OUGD603 — Brief 11 — Woodrups & Restrap TCR Film - Boards

Evaluation:

Thanks to the work I completed at the beginning of the year for the Halleycat event, Nathan asked me to film and cut a film that documented a project they were collaborating with Woodrups called the Transcontinental Project.

Using my existing skills in photography and the base knowledge I developed in film from documenting the Halleycat event, I spend six days filming different processes of the total bicycle build and used it to create both a promotional teaser for the video as well as a full-length film to promote both Leeds based companies.

I learned a lot of new skills in this brief which I am very thankful for, my filming has become a lot more professional and the quality of the final film edit is leagues above my first. This shows a great progress in just two projects with almost seven months between them. Since completing this project I have also been approached by another company enquiring on my filming work which shows that it has reached a state of professionalism that is good enough for businesses to take an interest in.

This is a great development in my practice as it adds another skill that I can provide for clients alongside my design work and photography which opens up my opportunities even more for freelancing.

OUGD603 — Brief 11 — Woodrups & Restrap TCR Film - Finished Film

Here is the finished film hosted on vimeo.




I am really really pleased with how this film has turned out and it is definitely the best quality video I have shot and edited.

OUGD603 — Brief 11 — Woodrups & Restrap TCR Film - Cutting, Shooting Day 06, and Editing

The big job of this project was the cutting and editing of the final film. I wanted to get a balance of coverage between restrap's work, woodrup's work and videos of the bike in action.

I always find documenting film cutting really difficult as it's a process that involved lots of trial and error but so much that it would take longer to explain than make the film five times over.

During the editing, I came to a moment I wanted to introduce Tim's interview, and that was when things went bad. I found out that because I wasn't prepared with audio recording equipment as the interview was a flash decision at the time, the audio was worse than expected, somehow the camera picked up a bird tweeting at about 5 times the volume of Tim's voice. This was completely un-saveable so I gave Tim a ring.

We decided to re-shoot the interview at Restrap the next day when I had the chance to pick up a microphone and set up in a controlled environment with no environmental noises.

Straight after we took a couple of takes, I opened it up on my laptop to hear the results and we were perfect. We quickly got on our way so I could get back to editing.

I spent that evening and the whole day after getting the video to the best of my abilities and then uploading it to wetransfer to Nathan to look over and give the go-ahead.

Fortunately I got nothing but praise for the finished film and it was ready to upload. I made a professional looking cover-photo to display rather than a screen-grab on the video link, devil is in the details.

OUGD603 — Brief 11 — Woodrups & Restrap TCR Film - Shooting Day 05

On Friday morning I headed down to the AV resource room to pick up some kit for the weekend shooting.

I picked up a Canon EOS 5DMKIII, Canon 24 - 105mm Lens, Redrook Micro-support steady cam, a spare battery and a tripod ready for Saturday morning.

On the day, I was picked up from mine at 3pm with the TCR bike in the boot and we set off to Eccup, a reservoir nearby that had a nice long stretch of road that wasn't often disturbed by cars.

We got the bike out of the car and I set up my equipment before getting in the boot to start shooting.

I made sure I got a good selection of angles by directing Tim and the driver, Jacob. This made sure that I captured Tim in the best positions along with the bike and touring rig.

One thing I love about Tim is that he loves to get involved in whats happening and had an idea to hide and appear out of some long grass in his sleeping bag looking confused for some laughs (if it was successful), unfortunately it didn't suit the video theme but we had to have some fun with it!

I also took the chance to take some stills with my flash-gun to make sure that the reflective paint on the bike stood out. These will be great to use for social media and previews.

Once we arrived at Tim's I took some shots of the bike by itself to show the paint details and parts being installed onto it before we sat down and did a quick interview to use as a voice-over the video.

When we were done, Jacob drove me home and I moved all the data onto my computer and hard-drive.

Unfortunately, when I replayed the footage, I found that the interview's sound was ruined by bird tweets that I couldn't remove from the shot in post-production. I called Tim and explained the situation (as the interview wasn't planned I had no recording equipment) and he was happy to re-do it on Monday afternoon.

OUGD603 — Brief 11 — Woodrups & Restrap TCR Film - Change of Plan

Unfortunately because of the detail involved in the frame-painting, things were delayed and set back to a point where it was going to go from the painters to Bespoked 2015 to be built for the event. This meant that I had to make a preview film of the bike before it was finished to give a taster for the judges at the show.

I powered up Premiere and pulled in the music I was asked to include which was bought prior to filming and brought it together in a 33 second video that teased the collaboration.

I used the music snare to transition the clips and make the whole outcome a seamless flow.

Both Restrap and Woodrups were really happy with it and were looking forward to the opportunity to get the finished video done for them.

OUGD603 — Brief 11 — Woodrups & Restrap TCR Film - Shooting Day 04

My next shoot location was at the Restrap HQ to get some shots of Nathan doing what he does best in making the custom saddle-bags and frame bags out of the fluorescent high-vis material to keep Tim safe on the A roads of Europe.

This was another day of using the trusty 50mm to get the detail shots the video was aiming for. Until the frame was back from the painters this was the last set of footage to capture.

So far we were on 20.4GB of footage to work with and I am excited to get the final shots of the finished frame done.

OUGD603 — Brief 11 — Woodrups & Restrap TCR Film - Shooting Day 03

Day three was the finishing touches of the frame such as smoothing out the build and adding the details such as the head badge and braze-ons.

These shots were entirely based around detail. Using the 50mm f/1.8 lens I was able to capture the focal points while blurring out the background and surrounding elements.

This was the last day at Woodrups on site as the frame was being sent off to York to be hand painted professionally.