Off Air - was the biggest solo video project I have dealt with so far. What made it so daunting was that the fact that I had to shoot Brian. I was really fond of the show during my secondary school years. The show made such a huge impact to me that I still find it utterly regrettable that the show got cut in such a sudden, brutal way. "Never meet your heroes." ,let alone work with them? Gosh, I was so so so scared to be honest. There're a few times I just wanted to bail or dug a hole to hide. But I guess I made it after all. The results might not be what I initially hoped to be but the journey of making this doc. itself has been nothing but filled with unexpected rewards of all kinds. |
Pre-production
s (I can't stress enough the importance of preparation at the pre-production stage. I watched numerous short (and some feature) documentaries and MVs (one of which is Tribe by Theophilus London as shown above) to seek inspiration initially. I couldn't pin down on a subject or topic. The disappearance of Go West - this theme actually had been planted in my head right from the beginning but I was quite taken back for the scale of the project would be rather huge - I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle. Plus I'd need to meet, interview, shoot Brian - I am not exactly an articulate person; I suck so much at interviewing people( let alone a person whom I admire for years) and not being awkward. But then my friend told me - there's no loss in trying. So I made up my mind and gathered up every bits of courage in me to wrote an email (with great fear and admiration) to Brian. Luckily, a few days later, I got the reply: Brian agreed to meet with me.
Then I really panicked - this is for real; there's no turning back. I was already buried with other assignments and other affairs so the preparation time was so little that I honestly just rushing through a lot of key steps at this stage. I made somewhat like a shooting proposal/outlines for the meeting in hopes of persuading Brian to give his official nod at the project..
My friend Michael and I happened to have some other questions to seek advice from Brian for another project of ours so I was at least accompanied with someone I'm familiar with for the meeting, which was a HUGE relief to me. The meeting went pretty smoothly; Shooting dates and places were all set.
Then I really panicked - this is for real; there's no turning back. I was already buried with other assignments and other affairs so the preparation time was so little that I honestly just rushing through a lot of key steps at this stage. I made somewhat like a shooting proposal/outlines for the meeting in hopes of persuading Brian to give his official nod at the project..
My friend Michael and I happened to have some other questions to seek advice from Brian for another project of ours so I was at least accompanied with someone I'm familiar with for the meeting, which was a HUGE relief to me. The meeting went pretty smoothly; Shooting dates and places were all set.
Execution
The first shooting location was the actual RTHK station. I'd never been to the station before and so I really couldn't make a fairly detailed shooting plan - that's also one special thing about documentaries - you can't never make plans as thorough as you could have on fiction films - and that's something that requires time and effort to adjust to.
There's also a tip to smooth-en the interviews in documentaries; well that's a trick taught by my friend - bring your interviewee a present. It might appear to be of triviality but it did brighten up the moods of both sides. There are, surely loads of trivia shooting at the RTHK station so I'm just gonna skip them and get right to the point. The point I want to make is that if you are shooting a documentary, don't be shy to make requests of your interviewees. I was really timid and constantly worrying that I might bother my friend and Brian too much so I kept plenty of my thoughts and mouth all shut. I really should not have done that. Because of that, I didn't really get the footage I wanted and hence the ultimate result I hoped for. And now I really hate myself for it.
There's also a tip to smooth-en the interviews in documentaries; well that's a trick taught by my friend - bring your interviewee a present. It might appear to be of triviality but it did brighten up the moods of both sides. There are, surely loads of trivia shooting at the RTHK station so I'm just gonna skip them and get right to the point. The point I want to make is that if you are shooting a documentary, don't be shy to make requests of your interviewees. I was really timid and constantly worrying that I might bother my friend and Brian too much so I kept plenty of my thoughts and mouth all shut. I really should not have done that. Because of that, I didn't really get the footage I wanted and hence the ultimate result I hoped for. And now I really hate myself for it.
The second shooting location was The Mills Farewell Warehouse Party. It was a private party; Brian was Djing that night and invited us to shoot some footage for the doc,. When I first arrived at the venue, I was completely blown away by how dreamy it looked! I felt like I was at the film set of "Only God Forgives". Brian was already busy rehearsing his dj set when I got there and Michael hadn't arrived (well, my bad, I misread the location) so I hurriedly set up the mic and camera myself. And in such a hurry, of course, of course, careless as I was, --- forgot to put the batteries into the mic and since the interview clips were pretty much done and the chief mission of that day was to shoot B-rolls and I didn't double check the audio level nor plug in my earphones to the camera. For almost 30 minutes, I didn't realize it at all. Shooting on a one man band scale is really tough. You get distracted by so many different things and you make careless mistakes and panic much more easily. Brian got a break so I set up a spider rig to shoot him walking down the street. It was not easy to shoot with it at all. Its locks kept getting loosen up and it's pretty heavy. And mostly importantly, I accidentally deleted that footage later that night when both of the SD cards were full (I didn't bring my laptop with me) and the camera battery was dying quickly! Morals of the story? Bring another battery. Don't shoot too much B-rolls too early on. (My camera basically missed the chance to shoot 65% of the best bits of the party and my phone battery was dying out too.) And don't panic no matter what.happens | |
Post-production
Post-production! The biggest obstacle I'd encountered for this doc.was the inconsistency between footage. Even with the extra footage I took, I still found them insufficient to convey the feeling and tone of the story so I used other footage (which I never intended to use for the doc so the footage were pretty shaky. I guess I really need to plan well next time. (and the selection of music and (well, only slightly, but still) audio mixing took up loads of time as well.
Last but not least, I want to say a HUGE thank you to Michael - who has been a great supporter and an invaluable asset of the production all along.
Last but not least, I want to say a HUGE thank you to Michael - who has been a great supporter and an invaluable asset of the production all along.