It’s been a busy week for videoing shibari sessions here at Studio 12a. Mo and I have shot two by Nina with Maya, then he and Nina shot one with Maya and I. Consequently, we have nearly 3 hours in the can and a lot of editing to do. Here’s a still (above) from today’s shoot.
Today and yesterday were our first chance to shoot two camera with DSLR’s with the right lenses, namely 16mm and 28mm primes. That might sound very wide but in effect those focal lengths are doubled. The end result is a much more film-like look with a shallow depth of field. In other words, distracting background details are burred thus emphasising what’s important. However, the challenge this brings for the cameraman is maintaining sharp focus. Real film makers have dedicated focus-pullers to look after this but budget DSLR users like us can’t stretch to either the technology or the staff. However, the follow focus and new rig help a lot. DSLR film making is a sharp learning curve but we seem to be getting better day by day. We hope to bring shibari video up to the high standards that have been exhibited in still photography within this genre. We aren’t there yet but we are getting there.
Meanwhile, I still have ‘Ground to Air’ in edit with a lot more to do, including pick-ups, voice-overs etc. I plan to re-shoot a couple of sections as there really isn’t much excuse for not getting it right in a tutorial. I’d like to set the best example I can and not put out second rate material. I am also aware that I will look back in a few years with some embarrassment even then, assuming I have learned something in the meantime. I have already published updates to the two rope gote tutorial on my existing tutorials as my knowledge has expanded since late 2010/early 2011 when they were originally made. I am beginning to understand why Steve would say to me, if I teased him about his old work, when I made some mistake during tuition: “Hmm, that’s how I tied 5 years ago” 🙂 Here’s a very short taster from ‘Ground to Air’ but the audio is only rough at the moment and we haven’t done all the final tweaking yet.