Extended FeaturesShooting a Then and Now| 00:01 |
So, this is a photo from a collection of
photographs from the Rose and Robert
| | 00:04 |
Skillman Branch of the Detroit Public
Library.
| | 00:08 |
automotive history collection, and these
were all the Packard plant.
| | 00:12 |
This was a 1926 photo and I believe it
was shot in this building, we're in
| | 00:15 |
building 92.
I could be wrong but these round colors
| | 00:19 |
right here and the hexagonal shape of the
concrete at the top makes me think that
| | 00:23 |
it was in here, because I don't know any
other buildings that has these types of
| | 00:26 |
construction figures.
So, I think that this is in here.
| | 00:31 |
Now, I just gotta try and find out where
it was shot, and then replicate it.
| | 00:38 |
The only thing that's throwing me off
about this is that I'm looking at the
| | 00:40 |
columns on the right here, where there
would've been windows, where they meet
| | 00:43 |
the roof.
And I'm not seeing the slanted concrete
| | 00:50 |
structure at the top.
So, I'm not sure what that means.
| | 00:55 |
It also looks like these pillars might
have been a little closer to the window
| | 00:59 |
than this photo makes it seem, but that
could just be perspective.
| | 01:03 |
So let's walk up one floor and we'll see
if we can find where this was.
| | 01:09 |
Now the second part of this process is
once you're getting close to where you
| | 01:12 |
think it was, what lens do you use?
This was shot in 1926.
| | 01:17 |
And so, I'm not sure what camera it was
even on and much less, what lens was used.
| | 01:24 |
And so, I'm imagining back in that time
period they had fixed lenses most likely
| | 01:30 |
so I'm going to shoot at 20, 24 and 35.
And we'll do three variations of that.
| | 01:38 |
I'm sure it's not a 50 millimeter lens
it's a little too wide.
| | 01:42 |
Let's start at 20.
Once we take all these variations of this
| | 01:48 |
scene, we'll go back into the office.
We'll put them into Photoshop and we'll
| | 01:52 |
see which variation most closely
resembles the photo.
| | 01:56 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Compositing a Then and Now| 00:01 |
We shot a bunch of images yesterday to
try to compare to this old historical
| | 00:04 |
photo, for then and now.
And we have two variations of this,
| | 00:08 |
because I'm not quite sure where this was
exactly.
| | 00:12 |
So I shot it at two potential locations.
Here's it's interesting, we have a 24
| | 00:16 |
millimeter focal length, 27, and a 35.
So let's start with a 24 millimeter
| | 00:21 |
image, and open it in Photoshop, and the
process is basically just to drop one
| | 00:26 |
image on top of the other.
And first thing we want to do is drop the
| | 00:31 |
Opacity on the new image down to about
50%.
| | 00:35 |
Alright, we want to be looking at both
images, once it's at 50% we can kind of
| | 00:39 |
see where things might start lining up.
Here's our big first column in this photograph.
| | 00:46 |
And so we know we need these columns to
match up somewhat, that's the first thing.
| | 00:50 |
And so what we see here as I blow up into
this.
| | 00:54 |
Here's the bottom of the column here.
Here's the bottom of the column in the
| | 00:57 |
old one.
We try to match those up here, which
| | 01:01 |
we've done.
See how the top matches up.
| | 01:04 |
Okay, see that the top is quite a bit
higher here, in the new image.
| | 01:09 |
So, what I'll most likely have to do
here, is, is physically shrink this image
| | 01:14 |
down, free transform it, and shrink it.
Now, if we blow up into this, you can see
| | 01:20 |
that the two pillars come together about
there.
| | 01:26 |
And in the bottom two I think we're
probably still matching here.
| | 01:31 |
I'm scaling symmetrically, so as I scroll
down to the deep image the perspective
| | 01:34 |
doesn't change.
Alright, so we're fairly close here and
| | 01:37 |
so now I want to bring in one of these
images to the other location.
| | 01:41 |
The second image here, or second scene
rather, is fairly close.
| | 01:45 |
Here's our window.
That's not bad as well.
| | 01:52 |
See in the background here, here's our
back wall, and it's blocked by cars here,
| | 01:56 |
so we can't really see where it falls.
It's pretty close though.
| | 02:03 |
If you look at this back pillar here,
that's essentially right where the back
| | 02:06 |
pillar is on our new image, so this one
works out pretty well.
| | 02:10 |
Actually all four of these pillars line
up, which is really what we were looking
| | 02:13 |
for yesterday when I was out shooting
these is how do these pillars line up in
| | 02:16 |
the image.
Now we're down to two options here.
| | 02:22 |
That's our first, that's our second.
So this was also the image where the
| | 02:28 |
pillars didn't line up.
And so I'm probably going to end up
| | 02:32 |
turning that off.
And going with this image as our final.
| | 02:37 |
Alright, so now that we have our image,
I'm going to fine tune our chosen image here.
| | 02:47 |
To be exactly what we want it to be.
Let's see where our door falls now.
| | 02:52 |
The door is still slightly off, there's
nothing that we can do about that,
| | 02:55 |
because if we try to free transform now
and pull the door up, everything else is
| | 02:59 |
going to slide.
And I think the most important part about
| | 03:03 |
this is the pillars in this composition.
There's half a line out there that's
| | 03:06 |
really going to look weird when you fade
between the two.
| | 03:09 |
So what we're not going to do with this
image is really transform it so that the
| | 03:12 |
perspectives start to become skewed.
it is journalism and we're already going
| | 03:17 |
to have to put a disclaimer that these
two images are probably not precised
| | 03:20 |
where they are.
So the last thing I want to is do is
| | 03:23 |
really try to tweak this image to make it
look like it was exactly where it was.
| | 03:28 |
I'm not going to do that, we want to
leave everything in proportion and just
| | 03:30 |
let our viewers see it how it is now.
