The Wonderful World of Death |
By Nathan Wiley, GBCT |
 |
Glass Matte Painting |
A while ago, I sent out an SOS to all Guild members asking for help with a short film I was directing. The film was inspired by an old 1930’s Bessie Smith song “Cemetery Blues” and dealt with the story of a young woman who goes to the cemetery at night to dance with the ghost of a lover. |
The ghost summons up other spirits who together float up into the sky and dance only to return to their graves as soon as the strange lovers kiss….. |
 |
 |
I wanted the film to look like an authentic 1 reel studio picture of the time so decided to shoot on 35mm black and white film, use wheels instead of fluid heads and most importantly shoot all the effects (and there were a lot of them!) using 1930’s techniques to help add authenticity to the look of the piece. |
This was the point when the DOP, Mattias Nyberg, and I decided we needed help from people with greater experience of traditional techniques than us and spoke to the Guild. |
We had a terrific response and some great guys came forward including Peter Versey, Peter Hughes and Trevor Coop (who ended up operating the main camera opposite Peter Welch on the shoot). |
| The advice and suggestions were brilliant, such as Peter Versey’s suggestion of using paraffin instead of water in the tanks to get rid of air bubbles! |
Multiple tests followed and between us and Leigh Took (our traditional VFX supervisor), we went through the storyboard shot by shot to nail how we’d shoot the film. |
What we ended up with was an assortment of Pepper Ghosting, multiple exposures, multi images lenses, camera stops and glass matte painting. |
 |
Glass Matte Painting |
We did decide however to use some modern techniques such as mix and overlay to help with the multiple exposures, and shoot on Panaflex cameras rather than old rack overs. The reasoning for this was very simple. The film needed to be shot in a very short space of time and we would have been mad not to! |
The other decision we made in testing was to shoot with Primos. We looked at old glass and flare lenses but these gave us problems with multiple exposures and because the cemetery set we were to shooting on was very limited we wanted lenses with a good solid range to limit set redressing and crane repositioning. Primos gave us this and photographed our lead actress the best in tests too. |
In terms of the softness of the picture we opted against using filters, again because of multiple exposures and decided to add these in the TK. |
As is always the case with a short film our two main obstacles were time and money, or rather the lack of them. We had gone from a planned location shoot to a studio shoot due to concerns about controlling the smoke we were using for atmosphere and effects and had blagged 4 days at Shepperton (thanks guys!), 1 for a get-in and pre-light, 1 for a de-rig and get out and 2 for the shoot which meant we had a daily shot list to reduce even the most hardened 1st AD to tears. |
We did however have a fantastic crew, including ‘Biggles’ and his boys on lighting, Paul Corbould and team on SFX and a slate of familiar faces on camera and grips, the end result being … we almost did it! |
We did have to drop some pepper ghosting shots because they just took too much time to set up. The little ghosts flying in the sky we shot as models later on but there were problems using the Bi Pack camera to composite them so they have had to be done on computer! |
What did we learn from all this?...well ironically, to use in camera techniques can be more expensive than CG simply because of the time and care involved to get it right. |
Also, though I’m not against CG (it’s a great tool) coming from a camera background it’s a great shame to see these skills and equipment dying out. When you look at King Kong in New York or the Tornado in the Wizard of Oz you realise what an amazing job those guys really did. |
The film is now cut and waiting on a sound mix and final grade. As soon as this is done there will be a screening at Pinewood so if any members would like to come and talk further (or just watch the film) - let the office know! |
 |
Without their ongoing help and guidance, we probably would have made a very different film. So my thanks goes to: All the cast and crew who have worked on the film throughout its life; Hugh Whittaker and staff at Panavision; Trevor Coop GBCT; Peter Versey GBCT; Peter Hughes GBCT; Jaquie at Panalux; Noel at Pinewood and Jay Maidment for the stills you’ve just looked at! |
Cheers |
Nathan Wiley |