them), with on/of switches -- because the $30 lights are too inexpensive to have their own switches.

CF, who is on the church council with me, was kind enough to do the "shopping run" for all of these things.


And then we did some shooting:  three separate days of production.  The early morning segments occurred without me (fine by me!).  But the "main" shots were during the day, starting around 10am.  Similar to a television production, we shot a few days in advance:  on Tuesday we shot the Thursday installment of the "Easter trilogy"; on Thursday we shot Good Friday; and on Friday we shot Easter Sunday's footage.  This gave CF (who was kind enough to learn how to do editing, so that I didn't have to!) only a day or two to do the editing.

I was pleased to discover that my year or so of learning about film making provided some context -- e.g. the subconscious symbolism behind shot angles and framing; "more light" is usually an advantage; how to get decent sound; and getting a good "performance" from the actors.  So I ended up serving as kind of Director/Director of Photography.


Example:   For the "stripping of the altar" scene, where we remove all of the accessories from the altar as we enter the period of mourning (because Jesus has been crucified, and not yet risen), I suggested that we keep the camera rolling, and remove a piece at a time -- but edit out the bits where the person is removing the items.  This would give the impression of the pieces mysteriously disappearing.

Similarly, the shot ends with a single candle remaining in the middle of the altar.  The creative question is, what mood are we trying to evoke?  If we do a close-up of the lone candle on the altar, that will feel intimate and comforting (which might be good, in these COVID-19 times).  Or, if we do a wide shot of the bare alter with a lone candle in the middle, that will feel lonely and sad -- appropriate for a period of mourning.


I also suggested to the vicar that it would be consistent with the medium (YouTube) to treat the sermons more like a video blog, and make them more "musings" than formally standing behind the lectern.  So she ended up shooting them from her desk or sitting on her sofa, and then CF edited them into the "church service". 


And, just little things like suggesting we "cut on motion"; the "180 degree rule" when changing angles to shoot the same scene; creating a shot list from the "script" (the vicar cringed a bit when I called it a script:  "It's a litergy, not a script"), crossing off each "scene" as we went, and getting all the shots from each set-up before changing the camera positions.


The type of advice I provided turned out to be similar to when I was producing the audio recording of my congregation singing Christmas carols, about half a year ago.  So, it suggests that I'm decent at that end of the business:  the "vision", the planning, getting good performances.

What I'm not particularly interested in is the fiddly bits -- the editing, computer-based visual effects, and (in audio) the fine-grained tweaking of pitch and timing (which I also have philosophical issues with).  This is consistent with woodworking:  I like the planning, and the general building -- but I'm not interested in doing time-consuming inlay work or intricate surface carvings.  (Urgh.)  In part this is because I have only a limited amount of time, and I know that if a project extends beyond a weekend (or a period of vacation), it's likely to fall down the list of priorities and (literally) languish for years:  so I need to crank it out.

Similarly, Chris Schwarz noted that in a project, the final 5% takes almost as much time as the first 95%.  From my perspective, this means that I can finish two projects "pretty well", or one project "well".  So especially if it's something for my own purposes (e.g. an equipment rack, for music gear), I go with the "pretty good", with twice the productivity.  Maybe when I retire,I'll do something more fiddly.  (NB:  In contrast, my brother says he enjoys the precise tasks.)  :)


We had many learnings along the way -- such as the action camera screens don't correctly represent the framing of what's actually captured:  so we learned to add a substantial margin at the top and bottom of the screens -- and then CF would crop it down in post-production.

Hat-tip to CF for also progressively figuring out ever-better ways of integrating the footage with the text that the viewer would read (as she/he followed along with the hymn or Bible readings).


--GG