And the last thing to do now is to tone
| | 03:35 |
this image.
I purposely shot it a little bit
| | 03:37 |
underexposed here, because I didn't
want to blow out the right side of it too much.
| | 03:44 |
So, in journalism you never want to
manipulate an image, so what you wouldn't
| | 03:47 |
want to do, for instance, is say I'm not
happy with this board here.
| | 03:52 |
I'm going to take a Clone Stamp tool and
take out the image completely.
| | 03:55 |
When you start manipulating images, you
change what your viewer would expect to
| | 03:59 |
see if they were there themselves.
however, toning is acceptable because
| | 04:04 |
cameras don't replicate the human eye and
so if you were in this situation this
| | 04:07 |
wouldn't look as dark as it is.
Your eye can handle contrast better than
| | 04:12 |
some of this cameras.
And so what we're going to do is just
| | 04:15 |
bring up these dark areas a little bit,
so that the image appears more pleasing
| | 04:18 |
in some ways.
And what I would do with this PSD file is
| | 04:25 |
now hand it to the graphics team.
They would take this PSD file that has
| | 04:29 |
two images layered over it and they would
bring it into whatever program they use.
| | 04:33 |
To create the web environment where these
images can be viewed with an Opacity
| | 04:36 |
slider, back and forth.
This is probably my favorite, then and
| | 04:42 |
now comparison, and I did this as
probably one of the first ones I did,
| | 04:45 |
because I knew exactly where this was.
This is the main lobby.
| | 04:50 |
There's only one grand staircase here and
so I could position myself exactly.
| | 04:54 |
And I knew exactly where it was, and as
you start to fade here, we're at 50%
| | 04:58 |
Opacity now, and you start to see the
older railings come into play.
| | 05:03 |
And the steps are still where they are.
They're still aligned but you start to
| | 05:06 |
see the marble up here.
And as you keep going, things just get
| | 05:09 |
more and more polished.
And you see these, this staircase as it
| | 05:13 |
was in many, many years ago.
And then you start to pick out other
| | 05:16 |
elements like this table here this
spittoon right here.
| | 05:20 |
And as you start to dissolve away from
that the spittoon happens to fall on the
| | 05:23 |
shaft of light that's coming in through a
hole in the window here.
| | 05:28 |
Kind of a happy accident but it's kind of
interesting how that happened.
| | 05:31 |
And of course all of this beautiful
plaster work.
| | 05:36 |
Which today is pretty much crumbled and
very deteriorated as you start to fade
| | 05:39 |
into it.
You can see how beautiful it was at one
| | 05:42 |
time, all that plaster work was still
there.
| | 05:46 |
So for something like this being able to
really pick out different elements and
| | 05:49 |
allow the user to really discover for
themselves how this building used to look.
| | 05:55 |
Rather than just seeing the two images
side by side, you can really discover
| | 05:58 |
things as you just started sliding
opacity.
| | 06:01 |
I mean, the feedback has been pretty
positive.
| | 06:03 |
I think people really like looking at
these, and we've only published six of
| | 06:06 |
them, and we have many more to publish in
the future.
| | 06:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing the Packard Plant documentary| 00:00 |
So, when we started the Packard Plant
Project.
| | 00:03 |
When I started shooting it years ago I
started shooting it because the newspaper
| | 00:06 |
wanted to do a story on it for print and
online.
| | 00:10 |
And that story got pushed back, and the
date got pushed back for publishing.
| | 00:13 |
And so, essentially, what we did is take
the most interesting part of it.
| | 00:17 |
For me, which was an interview with a
poet that wrote about the place.
| | 00:20 |
And laid a lot of, some of the best
footage over that interview.
| | 00:23 |
And then to give it context, the second
half of the video that we have online now
| | 00:27 |
with interview sound bytes and thoughts
from people who live and work around the plant.
| | 00:32 |
People who've had dealings with the plant
they give us some context as to what
| | 00:35 |
you're looking at.
So, essentially, in the smaller video
| | 00:38 |
that's online right now.
We started with, (COUGH) the first half
| | 00:42 |
of this video is our poet, basically,
reading the poem he wrote about this
| | 00:45 |
place, and that audio is laid down here.
And all of this right here is the video
| | 00:51 |
that goes on top of it, and so as this
poet starts to talk, we hear, we see
| | 00:55 |
images over the top of it.
Male I saw the moon rise above the
| | 01:00 |
packing ships of the old Packard.
Male In a lot of this imagery, I really
| | 01:03 |
went out there specifically trying to
shoot different things.
| | 01:06 |
He was talking about the moon rising over
the Packard Plant.
| | 01:08 |
So, I went out there at 4:30 in the
morning on a summer day, waiting for the
| | 01:11 |
moon to rise.
And it took a really long lens in order
| | 01:14 |
to frame something nice, here.
Male A moon, at 7:30 in the morning.
| | 01:19 |
And the radio went on playing the same
violins and voices.
| | 01:24 |
I didn't listen to each one.
Male A lot of this was, you know, this
| | 01:28 |
poet was writing a poem about the place
many years ago.
| | 01:32 |
And so, the words that he's saying, don't
necessarily match the visuals of today.
| | 01:36 |
So, I tried to find ways to almost match
it.
| | 01:39 |
in more of a subjective way.
Male Back in the alley, the guys in
| | 01:43 |
greasy dark wool jackets were keeping
warm by a little fire made and from.
| | 01:49 |
Male He's talking about people keeping
warm by a little fire, yet there's this
| | 01:53 |
huge fire raging throughout the whole
Packard Plant.
| | 01:57 |
Male And tossing their empty wine
bottles into the street where they
| | 02:01 |
shattered on the frosted roofs of cars.
