Tech Blog-The Reality of our Filming Style

It has come to my attention within the last month or so the perception of how we must appear to the people we interact with. As the film school mentality begins to fade from my mind while on this project, we embarked on a journey that has us doing many decisions very un-Hollywood. Everything we have done thus far is real and un-staged. It is merely our journey through our eyes. It is not a presentation of a city but a small percentage of what a city has to offer to 2 young travelers.

Along with this, is our equipment and how we are perceived. With this HDSLR revolution so many are talking about, not only is it incredibly affordable to get an HD quality pictures, but portability becomes incredibly easy since it is a DSLR that happens to shoot video. These facts have been well stated for however what does this mean for the reality of the content itself?

We run around with a small camera as two young recently graduated students and people perceive us as if we are making a home video. Our subjects act more natural and are more inclined to be real. This is exactly what we want. The locals have seen a DSLR before for the most part yet they haven't seen an EX-3 or an F-900. Even if they have, the connotations that those cameras bring is the label of "professional" or most importantly "really expensive". Thus giving those who use the camera and the entourage with them as a big time production. They are less inclined to be real and more apprehensive to being on camera. Having a boom operator/mixer, camera operator, AC, producer, director and whoever else is on the team gives the impression of something completely different. More people crowd around to see what the bustle is rather than two kids with a camera shooting stuff around their hometown.

This revolution everyone is ranting and raving about is very much a point that will change the flow of where the industry will go on the independent level however not just with the technical side of things but also on the content side of things and the perception/psychological way production is perceived. For us, the reality of what we are doing and the people we meet is the most important thing. It seems like we hit the perfect time for the HDSLR revolution and this project.

Istanbul

The ride to Istanbul was a bit unbearable. We've decided the conductors on the train were running some sort of side game. We got onto our sleeper with a nice french speaking women. My broken french allowed me to deduce she was on some sort of important family matter. Either way it was only Zach, the woman, and myself on this particularly cold cabin. About an hour into the trip, the conductor informs us that there is a "heating" problem and that we can upgrade to a really nice sleeper in the next car for 25 Euros. Zach and I decided to tough it out. As the ride went on, he lowered the price and it did get unbearably cold. We eventually opted to get our own private car for a few more euros. It made the trip exponentially better except for the fact that there was no food car!

Unfortunately we did not think ahead of time to grab snacks so we had to ride on this train with no food and a small amount of water for 22 hours! Thus upon getting to Istanbul, I grabbed the first food I could find. The good ol McDonalds to the rescue. As awful as that sounds, it was probably the best Big Mac I've ever had.

Overall our time in Istanbul was fast but we did see some of the amazing mosques Istanbul has to offer. The Blue Mosque was very elegant both inside and out. Hagia Sofia was very nice however a bit more dilapidated than I was expecting.

We climbed to the tower that overlooks all of Istanbul and we realized how far we really had come on the first leg of our trip. Granted it is a marathon and not a sprint, standing upon the tower and seeing a panoramic view of Istanbul, it allowed us some time to reminisce and look to the future.