AgeUK Plymouth

Dementia Awarness Campaign

This campaign was all about trying to bring out the real stories behind the daycare dementia patients, but also their families that looked after them.
The campaign is about raising awareness of dementia and doing so in a respectful, humanising and important way.

I went for a standard two camera setup to get the interviews. Of course, the biggest challenge was going to be the shifting daylight with that window.

I knew from the location scout that it could get BRIGHT in that room. So I’d brought a 300W and small parabolic to light my subjects from the inside of the room.
I’m personally a huge fan of KEEP IT SIMPLE when it comes to lighting.
No gripper, no assistant. Just me and a whole lot of equipment.

Took on more than I could handle by myself? Oh yeah.
But if it were easy…

Still though, let’s talk about what did and didn’t go well with these shots.
Most of the time?
Yes, it went really well.

But I ran up to the most difficult wall with any project like this.
What I’d do if there was unlimited time vs what could be achieved on the day.

Unfortunately there wasn’t time to replace the window with a fake one to control the lighting. I could, of course, tried the shot at a different angle or in another room (if one existed in the center) but I worked with what I had and decided in the end, if the sun comes in and out? Well, that just have to be okay.

I was satisfied with the high dynamic range of the two sensors in use here, the Blaackmagic Design Ursa Cine 12k LF and Panasonic Lumix S1II, that if the window started to get too hot with light, the sensor would handle it and I’d be able to recover my image in post.

Which I was able to.
Is it still distracting a little with the light changing?
Yeah, but its not every 2 minutes. Lucky the light was nice and faded in and out.
So over the course of the full 20 minute interview you barely notice.

And in the end, of the 2 hours total of interviews, only 60 seconds of content is going to make the final cut!
So with that in mind, I shot with the intention of… yeah… “fix it all in post.”

Results wise, I couldn’t be happier with the final image.

Chris, one of the interview subject’s partner, having a blast in the daycare center.

The other part of this project was getting together some B-Roll and photographs. Partly for the current deliverable and party for future use of the center to help with their ongoing marketing efforts.

For the B-Roll, I just got the elbows dirty and handheld the ursa.
Yes, it was very heavy.
My back? Plenty of regrets.

But the footage turned out well, and the 3:2 50p shooting with that sensor was exactly what I needed to ensure I wasn’t trying to run around getting B-Roll in 3 different deliverable formats, having to reshoot for vertical and horizontal.

Which brings me nicely to why I chose the S1II and Ursa Cine 12k LF to begin with.
Easy answer: 3:2 sensor video format and BRAW.
Shoot everything once. With a sensor tall enough for 1:1 and 5:4 aspect ratios, and easy 16:9.
Ursa Cine 12k LF can do that at high framerate, so all my slomo B-Roll needs are taken care of.
And the Lumix S1II can shoot its photographs in V-Log, allowing me (if I wanted to) to match all photos and videos to the same grade - as well as use it as a B-Camera to the Ursa.

Ursa Cine 12k LF, Rigged out with DJI Lidar Focus, Laowa Ranger Zoom Lens and B Mount Battery