Where did he go?

Wow it seems months sine I last left a post... it has, oh dear. Life has been crazy the Autumn program at church takes off, plans and actions needed for our mission in February 2006, loads of videography to do, a program for our local group to set up and run, and then both my PCs in the same week for different reasons go down and have to be reformated, aghhhhhhhhh. Only lost all my photographs (should have backed them up), still I do have a few saved, lost a wedding and a pop video, aghhhhhhhhhhh (too big to back up, no that's an exscuse it was only 320 Gbs of data).

So here I am again feeling a bit like the cyberman in the above picture, yes the one in bits and needing reassembly. Last week was a very challenging week so I am going to attached a report I wrote for our Local Area Group of the Institute of Videography, it reflects some of my insights into last week, funny enough it was Remembrance Sunday the Sunday before this meeting.

Meeting Report for the Wednesday 19th October 2005 North West Local Group

It was our pleasure to welcome Tony Lloyd a freelance writer and director to our meeting. Tony spoke on the tricky subject of the “Camera Person – Director Relationship.” From the outset Tony made us very quickly aware that he was obsessed with the final image but not just from the technical side, he was interested in “shot design” and what the image is going to be” with an emphasis on the Director being responsible for framing and composition.

Just as we were beginning to sit back comfortably Tony threw a question at the local members, “Would you have a problem relinquishing control of the camera to a Director?” All but one member admitted they would struggle to give up directorial control over their work. Tony continued by asking, “Can we work together?” As a consequence of a short discussion it became clear that many were worried that the end product may suffer if control is relinquished, but Tony turned this argument on its head by highlighting that worry is a good thing, a good worry keeps you tight and in the end it’s all about trust. Trust that you controlling the camera will deliver the goods and your trust in the Director that they have done all the right preparation and homework. The Director must be prepared by asking such questions as, who, what, where, when and why. How will that be captured visually? What is the scene about? What needs to be storyboarded? What lighting and what mood? Tony warned us that lack of preparation locks you off from good ideas; you cannot listen to good ideas if you are only just holding on. Directors who have prepared seldom become control freaks who do not listen to appropriate suggestions, preparation instils confidence and confidence encourages collaboration, collaboration produces liberation and therefore a better end product.

If the meeting had ended there I would have been satisfied but Tony then illustrated some of his comments by showing three DVDs, the first an advert to be shown on Taxi TV for Littlewoods, for budget reasons this piece was recorded using a Sony PD150, the second was a short film that I believe was called, “90 second minute.” This was a hard-nosed, violent, thought provoking ten-minute movie revealing the devastating impact on innocent villagers a news reporter and cameraman make in a war zone. Tony analysed this for us in terms of pacing, tracking, cinematography, lighting and in the care and direction of the actors. The final piece won an award in New York last year as best documentary. This production followed Arek a survivor of Holocaust in Poland during the last war, as he traced his life by revisiting his childhood home villages and his eventual journey to the death camps where he lost eighty-one members of his family. Tony discussed both the technical difficulties of filming in Poland, sometimes at night at 20 below freezing, and the emotional difficulties of taking Arek back physically and in his memories to his childhood homes and revisiting the scenes of ultimate human horror.

They say that good drama and television should not leave you unaffected, apart from a thought provoking evening that helped me understand more about the role of a Director in relationship to the camera person, I also lost sleep because of the content of Tony’s work and it reminded me that some of what we do is to capture history for future generations, and how vital our role is not letting people forget our times terrible mistakes or our joyous celebrations.

Thank you to Tony Lloyd for an excellent evenings presentation!

I hope you find this blog interesting and thanks for looking me up.

God bless, Phil