Selecting The Right Tripod For Your Smartphone

Everyone shoots photos and videos with their phone nowadays right? Who wants to carry a tripod around everywhere? If you do need a tripod which is best for you?

Here's one airninja's take on specific tripod requirements:

Taking Stock

No, not some euphemism for my Little Shop work on Hayling Island, this is more to remind me what the Deer Studios production slate is at this moment.

Whilst the world must wait for the Provincial's chilling horror short Dark Is A Long Way (coming 2016 ... we hope!), the Airninja movie method has been persistently seeing acquisition and edits through to final production.



1. After successfully collaborating with Mark Handley for Pompey Princess, we are now discussing potential for a video for his Christmas single. If it happens it will happen fast and within a couple of weeks.

2. On the theme of Christmas, I shot the interview with Graham Stansfield (famous keyboardist of Rare Bird fame amongst other fascinating things) to support the upcoming release of his new Christmas album release.

3. Earlier this month we had the first production meeting for another Mark Handley video, this one called Bella Ballerina - expected to shoot Jan/Feb 2016. We have great talent and crew lined up, technically elevating the production away from pure airninja-ry but remaining true to the spirit!

4. The next short film by award winning director Chris Jupp. Currently in pre-prod/development. I expect to be recording production sound and edit producing on this show. Likely shooting Q1 2016.

5. A dementia related project, or two. I have one ambitious project in development and another more practical, smaller, project slated to shoot over-night some time this winter. The one may lead to the other.

6. Longer term, the making of a feature length documentary on the work of prolific low-budget film director Michael J. Murphy. I have gathered several new interviews to augment the FilmRaker interview with the late director. This is an ambitious project in terms of cataloguing the material and assembling it into a coherent, comprehensive narrative without alienating Murphy's fanbase - but also allowing it to be accessible to anyone else.

Below is a small tribute video assembled from this last ever recorded interview with Murphy, and screened at his funeral earlier in 2015:



7. Recently completed edit of found-footage for the video to Owen Troman's single Winter Child (presumably another Christmas release). I worked on Owen's previous single in a similar fashion - finding footage and mashing it up into something symbolic for the track.


There are many other side-projects I am involved with but I am on the periphery or only providing services on-demand. Two most notable are both for Trash Arts, schedules TBA.

A busy season!

#DIALW Post Production Update

Going well. The iPhone production scratch sound recording holds up so well. If I did this all over again, I would have the strength in my conviction that the iPhone 6 Plus recorded audio is good enough to shout 'quiet on set' before each take.

The edit has been through three iterations so far -

Example of foley stage at Sony museum.

1. Rough assemble.
2. Fine cut.
3. Locked cut.

What we have remaining to do,

4. Black & white processing.
5. Looping / ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement or Additional Dialogue Recording depending who and when you ask).
6. Music.
7. Sound Effects / Foley.



An initial black-and-white look has been applied shot-by-shot to the locked cut. This will be reviewed by the director tomorrow when he drops by with the lead actress to re-record dialogue (ADR). This was always in the plan, as I say the intention has always been to shoot MOS and use whatever the iPhone records as reference.

So this morning I have to think through the setup for an ADR session tomorrow and render some loops. Although this is a Deer Studios production, the studios in question tend to be where the deer roam - that is, out in the forest (much like early movie studios were about large warehouse spaces and back lots rather than isolated audio booths). So front room it is.

The ADR playback will be from USB stick into a 50" LCD with headphones connected (I'd better check the screen has a headphone output) with pre-rendered loops of existing edited footage with reference sound. I'll record using my super-secret Sennheiser microphone onto SD card in my Nagra SD. Having slept on it, in keeping with the spirit of Airninja iPhonemania I shall be recording using iPhone 6 Plus, my favourite recording app du jour, and my favourite lightning enabled condenser microphone. Simple. Low admin. Airninja.

#DIALW Wind Reel And Print - It's a WRAP!

So technically we wrapped production on Saturday and proceeded to discuss future film projects over a great curry.

It's been a fun week and I look forward to turning in the first finer-cut edit to the director, Seb Hunter. But Monday is a day off, I'll tackle that tomorrow.

