Our media reality tends to be highly constructed, edited, effected and photo-shopped. So it’s all the more intriguing to see something amazing unfolding in front of the lens, with no trickery – just a lot of clever planning. It’s not about post production wizardry. It’s all about rehearsing before the cameras roll.

It takes coordination and a huge team effort happening behind the camera. We’ve never done anything like this yet at Journeyman, but it would be fun. We put a lot of planning in before everything we shoot, but this takes it to a new level.

I don’t know if it’s an actual trend, or just a series of videos that have come onto my radar recently. Check these out.

Great story-telling. Timing and pacing and delivery…perfect.

Did you ever build these as a kid? How did they get it to time to the music? Incredible.

Low tech. Hi energy.

I have a couple of worn pairs of Fluevog shoes, along with a crappy old pair from Aldo, and all desperately need new soles. They’re so worn they look like flat tires — I hang onto shoes as long as most guys hang on to their underwear. You wear them till they fall off, right?

Now that I’m living on the Dartmouth side of town, I need a new shoe repair guy. I need cobblers like some folks need a reliable mechanic. So I walk into a new cobbler shop. The shoe guy looks up at me over his glasses, looks at my armload of shoes, and he starts shaking his head like something’s really bothering him. Confused, I looked behind me – but no, he is shaking his head at me.

I say, in a friendly new-to-the-neighbourhood way, “how you doing today?” Very reluctantly, he (I’ll refer to him as the Cranky Old World Cobbler for short) puts down his work, and still shaking his head, he comes behind the cash counter. It pains him, but he barks out in a heavy, old world accent: “I’m busy! What do you want?”

Now, at Journeyman Film Company, we’ve been talking lately about the importance of customer service and what it means to us. In small business, everyone’s talking about it. And it should be pretty obvious what that means, right? Try to please the customer, and give them what they want. Do it with a sense of humour; be helpful, prompt and professional.

So I’m staring at this Cranky Cobbler, and he’s glaring back at me. I say: “listen, I can go somewhere else” – and in the moment, there’s nothing I want more than to give this guy the boot and demonstrably take my business elsewhere – you know the feeling, teach him a lesson.

He shrugs and points, “look back there, see how much work I’ve got? I’m three weeks behind!!! What have you got?” I say “no really, I can go somewhere else…” But he shakes his head, closes his eyes and gives me the just-gimme-the-shoes gesture.

I show him the special Fluevog soles I’d ordered for the Fluevog shoes, and I’m starting to feel a little poncey. He says “these better be rubber or they won’t stick…I can’t see what it says, can you read it?” I note that it says Latex on the sole: “ah…that’s rubber right?” No answer from COWC.

“You gotta give me three weeks, maybe longer. I gotta do a proper job, and this is going to take time.” At this point, he’s got me. In my mind, it bugs me that I’m still standing here and considering paying this guy money, but subconsciously I must be thinking that anyone who is this cranky, this gruff, and this reckless about customer service, has got to be worth the abuse.

So what’s the lesson in customer service? Tell it like it is.

There is a school of thought that says just tell clients what they want to hear, then fudge the rest. In bidding for work at Journeyman, we have been beaten out by certain companies that seem to do well by bidding low, and promising delivery by a certain date…only to push up the project’s actual cost slowly but surely, and deliver later than promised.

But in the end I still believe it’s better to tell the client a brutal and honest assessment of what a project will take in time, money and effort, rather than tell them what they think they want to hear. There’s too much at stake and if you’re going to take someone’s money for your services, you may as well make sure the job is done right.

So Cranky Cobbler tells it like it is, and it might not have been what I wanted to hear, but I’m going to be wearing my ratty old Vans sneakers for another three weeks while I wait for these other shoes to be done right.

I get lots of feedback on the work that we’ve done in the past year, especially for the TV spots we did for Nova Scotia Come to life, and the short doc we shot in The Gambia.

