Just came back from the best filmmaking week i've had in a long time! Probably since Just Business last Summer.
We were set the task originally to make a 10 minute Documentary on a subject of our choice. With job roles established as follows:
Director: Jay Brown
Producer: Mike Evans
Cinematographer: Darren Martin
Sound Designer: Tom Oswin
Editor: Claire Randell
As a Director I was willing to give Cinematography another go, along with Mike also being a Director giving Producing a go allowing Jay to have an individual credit as Director this time round. Tom was happy as Sound Designer and Claire was happy with her editing role.
The idea came about after Mike had remembered he used to visit a Lifeboat Station in Angelsey when he was younger, staying at his nan's house. We researched more into this Lifeboat Station, discovering it was run by the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute) a charity funded organisation in which volunteers save lives at sea. We got in contact with Rod Pace, the Operations Manager at the Lifeboat Station Mike used to visit in a seaside village called Moelfre.
After visiting the village with Jay on a recci (see previous blog post) decisions were made as to what the documentary would be about.
We wanted to avoid making it a promotional video for the RNLI, by giving it more of a cinematic appeal and emotional content. The fact that the lifeboat station, engulfed in history is going to soon be knocked down gave us that emotion and story behind the content in plain sight.
Wednesday 23rd March 2011
Set off at 1pm after picking up all the equipment from stores and packing it all into my car and reached Warrington at 5pm after a few stops. Myself, Mike and Claire stayed at Mikes house while Tom stayed at Jays. After a lovely meal we set off the following morning to Angelsey.
Thursday 24th March 2011
The two hour drive went quickly as we reached Almwch where we pitched our tents
We ended up sleeping indoors the following night after our dreadful nights sleep in the tents! It was extremely cold and the seagulls around us would not shut up! So we were very grateful of Mike's nans hospitality and allowing us to keep warm at night!
Friday 25th March 2011
Today, after the interesting nights sleep, we were all very tired. We soon woke up when we realised how amazing this location was! The true HD resolution on the viewfinder really got us all thinking we could have a great documentary here! We got plenty of pick up shots during the day and Tom (on his 21st Birthday) was enjoying recording sounds of the sea in different ways. One way which really stood out to me was on the pebble beaches, by resting the microphone on the pebbles, the sounds of the waves were allowed to vibrate through all of the pebbles back up through to the mic. It made for some quality sounds! The weather was amazing, which made my job as Cinematographer a lot easier! It made everything in Moelfre look beautiful! After spending some time in the Lifeboat station, we headed back to the house. As it was Toswins birthday, we'd organised a meal at a local hotel and got him a cake! Successful bonding with the crew played a big part in the great filmmaking experience I had. We all felt relaxed around each other, with everyone on the same wavelenght so were able to achieve our highest potential! Everyone was equally committed too, which made everyone fully aware that this was important to one another. Claire was setting alarms throughout the night to make sure both the batteries and P2 Card was ready for the following days shoot. The P2 card needed transferring to 3 different places before we could shoot on it again, each transfer of an hours footage was taking an hour/ 2 hours each time. Without this dedication, we would have lost hours of shooting time everyday!
Saturday 26th March 2011
Today was a day none of us will forget for a while! Personally, which the others have also stated the best thing we've had to film before.
We were fully aware of the scheduled exercise on Tuesday where the Lifeboat would be launched and we'd have plenty of time to film it and prepare etc. It was lunchtime on Saturday, after a successful morning of interviews we were all happy with how the documentary was going. So far so good. I was sat outside waiting for Rod to restart the interviews after lunch when Jay rushed down and said "grab the camera!". He rushed back inside and I followed him up to the Cabin/ Office, he said "there's been a shout, they're launching the boat!". Fantastic! This would look great in our documentary! But wait I had to make sure I captured it well! I've never been so nervous about screwing up, but I kept calm, grabbed the camera and just hit record. We couldn't afford to miss any of the action happening as volunteer after volunteer appeared after they'd all received notification that the boat would be launching. I managed to get some shots of Rod looking calm under pressure with everyone around him rushing about. Then came the siren! This added to the exhilarating experience even more! I could barely hear anything! As none of us had seen the lifeboat being launched before, we were unaware of the exact procedure that happened before it went down the slipway. We were determined not to miss the lifeboat going down the slipway so just stood and waited upstairs at the window looking down for the lifeboat to launch. We opened the window which allowed the camera lens to poke through the gap, the cold sea air was blowing into my eyes, which were watering uncontrollably! The suspense was mad, we didn't know when it was going to go, one person said "it goes when the whistle sounds". The whistle went, I had one final check of the framing before it shot down the slipway, I tracked it and zoomed in a little as it disappeared out to sea.
