CASE STUDY SEAN VILJOEN
which is another reason to keep everything to a minimum. “One thing I haven’t done that I want to is try and fit a Nano V-mount battery on the rear of the rig. This would serve two purposes. Firstly, provide enough power for up to four hours of shooting. I could go an entire day with just one battery. Secondly, I also think it could help with ergonomics. Initially, I struggled a little with the camera, because it isn’t a traditional shoulder rig. Adding a little weight in the form of a V-mount battery could help better balance the camera when larger lenses are mounted, and I could press it into my chest to keep everything nice and steady.” Lenses “I used three lenses for 12 Cheetahs , which I shot last year. The one I relied on most
“I used three lenses for 12 Cheetahs. The one I relied on most was the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8. As filmmakers know, it’s such a useful piece of kit”
Audio and Lighting “There are a lot of interviews in the film, and we had to find a location to make them work. We shot most of them in the forest, which is a beautiful backdrop, but tricky with lighting changing the whole time. All we had with us was a single Aputure 120D LED light. We tried to backlight the subjects with natural light, then add a bit of fill from the front with the Aputure. The light was powerful enough to separate the subject from the background, but it did become tricky to manage if some of the bright sunlight came through. Overall, it worked nicely. “The audio for the interviews was recorded with a Rode NTG2 shotgun mic above the subject, just out of frame. We did it simply, thanks to a light stand and Manfrotto boom arm. We got the mic as close to them as we possibly could. As a backup, we used a Sony UWP-D21 wireless lavalier microphone system via a mini XLR cable. But almost everything was from the shotgun mic in the final audio mix. “We recorded all the audio in-camera. We had each mic on a separate channel, and I had a five-metre XLR cable with a mini XLR adapter to go straight into the camera. It simplifies the workflow and, again, makes everything a lot easier.”
was the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8. As many filmmakers know, it is such a useful piece of kit. I also used a couple of Canon EF lenses – the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 200- 400mm f/4 – which allowed me to capture shots of the cheetahs from a distance. I used the 200-400mm f/4 with the 6K Pro for the first time, for a cheetah standing by a termite mound. It was a backlit scene, and the animals were in lots of shadow. I was just amazed at what the camera could capture and how the dynamic range held the highlights.”
More information You can watch the 12 Cheetahs documentary at: https://youtu.be/oXNi1oOj_3o.
TOP KIT A compact rig, with an XLR mic and short lens on the Blackmagic 6K Pro, was ideal for filming in the wild (above). And when the cheetahs were released (top), the camera was fast enough to keep up
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PRO MOVIEMAKER
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