People often say they “really like the style” of the work – the way it was shot. It always surprises me to hear that they’re picking up on “a style.” To me, it doesn’t feel like a particular style, it’s just my default or standard approach to shooting. I look across 20 TV spots we did for the CTL campaign over the course of a year and a half, and they DO seem to have a style. So where does this “style” come from?

There are certain shots that I routinely fall back on — shots I like: the portrait shot, of course. The follow shot — where I follow with the camera behind the person who is apparently taking us somewhere in their world. And in the same vein, I always prefer to look over a person’s shoulder at whatever they’re doing — rather than being in front of them and just tilting down for a close-up. To my eye, this makes a more dynamic shot. If I were a boy Scout again, learning how to tie a bowline knot, I’d probably want to look over someone’s shoulder instead of watching face-on…

I like going from detail to the big picture. I like a dynamic blend of moving, hand-held shots intercut with static shots. “Hand-held” is NOT a style! Nor is “on the tripod.”

Can style just be part of your DNA? Or is it learned?

I’ve been teased before for being slow, methodical and thoughtful – and probably too serious at times! I think I’m a slow thinker, or I just really like lots of space to let images work, and to let spoken thoughts just sink in. And I can remember being particular about how to take a picture since I was 12 years old. I was shooting moody photos back then, and some of my favourite TV spots in the Come to life series are what I would consider “moody” — and not the typical treatment of images of Nova Scotia.

I have maddened a few editors by asking for more “lyrical” cutting, with more pacing or breathing space. When I cut, that’s what I go for. When I watch, that’s where I’m comfortable.

I heard once that we tend to like writers whose temperaments we share. Many summers ago on a beach near Shediac, I discovered the writing of Canadian author Timothy Taylor, and found that the short stories in his book Silent Cruise sort of matched my temperament. Subtle character revelation, character revealed through action and situation details, rather than description. Lots of irony and metaphor. The same probably goes for films. Early film loves: Rocky, Diva, The Graduate. Those were all about music, and pacing.

So I think that if there’s a style in my DNA, it’s about lyrical pacing, detail and metaphor.

But I don’t know if that’s what others would see or how they would characterize it. I was given a Style Guide when I first started working on the Come to life spots, and I think I followed it well, but I know I interpreted that style guide through an internal lens that is just there.

When I watch other people’s work I see “a style” all the time. And lots of styles that I’d like to emulate. As a creator, what I really want to do is push myself in the direction of certain styles that feel to me, in fact, like “a style”. To go beyond my default, and to really envision a new style, see it in my mind, and make it happen on screen.

Hopefully the DNA mutates and recombines, and style evolves.

What about you? Do you have a style that just sort of happened? Is it part of your DNA, or learned? Any tips on pushing beyond the default?

– Mathew

Some stories need to be told…and this is a bit of a rambling, sort of pedantic one.

I got back in touch last week with my friend and filmmaker, Giuseppe Petitto from Rome. It got me thinking about the last time I saw him in 2004 when I spent Christmas and New Years in Italy, thanks to his surprise all-expenses-paid invitation to participate in a documentary film event in his hometown of Catanzaro in the south.

Giuseppe lives and breathes film, and when needed, he supplements this with espresso coffee. He resembles Al Pacino, and moves from deadpan irony to laughter with a bit of a shrug. He accepts the ways of the world with a mixture of brooding and wisdom.

We explored his city one day together, talking about films, ancient Rome, women, and food. We ducked into one of many cathedrals, and with a shrug he pointed to a large Renaissance work of art hanging in an alcove and said, “these were the movies for the people back then.” It was a biblical scene. A man imploring the heavens with his arms thrust upwards, mouth open, a landscape all around him wracked by wind. A moment frozen in time, but full of motion. It was “feature film” dramatic.