The film is already loosely cut and clocks in at around 28 minutes sans titles. But too loose to show anyone, just yet.

Floor 6, Chesil Street MSCP. Park by phone.

So let me reflect on what I've learned on this production -

1. To park by the statue of King Alfred on Broadway in Winchester requires 'coins'.

2. In freezing muddy conditions you can do a lot worse than Vivobarefoot Tracker hiking shoes.

3. In freezing muddy conditions at night you can do a lot worse than Nitecore TM26 at 150 lumens with a runtime of approx 41 hours.

4. If the production unit is highly mobile with added agility then kit choice needs to reflect this. Mobile means why not use mobile. Thus, airninja movie method is validated.

5. Even though we are not using production audio from the iPhone 6 Plus, if we had planned for it, we could have. Audio perspective matches the fixed lens, MEMS microphone DSP helps noise reduction (although it didn't reduce the noise of overhead aviation, it won't do miracles nor should you expect it to).

6. All I want from a video camera app is simple - fix the white balance to a preset, fix the exposure, but leave autofocus roaming (AF with focus pixels works very well in iPhone 6 Plus). Currently the native app can't do this, so the closest I have found to my needs is Kinomatic.

7. Parkas are in fashion this season.

8. I didn't need touch sensitive gloves to operate the iPhone - just a naked hand and a spare pocket to keep it in between takes.

9. I used the ShoulderPod S1 + Manfrotto PIXI with wrist lanyard 95% of the time. The other 5% was on a Manfrotto Compact Action tripod.

10. Digital zoom, you guessed it, sucks. Which means all next wave rebellion against airninja must use digital zoom.


Look out for the final cut of Dark Is A Long Way playing in Winchester cinemas with live musical accompaniment from the Provincials - ETA Easter 2015.

#DIALW Day Seven - trinkets, traders and black art

Polly directed by Seb in a small hut at Spinney Hollow.

The last day of principal production at Spinney Hollow completed just before dark yesterday, as planned. Evil C had to deal with probably the most challenging lighting setup of the whole production as we shot from inside a small hut as a bunch of gang-raping merchants pop their heads around the door, in dusky backlight.

The somewhat plump rough edit now clocks in at around 28 minutes. Once trimmed and with a sprinkling of cross-fades I anticipate a movie around 20 - 25 minutes.

As we wind down production (very last day of shooting is a 2nd unit setup with an aquarium full of water) I'm very mindful that the journey through post-production and to market is only just beginning ...

#DIALW Day Six - river laundry, pub grub and marketing strategies

Day six has come around already! We are so close to having the shots to complete the edit, we have shot the beginning and ending it's just the darned middle, crossing the t's and dotting the i's in the narrative. The very loose edit comes in at 25 minutes so I expect we are looking at around a 20 minute movie. Although during our production meeting at the Mayfly pub we did tentatively decide on our marketing strategy for this flick. But you know the old adage, "don't tell everything you know", well marketing is the secret sauce innit?

As it has been put so succinctly many times before:

RULES FOR SUCCESS
1. Don't give away everything you know.
2.

Our marketing strategy falls somewhere under rule 2 :-)

I can however reveal some of what lies behind continued success, that is:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Story
Serials

Easy huh?

#DIALW Day Four and Five - ducking, burning, drinking, resting, editing

On day four we successfully sent the suspected witch to trial into the freezing waters of the River Test where the blacksmith divined the fact she is a witch by attempting to drown the woman - she lived! Clearly a witch. So we burned the devilspawn tied to a stake in Spinney Hollow (other amazing activities are also available). The evening descends into classic medieval debauchery and I slip away to dump the rushes and do a kit check ...

What can I say?

DeerCam1 after shooting for hours in freezing rain.

1. The Lord's rain does not show up in the frame when filming it. Mythbusted! I'm happy to have visual proof that it does show up if you aren't scared of a bit of rain, and have a light source and camera available to record. Sure, the rain has to be reasonably medium-to-heavy but by-jiminey if it doesn't look like fucking rain on playback - because it is fucking rain.

