Production Logs: 3-24-2019 Photations

3-24-2019

            Today I continued my work shooting for the second season of Sleeping Spring. This time I made my way to Richfield County Park. This park is right next to the park I was shooting at the day before (Genesee Recreational Area), but I needed a whole day to capture Richfield County Park.

            Once you enter the drive way to this park it’s a winding dirt road for about a mile. It’s nice to drive Slowly through this section, one because it’s very scenic and two because there may be deer. In Either case the speed limit is 25 MPH so you’re really supposed to go slow anyway.

            On the way to getting to the park spend the drive recording audio of the car and road sounds along the way. I had a suction cup mount for my TESCAM and set it to record along the way.

            Once I got to the park I went to work. The plan was to work in 3 circle sections. The entrance forest, the empty playground and the stone stairs/bridge sections. The reason why I would do each section in its own circle path is because I was shooting in more formats today. In Addition to shooting 4K footage, 35mm and 3D Photos I would also be shooting 3D 180 VR photos. Also, on top of all that my goal was to use multiple lenses for my DSLR in each section.

            For the Forest entrance I walked to one point of interest. There I would start recording 4K video and while the video camera was recording I would take photos of the area from this point and perspective, then I would take 3D photos that were unique and tailored to the 3D viewing experience. After that I would stop the Video recording and move from point of interest and repeat over and over. Once I had reached my last point of interest I finished the process, then switched lenses on my DLSR. I began shooting with my 28-135mm lens but it was time to switch to my 50mm f/ 1.8 . this would give me excellent depth of field on close up objects and was perfect for take macro shots without having to use extender tubes meaning I could move faster and focus and still shoot handheld. In addition to this I began shooting the 180 3D VR photos. The VR camera is finicky, the only option for taking 3D VR photos is to shoot at an interval of either 2, 5, 10 or 20 seconds. You can’t just take one photo it has to be on a timer. The problem is if you take a photo wait 2 seconds and then stop the timer the camera might mess up the left image or the right image. The work around is just let it keep taking a photo till it’s time to go to the next section.

            With the VR camera taking a photo every 2 seconds I began to circle back round. Stopping mostly at the same points of interest but this time taking photos with a shallow depth of field and more macro shots. Then I would hold the VR at the general direction of what I wanted in view and count to 10. That way I knew that the camera took at lease 4 or five photos for me to choose from since it take a photo every 2 seconds.

            This was the processes of the circle. I did this again for the empty playground. then returned to my car for a snack break which consisted of toast, pumpkin seeds and a couple of dates then went back out for the last section. The Stone Steps and Stone Bridge. I spent a lot of time filming 4K footage at this section and there was a wide variety of subjects to take photos of during this section. I even met a nice man who told me of an additional secret stone stair way.

            I made my way to this secret stair way and he was right it was very beautiful, he told me that his daughters had their portraits taken there. It looked like something strait out of a fantasy novel or game. I would not have been surprised if I found fairies or gnomes there. It was layered stone work filled with moss and over growth which added to its beauty. I was very glad to have this location pointed out to me, the stone bridge and original stone stairway were going to be the highlight of Richfield County Park, but this smaller section was a wonderful highlight that I did not expect to find.

            Tired I made my way back to the car and packed up my camera equipment. I then took out my TESCAM and began recording audio. Unlike the day before when I recorded audio and took photos at the same time, I felt like it would be better if I record audio from 3 sections only instead of 8 and have longer recording times. I recorded audio from the same three sections, the entrance forest, the playground and the river and stone steps. At each section I recorded 15 minutes of ambient sounds. There were even some kids that showed up at the playground so now I have playing kids audio which could be useful in the future.

            After recording audio at the river, I returned to the car. I ate the last of my lunch, rolled down the windows and mounted my microphone to the windshield. Then I mounted my YI camera (action cam) to the roof of the car and began recording audio of the car with open windows and 4K video of drive through the Park. This video and audio will be used for Live to Tape in an upcoming series.

The park road is a little over a mile and is a pleasant drive. I started in the center of the park then drive to the park entrance, and turned in a circle then came back to the center of the park. On the way I saw 3 deer cross the road and it was nice to see them. I’m pretty sure I caught them with the camera mounted to the roof. Then I did one more lap around the park and stopped at the exit, removed the roof mounted camera, rolled up my windows and continued home. Again, I was recording audio of the drive including road and car sounds on the way home. I spent five hours shooting and felt great about what I was able to capture.

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