Industry Experience - Croatian TV News

On Monday 18th November I was asked by Honey Tongued Theatre Productions in London to film rehearsal footage and interviews for a slot on Croatian national television news.

Honey Tongued is a collaborative project which showcases Croatian dramas to a British audience.  I worked with Honey Tongued Theatre Productions earlier this year when I was filming the Croatian drama festival held at the RADA Studios in London.  That project included rehearsal footage, interviews with the Artistic Director, several of the cast and also the Croatian Ambassador in the embassy.   That footage was also used by Croatian television.

The new production that I covered today is called Hedgehog's Home, and is a translation of a famous Southern European children's story.  The production is a musical and is being performed by a cast consisting of both Croatian and British actors, and is playing at the beautiful Tabernacle Theatre in Notting Hill before going on tour.

My footage is being sent to the Croatian TV news editors who will edit the piece together and play it out on the Croatian TV news as a feature.  My brief, which I successfully fulfilled, was to set up and record clear interviews, of high quality, that will edit together to explain and demonstrate the production so the TV audience in Croatia can learn about the collaborative drama projects between Croatia and the UK.  

I attended the Tabernacle and set up and conducted the first interview with the director of the play, Gary Wright, in the rehearsal room / dance studio.  For all the filming I used my Canon 600D, which was a good move as the picture is very clear and there is no file conversion required which meant that I can provide a quick turnaround for the news channel. 

In the dance studio I also filmed the character of 'the fox' (all the characters are animals) doing one of her dances.   This was really good to start with, but as she got closer to the camera there was a certain amount of shaking as dance studio floors have quite a lot of spring in them.  To combat this problem, I used the long wall mirror of the dance studio to good effect and asked Tori to perform the dance again and this time I was able to shoot it from a different angle: to the side and almost from behind, and far enough away that the floor didn't bounce, and she could be seen from behind but also from the front in the reflection of the mirror.   with the first, face on first segment cut with the second part of the reverse shot, it will edit together well.

After Tori's dance I interviewed Gemma who is playing the narrator.  The play is sung all the way through, and there are different styles of songs throughout.  As narrator Gemma gets to sing bits of all the songs and I asked her to talk about this.  After the interview I filmed Gemma singing one of the numbers from the play, first at the piano in the rehearsal room, and then on stage in the actual theatre.  I thought this would give the news editors a choice of using one or the other, or indeed both, in their feature.

The final interview was with Filip, the Artistic Director, who is Croatian and who has organised the Croatian drama festival and this production.

For his interview I positioned him on the balcony with the stage and lighting rig behind him.  The Tabernacle is a wonderful old hall, very smartly refurbished and made a wonderful backdrop.  Although the house lighting was darker than I would have liked so I upped the ISO on the camera which compensated for the lack of light but did add some graininess to the shot.  This was a move I didn't really want to have to make, but Filip was insistent on having his interview conducted in that position on the balcony although I would have preferred it to have taken place on the stage where we had better lighting opportunities.  I suggested this to him, but when he watched back the first bit of the interview as done on the balcony, he was pleased with it anyway, and wanted to continue in that position.

Filip's interview answers were given in Croatian, which was interesting to film as I was listening out for the rhythm, rather than the words, to determine natural edit points.

I love working with Honey Tongued, I enjoy filming theatre productions and their documentaries.  I do it is a one man team, writing the questions, doing the interviews, setting up the subjects, framing the shots, shooting and editing (when required).  As it is something I love doing, I happily do all the work required to get good footage.

I've said all along that my preferred career would be freelance film maker in the areas of sports documentary or theatre productions.

 

With regular work coming in from Claremont Media group for matchday filming and sports news features, and Honey Tongued theatre based film work, I am getting lots of experience, and good feedback (and repeat work) from both.  And I am thoroughly enjoying it!