In our first year, we’ve had opportunities to work with some extraordinary faculty at ACU. Nil Santana teaches a range of photography and graphic design courses in the department of Art & Design and has led several of our faculty workshops as well.

This week Nil sent us a video he’s been working on that we knew others would want to know more about. From the tradition of the short-subject documentary, Nil’s visuals capture the time-honored process of binding as the interview with Stan Chapman reflects on the future of an industry.

.

.

About the Film

This is a project Nil will be giving students in an Advanced Photography class next fall, so he wanted to produce a sample film himself to help them understand the process.

The video was shot on a Canon 5D mkii with all pans and movement captured as video using a tripod. The only significant change he made to the video in post was bringing it into black and white.

One rule of thumb for students new to DSLR filmmaking is to try to keep the shutter speed as close to 2x the frame-rate as possible. Nil shot everything at 1/60 of a second and 30 frames per second (fps), making adjustments as needed to either ISO or f-stop to maintain that shutter speed.

Most of the wide shots were shot with a kit lens he had (28-135mm) but the striking close-ups of machinery used a fast 85mm that gave him the narrow depth of field.

Finally, all audio was captured in the camera with one of our check-out video mics, though he’s still looking for a better solution when recording on-site.

All editing was done in either FinalCut Pro or Soundtrack Pro.

For more information on DSLR filmmaking or check-out equipment for an upcoming project, drop by the Learning Studio.