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the same style as Kingsman – which was a one-take sequence. “We had stuntmen being set on fire, fights everywhere, cameras spinning around, it was orchestrated carnage. That was our first day of shooting, which was quite eye-opening for everyone on the film. We calculated we had seven attempts to achieve the one-take shot. We did this on the fifth one – that included the camera getting a kick on the third! “For eight months we’ve been saying how ambitious this project is and now we’re here, we do have beautifully shot UK scenes,” says Stephens. NEW TYPE OF SHOOTING Stephens is convinced that for the UK shooting of School Fight , using older cameras and then using cutting-edge recording technologies was an amazing way to work. “It gives previous generation cameras a new lease of life, you can just push them and it’s a remarkable thing to be able to do. We did record internally to the cameras, but that was just for our reference so we could review at the end of the day. I’m not sure many cameras can allow you to do that; recording low-resolution AVC files, while recording simultaneously to Atomos recorders.” When it comes to the movement, once the cameras were rigged with Infernos or Shoguns, Stephens explains that there
flexible codec, which was when we started talking about ProRes Raw. The codec and workflows had only just being introduced at the time and would give them the flexibility of Raw with manageable file sizes, almost standard video size. “So we worked with them to get the equipment on to the cameras in a way that not only the camera guy would be able to record the shots, but the camera assistant, focus puller, AD, producer and director could see what the camera operator was seeing at the same time. What we had on set was the seven-inch recorders on the cameras, so Shogun 7 and Infernos, but also the director had a rig set up with a Shogun Inferno as a wireless monitor and able to record proxies, so he can play back the file straightaway, enabling them to check something without having to go to the DIT.” The production also had 19in Atomos Sumo monitors recorders, which allowed them and the cast to review certain takes instantly. “This was helpful for the stuntmen to check on the timings,” says Brown. “Imagine doing a complex fight scene, which also had quite a bit of fire introduced. You need to check those flames aren’t clipping to white. We were shooting in S-Log and monitoring in HDR and able to work with the DOP to adjust the camera settings to be able to capture as much of the detail as possible.” The use of ProRes Raw is now seen to be a wise choice for School Fight , especially as now you will soon be able to edit in Adobe Premiere, as well as Final Cut Pro X and also able to now transcode to other Codecs like ProRes 4:4:4. School Fight moves production to Dubai in early 2020 and camera choice is TBC, but Atomos is keen to continue the slick system it has enabled with its equipment.
wasn’t much handheld. “We only did handheld on one shoot day when we wanted to destabilise the character Leo in one of the scenes. But the balance of the cameras was fantastic on the crane or Steadicam, as Jack had rigged them with a Shogun 7 or Inferno so tight and so well to the cameras. We did a fair amount of Steadicam, probably 16 of the 23 days of shooting.” HOW ATOMOS DID IT Lewis Brown from Atomos was on hand for cameras tests and on set of Schools Fight to help support this new way of shooting. He was a huge help in terms of softening the learning curve that was necessary to reach the quality needed by Joby and Damien. “The team were looking to create a project of high production value, while maintaining reasonable budgets. The team is actually made up of a whole lot of stunt people and creatives; they were shooting on Sony FS7s, which have a good broadcast codec for shooting internally,” says Brown. “Good for broadcast quality TV, but maybe not for quite a big independent feature. So we decided to use the FS7 extension unit called the XDCA-FS7, which allows you to have a Raw output on the camera. It can output a 12-bit Raw signal as well as high frame rates at bit depth that cannot be recorded internally. For the aspirations of the project they needed a
MORE INFORMATION: atomos.com/proresraw
NOVEMBER 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 31
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