Conversation Piece

We were given another brief to film a short film that explored the use of a moving camera to cover the action of a scene. The brief specified that two protagonists would interact, in THREE SHOTS OR LESS, and we would have enough in the rushes to craft a 1 to 2-minute edit. We agreed that the song Conversation Piece by the late, great David Bowie would be perfect for the film. We got to work crafting a scene to accentuate the meaning of the lyrics in a creative, indirect way, that we would like to hope does the song justice.

We were also inspired by the single solid line of makeup of Adam Ant’s ‘Dandy Highwayman’, and the music video to I Was A Teenage Anarchist, which is a single continuous take of Laura Jane Grace running away from, and being beaten up by, the police.

For the film, Conversation Piece, we used the A7 filmmakers kit to quickly follow focus on Jacob Garbutt’s (Skellecat Productions) eye whilst moving backwards with him. As he progressively built into a run, it was difficult to match pace without a spotter. Being unable to use any stabilisation method, due to issues with equipment and asset management, introduced unwanted camera shake. The first time shooting, the Zhiyun gimbal’s release plate was stuck on the tightest setting, so we were unable to use it, and the second time (using the EasyRig Mini), we realised that we had left the top handle behind. However, with careful blocking and many takes – on a 50mm prime lens – we were able to minimise the camera shake and achieve the intended effect.