I met Giuseppe at International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2000. His film won the top award of the festival. “Jung – War in the the land of the Mujeheddin” was a gutsy film to make, shot in Afghanistan before 9/11 and before the current iteration of Western invasion there. In “Jung,” Giuseppe follows an Italian doctor driven to set up a field hospital in the middle of war-torn Afghanistan. Giuseppe’s philosophy of filmmaking parallels that of Martin Scorcese: there’s a bit of documentary in all drama, and a bit of drama in all documentary. Giuseppe’s doc is quite cinematic. There’s one memorable shot of a war victim spread out on the operating table, looking like Christ from a Renaissance painting.

Later in the evening on our crawl about Rome, we walked by the Trajan Column – a tall single pillar of stone that had been carved in relief to commemorate the story of Emperor Trajan’s success in the Dacian wars. The images spiral down as the story unfolds, like a reel of film spooled out from the top of the column. An early documentary?

I told Giuseppe I found it curiously odd that all over North America our universities have Classics departments teaching the history and literature of the Greeks and Romans. A bit ignorantly, I wondered why people would have such a lasting fascination with these ancient cultures. It makes sense to me to study history of course. But why devote a whole branch of academic discourse to the Greeks and Romans?

And with his shrug and laugh he pointed out that the Greeks and Romans collectively dominated Western culture for 3000 years, and everything that happened in their societies can and will find an echo today. He also pointed out, with a hint of warning, that the Romans enjoyed many years of democracy followed by many years of totalitarian rule. That democracy is always vulnerable. If you study the Greeks and Romans, you don’t take this for granted.

There was something poignant to me about being in Rome at Christmas time in 2004, surrounded by ancient history, a stone’s throw from the Vatican. I’m not a Christian – I don’t go to church and I don’t believe that the story of Christ is a literal history. (For a compelling take on this, check out Tom Harpur’s The Pagan Christ http://www.tomharpur.com/). But I’m fascinated by the imagery of his story and the profound and enduring symbolism there. Whether it’s ancient history carved in stone, or simply allegory and myth retold, it’s worth gazing at images and symbols and reading the whole story behind it all.

From many people, I get the sense that the biblical story of Christmas is just the outdated wallpaper of the season – something that maybe appealed to the grandparents, but it’s so old you just don’t see it anymore. Some even cringe or tune it out. And the season has really been hijacked by the Coca Cola Santa Claus anyway. Or a much more watered down and safe “Happy Holidays.” Do you believe in Santa? Do you believe in Christ? Do you know much about Roman History? Why does this matter anyway? At this time of year, I recommend taking some time to delve into and soak in the stories that still surround us. Good King Wenceslas. The Grinch who stole Christmas. It’s a Wonderful Life. Jesus of Nazareth. And stories from other traditions that look for light in the depth of the calendar’s dark days.

In a time of YouTube videos that are outdated and quickly replaced with the newest hit on Twitter, sometimes it does the soul good to reflect on images and stories that endure.

- Mathew

When faced with this issue, my personal instinct is ALWAYS to subtitle, unless you’re making something for kids who can’t read.   I always find dubbed movies cheap looking and unconvincing, while you can still get a real sense of the feel of a piece when subtitled.   While the Navy wasn’t sure which way they wanted to go, we decided to give them a subtitled demo to hopefully convince them it was the best solution.  This led to the next dilemma.  How do we do that quickly and effectively?  And. . . what should our subtitles look like?

Well, after much trial and error, seeing how it’s done on a few foreign language movies, and trying some ideas of our own, I believe we’ve come up with a pretty great solution for those using Final Cut Pro.  For anyone interested, here’s my advice:

1.    Use Boris: The Boris text editor comes bundled with FCP and allows you to do a lot with text right in Final Cut without having to render.  The Boris interface looks kind of archaic compared to Motion, but it does the job well.  It makes previewing your titles and making changes a snap.  You can add an outline, and smooth its edges to create text that stands out on any background, but still blends in with the video image, remaining unobtrusive.

