I'm Steve Morgan, I'm a shooting producer director for television
so that means I'm on location filming operating the camera and interviewing
asking the questions you do a little bit of everything for that job you
know you're doing a technical side of things and you're doing the editorial side as well
At the minute I'm working on a series for Channel 4 where I have to do a lot of filming like I'm
filming at least two or three days every single week so you need to make a decision about what's
the best camera for when you're working hard like that the Sony FS7 in terms of spec it still really
measures up for what we need to deliver we're delivering in HD sometimes we'll do filming
in 4k but the Sony FS7 can deliver that one of the main reasons we went for the Sony FS7 was
the s-log footage it can deliver almost every professional broadcast program I've worked on
in the last five or six years has wanted the footage in log because it just gives you so
much more flexibility to sort of standardize the footage that's shot across a number of
cameras by a number of different people you can just smooth that out and standardize it so that
you've got a program there that doesn't feel like you're jumping around from cameras it's an
ergonomic camera that really sits on the shoulder really well I'm doing quite a lot of sort of
dirty work like I'm filming on building sites and filming people painting and slapping concrete in
places and I wanted to have a camera that I would be sort of comfortable throwing
around in those dirty situations you know it's a slightly older camera so it's slightly cheaper I
know I can get the spec I need and I can get the good quality I need but I'm not worrying
that I've got 12 Grand on the line when I'm dangling off some scaffolding I'm not scared
about putting it where I need it to be for that actuality so that's why I went for the FS7 this
time it hits all the specs you need but I'm just not worrying about it when I'm in the thick of it
On a typical day's filming I'll take out the Sony FS7 with three lenses a wide lens a long lens
and a sort of mid lens that I use as the sort of workhorse lens for when I'm filming actuality at
the moment I'm using the Sony 12-24mm and then a long lens of the 70-200mm and a mid lens of
24-70mm again a Sony lens is that going to give me the range I need to pick up close-ups as you
go without being too heavy to carry around and it still opens up to 2.8, so you can really get
a nice depth of field if you have to stop suddenly and do an interview but yeah we're starting here
at the Shambles it's very dark but it always is because like the building's sort of close in
on each other we're starting here early and then we're going to move on around the city from there
let's take a look at that I'll get a few different shot sizes in each location
So I'm going to get it down low on the deck and shoot down low just to get a different angle on it
So the exposure is quite severe here because you're like really in the shadow it's really
bright where the sun is but these are the situations where you really need
to be shooting in log that's why it really gives you the benefit because
you'd never be able to get much out of this if you were shooting in standard
I'll try and do a shot where I get some of these old bricks in the foreground of
the shot and a bit of the old shops going into a distance but ideally,
I'll frame out the big Greg sign that's right at the end of the street
Sometimes you don't want to broadcast too many like brand names or brand logos just because we're
trying to like show York is a really historic and like ancient place you've got a nice shot with the
bricks just in the edge of the foreground and you can sort of just pan off that a little bit
and come in and see the little shambles sign on that tudor wood and look down the sort of
street down at this sort of like winding street so that's that's quite nice that'll last about 3
seconds at most but put them all together and it should be quite nice these are just general
views of the city where it could go anywhere in a number of different episodes that have York
in it one of the episodes we're doing focuses on a brick construction where they're sort of using
very sort of traditional materials to build a house so I'm always on the sort of lookout for
anything that anything that sort of looks old and Yorky and has nice sort of red bricks on it and
it's about the end of this streak there's a really nice proud old brick building with lovely windows
at the end of the Shambles that could help in in a number of places as a general setup or could help
in that story specifically to when there'll be a montage of like York's historic brick buildings
My personal style for shooting General Views and the style for this particular production is quite
formal it's quite traditional everything's on the tripod and very steady and I like to kind
of compose things with the rule of thirds so I've got something of interest in each third
of the composition like all the vertical lines to be nice and true and steady and
that's what I think is a really satisfying way to shoot General Views but it's not the only
way they'll work on other productions where they want a lot of movement they want it all handheld