2. Thou shalt not use a smartphone to make a film. Poppycock! This commandment has been successfully debunked several times over and Dark Is A Long Way continues the trend.

3. Always use a smartphone case and screen protector. Well, yes. Do do that (my choice for DIALW being iPhone 6 Plus and Anker case). Because in the freezing rain and cold mud whilst slipping in the quagmire you won't need a camera assistant, you won't need an umbrella, you won't need to cry for your mummy, you can just keep shooting and shooting and shooting. Your fingers will freeze and you will die of hyperthermia and the screen protective case will keep capacitive-confusing moisture off the glass long after you are dead and have no need for phone. Except perhaps for an emergency call?

Vivobarefoot Tracker off-road boot.

4. Bonus/footnote - the Vivobarefoot Trackerperformed admirably in these conditions with a firm connection to the ground, I didn't slip once. More importantly perhaps, neither did I get soaking wet feet whilst standing in River Test nor galavanting around Spinney Hollow.

In summary - "nobody knows anything" - William Goldman.

On day five - well, there's hangovers to contend with and a very rough and loose edit to continue. We are at least over half way through the nine day production schedule now!

#DIALW Day Three, children and animals

The blacksmith, all moody like.

Another productive day of shooting Dark Is A Long Way, with galloping white stallions, cowardly priests, dastardly blacksmiths, enthusiastic inquisitors and a lone, vulnerable woman in a small medieval church. Not much else to add except there's much more to come!

#DIALW Day Two, "god is a great gaffer"

As I prep for the 11.30am call time, I have the luxury to reflect on yesterday's shoot (which was day
2, today is day 3, so you see what is going on here right?).

The main setup and shot yesterday opens the film so it has to be engaging and set the tone for things to come. We finished up doing some cutaways and other drop-in exposition. All good.

What did I learn?

1. I don't think Hyperlapse is the tool for me - when I use it I always get pixel-judder which to my eye is more distracting than shooting wider with Kinomatic and conservatively steadying in FCPX. As it was, the opening shot is a judgement on how steady I am on my legs in wet slippery muddy conditions tracking backwards on a downwards gradient. Hey, I didn't fall over!

2. Pigs are more fun than bacon.

3. The Toyota iQ is not well suited to off-roading but, well, only a little bit fell off.

4. As Dennis Hopper once said, "God is a great gaffer". All natural light today.

5. Never make assumptions about how the set will look from an alternate angle when doubling as a different location. Always, you know, bother to take a look from each angle. It can actually save a bunch of worrying about nothing.

Don't get used to these updates. Things are about to get a whole lot more hectic the next few days.

#DIALW Day One, DeerCam1

Today's DeerCam1 Camera Roll

A great day! Everyone worked really well together, and the results from DeerCam1 are great too. We were shooting for around three hours for a single scene without resting DeerCam1 and just before jacking in to dump the rushes I noticed it is still juiced at 71% after 44 takes. As usual the audio side of things surprises me. Although #DIALW is not relying on any sync sound, I was particularly impressed (again!) at how the onboard MEMS microphones performed - particularly when it picked up the crisp noise of the actress biting into a slice of apple from several feet away, and also general reproduction of voice, it all sounds good and authentic to my ear. Wind noise remains the achilles heel with no good way of suppressing it.

Tomorrow promises to be another day with a lighter workload, we are filming the opening scene at Spinney Hollow.

The Proof Is In The Pudding. #DIALW

Today is the first day of shooting with a rather leisurely 12:30pm call time. However, this gives me enough time to reflect on the fact that this is truly the first collaborative production under the Deer Studios banner to utilise the airninja movie method. Make or break time!

So as we shoot through freezing conditions over the next week, I take solace in the fact that the proof is indeed in the pudding - the finished, edited, content. Even clusterfucks like the Eton Mess are legendary and enduring, don't you think?!

