Diary of a Smartphone Filmmaker – 2: Less than a week to go

Earlier I wrote about our preparations to shoot a short film with smartphones. We have raised enough money to cover the location hire for 3 days and expenses for everyone. Plus a few small costs like… green paper.

So, with less than a week before we start shooting, how do things stand?

We have our cast. With Rachel Donovan cast to play the character of Nadine, we now have our full line up. There’s only 3 characters in this episode, and with Henk already on board, casting was quicker than on previous episodes.

One of the advantages of filming in a big, cultural city like London is there are a large number of very talented filmmakers within 1 hour travel via public transport – including actors. This also makes casting a lot easier.

Plus, there’s thousands of potential locations. I hunted for a gallery online and luckily one of the first I contacted worked out for us. Many London galleries were well out of our price range, so the simple fact we had so many to choose from increased our chances of finding an affordable space.

The Museum

David Thackeray is co-producing the episode with me, as he did with the previous episode. When David and I first discussed how to go about creating the museum, I said I wanted to avoid too much VFX work. Compositing and tracking takes lots of hours, especially when it’s something I do if I have to, rather than being an expert.

However, we discussed what was possible and had the idea to have the exhibits as holograms. This would fit with the near-future theme of the series and the episode. In the end, I decided we would commit ourselves to this, despite the work that will be required in post production.

It actually makes shooting easier. So we will be pushing the work from the organising and shooting stage to later – more hours sitting at my MacBook. This also dictates how we will shoot. To make compositing and tracking easier, I will go for less movement in the camera. This will give the film a more classical feel. For example, if you look at a sci-fi film like Alien, the camera is pretty still in that film (which often adds to the tension).

Green paper?

To help with the VFX process, we will be using green screen and green paper. This allows you to key out that colour and saves time. Otherwise I would have to do a lot more rotoscoping work to mask figures crossing CG (computer generated) images.

What about the Kit?

I’ll be using 2 x Samsung S9 smartphones. The reason I have 2 is because the festival used to be sponsored by Samsung and we got phones as part of the deal. I have found that 2 phones will last the day in terms of battery and memory space, so I don’t have to worry about charging stuff.

I will also use my Zhiyun Smooth Q gimbal (again I have 2).

For lighting I will use what is available at the location. Plus I have a small redhead lamp with stand. This is actually a very powerful light, so needs to be used with some thought.

As with the last 2 episodes, I won’t use any extra lenses. I will be using the FiLMiC Pro camera app (shooting natural).

I also have a very lightweight Fotopro tripod plus clamp. But I could mount the phone with the Zecti grip (Beastgrip style for a good deal less cash).

For storage I have 2 Samsung SSD T5s. They have 1 TB each and come with cables to attach directly to the phones USB type C socket, so I can dump the footage directly to them pretty easily.

Getting to location

I organise all my productions so that we can get all the kit, cast and crew to the location with available transport. I’ll be travelling via the Piccadilly Line using a £10.10 off-peak day pass, carrying my kit with me.

The goal for me is to take the least amount of kit possible needed to tell the story effectively. It’s always the ‘less kit the better’ for a more enjoyable, efficient filmmaking experience.

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