Male Obviously, there's no wine bottle
| | 02:06 |
shattering here but I had these scrappers
now working in this place, tearing it
| | 02:09 |
apart and, as they're tearing it apart
things are falling down.
| | 02:13 |
Male Scattered like chunks of ice.
Male Scattered like chunks of ice.
| | 02:16 |
That was kind of fortuitous because they
were working in the middle of winter.
| | 02:22 |
So, the process was really just finding
imagery that matched the poem in some
| | 02:26 |
sort of surreal way.
And that was the first half of this
| | 02:30 |
little video.
The second half, here, is all of our
| | 02:34 |
sound bites with people.
So, the first thing we hear is some
| | 02:38 |
context about how big the place is.
Male Depending upon who you believe,
| | 02:43 |
we're looking at, and I'll say this very
slowly three and a half million square feet.
| | 02:48 |
Now, that may be an exaggeration.
But, anyway.
| | 02:51 |
This was, this is one very large
property.
| | 02:56 |
Male And so, the second half of this,
is really people's opinions and thoughts
| | 02:59 |
about what this plant is.
What it means, and what should be done
| | 03:02 |
with it.
And that was the video that ran with the
| | 03:06 |
print publication of this story, which
published as a large special section last
| | 03:11 |
December 2012.
Anytime you're working on a long-term
| | 03:15 |
project, you want to shy away from the
very obvious shots, the very obvious
| | 03:19 |
style of shooting, and really push
yourself.
| | 03:23 |
And the camera's ability to try and shoot
in a way you haven't done before.
| | 03:28 |
And so with this project it was very
easy.
| | 03:30 |
It is very easy there to be overwhelmed
by all the devastation and get just get
| | 03:33 |
in the habit of shooting with a wide
angle lens.
| | 03:37 |
What I really tried to do, is shoot with
long telephoto lenses and macro lens to
| | 03:41 |
pick out details of the plant.
So, I was there during a snow storm in
| | 03:45 |
the winter, and rather than just shooting
this big snow, you know, big snow storm
| | 03:48 |
coming through the place with a wide
angle lens.
| | 03:52 |
I've tried to find details, icicles
handing down the frame with some sort of
| | 03:55 |
out of focus framing of the plant behind
it.
| | 04:01 |
looking at ways to shoot snowflakes in
really creative ways, so the plant is
| | 04:04 |
really secondary at this point, to the
fact that there's nice blowing snow
| | 04:07 |
around, the lighting is really
interesting around it.
| | 04:13 |
In a shot like this, I think I'd let this
roll for probably a minute, hoping that
| | 04:16 |
some wind gusts would come up and swirl
the snow in an interesting way.
| | 04:21 |
And then, also the way the water runs
through the plant was always fascinating
| | 04:25 |
to me.
And you see big puddles of water in the
| | 04:28 |
plant, but if you really get down and
start looking at ways that the water runs
| | 04:32 |
through this place, and this was again,
was all with a 100 millimeter macro lens.
| | 04:38 |
So I'm focused really close, probably
three inches away or less from this water.
| | 04:42 |
You can create some really interesting
visuals of how water affects the place.
| | 04:47 |
And, so yeah, I think you're always
pushing, trying to push the boundaries of
| | 04:50 |
your own cinematography when you're
working on a project.
| | 04:55 |
I think being cinematic keeps your
audience engaged.
| | 04:58 |
I think anytime you're working on a long
form story, you have to keep people
| | 05:01 |
engaged visually.
And so, if I was watching something I
| | 05:04 |
would get bored if I saw the same wide
medium shot of destruction over and over again.
| | 05:10 |
So, for me, if was finding ways to almost
make the place look beautiful in some respect.
| | 05:15 |
You know, this is, here it's not about
the plant at all or even the destruction.
| | 05:19 |
It's about this water lit well kind of
running on the floor of the place.
| | 05:23 |
And a lot of it too is with a project you
have the time to spend on cinematography.
| | 05:28 |
you know new, television news stations
especially are, of there, are in such a
| | 05:29 |
time constraint.
They're on there everyday.
| | 05:30 |
They're always editing and shooting,
sometimes one, two, three packages a day
| | 05:37 |
for television.
Something like this, we have the luxury,
| | 05:42 |
where if my boss gives me the okay to
spend a day at the Packard Plant.
| | 05:45 |
And I'm out there and I run across this
guy tagging, and he's okay with me
| | 05:48 |
shooting a video of him.
I can spend an hour or two hours with
| | 05:52 |
him, maybe three hours with him, and
hanging out and shooting him and hearing
| | 05:55 |
his story.
If I was working at a Daily News Cycle,
| | 05:58 |
that just wouldn't be possible.
And so you have a, you know, the
| | 06:01 |
opportunity to get a variety of shots.
And really after you've gotten the
| | 06:05 |
obvious shots, thinking about ways to
really play with what you're shooting.
| | 06:10 |
So, in this situation subject is out of
focus and really what's in focus is this
| | 06:13 |
weird piece of metal kind of floating
around the frame.
| | 06:19 |
These are detail shots.
Lots of detail shots.
| | 06:22 |
Here again, just stepping back from the
action and framing some old papers, and
| | 06:25 |
you see the person walk, working in the
background.
| | 06:28 |
Just thinking about ways to shoot that
situation in a lot of different types of
| | 06:32 |
ways, I guess.
Our edited six minute video that's
| | 06:36 |
currently published.
It looks fairly complex in type.
| | 06:40 |
From there, we want to actually expand
this out into more of a feature length
| | 06:44 |
film or 45 to, 45 minute to an hour film.