For our video we decided to go with white text that had a black outline as well as a bit of a black glow to smooth the edges of the outline.  For “The Exchange,” a previous video requiring subtitles, we had used white text with a drop shadow, which worked pretty well, but didn’t stand out as well on white backgrounds.  We tried a lot of different ideas this time around, even having white text over a grey bar — which didn’t look too bad. But this outline AND black glow combination looked the best to our eye.

Here’s an example on some of our most challenging footage.

2.    Make a template and copy it.  In your sample clip you can add any fades that you want, create the text style, and place the text where you want it on the image.  Then, making each subtitle is as easy as copying this clip and pasting the text into it from your transcript.  Have the subtitle come on when the person starts the line, and make sure there is enough time to read it before the next one comes on.

That’s pretty much it.  Pretty straightforward.  The only downside of this method is that it isn’t designed to give you a separate subtitle stream when burning your DVD in DVD Studio Pro.  The subtitle becomes part of the movie, so you need to create two movies, one with and one without subtitles.  However, using a nifty piece of software called “Title Exchange” (www.spherico.com), you can easily translate your FCP created subtitles into something DVD Studio Pro can use to create a subtitle stream, so that option is still available.

Well, that’s all the tricks I’ve got for today.  Let us know what you prefer: subtitles or dubbing?  Leave a comment below!

-Oren

Don’t get me wrong. I believe there is power in sharing stories, and I’ve worked most of my career on very worthwhile projects. These days my work with Journeyman is focused on doing effective media work for clients and their audiences, and occasional TV for general audiences, so I feel a lot less conflicted about “the gaze.” The measure for me, for TV or for web video, is — does this story ring true and does it contribute?

But there were times during our shoot in The Gambia last March where I felt like that parasite again. The Nova Scotia Gambia Association signed us up to create an educational video resource that would help Canadians re-think how we perceive Africans. For sure, a worthwhile project. We wanted to shoot a film driven by personal stories — and as soon as we landed in The Gambia, we began scouting, meeting as many Gambians as we could. We needed compelling stories that Canadians could relate to, and we needed people to give us a day of their time to tell that story. But we weren’t intending to pay them, hadn’t budgeted for this, and didn’t want money to be the motivation for participating in our project. It’s a lot to ask. And maybe a bit stingy.

We met Omar, an older man of 77, who has been a carpenter most of his life. He’s also been blind since age six. His story was compelling to us, but we knew we weren’t going to make his story a part of our film — we were going with another carpenter named Sheriffo, and we felt there wasn’t room in the film for two tradespeople.

Omar asked us about the film project and wanted to know how it would help The Gambia. Omar also wanted to know if we could help him. With money or tools. He’s poor, he has a family to care for, and his house is located in a neighbourhood that is slated for demolition when the city’s port expands. I felt very guilty to not give him money. I’m a trained carpenter myself, and I was pretty fascinated by his ability to do his craft. During our scouting in The Gambia, we knew we were going to meet a lot of people who might need money or other resources, and we couldn’t give to all.

But we figured that we could do something for Omar by using our camera to capture something of the man in his environment, with a plan to put a short online video on the web. We hoped that this might be better than receiving money from us.

We’re hoping this short vignette gets around and gets seen by the right person or organization. And that Omar might get a donation of tools or some other assistance as a result.

Did we make the right decision? After watching, do you think this brief web video would be enough to compel the right person to action, or have we just been parasites again? We’re interested in hearing other people’s stories of trying to use creative skills to help someone like Omar. Any suggestions for getting it out there even more?

This video is the first project edited by our newest employee, Nikki. Thanks Nikki.

– Mathew

This past week, we worked with an American-based company called Data Systems International (DSI) to shoot a project to promote their technology — bar codes and scanners! Is it important? Next time you’re on a plane, consider this….

