Filming in the Peak District

I met with Baily on Monday the 28th to start shooting the footage for the countryside section. 

For equipment, we used:

Canon XF305

This films in HD and has an impressive zoom which would give us a lot of lee-way in terms of what shots we could get. It has 3 sensors which means it picks up colours very well.

Manfrotto Tripod

A standard reliable tripod with a fluid head for smooth pans. 

Zoom H5

A small and compact audio recorder capable of recording in 48Khz and 24bit for good sound quality. A very handy and reliable tool.

AT835ST Microphone

A highly directional stereo mic. This helped capture high quality stereo audio. Having this meant I could pick out sounds and minimise background noise.

I booked out the equipment for that morning and then travelled on tram with it to meet Baily in Hillsborough. From there we travelled in Baily's car to the peak district. Once we arrived, we pulled into numerous lay-bys, as we saw shots that stuck out to us, to film landscape and wildlife footage. It was a clear bright day with blue skies which was perfect to convey the sense of space we were looking for.

I drew inspiration for a few shots from Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) in which he will zoom out from what is a close up to a vast wide angle composition. I thought I would try this but zoom in instead. So for instance there is a shot that starts as a wide angle shot with a few sheep in the distance near a lake, the camera then slowly zoom in until the sheep are composed in the foreground with the lake in the background. To do this I picked out the shot in the distance, zoomed in fully and then positioned the camera so the shot was composed how i wanted it. Then I would zoom back out, leaving the camera in the same position and then finally record the camera zooming back in with the target shot positioned in the middle.

Baily operating the camera