DoP Graham Howe explains how the podcast episode was filmed, with a six-camera setup akin to a TV shoot
“I have been lucky enough to be involved in these TV style podcasts for the past couple of years for Goalhanger. I’ve shot The Rest is Football, The Rest is Football Daly Brightness, and The Rest is History, with Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street.
The brief from Goalhanger is to make these podcasts more like traditional sit down TV interviews, which is where my background lies.
We (myself and fellow DoP Andy Sweeting) needed the kit for the Rashford shoot to be small, so it was easy to travel with and due to the need to film unobtrusively in a hotel room.
With only the hotel website photos of the rooms available in the suite, we planned what kit was likely to be best for the shoot.
We spent a lot of time looking at the photos of the rooms as we had no recce before the shoot. We finally decided on the long dining table so we could control the positions of the three guys and get some interesting shots.
I usually film these podcasts with three cameras, but in this particular episode we had six Sony cameras – 2 x FX6, 2 x FX3 and 2 x A7iv. Five of the cameras were on tripods and one camera was on a gimbal.
The setup in the hotel room was two cameras on Marcus, one camera safety wide shot, one camera with a two shot of Gary and Micah, one camera chasing single images of Gary and Micah, and one camera roaming around on a gimbal.
I always work with Sony cameras as I’m happy working across the range with a confidence that the rushes will not only be fantastic but will be matching across all the cameras. I personally own the following cameras – a Sony Burano, FX6, FX3, A7iv and F5.
We shot the pod in Slog3 Cine in the knowledge that the editor at Goalhanger has a pre set LUT/look to go across all the cameras in the edit.
This is great for the edit as it provides a lot more latitude in the grade and edit, but with six cameras recording all the time it’s slightly nerve wracking keeping an eye on all the outputs.
We lit the room with a single Amaran F22 over the top of the guys with a diffuser/dome attached to evenly light the three of them evenly. We put in back/fill lights on everyone just to complete the set up.
After the interview shoot, we went to the roof of the hotel to film some links and B-roll for the opening of the piece.
Big thanks to the Goalhanger team for once again trusting me to deliver their vision. The finished product was amazing in the time we had to film this.”
Graham Howe is a filmmaker/lighting cameraman
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