MediaCircus.TV was hired to provide HD video recording and playback for the sessions, and create DVD’s for the actors of all of their takes. I was using the Sony XDCAM EX1 camera, which shoots on SxS memory cards, which is a perfect way of working for a project like this.

After a take was completed, I would switch the camera over to “media mode” where the material on the SxS cards would be accessed and  Mr. Davis would review the take with the class on a HD LCD TV, having instant HD playback of the scene that was just completed. It was a very efficient way to work.

Each participant did 3 scenes over the length of the course, with the rest of the time spent observing the others and taking part in the discussion. Myself as a non-actor, watching the process they went through in order to make their performances as real as possible was quite an education. I’ve worked with actors before on commercial and promotion shoots, but rarely in any sort of scripted dramatic venue, which is what most of the performances in this course were focused on.

The classes participants ranged from people new to the industry to folks that have been in it for quite some time. Some people were getting back into acting after taking a hiatus to raise their family, and some of the participants I recognized from from other Film Training Manitoba workshops that I have either attended or been hired to provide video services for.

I’ll admit that I was somewhat intimidated at first working with William B. Davis (or ”Bill” as he suggested I call him)  having been quite an X-Files fan during it’s original run. I rarely get star-struck when working with well known people, and I wasn’t here either, though Bill carried a certain demeanor with him that left me in awe for the fist few days.   

As we would get ready for a scene I would do some basic lighting to flood the area with a lot of light, there wasn’t enough time to do proper dramatic lighting custom for each scene, and that wasn’t the point of the workshop.  Lighting is one of those things that makes a huge difference in the quality of a shot, so even just having flood lighting made a difference.

Between the lighting, the HD playback and the speed with which we were switching scenes (the workshop participants often would help move things in changing scenes) we moved along at an efficient pace and Bill remarked that this was a “high-end” workshop. That felt good to hear. He has been on numerous film and TV sets (including 9 years on the X-Files) , and has been in theatre for many years, and he called our little workshop production high-end. He wasn’t comparing to those big productions of course, but to most workshops that might have a small handycam with a TV set to playback material on, while we had proper lighting, mics, instant HD playback and DVD production and duplication on site. Film Training Manitoba is raising the bar when it comes to bringing in people to train Winnipeg Actors and putting on workshops that will help the participants improve in their skills, and I’m glad to be a part of it. 

 The Winnipeg Actors involved were;

Shannon Jacques, Dana Horrox, Dean Harder, Ashley Hirt, Cindy Marie Small, Sherry Coffey, Krysia Andrzejczak, Dan Augusta, Janet Shum, Jason Malloy, Tyhr Trubiak, Yvette Jones and Ali Tataryn.

 Course Participants Craig Matthews and Nicolette Rieger

On April 26 I helped out with an ACTRA Auditioning workshop put on by Film Training Manitoba.  The workshop was run by veteran actor and casting director Rebecca Gibson.

I brought out my light kit, green screen for a backdrop and my know how to put together DVD’s of the auditions for folks. I used the Sony XDCAM EX camera, which is just great for a project like this. Since it is a data-based camera, rather than tape based, moving the files around and putting together a DVD is pretty quick, even with the extra work of transferring and transcoding files.

I make DVD’s for all of the workshop participants at FTM’s request, which I think is a great idea since it adds to the value that the participants get out of the workshops.

She was teaching the students how to have great audition and how casting decisions are made; hint – it’s not always about the acting, sometimes it’s the producers niece that gets the role

Jackie was very precise with the feedback she gave, and worked hard to get the best performance out of people. As usual, I learned a lot just from observing the process, which is one of the benefits from helping at a workshop like this.

What I was doing was taking video of the “auditions” by each performer, playing back the takes onto the HDTV monitor that was set-up and helping with DVD playback. I set-up some lighting and used my green backdrop (which I usually use for green screen chroma keying) to add a nice color to the background.

Over the course of 2 days I shot over 4 hours of footage of 15 different actors. I was using the Sony XDCAM EX-1, a beautiful camera I used a few months ago on another FTM production. The tapeless workflow it uses was perfect for this job.

I am compiling all of the takes of each actor into a DVD that will be given to the  attendees. I wasn’t quite sure what the best workflow would be to achieve this. When I ended up doing was unloading the contents of the SxS cards (the format the EX-1 shoot on) onto my laptop and using the Sony Clip Browser software to convert the clips to the MXF format, which is what Avid Media Composer (my editing software) uses. One they were converted I imported them into the Avid and put all of the takes from each actor onto their own timeline. Up to this point everything is in High-Definition, 720p 24fps.

I am now in the process of exporting QuickTime movies in Standard Definition which I will then import into Sorenson Squeeze to create the MPEG files used for the DVD authoring. From there, the MPEG files are imported into Adobe Encore for DVD authoring.

Wheh! For short projects this doesn’t take so long, but with over 4 hours of material this process does slow down a bit. I’m still experimenting with ways to make this workflow more efficient.

So in a few days (likely early next week) all of these lovely actors will have DVD’s from this session, so they can see the progress they made through 2 days of rigorous training.

This is me on set on the first day of shooting for Film Training Manitoba at the Manitoba Film Training Expo. I’m working with the new Sony XDCAM EX-1 camera which shoots on SxS cards. Working with this media is pretty easy, and each 16GB card hold about 1 hour of 720/24p HD video, which is what I’m shooting. 

I find the camera to be pretty front heavy, more so than other Sony handhelds that I’ve used such as the Z1U, which is the one that I own. Not a big deal though, I’ve been shooting most of the time on my tripod, the way I should be  

The studio you see behind me is the main sound-stage at Trinity Studios in Winnipeg. It’s a pretty nice facility, and it’s for sale, so if you have a few million to spare you might want to think about getting into the studio business. 

We interviewed about 10 people the first day, and I already have 3 hours of footage; that’s quite a bit for what’s going to be a 5 minute video, but they want to have this material for archival purposes as well, so I’m shooting a fair amount of b-roll.

Once I get into the editing more I post about how the Sony XDCAMEX tapeles workflow is working out.  I’m back to shooting the Expo on Saturday and Sunday.