Ref Footage Shoot

So after a Covid postponement (I managed to test positive on the first date of the original shoot) and a slight schedule re-shuffle due to the storms, I finally filmed the rotoscope reference footage for my short film ‘Bear’!

It was my first time of being on set since 2018. Not only that, but it was the biggest thing I have ever shot in my life (even bigger than anything I made when I was a student). So of course, going in I was a little apprehensive/ nervous. When we were setting up the first morning, my mind had definitely gone blank and I had no idea what to do first! After a few minutes of mild internal panic, it all came back to me and I was back in the swing of things in no time.

As I was shooting for rotoscope, the production was fairly streamlined in terms of what equipment we actually needed (basically just props and a camera), so each shot set up didn’t take loads of time- which eased my stress a little. We shot the majority in a makeshift studio space (an empty room above a shop), along with a couple of rooms in my house, my boyfriend’s car and the local park- there was a lot more space in the park, so I even filmed some of the supermarket scenes there (the below image will have a background of a supermarket aisle)!

I feel one of my biggest mistakes due to lack of recent on-set experience combined with a high level of optimism, was that shooting around 150 shots over 2 days was almost not do-able. For some reason I thought it was, because the ease of each set up and not having to faff about with lights and audio equipment and so on, though it was quite a squeeze and on future shoots, I will be sure to plan for a lot less per day. It’s better to end up the day with time left over and get extra shots if we can, rather than rushing everything and having to scrap some of the shots and reducing the amount of takes, potentially compromising performance.

Probably because of not having been on set for so long, I did thorough pre-production work, with extensive shot lists and a shooting order and lots of pre planning. My thinking was that if I do all this correctly, then even if I was a bit rusty on set, then at least we will manage to get everything we need, because it’s down on the paperwork! And if I follow the paperwork correctly, then that side of things should be in hand. And it was- I just wished we didn’t need to rush so much towards the end. Planning for a shoot should never be compromised- there’s always so much which can change or go wrong due to reasons out of your control, so it’s best to be as prepared as possible.

I feel in future shoots, I would also like an extra person as crew. For this shoot, it was just me, my camera operator Alan Livesey and my partner Ben joining us for a little of the second day to help with driving to the exterior locations. I definitely would have appreciated a 1st AD, to take care of the paperwork/ marking the shots etc, as personally I felt being in charge of pretty much everything was a lot, honestly too much. It was hard to play producer, clapper loader, runner and so on whilst also concentrating on being director and getting the best performance from the actor Peter Stone (who did an absolutely amazing job, by the way). The reason why I omitted this was because of budget (or lack thereof as it wasn’t a funded film), though I understand now how important it would have been to have someone extra and I will take this knowledge into future shoots.

As an experienced rotoscope animator, I had a good idea of how I wanted to shoot it to make it easier when it comes to the rotoscope process. When rotoscoping, I prefer that my footage is well lit, so when I draw over it, I can make out each body part well and I’m not struggling when it comes to the animation. Another thing I do to help this is ensure the actors aren’t wearing dark clothes (black is a definite ‘no’). I ask them to dress in neutral colours, so I can make out clothing creases easily- trying to do this on black is an absolute nightmare, especially when the character is walking! As long as the shape of the clothing is what you want the character to be wearing in the final outcome, then you can do all the colour changes in post (the magic of animation eh). It also helps a lot with continuity- I had my actor wear pretty much the same for each scene. In post, I’ll change the colour of his jumper to show that it is a different day.

In addition to the above, I wanted to film at a high shutter speed, to eradicate motion blur in the footage. Personally, I feel this is frustrating to draw over as I prefer clean lines on my work, though some animators (and productions) emphasise the motion blurs of the hands for example. There is no right or wrong in this and both results are worthy, this just comes down to personal/ stylistic choice. I was able to do this for the majority of the shoot, though when we shot the footage on the second day at my house, the lights made flickering/ scanning lines on the footage- which I wouldn’t have been able to work with as I’m hoping to use EbSynth in the colour/ shading stage- as it uses the real video to help work its magic. So unfortunately, I had to shoot the indoor sections on a lower shutter speed, meaning those bits might be trickier to animate. In future shoots, I’ll use film lights indoors to be able to shoot at the shutter speed I’d like. I didn’t realise this would have been an issue going into the shoot- the flicker lines didn’t show up on the recce footage.

Overall, besides a few of the things I have outlined above, I feel the shoot when extremely well, especially with it being my first major project for some time. It was lovely being back on set and I found the two day shoot a lot of fun. The actor Peter Stone was absolutely fantastic to work with and was extremely professional. I understood that the shoot may have been a bit different/ difficult from an acting point of view, due to filming a lot in one studio space, even if it were for different locations in the film. Despite this, he did a brilliant job of being in character for each for scene and I would definitely work with him again. I now can’t wait to get editing the thing- I’m excited to see how it will all turn out!