Filming in Liverpool: Cinematography

As a director, filming presented both challenges I had anticipated, and unexpected ones. Namely, that due to cancelled interviews and not getting the permission to film in certain places we had hoped for we had to abandon the passions section of the plan and focus solely on the broad range of religions in Liverpool.

In terms of cinematography, me and the group thought it would be a good idea to film each interview with two cameras. The first, with the shot set up by our Cinematographer and then monitored by our sound editor (Who would also keep an eye on the sound levels as we were capturing directly onto this camera) would be static. The second, set up and monitored by our cinematographer, would have the freedom to move more and ideally be used for cutaways once we come to the edit. Initially we wanted the main shot of each interview to be on the same side, indicating that these different people are all on the same side really, however with Annies interview, the best view we could get was opposite to the one we had already filmed for Michael, so we chose to use the cutaway camera to place everyone on the same side at the end of the film.

For the interview we conducted at the Hindu temple, we chose to interview the couple who run the temple together. This meant that the framing of the interview had to be different, as we wanted the main shot to include both subjects. We went for a straight on shot, with me interviewing them from the side of the camera, and the couple positioned in front of one of their statues, then having the second camera moving around in order to get a good variety of cutaways.

As well as the interviews I wanted to get a range of cutaways at the location of each interview in order toile a sense of space to each location and to provide footage to help make the interviews flow better (footage to cut to in order to disguise an edit in the interview) and to flow between one another in a cleaner fashion. The cutaways in each location will help to enhance the interview by illustrating things the interviewees are discussing, such as the sculptures on the beach, pub scenery or the statues in the temple. The second type of cutaways we needer were general ones of Liverpool and so often when walking between locations I would have to be on the lookout for good cutaway material.