Preparation for Filming

Today we have been making preparations to interview Ralph and film in his house tomorrow, as we had arranged at our visit last Wednesday. In the afternoon I phoned Ralph to confirm our plans and to let him know who will be there, what we'll bring and what kind of questions we'll ask him. I didn't have much time to speak with him as his carer was present and she wanted to check who we are, take our names and ask what our project was about. I made sure she understood what we were doing, that we have spoken to Ralph a couple of times in the past and that we also met and talked to the woman who organises the Lowedges group on Tuesdays where we first met him. She said she might be present in the morning when we arrive tomorrow too, which shouldn't be a problem.

I booked a meeting slot in Adsetts for a time that the whole group could be present for, and created an agenda - a list of all the things we needed to organise for filming tomorrow morning.

We started by choosing what equipment we wanted to use for the project. I booked out an XF305 earlier in the day as I'd never used one before. I wanted to check what the minimum focal length of the camera was as I knew that we'd want to get a lot of close-up cutaways of objects/photos around the house. This was difficult due to the nature of it being a video camera, and had to be placed quite a way from the object to be in focus. As we knew from our visit that we'd have very limited space in Ralph's home, I voiced this concern with our camera operator Saul, and as a group we eventually came to the decision that we'd use a 5D MkIII for cutaways and the XF305 for shooting the longer interviews. 

We put a lot of thought into choosing our equipment as we didn't want to bring too much that it would be crowded and intimidating, but enough to solve any issues that might arise such as lighting and space. For this reason, we opted for the LED battery light and a reflector instead of a light on a stand, and checking that the weather was bright tomorrow helped this too. 

From the photos Saul took in Ralph's home last week, and our memory of walking around it, I created a rough ground plan of his living room where we aim to interview him. 

Rough floor plan of Ralph's front room, with camera angles 

I first added the furniture, doorways and other features, and then shared my idea for where to shoot him speaking - in one of the high-backed chairs with the background being a lamp and a cupboard topped with many different photos. We discussed many different interview formats, arrangements and positions but in the end stayed with this one. Saul suggested that we should have Ralph on the sofa when he's looking through the albums, which we agreed with, but this raised a number of issues. The primary issue is being able to both look at Ralph and the photos as he talks about them, without either me or the other equipment being seen.

Eventually, we settled on a two-camera setup whereby we could film a locked-off wide shot of Ralph looking through the albums and use the 5D to film a tighter angle of his hands on the album and also his face as a reaction. On the floor plan we marked the camera angles, positions and also his sight-lines to where I would be sitting whilst interviewing him. To get around the issue of both trying to guide what photos to talk about and yet not be sat with him, I agreed to flick through, pick one for him to elaborate on and then leave the frame - as we can remember a couple of interesting ones which he mentioned. 

After essentially creating these two scenes, one where we interview Ralph in the chair about his life and background, and another where he talks specifically about the photographs, we moved on to other cutaways to shoot and a general structure to the film. The difficulty with this is that unlike the poetic piece we can't expect Ralph to give us the photos to scan so that we can show them on screen, so we will have to find a way of shooting them and taking stills of them with the 5D in a way in which this can be possible. Similar to the poetic we want to hold on these, so they will have to be of sufficient quality to do so. 

We also wanted to see if we could film Ralph making a cup of tea, with the camera locked-off in the kitchen door way, following the suggestion in the poetic presentation to create almost a living portrait with the camera-work. We discussed this again when considering against the use of shoulder rig for any of the shots and to compose the frame for his interview almost like staging a photograph. We thought about the overall structure for the film, and tried to reflect and guide this later in our interview questions.

We made a shot and sound list for the film too, including all of the many different cutaways which we wanted to include that added a sense of character to him and his house. The most prominent sound whilst we were there last time was the large grandfather clock in his front room, which could be heard in the recording. Jamie said he'd do his best to avoid getting it during the interviews but we agreed that we'd get a cutaway and sound of it anyway so it would not be too much of an issue.

Jamie had already booked out all the sound equipment that we could use, which I added to the equipment list. This included a shotgun mic, boom, set of radio mics and a Zoom. Again, as it was a lot of equipment and I didn't want it to intimidate Ralph in the interview I suggested trying to pack it into as few bags as possible and maybe even just using the radio microphones if there was an issue. After my experience with the radio mics interviewing my granddad for the poetic piece, I also suggested bringing some tape to secure it whilst he's talking - minimizing any handling noise.

Next, we came up with a list of interview questions which we split into two sections - one about his general background and life experiences and then another along the theme of photographs for after he's looked through his albums. As much of what he'd talked about and what was most interesting seemed to be about his experience meeting his wife in Germany and his ties with the town of Uelzen, most of the questions focused on this period. Some details which we wanted to know more about we included too, such as his ambitions before and after the war, and his wife coming to live in Sheffield - similar to what I asked my granddad and which we thought were essential to providing a portrait of a character, not just a history lesson. Of course, many of these questions may merge or be covered earlier so I'll try to be as responsive and conversational as possible.

In the final part of the meeting, I filled out a contact sheet, my part of a contributor agreement and a risk assessment. We agreed a meeting time/place tomorrow morning, suggested a wrap time and breaks in between filming.