And I think in an, in an ideal world, i
| | 06:48 |
would have liked to have the full length
video, the full length film done when the
| | 06:52 |
newspaper story ran.
But the two are so opposing.
| | 06:57 |
We had a very hard deadline for the
newspaper story.
| | 07:00 |
It had to get in before the end of last
year.
| | 07:01 |
It was a news-related issue.
There was a foreclosure going on at the time.
| | 07:05 |
And we just didn't have time to, to fully
edit the whole film.
| | 07:10 |
But we have a lot of footage to work with
here, and so what I've tried to do along
| | 07:12 |
the way, for the last couple of years, is
to keep it organized.
| | 07:15 |
So in this sequence here, I have
literally pulled out all my best footage
| | 07:18 |
and I've organized it.
It looks like we have laid out almost
| | 07:22 |
four hours of raw footage here.
Now, there's some breaks between it but
| | 07:27 |
what I try to do is organize it into
themes and so, here's all of our winter
| | 07:30 |
shots here.
All this is footage stacked up.
| | 07:34 |
All winter shots, we skip ahead a little.
Here's all of my water shots, water
| | 07:38 |
dripping through the place.
Nature and Wildlife, lot of nature and
| | 07:43 |
wildlife there.
Building exteriors, building interiors,
| | 07:48 |
and the idea is if I try to stay
organized.
| | 07:51 |
Once I'm ready to start the final editing
process on a longer film.
| | 07:56 |
I'll know exactly where all my footage
is.
| | 07:57 |
It'll be much quicker to pull exactly
what I need, rather than going through
| | 08:00 |
all the original footage.
So, that's why I started this, just
| | 08:04 |
trying to be organized.
And then, the second part of this is to
| | 08:07 |
take a script.
Which we have a script, pretty much
| | 08:09 |
written out here, and just start laying
out the chapters.
| | 08:12 |
And so, this was our first sequence,
fully edited for the video that's online now.
| | 08:19 |
I've created a sequence for each of the
chapters in this film, starting with the intro.
| | 08:25 |
The next chapter will be history, a
chapter on techno, some of the '90s
| | 08:29 |
litigation that happened.
And it keeps going all the way to the end.
| | 08:33 |
And for each of these now, when we're
looking at organizing a project.
| | 08:37 |
I pull out all my relevant sound bytes,
from people, and I've laid them out in
| | 08:40 |
the way they're going to be shown.
And I've, I've left space between them,
| | 08:44 |
where we're going to have narration, and
that's the first step for me.
| | 08:48 |
The second step now will be recording the
narration, laying down the narration, and
| | 08:52 |
the music that goes with this chapter.
And then the final step, we will be
| | 08:56 |
taking the B roll video, that we had laid
out here, and adding some of that over in
| | 08:59 |
these images.
So, that's the process that we have to
| | 09:03 |
work with.
The idea is, and it's something that's in
| | 09:06 |
the works but we'd love to try to put
together of Free Press sponsored film
| | 09:10 |
festival here in Detroit, with the idea
that we have all this great work.
| | 09:15 |
Not just the Packard Plant, but former
projects that, that a lot of us have
| | 09:18 |
worked on here.
And finding ways to get our material out
| | 09:21 |
into the community in different ways and
its community engagement.
| | 09:25 |
Its building an audience.
Its all of that stuff that newspapers
| | 09:27 |
need to do in order to continue being
relevant.
| | 09:30 |
I mean, I think anytime you work on
something for more than a few months, you
| | 09:33 |
end up getting attached to it in some
ways.
| | 09:37 |
but at the same time, when it drags on
for a long time, you really want to be
| | 09:39 |
done with it.
And so I really am, I'm at the point now
| | 09:43 |
where I'm looking forward to getting it
finished.
| | 09:46 |
In terms of editing, but I think there
will always be, every time I drive by
| | 09:49 |
there, I want to go drive around and see
how things have changed and see how it
| | 09:52 |
continues to change.
Because I have already seen so much in
| | 09:56 |
there, that it is going to continue to
fascinate me for probably many years to come.
| | 10:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Breaking down a scene: Scrapping at the Packard Plant| 00:02 |
So what we're looking at right now is a
bridge that's collapsed onto what used to
| | 00:06 |
be a city street and this happened many
years ago.
| | 00:09 |
And the story that's told by the business
just down the street, the one remaining
| | 00:12 |
tenant in here.
Is that the owner was sitting in his
| | 00:15 |
office and he felt this rumbling going
through the building.
| | 00:19 |
He thought oh this can't be good, he
comes out and sees this huge cloud of
| | 00:22 |
dust rolling down the street.
And there's scrappers and their ladders
| | 00:26 |
and torture equipment, and everything has
fallen down right here.
| | 00:29 |
And these two guys limp up and walk away.
And this bridge has been laying here on
| | 00:34 |
the street for, this has been like three
or four years at least.
| | 00:38 |
Alright, so the footage that I shot, some
of the footage I shot yesterday was very specific.
| | 00:44 |
It was for this bridge collapse.
And it's going to go in the project in
| | 00:47 |
this area right here.
And what we're doing is, we're
| | 00:49 |
introducing this man, and his business,
chemical processing.
| | 00:52 |
They're the last tenant in the whole
plant, and they have to deal with
| | 00:55 |
scrapping constantly.
And so as we play this.
| | 00:58 |
(SOUND).
Male Got pretty rough down here, I, you
| | 01:00 |
know, would say it's like the wild, wild
west.
| | 01:04 |
Male The way I have set up right now is
we're building a quote here, quote
| | 01:07 |
here,quote here and in between each of
there it says narration.
| | 01:11 |
And so this is where I have written
narration.
| | 01:13 |
So after he said that quote, we hear you
know, we'd introduce chemical processing
| | 01:17 |
and say, essentially in 2008 vibrations
ran through their building.
| | 01:21 |
As, as scrappers cut steel from the
bridge near by.
| | 01:23 |
And you would see footage from this
bridge collapse that we shot yesterday.
| | 01:27 |
And so what I want to do now, is I
imported the footage from yesterday, and
| | 01:30 |
we have a lot of clips.
