Professional Profile - October 2010
Last month DOP Callan Green photographed the recent “Butterfly” campaign for the homeless persons support group “Mission Australia” . This was shot in the Surry Hills area as well as the Glebe Tram sheds and it’s surrounding storm drains. Green describes the experience -
“I had the pleasure of shooting one of the more exciting jobs that I have worked on for some time."
This 45 second TVC follows a young male as he wanders the city, gleaning all kinds of disassociated parts of unwanted items from the streets and it’s surrounds. After taking them back to his place of shelter, our character begins to forge some kind of a sculpture.The last shot reveals his masterpiece, a beautifully constructed butterfly that’s about 12’ tall and 15’ wide.
"We wanted the spot to be shot and edited so the audience is led to believe this homeless kid is just being destructive - its not until the story unfolds is that you realise he's being constructive and getting on with his hobby/art.
Frequently, charity scripts can be an awesome chance to outwardly express our often quelled or subdued creative energies. The extra room for negotiation or further more, an unhindered collaboration between agency and director is more frequently allowed to shine through on these types of jobs I’ve noticed.
We were lucky enough to have been sent a beautiful script from the guys at Leo Burnett, Sydney. I was stoked with the visual opportunities that the script entailed and was very much looking forward to talking more with Justin McMillan (Director) and Alex Tizzard (Producer) from Film Construction, Sydney about locations, shooting style and logistics.
From the word go Justin wanted to create as much of a raw and personal approach to filming our main guy as possible. He had already cast a previously homeless young man, who had managed to break the cycle, not only with help from the people at Mission Australia, but also because he had learnt new found confidence by recognising his talent for sculpting. He was the perfect guy for this ad, for sure.
In the beginning we believed that the ad should all take place at night however, once the boards were drawn up, we soon felt that it should involve a transition from day to night. This turned out to be a lucky turn of events as no less than 24 hrs before we were to start filming, the Glebe Tram location people called, to say that we had to vacate the premises by 10pm on the shoot day. Not much of a night shoot was going to happen in 3 hours
As many of us do, before we set off to work on a shoot day that is guided by weather. I pulled back the curtains to check on the state of play outside, only to reveal a despicably disgusting day. A day saturated in black clouds, wind and horizontal rain.
Bloody good I thought, “This is a godsend!” However it was most likely not a great working environment for the grips, gaffers, camera department, and all other crew. Except for myself and director and also maybe the editor, who would have been tucked away happily in their suite, drinking coffee and listening to Massive Attack waiting for the hard drive to be delivered.
The rain that evening was relentless but as many of you will know from your own shoots at the Glebe tram yard, that there are nearly more holes in the roof than there is roof. It was fantastic though, as the rain seemed to bring our actor a real sense of acceptance for his environment. Plus it looked completely real compared to the use of rain towers and hoses etc.
The majority of the ad was shot on the RED One with an updated MX sensor rated at 800 ASA. I also used a Canon 5D mk 2 to get some shots of him in the streets around Surry Hills and the Inner City, as we didn’t want to create unnecessary attention. On the Canon camera I had a 24mm F 1.4 and an 85mm F 1.2 lens. These allowed me to get away without needing to supplement the natural lighting found in the streets.
Rick McMullen and his crack team of lighting legends worked along side our Key Grip, Josh Hamill and his guys. On the camera team I had Oliver Scott on Focus and Megan White loading, with Kane Waldron as video assist. As I mentioned the place was a total environmental disaster to work in but you all made it come together awesomely! Thanks for your hard work that crappy evening guys, you rock!"
Story and Pictures by Callan Green, Director of Photography