Project
02
The Master Carver.
The last remaining Victorian jet jeweller.
This was a very nice project to work on, with a style that's a personal favourite.
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The footage was filmed over only 1 day inside a small workshop in Whitby. The room had only 1 window and so lighting was the biggest concern to start with, especially knowing the camera would be at a high frame rate, however only a couple of additional light sources proved fine with the carvers workbench light providing plenty of light.
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We used a simple rig as it had to fit in a small space, so the camera was mounted on a tripod to keep steady and the rest was all just panning and tilting etc. with the tripod head, in a few different locations around the bench. The interview was taken after the carving and again just a simple tripod setup but with a lower framerate at 23.976fps. to keep the cinematic feel at full speed playback.
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The audio for the interview was a little difficult given the confined space and the noisy drills. We tried a lavalier microphone to get close to the speaker however the audio quality wasn't great- thankfully we had a backup microphone on a stand that we managed to hide from shot. This audio was great quality, despite being quite a distance away from the speaker.
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The most difficult part of the process was following the carvers hands while focusing. We tried to get a tight shot on the carvers hands most of the time, to really display the intricate details and craftsmanship and it also gives a more intimate feel, the side effect of this meant it did make focusing slightly fiddly.
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The background music was written and recorded specifically for this video- and it amplifies the warm atmosphere within the workshop.
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This project is mostly a documentary, however there is an element of promotion. The most important part of the video was the story, but we did have to make sure to advertise the carver's shop and their work without being quite so brash about it. The video was made to go on the shop's website- to demonstrate how their jewellery is handmade- rather than advertising to a broad audience. Watch the full video below: