ADOLESCENCE PRODUCTION
One of the most technically demanding and intensely choreographed sequences appears at the start of episode 1, showing a convoy raid leading into the arrest of teenager Jamie (played by Owen Cooper). It began with DOP Matt Lewis starting close on DI Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters) with the DJI Ronin 4D-6K handheld, before smoothly mounting it onto an arm attached to a tracking vehicle. From there, Lewis jumped into a separate vehicle and raced ahead to the house, arriving before the convoy. The tracking vehicle, with operator Lee Brown on the wheels, led the convoy, with the camera arm swinging, dodging all manner of lamp posts and obstacles as it tracked the vehicles. Timing was crucial, with the police van pulling up just as Lewis discreetly took over the camera, hidden behind a fence. As the firearms unit stormed the house, Lewis switched to handheld mode, using the Ronin’s sport mode. “There’s a button you can hold down to lock the gimbal,” he explains. “It levels the horizon while keeping everything else handheld, so you don’t get that wobbly nausea.” Inside the house, the tight space also created a challenge. With the tiny staircases and narrow halls, every movement had to be flawless: “Stephen had to be flat to the wall, the police officer with the gunman BREAKING DOWN *THAT* OPENING SEQUENCE!
had to hug the left-hand side – everything had to be perfect,” Lewis recalls. Even a minor misstep could ruin a take – forcing everyone back to the start for another run-through. “I once clipped the gimbal against a wall by a millimetre – it threw the whole thing off. It tried to reset quickly, but the take was unsalvageable. The entire episode was gone,” recalls Lewis. The precision handovers continued as the team exited the house, with Lewis carefully timing the transition from handheld back to gimbal, releasing it at just the right moment to blend the two seamlessly. He then passed it through the window of a police van, where Brown was waiting, ready to take over. With the camera now stable, they raced off towards the police station, completing the sequence in one fluid shot. Impressive stuff!
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DEFINITIONMAGS
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