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.