And we are probably not going to us all
| | 01:34 |
of it, so I created another sequence.
Just so we can limit our footage here,
| | 01:39 |
and then go through and pull just a few
shots here, in the original footage,
| | 01:44 |
(INAUDIBLE).
And I would probably go through each of
| | 01:51 |
the shots that I shot yesterday and pick
out the best.
| | 02:01 |
There's one shot in particular.
I've a little wire hanging down from the
| | 02:06 |
base of this building, it goes right
here.
| | 02:11 |
And it was just kind of a last piece of
metal hanging off the building.
| | 02:16 |
Nice, like that.
And so, once I pull all of my favorite
| | 02:23 |
shots from this scene.
I would essentially take these shots, and
| | 02:27 |
I would copy them from this sequence over
into our working sequence here.
| | 02:33 |
And the step of this process that isn't
done right now is the recording of this narration.
| | 02:41 |
But you can imagine.
Male That pretty rough ,down here, I'd,
| | 02:44 |
you know, would say it's kind of like the
wild, wild West.
| | 02:48 |
Male What you hear right now is
chemical processing has outlasted all
| | 02:51 |
other tenants.
They now fend for themselves as the only
| | 02:54 |
business left.
In 2008 vibrations ran through the roof
| | 02:57 |
as scrappers cut steel from a bridge
nearby.
| | 03:01 |
And you cut back to interview quote from
our subject.
| | 03:05 |
Male First thing I thought was, oh,
this can't be good.
| | 03:08 |
This can't be good at all.
Male And you build the story like that.
| | 03:12 |
Now there's a lot of fine tuning that has
to take place obviously.
| | 03:15 |
There might be music under this.
A lot of fine tuning adjustments but
| | 03:18 |
we're not really at that point yet for
the edit.
| | 03:21 |
Scripting for me has become really
important especially for long form stories.
| | 03:25 |
I don't know how you could operate
without having a written script.
| | 03:28 |
because you have so much footage and when
you start laying it out on timeline, it's
| | 03:31 |
very easy to get, kind of lose your path
through the footage.
| | 03:35 |
And so I take all of the sound bytes that
I think are important to the story and I
| | 03:38 |
transcribe all of it on to paper.
And then I use, I basically build the
| | 03:44 |
story through paper.
And so the last thing I'm doing is, is
| | 03:47 |
looking at all the footage in depth and
imagining what shot I want where.
| | 03:51 |
The first step of this process is really
to think about the audio that goes with
| | 03:54 |
this story.
Your story comes through the audio, the
| | 03:57 |
quotes that people give you, the
narration you use, and some of the
| | 04:00 |
natural sound and music.
This guys quotes, there's three of them
| | 04:06 |
in the scraping section.
here's our scraping section.
| | 04:10 |
His quotes appear down here, between each
of them, highlighted by yellow you see
| | 04:14 |
the narration that I wrote for each of
those, those gaps.
| | 04:18 |
And so the film is essentially laid out
on paper first.
| | 04:22 |
And that makes it very easy that I go in,
and when you start editing, just follow
| | 04:26 |
your paper and lay it out as a story.
The last part of the process is actually
| | 04:30 |
laying the B-roll footage on top.
It seems like the most interesting part,
| | 04:34 |
and it is the most fun part of editing in
a lot of ways, but it's literally the
| | 04:37 |
last step of the whole process.
Scrapping has obviously played a huge
| | 04:42 |
role in, in the visual look of the
Packard plant.
| | 04:45 |
And so within the broader film, we can
see here by our grain tabs, scrapping
| | 04:49 |
falls about a little more than a third of
the way thorugh the film.
| | 04:54 |
What we've got is we've already worked
through the history.
| | 04:56 |
We heard about the techno that happened
there, and the parties in the 90s.
| | 04:59 |
And then we've, we've learned a lot about
what happened in the 90's in terms of
| | 05:02 |
litigation and ownership.
Which has led to a lot of this scrapping,
| | 05:06 |
within the scrapping chapter itself, we
have multiple characters who have metal
| | 05:09 |
along the way.
some of them who have, have no problem
| | 05:13 |
being on camera.
And some of them who requested, like this
| | 05:17 |
guy did, that we blur his face, and
disguise his appearance.
| | 05:23 |
And so some people are very aware of what
they're doing in there.
| | 05:26 |
It is illegal, you do have to be careful
because a lot of people don't want to be
| | 05:29 |
on film, and a lot people can probably be
pretty hostile about it.
| | 05:34 |
And so I was worried for a long time that
the only shots I was going to have were
| | 05:37 |
very long shots of scrappers working off
in the distance.
| | 05:41 |
I met this particular gentleman, I was
walking through the plant by myself one
| | 05:44 |
day on a Saturday.
And I heard some saw action, and I looked
| | 05:46 |
through the window.
He must have heard me and looked through
| | 05:49 |
the other window at the same time, we
made eye contact.
| | 05:51 |
He said are you a cop, I said no, I'm not
a cop.
| | 05:54 |
And I explained who I was and (UNKNOWN)
this larger film and he said yeah, okay
| | 05:57 |
come over, you can film me.
I don't want to be shown, please hide my identity.
| | 06:03 |
And so, that's how it started and I just
told him, look do your thing, I don't
| | 06:05 |
want to bug you.
Just work and I'll shoot around you.
| | 06:09 |
And the idea, again, is to kind of be
documentary.
| | 06:12 |
You don't want to be in this guy's way.
