A Fat Wreck Production Blog #4
Hello fatty fat fat fans,
We had a question submitted through an email about some of our gear that we’ve been using for the doc and we couldn’t resist blabbing someones ear off. So now we’re going to blab it to all of you. If you want, you can skip to the bottom for the film update.
“Thanks for the kind words. We're always happy to answer any questions we can about the documentary and video production in general. We are avid film goers and just love talking about anything film related.
(In response to your questions about our production and some general info...) Lighting is very subjective so always remember one thing; light your subject to your taste and film away. It's what helps define a director of photography. Since this is a documentary, we are somewhat limited on the control of our shots when it comes to lighting, but for a stationary subject and what we have been striving for, a 3 point lighting setup is our go to lighting for this documentary. If you're familiar with it you can breeze through the next section, or grab yourself a refresher.
3 point lighting consists of a key light, a fill light, and a back light. Your Key light will be your strongest light. Place it off to the side of your camera to the left or right side. This is the main light for your subject. Your fill light is placed on the opposite side of the camera to soften the shadows created by your fill light. Depending on what you are going for, your fill light can be soft or harsh, or even non existent to create that film noir look; the heavy shadow look (think Sin City, one of our favorites). The backlight is placed behind the subject, opposite of the key light. This highlights your subject and makes them pop from the background. This is common in all films and with the right depth of field from your camera and lens setting, it provides a very cinematic look.
Some of our interviews had to be shot in guerrilla fashion though. Fast, loose and in a haze of smoke, beer and music. Any other time that makes for an ideal punk show but for trying to film a documentary, it got very trying at times to get the right shots. Our go to plan of action was to key light the subject, mic up them up, and shoot. We're currently moving away from traditional soft boxes and video lighting kits, to battery powered LED panels for the rest of the production; which allows us to not be dependent on wall outlets. Moving on to sound.
Sound is one of the most important aspects of all films. I don't understand why everyone doesn't stress this enough. It will make or break any movie. My first piece of advice is buy a digital recorder and an appropriate mic for your filming needs, being either a lavaliere mic or boom. We've mostly used the Zoom digital recorders like the H1, their most affordable model, to what we use now for our production, the Zoom H4N. We've been using a Rode Lav mic hardwired directly into the 1/8' input of the H4N. We're bringing in a Rode Boom Mic to double up on audio as well. For room sound the H4N has a stereo pair of mics built in. It's a handy piece of recording gear. Focus on clear audible dialog and be sure not to peak your input level. Use over-ear headphones to block out any background noise you may encounter.
Hope some of this information will be helpful and relevant to you, and your future projects. Thanks again for the kind words.”
Holy Crap!! You were right Josh, that was extremely detailed.
Thanks again for everyones support and if you have any questions, feel free to email us.
A Fat Wreck Team
Film Update:
Punk Rock Bowling just finished up last weekend and we had a whirlwind of time in Las Vegas. Our team had a chance to hangout with Fat Mike at the punk rock house and gathered another round of interviews for the doc. While we didn’t get much sleep, we tried to grab more interviews and had some success, some failure, and some very questionable times.
A quick talk with Antone Enger revealed this for information regarding the status of the merch:
“Not a g** d*** thing is gonna happen until that indiegogo releases them monies and I can order y'all's sh*t., ODM B*tches, eh. Keep my name out your mouth and I’ll email when ya sh*t’s ready.”
That’s all we have for this week. Email us for any info or ideas for the next blog and we’d like to hear from you.
