Maintaning Creativity and Capturing Autumn!

My two favourite girls and stars of “…in amber”

 

As I build up Scarlet View, my time is split between working on current edits and generating new clients and projects moving in to 2013. It’s a hard slog, the days are long and the pressures come at you from all angles, however, I know that it will be worth it all over the coming twelve months.

At the moment, I am working on the edit for a wedding, 427GB of footage to make up the finished product of a wedding film, trailer, bonus features, disc design, cover design and final delivery. That of course incorporates the edit itself, colour correction and grading of everything (as standard of course) and audio cleaning, otherwise known as doing battle with the mortal enemy of good indoor sound, air conditioning!

As most of my work at the moment is confining me to the same surroundings indoors, I try to take any opportunity I can to get outside and I thought that a good way to do that, would be to shoot some nice scenics from the beginning of Autumn, through to the arrival of Winter which is where we find ourselves now.

It’s going to be a short film, around three minutes, called “…in amber” and will consist of the footage I managed to shoot which I thought represents Autumn in more rural parts of England. There’s another good reason to why I did this as well as getting outside for a break…It’s great practice!

In my opinion, the art of cinematography is the same as playing a musical instrument, a sport or learning a trade, the more you do it, the better you become and watching some of the footage back, I feel really good about how I am developing, both in tecnical ability and also in my own style.

Composition, creativity, managing light, capturing moods and coming up with ways to frame sometimes fairly dull imagary, all comes with practice but not just that. Having an idea of the edit means it helps you practice shooting “economically” and also streamlining your workflow in the back end so you can edit faster.

Another good reason to shoot your own small, fun projects is to practice the art of colour correction and grading, building looks that maybe one day, you can use again but this time on paid jobs. This Autumn piece is good for me and something I am looking forward to playing with because my most recent work has had a predominantly blue and green palette, Autumn is all about rich, warm ambers and reds, crisp, clear skies and the onset of darker days and early evenings, it makes for a really great look if you can get it right.

I’ve decided to do one of these for each season, using different moods and different colours to try and capture each how I see and feel them. Another aspect of these pieces is I use every bit of topside film kit I have, every lens, handheld, tripod and sliders, filters and accessories, the reason being it helps me feel closer and closer to what I use, it streamlines my use of each piece and improves my understanding of how they work and why they do what they do.

“…in amber” will of course be posted here for you to enjoy and I can’t wait to start on the edit, it’s actually my treat to myself when I finish the wedding film so when it’s ready, I’ll be sure to let you know and would love your feedback!

I’ll be starting the Winter one soon as well by the looks of it!