Filmmaking is not all about the equipment that is used, its about how you engage the audience with your filming techniques, concept and use of skills. Not having the right equipment for what your filming can take away the essence of the film but too much or wrong gear will create the same effect. For my main task my group and I thought carefully on what gear we needed for each shot, so that each frame would hope to come out in its best entirety. We were luckily in this situation to have good quality of equipment but our main focus was to convey a enticing opening sequence so that the audience would want to watch more. So in this post, I am going to give a breakdown to why I chose each piece of equipment, and what I've learned from using the gear in this specific task. It must be said though, that if the genre of the film and shot types were dramatically different then the kit used would potentially look much different!
The main camera we used was the Canon 700D. This camera was a must as it was the camera that I was most confident in using. This meant that I understood the fundamental basics of it which meant that it could enable me to produce the best shots. Moreover the versatility of this camera was very beneficial as some of the shots that we needed to take were in need of the screen to flip up or down. Another feature that the Canon 700D offers is that it has a external mic port so that sound quality can be improved dramatically. This is useful as you can receive good results without having to record sound separately. The Canon also has an inbuilt grid display setting, which allowed us to line up the people to the centre of the frame in the Ellipsis sequence. This meant that it increased the accuracy and quality of the footage which therefore minimised the tweaking that had to be done in Post Production.
Originally we were thinking of hiring a 16-35 wide angle lens so that we could create stunning shots in both day and night and have with a good depth of field. However, due to its versatility and minimal difference to what we needed it for, we kept to the kit lens (18-55). The kit lens was great for producing wide angle shots, while allowing a good amount of light into the lens. Most of our shots throughout our sequence were either mid or wide shots, which meant that the kit lens was suitable for the job.
Another camera which is outstanding is the GoPro Hero 4. This is a outstanding versatile camera as you can use it under extreme conditions, such as Skydiving and having it attached to your head! However we didn't need this for as extremes shots. In our preliminary, a few of the shots was in the point of the view of the victim being integrated, so we attached the GoPro to Zach's head. In my opinion this shot was the most unique of them all in the Preliminary Task as it made the scene more realistic and unique. We developed this further into our final task, where the last shot of the titles consisted of a man looking into the bag and the GoPro looking out of the bag, which acted as a POV shot.
In terms of sound, we used the Rode Stereo Videomic Pro. This mic is very good for capturing the atmosphere has an overall better quality than the inbuilt DSLR microphone. In all honestly, we used this microphone very minimally as we only needed to record a few sound effects (as theres no dialogue in our sequence) - so in this instance the inbuilt microphone would have been as good! However we found that after production, some of the recording came out well and some didn't. To rectify this we replaced the faulty recordings to sound effect version, to provide better quality sound. For example, in the butcher sequence, we replaced the recording of the sharpening of the knife to a sound effect version, and then edited the sound to match the movements of the knife being sharpened.
Filming for Anonymous needed a good variety of rigs as we wanted to show multiple shot types, such as a tracking shot. To enable this, we used two main rigs; Flycam Steadicam and a basic but tripod. The Flycam is great for filming any shots that require stabilisation and movement. In Anonymous we filmed a lot of footage that required the Flycam because we wanted to keep everything on the move, so that it complements the story of the bag being on the move. Having these two types of rigs allowed us to be more creative with our shots, which in turn would hopefully create dynamic and captivating images.
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