My name is Dan Higginson and I am a skateboarder and filmmaker.
My passion for skateboarding started when I was 14. When I
first started making films, it became pretty evident that I
wanted to do this as a career. So after graduating from uni, I
set up a company called Clockwise Film with a couple of
mates and we basically started from the ground up filming music
events and moving slowly into documentaries. In terms of
shooting sport, I'm fascinated by not just what they're doing,
but why they do it. And I think that's where the documentary
part of my filmmaking experience comes in. It also allows you to
use those skills in other elements of the film industry.
So all of the skills that you learn in filming skateboarding
are transferable and I take those into other elements of
filmmaking production. It's not just about skater's coming, hit
record, skater lands it, stop recording. It's about capturing
all the bits that are in between. Okay, so today, we are
shooting with an XF605. It's a brilliant camera for shooting
skating. Some of the features that I really like are the
foldout LCD screen, the handle, which is ideal for filming with
skating, because you can get down low. The sort of weight and
the ergonomics of the body are ideal. All the buttons are
really intuitively placed and it's just one of those cameras
that just sort of lends itself to a filmmaker's instinct. We've
also got the EOS C70. Today we've got the 14mm wide lens on
there, with the 0.71x adapter, which is ideal for getting low,
getting close and getting in on the action, which is exactly
what you want to do when you're filming skating. So yeah, let's
get cracking.
Anyone who's going to be filming skating needs a board,
obviously, but ideally a filmer board. So this has just got
bigger, softer wheels, which means you're quieter, and it
also means you're less likely to hit a crack or a stone. What I
like to do is be on the board as much as possible, really. The
more movement the better. So if you're following a fisheye line,
obviously, you're going to be on the board more, so you can shoot
long lens lines. So that's where you might be on the other side
of the park to the skater, and you just sort of hold the camera
nice and tight against your body, and just sort of zoom in
and then capture the action from a slightly different angle. It
really showcases the speed of the lines and the speed of the
skater. So a great technique, especially when filming long
lens is to have a start point of your scene. So basically frame
up a nice shot and then have the skater come into that shot. So
it's like an explosion of energy. And if you can, also
frame up an endpoint. So after the trick's happened, let them
cruise out of the shot and hold that frame. In this example, my
start point basically involves doing a focus pull. So what
we're doing is we're starting on manual focus, we're focusing up
the transition, as soon as Jordan comes into the frame we
flick into autofocus, and then we pull out on the zoom, and
that allows us to follow him without having to worry about
focusing for the rest of the line. Ever since the first ever
skate video was made, camera operators realised that the
action's in the skateboard, that's the most important bit,
and so they got low, and they got close to the board. And that
fundamental rule still applies and that also makes the obstacle
that you're filming look big, which is great, because it makes
it look gnarlier, or scarier, or more difficult. One simple
technique to make wide angle single tricks look quicker is to
move the camera around the trick in a sort of half circle shape
like that. You just whip it around as he goes through the
trick. And what this means is that he travels through the
frame whilst travelling at speed. That just makes the whole
trick look quicker. Alright, so we just shot the back tail
around the bowl corner on the EOS C70 and now we're going to
go for some slo-mo, just as a cutaway really, basically just
get the back tail super tight, super close up, real shallow
depth field, 100 frames and then cut to the wide lens. So we've
just finished filming and the first thing to do is get the
footage onto the laptop. There's nothing worse than formatting a
card and losing all of your hard work. So the footage is now
backed up and we're going to start going through and just
organising it in the edit. One of the things that we did today,
which was a bit more of a technical camera trick was we
shot the tripod shot on the long lens and then the wide shot
handheld. So here you'll see we've got Jordan lining up for
the trick. And you can see me in the shot but because it's on a
lock off, we can use the mask tool and just mask out the
camera operator. So we only see Jordan. That way the shot's much
cleaner, much less distracting and you can just focus on the
skating. And then it cuts to the close up where you can see the
trick from the wide lens. Hopefully all of this has
inspired you to go and pick up your camera and find someone
with a skill set or an interesting subject matter that
you can get out there and go and film. Just find someone that's
got a passion for something and share that passion you have for
filmmaking with them. One well made film can be the start of
both your subject's career and your career.