Miss Kitty, Nellie the Talking Harp and the Jedi Master

Yesterday’s video production was a musical introduction to some fun children’s stories.  In the spotlight was a lovely Irish actress named Kitty O’Shea. 

“Ah sure now” you say.  The name alone should be enough to want to be pointing a camera in her direction. 

Kitty has created a series of adorable songs and poems that are performed by her close friend “Nellie”.  Nellie is an Irish harp.  Kitty does all the talking.

Jeff “Jedi Master” Jones, a brilliant producer and recording engineer, introduced Kitty to Sarah and I.
In recent years, Jeff had recorded several CDs with Kitty and knew just what to expect.  Jeff was also the recipient of a Grammy last year, for his live recording of Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson and it is a testament to his art that he was still working with all his original clients.  He is a perfectionist of the nth degree and I was really glad he was there.

The video was to be about five minutes long and it was our hopes to create it in one fluid take.  I had a hunch there might be some variations as we went along, so, I brought along a second camera.  This way, one camera could remain a wide shot while the second camera pushed in for some close ups.

As one camera was going to be a “lock off”,  I felt I really didn’t need a second camera operator.  Nonetheless, I still had to schlep twice the amount of gear.   (I'm always schlepping gear.)

For the wide shot, I mounted a Letus Extreme depth of field adaptor on my Sony EX1 and fitted it with a 85mm 1.8 lens from Nikon.  The Letus helps create a very narrow margin of focus, allowing for Kitty to be sharp and the background to soft.   A very pretty look and an essential component to getting a more filmic look in my production.  To that end, I also shot in 1080 24P.

The second camera, an EX 3 sat slightly farther back along the same eye line.  This camera’s lens was zoomed its maximum telephoto setting, which would also help blur the background, allowing both shots to match.  Using two cameras with different lens settings will allow me to edit between takes without any sort of jump cut.

Kitty, though beautifully preserved, is older than 28, and there was little need to prove how accurately my lenses could record her features.  To this end, I added a ¼ Supermist Clear filter from Formatt to both camera lenses to reduce contrast a bit while adding the slightest halation to any bright highlights on Kitty’s harp.  Very pretty.

The background was a muted color, painted muslin with a subtle streak of light from an Arri 300w Fresnel.   My key light was provided by an Arri, open faced 1K, shining through a Chimera soft box.  A second 600w soft box on an Omni light, added some side fill light.  Everything looked great and we were good to go.

It was a nice change to be able to leave the audio recording to Jeff.  Setting up the audio for a harp looks simple, but it had some minor complications. 

Jeff brought along a studio ribbon microphone that he mounted on a boom stand and he mounted a specialized, lavaliere sized mic, directly on the base of the harp.   He then placed my Sony ECM 670 shotgun mic a few feet out of frame and fed that directly into camera A, while the other two microphones, amplified and modified, passed through his gear, before being sent to camera B.  The sound, even before any additional sweetening was phenomenal.

Jeff’s partner, JoAnne assisted him with placement and wiring, while Sarah organized everything on our end.  Sarah also marked each take with a basic clapper slate to aid in syncing the footage in post.

After three or four takes, Kitty really nailed it with a near perfect performance.  Just one tiny, little line was needed to satisfy the production and of course, in a room full of perfectionists, this would take an additional two hours.

Fortunately, we had only booked the studio for four hours.  Otherwise, we’d probably still be there.   

www.duckyou.com