When is was just about out of sight we cut the camera and I wiped my eyes in astonishment, also because they were soaked. That wasn't everything though, Rod was still at the navigation desk with the radio at his mouth.
It got back to us that the lifeboat wasn't going to be able to return to the station due to heavy easterly winds so it would need to dock at a near by port. We were invited by Rod to follow him to the port and get some shots! This was a very good decision as we ended up with some amazing shots of the lifeboat at dusk.
We got some great shots of Rod overlooking the lifeboat too, everything went perfectly. After that day, we arrived back home still buzzing! It was such a rush of adrenaline, and now we can relate to the reasons why these people volunteer! We were bystanders and watched as everyone did everything like clockwork, making sure they got away in 11 minutes to help someone in need of help at sea!
We found the report of the lifeboat launch from Moelfre was added and read it, making what felt so much like a hazy dream, real again. It was incredible; the efficiency, the calmness and the co-ordination of several volunteers to accumulate all the personnel necessary to launch the huge lifeboat successfully!
Sunday 27th March 2011
We were all feeling very happy with ourselves on the Sunday morning. A great load of footage the day before, a great nights sleep as well as more sunny weather! We headed off to the Station again to get some more pick up shots and a few final interviews with Rod. We captured some shots of the empty lifeboat station, which had a strange atmosphere, now the lifeboat had gone.
We didn't have that much left to do after we'd shot this. We still needed some frontwards shots of the lifeboat in the station but as it had gone, there was nothing we could do about it! We went back home and chilled out for a bit before Rod called Mike letting us know that the lifeboat would be coming back this evening! We quickly jumped in the car and got to the station as quick as we could!
We turned up and had about a 45 minute wait for the lifeboat to arrive round the corner, giving us some great footage of it going through the waves at speed! It came to a steady stop and backed onto the slipway, with the sea now rid of harsh waves, getting it onto the slipway was easier now than it would have been, had it attempted to come back up the slipway the previous day.
Monday 28th March 2011
We were all happy as a group that we'd got as much footage and enough coverage to make a successful documentary. We had numerous cutaways, varying from static, to pans and tilts. Tom had some great sounds too that he'd recorded separately on the marantz, loads of radio chatter which could come in very handy for the documentary when bridging cuts.
We arrived at the Lifeboat Station in the morning, bright and early, probably the best day we've had and got the frontal shots of the Lifeboat in all it's glory. There was some nice water reflection on the roof of the station which looked incredible as we looked up at the magnificent boat. Pans, tilts and beautiful blue sky in the background should make for a nice shot!
After we'd finished at the lifeboat station, we stopped off at Rods regular job. Down by the Brittania Bridge which seperates Angelsey from the rest of Wales we had to go down a massivley steep hill.
The worry about the car was all but forgotten as we reached the bottom, another amazing landscape! Rod was bombing around in his speedboat asking us what we wanted him to do. Jay gave him the signal to drive around while I panned with him. Wide shots and Close ups of Rod working should work nicely with the voice over of him talking about the related subject going over the top.
This location topped off the trip. Just as we thought it couldn't get much better, Rod brings us to this place! Absolutely stunning! We shot what we needed and then left, heading back to Warrington before the 4 hour journey back down to Surrey.
Some people say Documentary is 90% access. We were extremely lucky and very well looked after by the Moelfre Lifeboat Station Crew and can't thank them enough for their help and support whilst we made this Documentary.
I'll never forget this experience; the location, the events that unfolded as well as the great film crew spirit we all showed. This is how filmmaking should be! I'm happy again!
Great time, great crew, now hoping for a great Documentary at the end of it!
It will be great. It's going to be friggin uh-mazing. Just you wait ;)
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