You just want to let him work and show
| | 06:15 |
what his life is like.
This is how people work.
| | 06:19 |
They bring ladders, saws, most people
have torches.
| | 06:25 |
And they're working really hard pulling
down all this steel.
| | 06:30 |
(NOISE).
| | 06:43 |
Male There's gold in these (INAUDIBLE).
Male The thing that makes great
| | 06:47 |
documentaries or any documentary is
having great characters.
| | 06:52 |
Even for something as mundane as the
history section, finding people who used
| | 06:55 |
to work there, let's see if I can find
them.
| | 06:59 |
You know elderly ladies, and older guys
who work there who have great voices and
| | 07:03 |
great memories.
And just telling you very rich stories
| | 07:07 |
about what it was like to work there.
What you're looking for is not
| | 07:11 |
necessarily, okay, what do you do and how
do you do it.
| | 07:14 |
We know that they probably work either on
a line or, or in the office somewhere,
| | 07:17 |
that's not important.
But really getting the personal stories
| | 07:20 |
that come across.
And, so these ladies here, you know, it
| | 07:24 |
wasn't so much about what they did as
their experiences and their plan.
| | 07:28 |
(SOUND).
Female Oh, it was not hard.
| | 07:30 |
No, we didn't think it was hard.
We were young and ambitious.
| | 07:35 |
Female To me, it was just, it was like
a big playground.
| | 07:40 |
Female It was very nice.
It was kind of like a family reunion.
| | 07:43 |
Female There was old guys floating
around, you know.
| | 07:46 |
And then, you'd find out who was involved
in that, and
| | 07:48 |
Female We were smoking cigarettes in
those days, which we shouldn't have.
| | 07:53 |
But we did.
Female Up against the black champ
| | 07:56 |
(LAUGH), everything for the war effort,
(LAUGH).
| | 07:59 |
Male So just trying to find the
personal stories, the things that
| | 08:03 |
connected these women to the plant war
than what they did themselves is pretty important.
| | 08:09 |
So, most important part of trying to
construct a film is not only thinking
| | 08:13 |
about how you're going to start it, but
also how you're going to end it.
| | 08:17 |
It has to end very naturally.
And so, in this story, the broader story
| | 08:21 |
of Packard, and the continuation of
Packard, it's not going to happen at the
| | 08:24 |
Packard plant in Detroit.
That place is being torn down through
| | 08:29 |
scrapping and nature.
And it'll probably be demolished someday.
| | 08:33 |
There's a group up in Shelby Township, 40
miles North of Detroit or whatever.
| | 08:38 |
Who run a Packard Proving Grounds and
they maintain them and that's probably
| | 08:41 |
where the story of Packard will continue
on.
| | 08:45 |
And so I met this group of folks, they
have an open house once or twice a year,
| | 08:47 |
and I went up there.
And spent some time with them, walking
| | 08:51 |
around the proving grounds, you know
people come to drive old Packards.
| | 08:55 |
And trying to, trying to work in this
concept that as the Packard plant deteriorates.
| | 09:01 |
The continuation of the Packard legacy
may continue through the proving grounds,
| | 09:05 |
and what's being done to maintain them.
And so, the film will end up there.
| | 09:10 |
I don't have a lot o (UNKNOWN) yet, but
let's see if there's anything here.
| | 09:18 |
This guy says.
Male As long as the people are
| | 09:21 |
interested in the history of the
automotive industry, there'll be a place
| | 09:24 |
for learning here at the Packard
(INAUDIBLE).
| | 09:29 |
we're just one more effort that's maybe a
little more tangible than a book.
| | 09:32 |
We actually have (SOUND).
Male I think this would be a great spot.
| | 09:39 |
He's talking about being more tangible.
We actually have hes probably going to
| | 09:42 |
say Packards.
This Packard drives by and I was going to
| | 09:45 |
cut to a scene of this gentleman driving
a Packard and having a grand old time.
| | 09:51 |
Male (LAUGH), keep them from grinding
but you know you just got to find, find
| | 09:55 |
the your slot and slip it in, (SOUND).
Male Obviously I'll have to cover some
| | 10:01 |
of this with extra B roll now there's a
lot of junk cuts in it.
| | 10:06 |
Jump cut is moving from one situation to
the next, where nothing's changed.
| | 10:10 |
(NOISE).
Male Now this is the original test
| | 10:13 |
track, and all we have left is 400 feet
of it.
| | 10:18 |
(SOUND).
Male So, the idea is after we've
| | 10:21 |
watched a film about the Packard plant.
And things have, you see that deterioration.
| | 10:26 |
You see that it's pretty much hopeless to
save the plant now.
| | 10:29 |
You end up here, where people are still
very much in love with Packard and
| | 10:32 |
they're doing all they can to continue to
Packard legacy.
| | 10:36 |
And keep the Packard tradition going that
way.
| | 10:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reporting with the iPhone| 00:01 |
Today we're on Belle Isle.
It's a big island in Detroit, and we're
| | 00:04 |
at the north end of the island.
Blue Heron Lagoon, where there's a big
| | 00:07 |
restoration project going on,
environmental restoration.
| | 00:10 |
And this is to get fish habitat back in,
turtles, snakes, really just biodiversity
| | 00:14 |
in general.
And so we're out here to do a little
| | 00:17 |
update on the progress, and see how
things are progressing.
| | 00:20 |
I think I'm going to shoot on the iPhone,
because several years ago I do a big
| | 00:23 |
project on the island.
nature wildlife film, and I used bigger
| | 00:27 |
cameras and spent a lot of time on it.
But this is nothing that's going to take
| | 00:30 |
me a lot of time.
it's not going to be a big project for me.
| | 00:33 |
I just want to do a quick update, so it
makes sense to shoot on the iPhone
| | 00:36 |
because it's quicker, and easier to edit.
