As Live Production: One Particular Professional

“Directors tell their stories with images and it is their intention to manipulate the emotions of the audience” 
-(Frost, J 2009: pg.1). 

My first role was director of VT's for 'Steal The Style' and there are may routs I could take with this especially in terms of utilising my own style. Upon receiving our roles, we split into our groups and immediately began coming up with ideas for the VT's. As soon as I heard the eras covered for 'Old to New' I began brainstorming ideas. I also began independently testing some of those ideas to see how well they would fit the piece but also how possible they are to shoot and edit. My big inspiration for the shooting/edit style was 'The Grand Tour' and 'Top Gear'.

Thus, a direction/editing style I am really inspired by is that of Amazon Primes’s ‘The Grand Tour’. The way its filmed and edited is nothing short of genius They use quick cuts for a modernistic look. They use a style called 'Outils Wolf' which is a style adopted in similar shows like 'Top Gear’ (they took much of their crew with them). The way this style works is it will go from a normal speed pan to quick speed b-roll and back to a normal speed shot. The professional I was interested in was camera man Philip Piotrowski who shoots for both shows and therefore has mastered this style very well. I was lucky enough to actually meet him and have a chat with him when working on Channel 5's 'Do the Right Thing' and in this I was able to see his opinions on the stye of the show and filming.

I wanted to get some ideas and inspiration and in-depth first hand knowledge from someone who is out filming on VT shoots and in the studio production. Given I had already research how they film in 4K i asked his opinions on this and he said "I'm not completely sold on filming everything in 4K yet, its a bit of a gimmick but the footage looks really nice" To that I said I imagine filming in RAW brings a lot of work and issues. But thats something he said "doesn't really affect me thats more for them to sort in post". I found this conversation really useful and something that I really took home with me was how the tent studio setup in The Grand Tour feels just the same as a normal studio setup which is strange because of how much different it looks on television. I took this primary research into the shows camera man and went on to looking online to see where his skill has taken him and he has worked on a lot of different shows, mostly studio based productions but his flexibility to be out shooting VT's for shows like 'The Grand Tour' and ability to produce high quality studio content makes him a professional practitioner for me to aspire to.

Link to Phil on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0684833/


As camera man for the studio production I am also inspired by The Grand Tour's camera work and how they film in 4K, which is quite a challenge when filming constantly. For television Dramas and films it different because the shooting ratio is low but the Grand Tour film "150 or 200:1 sometimes". The in-car cameras have to roll all day. Nine hours a day on the big road trips three cameras in each car, 2 x POV and a ‘face cam’. This would take a lot of time and effort and very high end servers.

In addition to this research I decided to test Phil and 'The Grand Tour's' style out myself to help inspire my directing of VT’s and studio camera skills. While filming for a client project: 'The Firm Awards Opening Video' I decided to do some smooth pans and b-roll and gave this directing, filming and editing style 'Outils Wolf' look a go (see blog post: As Live Production: Studio Based Entertainment: The Grand Tour).

Although I didn’t edit the VT’s , the edit will only work in coordination with the way a piece is directed and a director will have influence in the editing department. “Sometimes a director will look over your shoulder throughout the editing process. Other times she will eave you alone as long as you turn in a daily or weekly report.” (Wohl, 2002: P.g 10).

Therefore the edit will only work in coordination with the way I direct the them. I also have influence in the editing department and will sit with Alex just as I did with the practice VT's. After carrying out some father research into this style I found out that 'Top Gear' and 'The Grand Tour' both have the same editor, Dan James. According to (https://www.provideocoalition.com/aotc-grandtour) Dan "has been a long-time editor on both series" and I have noticed that much of the crew from Top Gear was taken into 'The Grand Tour' which is why it projects this similar style. Because you have practitioners like Phil and Dan who have their style the show has this polished look and cast/crew chemistry when working together "people do business with people they know, like, trust and VALUE." (tybennett.com).
I took all the style techniques here and adopted them in my own style hen directing VT's and working on studio camera. I wanted to use glitch effects for things like the 80s and use stylised lighting and props to represent eras for the photo shoot (my favourite being the projector of 90's music videos blurred). This made something that would otherwise be quite bland rather interesting. The result is this:

As you can see lighting is used a lot here to portray images and eras even if its subtle. The glitch effect is very stylist of Top Gear, and is again something used in the Old to New VT to make it more interesting. 

E.g.

Projected light and color hues used to make shots more interesting in VT

Top Gear Shoot- Colour hues used to make more aesthetically interesting 

References:

Frost, J (2009) 'Cinematography for Directors’. Dallas: Michael Wiese Productions.

https://tybennett.com/people-do-business-with-people-they-know-like-trust-and-value/

https://www.provideocoalition.com/aotc-grandtour