We shot the DSI technology in use at IMP Group’s Aerospace Division, shooting in warehouses and hangars with lots of eye candy for the lens! Planes were in the process of getting taken apart and put back together (yikes!). When you’re in an airplane, you don’t think of it right away (or maybe you do when you’re about to take off…) but every nut and bolt is crucial, so it was amazing to see IMP making sure those planes and helicopters get back into the air safely and as soon as possible. If you think putting together an IKEA shelf  is difficult, think about taking apart a plane and putting it back together — with hundreds of workers over 300 days. DSI’s dcLINK has helped IMP accurately and efficiently track all the materials and processes, even down to every single nut and bolt.

Our client, Scott Davidson, flew in from Kansas the night before the shoot. We met him the next day, where he happily greeted us in a tee shirt outside in the parking lot on one of the chilliest mornings we’ve had so far this September. We offered him a sweater which he refused — and we told him “Scott, you’re not in Kansas anymore!” Apparently living in Kansas all year long warms your blood up for long enough to face the cool maritime weather for a day!

– Nikki

Transitions are tough.

In the edit suite, we’re always talking about transitions. How to get from one idea or feeling to something completely different.

Before our vacation break, Khanhthuan and I were tackling a section of our Dive Emergency video where a diver says he loves diving, but in the very next section he narrates the story of a fatal dive accident from 1988 that we re-created for the camera. How do we get from “I love diving” to “shit happens”? Khanhthuan has taken that transition through about 10 versions. It’s a tough one to nail. A “star-wipe” won’t cut it.

In editing, as in life, transitions are hard to do effectively and seamlessly. They can be jarring. They can be beautiful. As humans we need change, but the key to change is transition.

Transition in architecture can be a break in patterns, or a change in materials, and it’s something for the eyes to explore. In classical English gardens you find paths and resting places, and thresholds linking the two. Take a walk through the Halifax Public Gardens and see how many thresholds, or transitions, you can find. Does it work?

In music — chord progressions, blue notes, instrumental solos, bridges, key changes, or having the bass and drums kick in at the right moment – these transitions can jar or please the ear. Check out the repetitive grooves broken by almost awkward rhythm changes in this piece by jazz trio The Bad Plus, and see how cool the transition moment can be. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb-bJlxXDbs

Or walk down Spring Garden Road and take a moment out of your day to study the next woman wearing a skirt and knee-high boots. It’s that little bit of transition leg showing between boot and skirt that is so pleasing to the eye. Or the trendy guy in his t-shirt and jeans. The transition needs a belt, better still if it has a Union Jack belt buckle like my buddy Kharim.

In editing, montages and sequences can be fun to work with, but transitions feel like work. Montages are collections of images that are unrelated in time and space, but they work together to convey a feeling or an idea. Sequences usually show some narrative and are related in time and space, for example: guy waxes his board, looks up, sees the waves coming in, cut to him running into the surf, then he’s paddling out. You can jump in space and time of course in a sequence, and building sequences is usually fun. The fun stops when you have to figure out how to transition from the surfer dude on the board to, for example, the story of his grandfather growing up on a farm in Romania. But it can be done. I always say to the editors I’m working with “in editing there’s always a solution” – it’s a grey platitude but it’s true.

vacation amphibian to working mammal - a work in progress

The transition might be a dip to black, or a dissolve (can be a little dated), or a star-wipe (if you’re being ironic), or a dramatic music change, or subtle music change, or the transition might be a montage. In dramatic films, a wide exterior shot of your next location/sequence is a natural choice. Or it could simply be a hard cut to your next idea, and that can work too. I love hard cuts with dynamic music shifts. Whatever it is, the key to a transition for me is always breathing space. Timing. Is there enough weight given to the last thought before the next lands on us?

After two weeks of vacation — canoeing and hiking and biking and swimming and star-gazing around the back country roads of Nova Scotia — I’m finding it hard to transition back to the city. Perhaps now, a star-wipe would come in handy, not-so-ironically.

