We are back from another round in South America! The last time we travelled there, we filmed something for Lithium Americas… this time, we were called on by Goldcorp. We were commissioned to create a ten minute technical film documenting the potential of their most recent exploration project, Cerro Negro, located in the Patagonian plains, in southern Argentina. We packed our bags with thoughts of epic scenery, adventurous treks across rough terrain, and of course their method of barbecuing known as "asado". There are three things you must respect when in Argentina: their wine, soccer, and "asado".
Long distance projects are always more finicky, particularly when selecting which equipment to bring. I prefer to be nimble and not tied down with loads of gear. We are usually doing a ton of traveling between sites with little time to spare and with a compact crew (i.e. Josh and I). Little did we know that the airline would throw a challenge at us; they lost our tripod case somewhere between Miami and Buenos Aires. I envisioned doing some handheld work, but definitely not the whole shoot!
Handheld shooting is used to create a more intimate or "in-the-middle-of-the-action" sort of feel. In other words, the subtle movements of the cameraman give a more organic feel to the shot. The downside is that it can be very tiring, because you are cradling ten pounds of camera in your hands while trying to be as still as possible. We managed to shoot 16 interviews this way. Was there excessive camera shaking? Yes. I was happy with how the shots turned out, albeit it was a bit like looking at it during an earthquake (maybe about 6.0 on the richter). Was I nervous about the footage we were taking home? Perhaps a little… but I knew we could run the footage through After Effects to stabilize it. However, I ended up doing something completely different which I will talk about later.
The experience on site was great. The people we worked with were extremely accommodating and it was a pleasure to shoot in such an environment where we all anticipated a great outcome. The weather was spectacular, with sun and billowy clouds creating a dramatic backdrop for our shots as if on cue. The only nuisance we encounted was the wind. We were warned not to leave the doors to our truck open lest the wind should carry it off!
We didn't want to settle with a run-of-the-mill documentation of the project. We wanted to create a heightened feel for the audience. The goal was to reflect the culture, the beauty of the land, and the tenacity of the people working on the project. To me this was about adventure and a certain amount of romanticism.
Back at the office it was time to formulate the edit and stabilize the footage. I was originally doing some tests using After Effects (to stabilize the footage) but it is somewhat circular to take footage from Final Cut, export it to After Effects, and then render it back to Final Cut again. It would be more advantageous and less time consuming to remain in one environment and not lose any quality by rerendering the footage. Final Cut has a built-in stabilizer called SmoothCam which I never took too seriously; I had visions of some really corny examples of stabilizing SD handicam footage from a year back. Anyways, I decided to try it out. It was an almost perfect solution! I say almost, because if SmoothCam was set to make the footage completely shake free, then I might have run into issues of rolling shutter. Therefore, I had to strike a balance with the settings so that I preserved some motion in the shot, so that the rolling shutter effect wouldn't be so prominent.
Anyways, please feel free to have a look at the final piece. It debuted in New York during an investor and analyst event that Goldcorp was hosting. It now resides on their homepage. Most importantly for us, we were told that it was effective and the feedback was positive and great. LAN Chile, by the way, found our tripod bag and we picked it up on the way home through Buenos Aires.
Stan
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 3:27PM 
