Neil McShane and Peter Cox during the filming of Dynamic Range Episode 1 © The Circle of Confusion Ltd
We don’t hide much round here. We’re pretty honest and open about the fact that we’ve found the transition from stills photography to video to be, erm, challenging. Don’t let anyone tell you that it isn’t. We’ve been on a vertical ascent learning curve. And sometimes, you know, things go wrong.
Still, that’s not all bad. After all, you learn from your mistakes. Seen that way, the production of episode 1 was practically an entire curriculum of tuition for us, a university almost**. If you want to know just how much we tripped up, Peter wrote a warts-’n'-all article over on the Luminous Landscape website. Rather than repeat the article here, why not go and have a read of Learning Video Production the Hard Way? Just make sure you come back. Oh – and just be prepared for the headline photograph on the other side of the link. Just sayin’.
You Muppets
One of the great things about the internet is the easy interaction with others.
Having read Peter’s Luminous Landscape article, writer/producer Rick Bauer sent us this great email:
Name: Rick Bauer
Email: XXXXXXXX
Message: I enjoyed your article on producing a video the hard way. It was so very honest.
I’ve just begun to study amateur photography and read a lot. I’ve spent over 30 years in advertising, much of it in film and video production. I also have a degree in production.
As a writer/producer I had a very good chuckle when I read that you had no script. Well, you know what happens then.
As photographers you have a wonderful asset within yourselves to create storyboards. You need storyboards. No, you really need storyboards. You can capture locations on location scouts and use those to help your storyboards. But you need storyboards. They help you see things you might miss, and they help communicate to all involved.
A Director/Cameraman works. But only if you have at least a sound man/woman or a producer. In a small company a producer and sound person can be the same person. Why? I think it has to do with something involving sense of time. As a producer, time is money, and why aren’t you done yet? Producers make sure everyone is there on time, all the equipment is there, and things move along well — and cheaply.
Pre-production meetings are mandatory, and should include an enhanced script and storyboard listing all equipment required and locations needed. You need contingency plans as well. Once in production, daily pre-production meetings are suggested before you start.
Video production is team work, usually involving much larger teams than still work. So planning is essential.
Your honesty in your Luminous Landscape article was well received, which is why I felt like writing.
Have a great day, and better productions.
Rick Bauer
Episode 2 planning is underway – follow us
We’ve learned from our experiences, and we’re taking Rick’s advice to heart. Particularly the bit about storyboards. This weekend, the three of us are off to the northwest of Ireland to scout locations for and storyboard episode 2. We’re filming next month and hope to have the episode ready for download by 20th April.
We’re going to blog in depth about the process of planning, shooting and editing episode 2 over the next couple of months. We reckon there will be a lot of people who would find the information useful. If you want to make sure don’t miss any of this, why not sign up as an email or rss subscriber by using the buttons at the top right of the page?
Meanwhile, thanks again to everyone whose supported us so far, either by downloading the video or by sending useful critique and encouragement.
-Roger-
* Irony Alert
** And we produced a programme that we’re really pleased with, regardless of the hiccoughs. Adversity doesn’t necessarily mean failure.
Thoroughly enjoyed the article and episodes 0 and 1. Episode 1 was a great improvement and you can build on that success with each new production. I just want to suggest 2 things for future episodes, in episode 1, you mentioned the change from circle of confusion to Dynamic Range, however in various scenes you call the video ‘Circle of Confusion episode 1′ and in other scenes ‘Dynamic Range episode 1′. Also, the pilot and episodes 1 & 2 are shot in the west, will future episodes include landscapes in Dublin (as high viewership there) as well as the north like Antrim and Donegal?
Thanks again Roger, Neil and Peter
I await the next episode with excitement.
@René – Thank you for viewing and commenting, Rene.
You are right about the references to The Circle of Confusion. While it would be tempting to suggest that Neil and Peter simply couldn’t remember their lines, that’s not the case.
Rather, we decided to launch the Dynamic Range series brand during post-production. As you point out, we wrote about that in this post: How Not To Make A Branding Decision. The timing was awful, but better to do it then and ‘fess up to it than switch after the initial launch.
You make another valid point about our choice of locations. You’ll be pleased to know that we’ll be scouting for episode 2 this coming weekend in the northwest.
-Roger-
Connemara would be nice. Also, please stick me on a mailing list so that I can purchase all future releases when available.
Thanks again for being the first Irish group to launch such an excellent program. I really hope RTE or TV3 would offer you a series, I’d say it would go down very well.
@René – Thank you René.
Any RTE execs reading this?… We’d settle for the BBC, mind.