Phil Peel

Film, video, photography, sound and story

Archive for August, 2011

Contemporary Dance at Poole Dockside

Posted by Phil On August - 30 - 2011

We’ve recently been filming a dance sequence with Lizzie Sykes and Cathy Seago over several days at Poole Dockside. Devising a dance piece that is inspired by the location. It’s been quite challenging as we learn to work together, whilst dodging the huge trucks as they load and unload. Using jibs, booms, steadicam devices etc. to synchronise the movement of the camera and performer.

I haven’t got many photos as I’ve been too busy filming, but here’s a sequence with Cathy on top of a large Buoy.

We have been getting some strange looks from the passing tourist boats, but the dockers have been very friendly. I guess it’s not what they’re use to seeing at work,though it probably makes a change from the monotony of loading clay.

Mike’s using the Panasonic GH2 with a remote motorised Jib head

Filming

No Apologies Final Scene

Posted by Phil On August - 21 - 2011

This was a series of quite complicated scenes with five actors during a series of group therapy sessions.

Particularly difficult with the number of eyelines involved.

We were filming at the Trouville Hotel who were really helpful to us. We set up the lighting the evening before.

I used a Chinese Lantern overhead with a 110 watt fluorescent bulb (equivalent to about 500 watts tungsten)with black wrap to take the light off the top of the wall. I rigged a second lantern in case I needed more light. It would save us having to stop filming and clamber up. In the event we didn’t need it, but it’s worth being prepared. As it was nighttime, I couldn’t tell how much light was going to come in the windows.

Here’s Jude checking Nicola’s bruise on the continuity photo.

So the crew was Mike, Jude and myself

Here’s Paul Francis and Martyn Lowe. Paul Witcombe doesn’t seem to appear as he is taking the photos

As there were several long scenes, Mike decided to shoot them in different styles. So we had tracking shots

Static shots…

..and Steadicam style. We used a U-FlyCam which is similar to the Merlin Steadicam, but cheaper. The GH2 is very light which makes it considerably less tiring to use

The room was very spotty 🙂 but I think the monochrome makes it look worse than it was

It was a long day, but went well

THE END

Here’s some links to how we filmed it.

http://www.philpeel.com/2012/05/new-trailer-for-no-apologies/

http://www.philpeel.com/2011/06/filming-no-apologies/

http://www.philpeel.com/2011/08/no-apologiesthe-police-interview/

http://www.philpeel.com/2011/07/no-apologies-filming-the-other-sex-scene-4-in-a-bath/

http://www.philpeel.com/2011/07/filming-the-car-park-argument-no-apologies/

http://www.philpeel.com/2011/07/no-apologies-the-sex-and-strangling-scene/

http://www.philpeel.com/2011/07/filming-no-apologies-the-bathroom-scene/

http://www.philpeel.com/2011/08/no-apologies-final-scene/

Filming, Lighting

No Apologies–the Police interview

Posted by Phil On August - 12 - 2011

I’m catching up on my blog, so this happened some weeks ago. This was filming the scenes for “No Apologies” at the therapist’s house in Bournemouth. It was the day following the very late night filming at the flat in Southampton, so everyone was a bit tired. That’s my excuse for not writing this up earlier.

The original location fell through, so Chris kindly offered us the use of his beautiful house, which was probably rather more luxurious than intended in the script. It had the great advantage of having a very large living room, so we were able to use tracking.

Most of these scenes were just two people in conversation. so we needed to get a bit of movement into the shots. Here’s Paul doing a great job on sound.

Oleg doing a excellent impression of looking like he knows how to play the harpsichord Smile

This is Tony Manders who was excellent as the detective. Just the right amount of gravitas.

…and Paul Witcombe as his assistant. Bit like Morse and Lewis Smile

A bit of a problem was the that the room has large windows along two sides which faced south , so the sun was sun was shining full on them. As the curtains were deep red, they cast a pink glow over everything, which I tried to counteract off, but still came out in the final shots