Hi,
I'm a big fan of documentaries from the BBC and I'm wondering if someone's knows how in earth they make such stunning footage. I've been watching and observing their images for years know, and they keep impressing me !
Especially the docu's on the BBC programme: HORIZON. But also a programme about cars (not a docu), called TOP GEAR, the little clips they make for a car they are reviewing are always so damn cool!
I think the cinematographers the BBC work with, have a patended lighting skill :) , because I've never seen interviews so amazingly lit and shot before than on the BBC.
This is what I think that they use a lot:
* They have a CCU on site, and go deep in the blacks
* They work with pola's and ND GRAD's a lot on exteriors
I also noticed 1 bizare thing over the years I've been watching them. They tend to use a sort of MASK over their shots that looks like vignetting !!! This works really well. It points your eye directly to the subject. First I though it was a kind of vingnetting because of filters on wide angle lensen or something, but I have second thoughts about that. I think it's done in post. Final Cut Pro has a function like this, I forgot the name, but I discovered it recently. Not that the BBC edits on Final Cut Pro :D
I'm going to shoot a documentary in Europe on HD, the producer wanted to shoot a teaser first to get more money from sponsors. So we did, and I shot these images. It looks a little like the images they make @ the BBC, let me know if you have answers to my questions and what you think of my footage.
NOTE: The teaser was shot on DVCAM.
Thanx,
Thomas Buelens @ Antwerp City, Belgium
Aciné Productions