So the procamera app I think is better
| | 00:42 |
than a default camera app.
Because a situation like this if I want
| | 00:49 |
to go a shot of the sign here.
What this app allows me to do is, I can
| | 00:56 |
set my focus point and my exposure.
So by touching twice here, I have a
| | 01:02 |
yellow circle to give me my, my exposure.
And as I move that around I can adjust
| | 01:07 |
exactly how bright I want this scene to
be.
| | 01:10 |
And then my blue square here is my focus,
so in this case I'll want to focus right
| | 01:13 |
here, not way off there.
If I was using the native camera app,
| | 01:16 |
it's going to set the focus however where
it thinks it should set it which is
| | 01:19 |
probably further down the sign than I
really care to see right now.
| | 01:23 |
It's a rainy day so there's no people out
here.
| | 01:26 |
Typically I'd get an interview too but
there's literally nobody out here.
| | 01:31 |
So I'm just going to get a few shots of
the lagoon and use my own voice to tell a story.
| | 01:37 |
I'm not really concerned about getting
the iPhone wet Its not going to really
| | 01:40 |
fail on me unless I drop it in a pile of
water.
| | 01:42 |
If I was shooting on expensive equipment
I'd really want to have a rain shield
| | 01:45 |
over it or something.
So to go out in a rain like this and get
| | 01:49 |
a few shots, yeah the iPhone's perfect.
The iPhone, it shoots 1080p video, its HD video.
| | 01:57 |
Now the quality, the chip size its
recording to is obviously not as good as
| | 02:00 |
some cameras but the image itself is
pretty dang good.
| | 02:04 |
I'm really impressed with it, and the
great thing about this phone is you can
| | 02:07 |
really focus fairly close up to things.
The macro abilities it has are pretty
| | 02:11 |
phenomenal, so I use it for that a lot
too.
| | 02:15 |
Step one of this process, since we don't
have any interviews, is we're just going
| | 02:17 |
to do some narration.
So, I have notes here from a quick
| | 02:20 |
interview I did with the island manager
yesterday about the project.
| | 02:25 |
I've just got to boil these down into one
or two sentences of narration.
| | 02:32 |
The process that I usually take is laying
down the narration first and then
| | 02:35 |
matching our visuals to the narration.
Before we do that we have to lay down one
| | 02:39 |
piece of video.
That's the way the program works, and so
| | 02:42 |
what we're going to lay down is actually
the intro slide that the free press has.
| | 02:47 |
Alright, so our video will start like
this.
| | 02:53 |
(MUSIC).
Now that I have a piece of media laid
| | 02:56 |
down, I can actually lay the narration.
And you could use a microphone, but these
| | 03:03 |
the the mic's on these phones are
actually pretty good in close distance,
| | 03:06 |
if there's no wind or anything.
(SOUND).
| | 03:10 |
Despite spring rain, Belle Isle's Blue
Heron Lagoon is in the midst of an
| | 03:14 |
ecological transformation.
So let's make sure the front of this
| | 03:19 |
audio matches up with the end of the
intro.
| | 03:21 |
(MUSIC).
Male Despite Spring rain, Bell Isle's
| | 03:25 |
Blue Heron Lagoon is in the midst of an
ecological transformation.
| | 03:32 |
Male A lot of editing for me is, is
just making something, making an edit,
| | 03:35 |
and then playing it back and seeing where
it falls, and making your next edit.
| | 03:40 |
Male Transformation, (NOISE), the
lagoon was recently opened to the Detroit
| | 03:48 |
(SOUND).
The lagoon was recently opened to the
| | 03:52 |
Detroit River along.
Male All right, this clip, instead of
| | 03:56 |
bringing the whole clip in at once, I'm
going to preedit, because I know it was
| | 04:01 |
rolling for a long time.
And I was trying to slide along one of
| | 04:05 |
these signs that said something about the
Detroit River, which would be perfect to
| | 04:08 |
put there.
So as we slide in we can see where the
| | 04:15 |
edit is, just bring in that much.
Take a little right off the front end.
| | 04:31 |
Male The lagoon was recently opened to
the Detroit River.
| | 04:34 |
Male One of the downfalls about iMovie
in my opinion is that when you bring in
| | 04:38 |
video clips, they all come in with a
default crosses all between them.
| | 04:43 |
That's in my profession, in my opinion
not real professional to have crosses all
| | 04:47 |
between everything.
And they're really unnecessary, so one
| | 04:50 |
thing you have to do is double tap each
one and go to none.
| | 04:54 |
Male Recently opened to the Detroit
River, allowing more than a dozen fish
| | 04:58 |
species access to the shel.
Male We'll bring in our Free Press
| | 05:03 |
slide, again.
And I'm going to let the crosses all
| | 05:09 |
happen on this one, the very last shot.
So, we can fade into the Outro slide, and
| | 05:18 |
as a matter of fact maybe I'll do that on
the first shot too.
| | 05:32 |
Now the last thing I have to do to this
project is, it was very windy today and
| | 05:34 |
so you can hear as we play this.
Male Bell Isle's Blue Heron Lagoon is
| | 05:38 |
in the midst of an ecological
transformation.
| | 05:41 |
Male Especially there, the sound on my
B roll footage is way too loud.
| | 05:45 |
It's really covering up my voice and so,
we need to go into each of these and take
| | 05:49 |
the audio on the clip itself way down
probably all of them.
| | 05:58 |
Blue Heron Lagoon is in the midst of an
ecological transformation.
| | 06:01 |
The lagoon was.