10 Things I Learned On The DIALW Recce

Yesterday the director, headline actress, and myself recce'd the main Hampshire locations for 'Dark Is A Long Way' (DIALW). The main reasons for me to recce locations are to minimise surprises, take some test footage and figure out where everyone is going to park on the day. That said, here is what I have taken away from the day:

1. Tripods are boring. Seriously, I setup a tripod shot and I already felt like I had an albatross around my neck. I am the human tripod!

2. The high contrast black & white look is really going to compliment the subject matter, as is the season (winter) that we are shooting in. All the stills on this page are extracted video frames.

3. You can add locations to 'Favorites' in the Maps app on iPhone. With varying degrees of accuracy depending on your cell and wifi environment.

4. You can extract the latitude/longitude metadata from a photo snapped on iPhone and use that in the iPhone TomTom app to create an email that will open the co-ordinates in Google Maps or TomTom Route Planner. Great for call sheets.

5. The Vivobarefoot Scott really is waterproof. However the sole is not a great performer on wet grass at a gradient.

6. Spinney Hollow is an awesome self-sufficient homestead and also has structures that will be great in our movie. We can also burn a person at the stake there.

7. The vistas found in the New Forest look great with winter atmospheric perspective.

8. The glass-bottomed aquarium may look too small, but the actress can get her head in it and the iPhone can frame things well from underneath.

9. Winchester city rubbish tip is like an Ikea surplus store.

10. My strategy of using gloved hands and a stylus to operate the iPhone touchscreen is not going to work reliably. I may have to get a cold finger for art's sake.

All in all a very useful day that allowed me to get satnav bookmarks for all locations ahead of the first day of shooting this coming Saturday.


BONUS: what I learned creating this blog post - this many pictures when authoring a Blogger post are a pain in the ass to format (as I'm sure you can see, for which I apologise!)

iPhone Strangelove (or, how I learned to stop worrying and move closer)

Today I recce Spinney Hollow along with the director and cast of 'Dark Is A Long Way' (DIALW). I will be taking my shooting kit with a view to get some test footage and just a general dry-run of British winter cold and boggy shooting conditions.

Shooting with iPhone (this is essentially a zero budget shoot, so zero kit hire), I am well aware of its limitations but also of its supreme advantages. If limitations can be turned into advantage, so much the better.

What strikes me about iPhone is the fixed lens and lack of optical zoom. This isn't necessarily a disadvantage on an airninja movie method shoot. If you resist the digital zoom (and I never use it) then the onboard mic gives a good representation of audio perspective and in my experience a high degree of clarity.

Let's talk about the iPhone onboard mic. I mean, recording production audio with any onboard mic is absolute heresy, right? A smartphone mic must be atrocious, right?! Don't be so quick to dismiss.

Firstly, the iPhone has three onboard mics, of the MEMS variety. This allows DSP to cancel out off-axis noise which can really help in reportage and documentary situations.

Specs on the iPhone MEMS mics are hard to come by. They have a relatively high noise floor (current generation around 64dB SNR is some way off desirability) but are generally capable of capturing HiFi 20Hz - 20kHz (how flat is anyone's guess - I suppose that is where the DSP comes in too). To my ear though, it always sounds good given constraints of whatever the recording situation was. Traffic noise isn't going to suddenly disappear but damn it if the person talking isn't more intelligible than when I was actually there listening with my own ears. Amazing!

This is no coincidence. For a few years Apple's audio was directed by Tomlinson Holman who should need no introduction to anyone in the audio field. More recently, Dana Massie who was previously director of DSP at Audience.

It makes sense that a device optimised for phone calls in highly variable environments would also do the best it can in any given video recording situation. High wind remains an achilles heal and can start the DSP overapplying noise reduction until things sound very odd.

Now, admittedly DIALW has been written as almost a silent movie, with very sparse moments of dialogue. In quiet, low wind conditions the iPhone onboard mics do a great job, especially if you are close to the subject. We proved this shooting GAIN (albeit that was shot on iPhone 4S). Although I intend to record any DIALW dialogue with my Apogee MiC 96K (a digital signal path directly to the lightning port), I also intend to use production audio from the iPhone if I consider it good enough. I am confident it will be (famous last words). Then, I can declare MEMS mics an official part of the Airninja Movie Method and stop worrying.