or on a gimbal or on an easy rig with the Sony FS7 I can you can do either of those things and
um that's why it's been useful for this production
So what I'll do is I'll start with the wide shot the big obvious lovely wide you can do here
with a few moves and then start picking off details of little things you can see of like
old buildings and old streets and yeah there's probably quite a lot to do up here this is my
colleague Caitlyn who's coming on to help me we've been working on quite a lot of the shoots haven't
we sometimes I'll go and I'll film things it'll just be me in an ideal world and I'll have a pal
come along and help and talk with people and help with the kit I'm on the 12-24mm this is the widest
lens I've got it is really what even on the FS7 which isn't full frame the place like this like
actually the thing you're really interested in is big and amazing but actually because we're
not making a show about like the Minster it's kind of just to introduce York in general I don't need
to spend time getting loads of details of it or like getting really close to it and getting wide
shots from the ground of it I think all these city ones will will work for that so let's have a look
If I use the center scan function which is sort of like a crop in into the center of the image
it does reduce the quality of tiny amount but not in a way when you put it in the timeline you don't
really see it and it just gives you that little bit closer so I can see some of these chimneys
and these rooftops and some of the fine detail on the stonework of the Minster all in one shot
So when I'm going to do GV's of a new location or a new city I try and do as much research
beforehand before I get there to really speed up the process so I'll try and look on Google
Street View to look at the interesting places that might work where there's going to be space
where it's going to look good but there is space to kind of put a tripod up and I always try to
get to a location before I'm filming I want to spend some time there so ideally like the day
before you'd go around and get a sense of each location and what the light's going to be like
when you're actually filming so is it going to be good in the morning or the evening is
it going to be fine or both or is it only good in the morning if it's only good in the morning
and you can only film in the evening just sack it off and go somewhere else it's about prioritizing
where the light and locations are going to work together the time of day for filming for like
General Views and exteriors is really important because the lights early in the morning and late
in the evening is just much softer much more beautiful it really lights up the spaces a lot
better because what you get is when that light hits a building or a landscape it lights it up
and kind of makes it 3D it's sort of you get a grade from what's lit and what's in shadow
whereas at the middle of the day the sun can be so harsh that things are even very very
bright or very dark and you've got that in the same engine it's really hard to deal with that
I'm trying to get a shot of this sort of old Pub with lots of like greenery on it and we
could even get some sort of like brickwork of this old street in the foreground maybe
the problem is there's like a massive car parked on a double yellow lines right in
front of it you can try and work around that and do a sort of detailed shot pointing up a
little higher or we might have to go in and ask him and see if they know whose
car that is and if they'll move it for us but yeah I'm going to set up I'll try
and do a shot above the ground floor showing like the old bricks and the and the foliage
I think this is actually the best time of day to be here and a lot of
the streets here is so dark and that when you see something bright in the distance
you then you can't sort of expose to them both very easily but this one
the sun is hitting this white building of such force it's sort of lighting up the rest of the
street this is a time of day where you know maybe when the sun is slightly higher and it's more
above that house you wouldn't you wouldn't quite get that that lift in the rest of it
I've gone
from the wide lens to the 24-70mm because I've probably got enough Minster for the
show now so I'm going to think about details on other houses so on the wide lens kind of every
shot ends up being about the Minster because it's just so big so I'll switch around to the 24-70mm.
So I'd say if you are looking
to break into broadcast television a good way to do it is to think about programs you like so
when you watch something and you enjoy it look at who's made it watch the credits see which
companies made it send them an email get in touch and tell them why you like it and what you want
to do it won't always work you won't always get a response but sometimes you will and sometimes by
putting yourself out there you'll get the meetings you need that will turn into opportunities so it's
all about being proactive like no one's going to look at your CV if you haven't got experience to
say we're going to employ you you've just got to force it on them you've got to keep the
timing you've got to keep pressing but yeah be proactive and you'll get an opportunity
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