Definitely that one.
| | 06:05 |
This one I'm just going to take down a
little, because the rain noise and the
| | 06:08 |
water lapping the shoreline is kind of
nice.
| | 06:12 |
(SOUND).
Male More than a dozen fish species
| | 06:16 |
access to the shallow water habitat.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
| | 06:23 |
All right, so we're ready to export.
You have to approach an edit assuming
| | 06:27 |
that your audience knows nothing about
the situation or the location you're in.
| | 06:32 |
And so, then a lot of situations you
really want to make your, your first shot
| | 06:35 |
establish where you're at.
(MUSIC).
| | 06:37 |
Male Despite spring rain, Belle Isle.
Male And the first shot here I mean
| | 06:41 |
Blue Heron Lagoon this is kind of our
establishing shot.
| | 06:46 |
And logically after we see something that
says Blue Heron Lagoon we want to see the lagoon.
| | 06:52 |
So my second shot was.
Male Spring rain, Belle Isle's, Blue
| | 06:56 |
Heron Lagoon is in the midst of an
ecological transformation.
| | 07:01 |
The lagoon was recently opened to the.
Male That shot worked out well.
| | 07:04 |
A lagoon was recently opened to the
Detroit River, and so I have a nice
| | 07:07 |
panning shot here.
Well, not really a panning shot, the
| | 07:10 |
camera was actually moving on my beanbag,
sliding across the side.
| | 07:14 |
(CROSSTALK), at home in the Detroit
River.
| | 07:18 |
Male Allowing more than a dozen fish
species.
| | 07:20 |
Male More than a dozen fish species, so
we don't have fish, I don't have an
| | 07:22 |
underwater camera.
So I'm just shooting the artwork that's
| | 07:25 |
already provided for us.
Male Species, access to the shallow
| | 07:30 |
water habitat.
Male Access to the shallow water habitat.
| | 07:33 |
You can see right down here the water's
lapping at the shoreline, it's fairly
| | 07:36 |
shallow there's rocks.
So that shot works out really well there.
| | 07:41 |
(SOUND).
Male The Great Lakes Restoration
| | 07:43 |
Initiative Project is res.
Male And for this, Great Lakes
| | 07:46 |
Restoration Initiative Project, ideally
I'd have people actually out working, and
| | 07:50 |
you could show people working and doing
it.
| | 07:53 |
But it's a rainy day, people aren't
working today.
| | 07:55 |
So, this was probably what I consider
probably my most successful shot in terms
| | 08:00 |
of just visual aesthetic quality.
I got real low on the ground.
| | 08:04 |
Shot back up towards the Blue Heron
Lagoon sign, but framed a flower in front
| | 08:07 |
of the whole things.
So the focus really is the flower not so
| | 08:11 |
much the sign in the background.
Male Responsible for these
| | 08:14 |
improvements, which will add more long
term fishing opportunities to Detroit's
| | 08:18 |
largest park.
Male And this is kind of a filler shot,
| | 08:21 |
it's an ender shot.
Ideally, again we'd have somebody
| | 08:24 |
actually casting a line off into the
lagoon and fishing but, rainy day we
| | 08:28 |
don't have that, and we're going to get
done.
| | 08:31 |
Male For the Detroit Free Press, I'm
Brian Kauffman.
| | 08:34 |
(MUSIC).
Male And there's our Outro slide.
| | 08:38 |
So pretty quick video.
It's, it's 37 seconds, 40 seconds and for
| | 08:41 |
somebody who's on deadline, also writing
stories and doing a lot of other things.
| | 08:45 |
You wouldn't want to to spend much more
time than we just did doing this.
| | 08:49 |
And we're ready to send it, what we would
do is, just go back to the main project
| | 08:52 |
and actually export it.
We'll send it to our Camera Roll.
| | 08:57 |
in this situation, we have many options
to choose from.
| | 09:00 |
And so, you have to imagine especially in
situations where there's a lot of cell
| | 09:04 |
phone action going on.
Sporting events, places where people are
| | 09:08 |
on their phones a lot.
It's going to be hard to send a big HD
| | 09:12 |
movie through the, through the telephone
service provided to you unless you're on
| | 09:16 |
a WiFi service.
In this situation rather than sending,
| | 09:20 |
exporting a big HD quality movie, if I
want to get this back to the newspaper, I
| | 09:23 |
might just choose large here.
It's going to keep the file size down.
| | 09:29 |
And you're losing quality, of course, but
you're also going to the web where you're
| | 09:33 |
not going to be showing HD quality video
anyways.
| | 09:40 |
Alright, that was successful.
The last step in the process would be
| | 09:43 |
actually sending the video to our web
desk.
| | 09:45 |
We do that through this mobile upload app
through BrightCove.
| | 09:48 |
I would sign here, send it, send them an
e-mail, and the whole process would be
| | 09:51 |
done, I could go on with my day.
I don't know if iPhones will be the end
| | 09:55 |
all solution for newspaper video.
They're the solution right now, but
| | 09:59 |
technology changes so quickly.
It was inconceivable to have iPhones even
| | 10:02 |
a year or two ago.
And so I think what won't change is the
| | 10:06 |
need for video.
And for breaking news events, especially
| | 10:09 |
quick video, video you can get up very
fast.
| | 10:12 |
And so there's always going to be some
way to get video back whether it's an
| | 10:14 |
iPhone or some other device.
Right now, it makes sense to use the
| | 10:18 |
iPhone because all, all the tools you
need are in one camera.
| | 10:21 |
But the video is not giving away, and
giving people access to shoot video means
| | 10:24 |
that you have to give them a fairly small
camera.
| | 10:27 |
Unless you're a photographer and you have
lots of cameras.
| | 10:30 |
So the fact that everything is so small
and compact is really going to be key to
| | 10:35 |
the future of newspaper radio.
| | 10:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