More of the same is easy. Transitions are hard, but without them, you die.

James Lawrence, a Nova Scotia Community College student, was working on his radio drama called The Pocket Watch, and he needed some music. He found stuff he liked at Firstcom.com – an online music source that Journeyman uses. But he couldn’t license individual tracks. They recommended that he contact us — the only production company in this area that licenses their music. And they told us it was totally cool to use our license for his project. Of course, downloading 9 tracks eats into our allotted license; and since James is a self-described poor student, we said “come to work for us for a few days instead of payment.” … he gets some work experience, we get some extra help, he gets his music, and his radio drama wins some awards. Everyone’s happy.

Earlier this year we did a project for John Ratchford, a photographer from Sydney, Cape Breton. He wanted to create a 30 minute educational DVD on how he built his market, and our quote was a little rich for his budget, so we agreed to take some of his photo services as partial payment. To wit — the photo of Oren and me on the Journeyman homepage.

I even bartered this week for software usage from the president of Norada, the developers of the online Project Management and Customer Relationship Management productivity software called Solve’360. I had emailed them to let them know that I was checking out their product but was concerned that I found quite a few typos and spelling errors in their web copy. This drives me crazy when I see people marketing their stuff, but not thoroughly proof-reading — it makes me question the accuracy of the product or services being sold. After a fairly good-natured thrust and parry between me and their company president, they are offering me extra months of free trial on their software in exchange for pointing out some of the errors. They have nothing to lose really; I’ll likely get hooked on the software if it’s good.

Barter is about flexibility, right?… I’m currently finishing off a yoga video for a local yoga teacher (Maxine Munro – one of the best in Halifax), and I’m getting tons of yoga classes in exchange, and also just finished yoga teacher training through her studio. This is all through a cash-less exchange of services for services. My hamstrings are thanking me, even if Revenue Canada is not.

I don’t think barter exchanges can be touched by Revenue Canada. I could be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure it legally cuts out the middleman also known as the taxman. Not that this is saving me a whack of money. But there is always some value-added joy when we “stick it to The Man.”

Admittedly, barter can lead to misunderstandings when the deal changes. The yoga video started out to be one project idea and it had to change when one player changed her mind about participating. That made for some delays and trouble shooting in the production. It gets us into a grey area as far as the original barter deal goes. But it’s still working.

I’d be interested in hearing other stories of barter in the professional realm. Is barter a good thing? Do you do it? Or is money actually the simplest barter system of all?

- Mathew

Last night we were shooting concert footage of Joel, getting his hometown crowd and the city skyline in the background, for a Nova Scotia Come to life vignette featuring the man himself. Famous hometown boy who has chosen to live his life and to build his recording career and a recording studio right at home in Dartmouth.

When we arrived to set up, I was poking around backstage, looking for his tour manager just to get the thumbs up on our shoot plan. I ran into Joel himself, alone, and digging out and starting to tune his famous four string tenor guitar that he uses on “Happen Now” and “Rolling Rolling Rolling”. He’s a lot taller than I expected, but as down to earth as I expected. Pretty focused and to the point.

I knew he needed to get ready for his show, but I had to tell him that we’d met before, and he said I looked familiar. Then I pointed out I had met him back in 1990, when he was about 12 and I was 22, both living in Lunenburg. At that moment in time, he was with his dad, Bill, enjoying an ice cream cone on a harbourside deck, and Bill and I were discussing old British folk guitar heroes like Bert Jansch and John Renbourne.

All these years later, it’s Joel who is one of my singer-songwriter guitar heroes. I’ve never known another songwriter who writes more catchy, hook-filled songs full of great turns of phrase that are both folksy and modern all at the same time. This guy has yet to break out in the big way he’s destined for. We can all say, “we knew him when…” But hopefully he’ll still be plying his craft from a Dartmouth neighbourhood, and doing a free concert every summer…