Canon T3i and the Sony A7sii

This week we will be showing B-roll from the Pig Vigil Lizzie and I attended right before the start of the semester.  I shot this footage on my Cannon t3i.  It was the first time I'd shot anything since coming back from my semester off on the Appalachian Trail, so I can't say its my best camera work.  You can see Marion Blackburn among the crowd of protestors, this is where we first made contact with her to later interview.  I'm looking into potentially purchasing an A7sii for myself upon graduation, as a gift to myself. I have absolutely loved shooting on it, and although Sony has a reputation for not being user friendly, I feel like working with this camera has improved my skills immensely.  The built-in stabilizer doesn't hurt either

                                   

Exposing Factory Farms in North Carolina

This week, Lizzie, Jocabed and I went to a panel in Durham put on by the non-profit, Farm Sanctuary.  The panel was hosted by Indy Week publications and featured several experts on factory farming in North Carolina.  Our goal for attending this panel was to make contact with Elsie Herring, a NC resident who has been an outspoken activist against the CAFO industry for many years.  However, during the panel, we decided we wanted more than just Elsie.  We also approached Rick Dove, of the Water Keeper alliance.  I made this contact (I forgot to write this in my crew evals for myself) which I was proud of.  He agreed to take me up in a small plane to get aerial footage of CAFOs in NC.  We also made contact with a former Tyson hog farmer who is now actively working against the industry to expose the harm is does to people, animals and the environment.  It was a very successful trip, and we have a lot of work coming up with scheduling these interviews and the flight

Butcher B-Roll

Last fall, the day before "Concentration" was due, I was able to get permission to film the butcher of a pig.  Even though I knew It wouldn't make the final cut, I wanted the footage.  I thought, If anything, we could add the footage before it does its festival circuit.  It never did make it into "Concentration" which is why I'm so glad Lizzie and I brought it into our senior seminar.  The butcher footage is stark, shocking, and visceral; almost disturbing.  Of course, this particular shop is extremely sanitary compared to an actual slaughterhouse, but the imagery is no less powerful.

River B-roll and Interview with a Gator

Despite my best efforts, I still managed to get dust on the sensor of the A7sii and not notice until it was all said and done.  Trying not to be too hard on myself, but its very frustrating.  Finally got out on a boat to get some good old fashioned river b-roll.  Thank you to Doug and Diane Springer for letting me go out on their black river adventure cruise for free (normally 30$).  Doug is the former Cape Fear River Keeper, in fact, he hired Kemp Burdette, the young new river superstar.  I also got over to greenfield lake, which is actually connected to the Cape Fear, and ended up hanging out with a gator for about 45 minutes.  It was amazing and I got a ton of great footage of him/her. I'll go into a little more detail a bit later

Marion Blackburn Interview & Farm B-roll

Wednesday September 27, Lizzie and I went out to Kenansville NC and the surrounding areas to shoot more CAFO b-roll.  This time we went out with Pat Connell, who does CAFO surveying for the Cape Fear River Watch.  He planned a loop that would take us by a number of farms he was monitoring.  On the route we found several uncovered poultry litter piles and a number of spray fields actively spraying feces over the land.  At one point, Pat brought us to a dead box site on the side of the road.  A dead box is basically a large garbage bin where the farmers dump the carcasses of the pigs that die each day in the houses. Often times the farms have contracts with dog food companies who come out and take the hogs away to make dog and cat food.  We had shot the box from a few angles, when lizzie suggested I get a shot of the box with the farm in the background.  We pulled the truck up, and I hopped out to get the shot.  There was a swarm of flies coming from the box, but I wasn't able to approach the box or I would be trespassing.  As I'm filming I hear Lizzie say several times "Paige, theres a truck coming." But as I was quite focused on the shot I didn't react very quickly at first.  However the moment I looked up I saw a big truck screaming towards us, so I jumped in the car.  He pulled up right next to us, where I had been standing seconds before.  He wanted to know why we were there and what we were filming.  Pat told him we were filming for a research project.  He told us to leave, and that we didn't have permission to be out there.  He followed us for around 20 minutes as we drove out of town

"There's a Truck Coming"

During this shoot I played around with different picture profiles.  I shot in PP4 S-Log 3, PP8 Cine-4, and Standard.  I preferred PP8 Cine-4, but only shot around 1/3 of the clips in that picture profile, because Lizzie and I were still deciding on how to shoot this and what kind of color grading we want to do in post.  However, personally, after looking at the footage, I prefer shooting in a picture profile and color grading.  Here is an example of a spray field I shot in PP8 Cine-4 and color graded:

I shot Marion Blackburn's interview in Standard, because I didn't know if I should deviate from what I'm used too for a crucial interview.  However I still wish I shot it in PP8, but the interview is usable.  We chose a difficult location.  I also need to work on lighting interviews.  Lighting is something I struggle with.