ACADEMY ACTION FILMMAKING
Filming action Many of the skills I relied on as an action photographer have transferred over to filmmaking, but there’s still been a steep learning curve involved, both in terms of acquiring the skills necessary to capture moving sequences and subsequently editing them together into a cohesive andwatchable production. Timing is still of the essence, and it’s important to be able to instinctively knowhow actionwill pan out andwhere the best vantage pointsmay be, while the fact that I started out long enough ago to have had tomaster the art of focusingmanually rather than relying on autofocus has paid dividends now that I’ma filmmaker and back to usingmanual focus on a regular basis. As a stills photographer I often felt a situation effectively slowdown inmymind as I focusedwithin the very small depth- of-field provided by a 400mm f/2.8Nikkor shootingwide open at a floodlit football match. Forme it was a gift I never really questioned, but it enabledme to thrive and survive ina competitivebusiness, and it’s now givingme an edge as an action filmmaker. These days AF solutions are becoming increasingly sophisticated and I’mcoming acrossmore andmore filmmakers who are choosing to rely on it, but there are still many circumstances where I’ll prefer to trust my own instincts. For example, six years ago I was asked by the Darley/ Godolphin horse racing empire to film, in slowmotion, theirmost special stud stallions. These stallions are worth a fortune so they need to be treatedwith the utmost respect and you can’t take chances with thembecause it doesn’t bear thinking about that they could get hurt. I knew that the stallions would be led from their stables eachmorning and then given some time in the paddock to run fast and free for aminute before settling down to feed. I observed this to find out which path, if any, theymight run and found out that one particular stallion ran a certain course so decided to set upmy sticks on that path. I could havemade it easy and just stood outside the paddock but I wanted this to look amazing and not be just another distance shot consigned to the bin after its first use. However, these are powerful and flighty animals that like to do their own thing and so I knewnothingwas guaranteed. So the stallionwas released and he just ran straight towardsme and I had tomake an instant judgement that he would run aroundme rather than straight throughme. In this brief moment I was shooting at Full HD at 240fps, focusingmanually, and the
manual focus under even themost trying of circumstances. I workwith an Alphratron follow focus, which features two hard stops that can be set to limit the amount of focus travel. This enables you to change the point of focus very quickly in an action situation: a recent example sawme filming clay pigeon shooters on a commercial shoot. I started off with a shot of the back of the shooter’s head and then pulled focus quickly to the clay as it exploded, with the stop enablingme to achieve sharp focus in both areas. Planning pays dividends All of this is very different to the action photograph, maybe amere 1/2000sec that encapsulates the high drama of a particular moment. That’s tough to achieve, but it can be equally challenging to produce an action sequence, particularly one being produced for a commercial client that has been set up rather than recorded fromreal life. We need to plan everything in the finest detail, creating a story, casting an actor or a sportsperson that can play a role andmaybe writing a script as well. The venuemust be found, permissions sought and granted and the shoot storyboarded. The aim is to
stallion, running at full speed, arced around me when just five feet or so away. He was so close I could feel the power and the rumble through the soles of my shoes. These are the situations where your reputation is on the line, since the stallionwon’t likely ever run past me again in such a perfect way. It wasn’t an easy shot since I had to pan a longway as he arced aroundme, while zoomingwith the rocker and usingmanual focus to keep himsharp. I had one chance and one chance only, andwhen the client came over and asked to review the shot, expecting it to be a shaky pan– that stallion was close – instead they couldn’t stop watching it, marvelling at the new shot they nowowned. Ultimately this piece of footage went on to play on racing programmes worldwide and it’s still being used today. There are also accessories that are designed to help you achieve accurate
“This piece of footage went on to play on racing programmes worldwide and is still used today”
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PRO MOVIEMAKER WINTER 2018
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