Filming on Tour (by Lukas Palm)

We started our orchestra tour in June. Everything was set and ready to go. We were four people who were in charge of making the documentary and could not wait to start shooting. The first stops on our tour were Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic and I think we were well prepared for this.

The gear

Unfortunately I could only organize one HD Camera: the Sony HVR Z5, which records on compact flash cards. Nevertheless, this meant that we did not need inconvenient tapes anymore =). This sped up our workflow. We took some external hard drives and our Macbook and were able to capture footage at any point - anywhere. To get good sound we had two external mics. One on the camera, for the atmosphere and one on our quickpole. For low light shots, we had an LED Light Panel, which we could attach to the camera, and this little light thing kicked some ass! We were always two or maximum three people when doing interviews or filming a discussion. In fact, this is not a huge amount of equipment, but it had its advantages.

Our philosophy…

...was not to attract attention. The band should not feel inhibited by the film team. At the beginning, everybody was somewhat nervous when the band realized that we were filming them and you could see this weird behavior on camera. Some of the people suddenly tried to talk very smoothly and in ways played a role. That of course was cheesy and not very authentic. But after a while they adjusted to the filming situations and didn’t care when the camera was around. In fact, sometimes they waited for the film team to join a situation before they started a conversation or discussion. However, most of the time it was very difficult to be at the right moment and in the right place with a rolling camera. So what can you do about it?

Getting what you want…

on camera meant to be always alert and informed about what is happening and what is going to happen. When is the next concert, when does the band arrive there and start preparing for the gig? On the other hand, when the group is splitting up for the day, who do we follow, what could be interesting for the film and where could a funny situation happen? To our advantage we were four people, which enhanced the level of information. On the other hand there often were short notice decisions being made which we didn’t know of. We had been busy filming something and parallel to that some band members instantly decided to check out the city (which can be very interesting in terms of meeting cool people or stuff like that). Therefore, you wonder where some people have left and what are they doing right now. Well and at the end, you didn’t get a cool situation on camera. Well, we just had to accept this. You can’t always film and be everywhere and at the end it was better to not press the record-button all the time, because as paradox it might sound, when you are filming in order not miss something, you often miss more than when the camera is not rolling.

What I learned…

originated in the described situation above. But there is more to it, which I want to describe with an example: When I was entering the club, concert hall, or bar where the next gig was going to take place, I always started filming everything happening around me. After the gig, I often realised that even though I was capturing everything on camera, I missed a lot of important and good stuff that was happening around me. How can I solve this filmmaker's annoying crux? Do we need another camera? Well I say - no! The problem was more the kind of a hunter’s tunnel vision on his prey who doesn’t realise that he just missed a much bigger and tastier meal. The same thing happens when making a documentary. The filmmaker is hunting the best shots but is only looking through his camera, which offers only a small and very restricted view on the situation. That was what was happening to me. At the end, I was the victim of the camera and only looked through its little viewfinder.

What I did was to start shooting right when I saw a new place of a gig to catch my first look on the, for me, unknown place. Then I switched off the camera and just tried to experience the place without any technical support. After some time you observe kind of the specialties of the place. The things giving the place its personality. I asked myself: in what way is the room structured? What influence does it have on people? How can they move and be in this room? What kind of people are they? Why are they here and how do they feel?

When I could answer these questions for myself, which was normally after one or two cokes and a cigarette, then I started shooting again. Finally, I didn’t collect so much film material and at the same time it was good stuff, which made me happy.

And we were more than one person who could operate the camera, so when I stopped filming in order to observe the room, somebody else could start filming. Moreover, later he could take time to check out the location when I was filming the second time. Well, I guess this was a very effective way to film with one camera and I continued this way on the tour…by the way, Prague was cool and Brno kicked ass! Check out the videos we made:

First Stop: Prague!

and Next Stop: Brno!