Well, this past week was fun. I apologize for not posting last Monday but things were very crazy. And I know that you may be looking for a production timeline but that will not be here. My local resources, which I referred to in the last post, did not pan out. So with two actors and two locations my success rate decreased dramatically. However my sister came up with an interesting idea. She suggested that I do a documentary on the company she works at, Infinity Publishing. Infinity Publishing is an "author originated" book publisher. They are the leaders in the publishing-on-demand industry. I considered my options and decided this was the only way I could not fail this Projects class. So I packed up my gear and made my way to Allentown, PA to commute with my sister to her job for three days. Here are the three days in journal fashion. Enjoy!
Day One - Tuesday
I am an idiot. I forgot my tripod back at my sister's house. Looks like I am going freehand today. I can't believe that I forgot it. I am also running into some serious issues with the camera. I have been reading through the manual and I am starting to get acquainted with the camera. However some of the settings are very sensitive and if I am not precise, then the footage will be unusable. Today I will get lots of B-Roll and specific shots of the production department and establishing shots of the building.
Day Two - Wednesday
I reviewed yesterday's footage and a lot of it is unusable; especially the shots of the production department. I though I had the white balance locked down, but the footage's balance strobes from bluish to yellowish in exact intervals. Sucks for me. Today, I will make sure that the while balance is locked down for every shot. Today I remembered the tripod so I will get some more B-Roll and establishing shots. Also, I will conduct the interviews, which will drive this documentary. Since the office is not very photogenic, I will hold the interviews in Infinity's sister company’s Audiobooks studio across the parking lot. Let's hope my audio equipment is sufficient.
Day Three - Thursday
I got a good amount of footage yesterday. I think I am in pretty good shape. Today, I will redo the shots in the production department; get some office antics, and the closing shots. I definitely think I am in good shape.
Considering the entire process, I did pretty well. The audio for the interviews did not come out as loud as I expected, but I will make do with what I got. Now I have another issue. I wanted this digital short to be about 7 minutes. However I filled up 5 MiniDV tapes. Now the convention that I go by is this. Good Amateurs shoot at least 300% of what the final cut will be; Good Professionals shoot at least 3000% of what the final cut will be. 300 minutes raw (give or take) / 7 minutes finished (give or take) = 4286%
Crap.
~Greg Z~
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