PRODUCTION: MISS DRAG UK SHOOT

The next shoot we did was the Miss Drag UK Pageant. This was similar to the shoot at Blackburn in terms of we didn't really know what we were walking into. Because of this I couldn't do a shot list or plan for how we would shoot the event. However, the set up in Blackburn worked so well I decided to go with the same set up except rather than shooting the vox pop style interviews on the Sony A7S, I chose to use the Canon C100 as it allows better control over audio and I had hoped to be able to set up the radio microphones on the contributors. However, this proved difficult as they were all trying to get ready when we were shooting prior to the performance in the dressing room and during the event when we would grab quick vox pops I had to use the shot gun microphone as I didn't have time to get up the radio microphones.

However, this didn't stop us getting everything we needed. When we arrived at the event we found that 2 of the organisers were Sonja Wilson and Sofia Mayers who were two of our models for our Studio Production Steal the Style so we were able to get an interview with them and another organiser Blake Allum later on during the night.

I set up the 2 Panasonics at the centre of the room by the performance area. Sadly, we weren't able to get extra crew for this shoot so it was only myself, Jemma (Director) and Victoria (Producer) so I had to ask Victoria to operate the other Panasonic, however I set it up on a wide shot so Victoria wouldn't have to change shots or worry about focus, exposure, etc. I would have asked Jemma but we had already planned that during breaks we would go and get vox pops either with Conor or with other Queens from the pageant.

Filming the pageant went really well. I stayed organised when setting up the cameras, having them on the same audio levels and settings for filming. Due to the lack of crew and also the lack prep this did make me panic and also had to think on my feet a lot and I did reply on Jemma and Victoria a lot for ideas for footage. But Jon Stapleton talked to me about having confidence as a DOP:

You must have confidence in yourself, don’t expect others to have confidence in you unless you have confidence in yourself. Don’t be arrogant! Know a good idea when you hear one regardless of who says it. I am still learning to be a DOP after entering the industry 30 years ago. Creativity has no point where you know it all, we are all practicing our art." (Jon Stapleton)

This is something I've tried to do throughout the Production period, when working the interviews and shooting them I've been confident and always worked with Jemma to work out the framing and style but here I really had to have confidence in myself as I hadn't done any prep and also wasn't aware of the set up for the show or where the queens would be walking, I couldn't even see what they were wearing so I couldn't camera check to see if anything was going to strobe in the footage.

I kept the Canon C100 off a shoulder and used it as a handheld camera which worked for getting small cut aways. Often I was shooting this alone while Jemma and Victoria stayed with the kit, however I would ask Jemma prior to going off what sort of cut aways she wanted. Filming the actual pageant rounds went really well as the set up worked to get all the coverage. Each Drag Queen came out individually so focusing on them with the mid shot on my camera was nice and easy and they each did the same routine, walk forward, go to the left, go to the right and then back to centre so once I'd got the movement worked out filming the rest of the pageant was easy.

The vox pops with Conor during and after the pageant was the important bits to get. Conor was outside for most of it resting so I had to rely a small Roto light that I'd borrowed off my friend Danny as the key light which did help light the subject but wasn't hugely helpful with the rest of the surroundings as it was at night.

The other interview we struggled with was the interview with all 3 organisers, due to time restraints we had to do a 3 shot interview and we didn't have time to get a tripod or radio microphones set up so I had to think fast and sit on a table to make the camera stable which I used a shotgun microphone into the camera to get the audio. The interview didn't go terrible but it could have been better had we had more time to set up.