THE CONFESS ION TAPES | SHOOT STORY
ABOVE Often working in tight spaces, DOP Meena Singh chose to work with the Canon EOS C300 Mark II for its flexibility.
satisfy the Netflix requirements and also because it’s unobtrusive and can be pared down. “I can build it up to as big as I want and scale it down to as small as I need, it’s so versatile. I used the Canon zooms which were also very versatile. In fact I had two cameras and one of them always had the wide zoom while the other had the long zoom and I would just switch back and forth and be able to shoot really quickly. You just need this kind of versatility in tight spaces. I would usually have the wide set at 24mm and get a little bit tighter with the long lenses. “One of my favourite interviews was with a lady called Belinda in Georgia for an episode called The Labor Day Murders as that is all natural light. She’s in a small wood panelled trailer, but the light on her was incredible and she’s just got one of
also had to embrace what angles tell the best story about the character. I love going in to people’s homes because just looking in their homes really shows a lot about the character. So the set-up and the technical side has to happen very quickly, we would set up in 15 minutes. “I would get a couple of Astra panels as close as I could to the interviewee but would also try and use a much natural light as I could, especially when I didn’t have the time to set up lights. Some people were in tiny trailer homes without much space and the interviews could go on for a couple of hours – to try and tease out the important stuff, for a lot of people it takes a while. You then have to be aware of what’s going to happen with the sun over that time.” Meena used the Canon EOS C300 MkII camera because of its 4K performance to
those incredible faces that has so much emotion. I was very close to her and I think that frame really shows a lot about who she is and what she’s been through in her life. “I would usually have a sweet spot of around F2.8-4,” she explains. “If it’s too shallow you don’t get to see the world as we need to see it. On my new show I’m playing around with a deep stop and playing with perspective which is kind of new for me.” The Confession Tape s is brilliant, it’s dark but never tries to sway you towards guilt or innocence. The filmmaking uses stillness and smooth movement as a base to present the facts, but those confessions are the door in to the darkness of the stories.
The Confession Tapes is currently available on Netflix.
DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 8 53
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