We had a great shoot yesterday at an aircraft hanger. We were shooting for next term and for this term’s DOP course. Over the next two weeks in the DOP course we are covering lighting for drama and coverage for Drama.

Which is timely given that in Background we just started working on our ‘tourist’ edit that lacked coverage (!). Coverage is actually so much more than just overlapping actions in different takes. In fact, we start with the classic “wide and punch in for the closeups”, and produce something that is well OK… we then show how to do real coverage based on subtext, motivation and story point of view.

Our director for this was Alex Davies, who had just come off set on the new Baz film AUSTRALIA where she was acting opposite Hugh Jackman. Her insight into blocking, designing and staging a shot were brilliant. You’ll see Alex in 2 weeks time on the DOP course. She is such a talented actor / director it was a joy to work with her. Actually the whole crew was great – but it is funny filming empty spaces for later vfx work. In this photo we film a blank piece of concrete – on both a RED and a Panavision supplied 35mm BL4, but you’ll be glad to know the concrete gave an oscar winning performance.