Somewhere South
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Synopsis
Somewhere South is surf documentary depicting isolated living through bleak winters of the SouthWest of England. Against this backdrop surfing provides a captivating distraction.
The film is being shot on both Digital and Analog over the course of winter.Following local surfers travelling for waves and interesting people with a story to tell along the way.
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Somewhere South explores the coast of South West England as well as how surfing connects people over cold and long winters. Presenting the idea of a bleak and empty region that is often forgotten during the winter months, brought to life by the power of the sea. Short days, long nights and bad conditions can leave people bored and feeling isolated within their communities. I think surfing contrasts the slow and mundane routine English winter with the raw energy of the sea and the unpredictable nature of the sport. Somewhere South has a honest approach and is not glamourising surf culture. Filmed over the course of three months I had chance to shoot with a range of surfers in numerous locations that Ive tried not to give away. Most of the surfers are amateurs which means no restrictions on content from sponsors and has given me creative freedom.It also reinforces that this film is true to what its about, real normal people living on the coast. These people who have jobs and families still finding the time to journey down cliff faces and jump in the sea for fun, not full time professionals filming for a video part as their job.What separates this film from others is that documentary tries to be realistic in showing that its not always as simple as ;amazing waves, lets shoot , film done, theres a significant amount of waiting and compromising. This film shows how people deal with what they have in front of them wether it be for work or for enjoyment and making the most out of it. Anyone watching from the South can take away some part of this documentary and say this similar to their home. I hope that it holds the interests of the audience and is enjoyed as fair and honest representation of living and surfing in winter Somewhere South.
Research & Inspiration
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Galivant - Andrew Kotting- Uses multiple different media formats following a chaotic yet flowing structure. Traditional 'Road film' exploring the Coast of England and its people.
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Sleep Furiously -Gideon Koppel - Extremely slow yet fits the pace of life for those in the film. Don't force the pace of a film.
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Wasted Talent Magazine (WTM) - New online surf/skate media that features new and unique styles.Would like to one day have my work feature on it.
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Yentl Touboul- Cinematographer for WTM. Shoots 16mm surf and documentary.
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Dark side of the lens - Mickey Smith - Stand out film showing the less known side of surfing and the real aspects of working in the UK.Excellent narration
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Zen & Zero - Michael Ginthor-Road trip /travel film that focuses on the places and not the people , fast paced and naturally flowing.
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Trailer
Behind the Scenes
Crew
Charlie Chambers
Cinematography - Charlie is providing secondary angles and shots with a DSLR camera. This is essential as when recording on film , i will need a digital duplicate to help match the audio. The footage also provides as backup incase the film does not work.
Vince Ring
Sound Recording Artist - Vince's role is vital to my film he will be recording diegetic sounds, including the interviews which will make a large portion of my film.
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Joe Bracegirdle . SOSS/Ross Sinclair SkBeats
Composer/Musician Composer/Producer Producer
Nick Atkins Pete Kingwell + Josh Surridge
Digital Stills photography GoPro Clips
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Contributors
Surfers
Ben Dixon , Ed & Jak Smith,Chris Kelly , Henry Hudson , Charlie Bradley,Alec Hume & more.
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Interviewees
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Neil Pengelly
Craig Berry
Dave
Woman in Shop
The process
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Days Filmed in Feb
1st ,4th, 7th ,14th ,15th ,21st ,2nd ,23rd ,24th ,26th.
Over the past month I have filmed surfing for at least 10 days , some of these days I managed to film two to three times a day depending on surf and lighting. I have been travelling all over the SouthWest some days have resulted in no clips and lots of time wasted. On the other hand some days have been perfect and have filmed from sunrise to sundown. I plan to continue filming surf footage throughout March , however the main focus now is the Documentary side of things. I plan on shooting all my interviews and recording the audio within this next month.
20th of Feb Ordered film supplies.
28th film has arrived, underwater super8 is now working and introduction to Bolex is organised for Tuesday following.
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Testing Super 8
I placed dry tissue inside the housing. Then I held the housing underwater in my bath for over a minute. If the tissue inside is still dry then the housing is water tight.It was completely fine, so the next text would be in the sea. I found the camera heavy to swim with and very hard to know if you have the whole wave in frame.To deal with these issues Im going to practise my swimming and stay further away from the surfers. Now Im ready to shoot.
March
I have now began to slow down on the surf filming and begin the next 3 weeks of shooting on 16mm and 8mm.Im going to carry my super 8 with me at all times to shoot anything i see on my journeys that works well. Im now trying to organise dates and days of when best to visit people and places and record my audio.
One of the surfers Alec Hume from North Devon has forwarded me the number of a friend of his (Alfie) we had surfed with, who's Dad has lived in Lynmouth his whole life. Craig has been surfing on the North coast for many years and hopefully will have some stories to tell.
15th
Went to Looe met friend and local fisherman Rhys Toms. Using his local connections we tried to find people who would be keen for a chat . Noticed straight away lots of funny looks as we were carrying camera equipment. No one was overly excited to film. Filmed one fisherman but he said we had to be ready to film within two minutes so i recored and filmed it on my 7D. Run n Gun style.
Then we found a fish monger who was having a quite day so had the chance to set up the camera and full audio equipment. Slight problems with the Bolex so used super 8 to film the extreme close ups and such. Whilst having the 7d running on a tripod through out. Vince was super helpful and ready to go at any time which fits with my chaotic pace.
Music
I have been in talks with Joe Brace-Girdle who is composing me a track for the film. He has sent me a few ideas and we have a rough feel of the music. I also have messaged SK-Beats on Sound cloud and have his permission to use a beat of his as back up.
20th
I headed down to North Cornwall ( St Agnes) and stayed with Henry Hudson filming and surfing over two days.
22nd
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North Devon with Vince. Travelled to Lynmouth to meet Craig after a few cancellations. Spent the day exploring and filming scouted shots. Met Craig and Alfie at the pavilion on the sea front. Super interesting interview, was easy flowing conversation. Then joined the two of them for a quick surf which was a bonus.
Week of the 25th
Completed multiple missions to the north coast of Cornwall with Ben Dixon, Ed smith and Martin Connelly. Filming with 16mm and underwater super 8.
Super Productive week.
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1st of April
Booked out C100 and other equipment to do test shots on. Filming on the 3rd for Jess Hunt's film with Finisterre.
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Filming with Jess went really well at Finisterre in St Agnes. She knew what style she wanted and a clear plan of the day.
However for the surfing shoot i felt like due to lack of surf knowledge there were a few issues. I tried to use my own experience to help her shoot. She wanted to film at Fistral but also wanted sunrise shots so i had to inform her the day before this would not be possible as the sun does not rise over the sea on the north coast. The equipment i felt was wrong for the surfers but that was not up to her. I think she should have allowed more time for surfing shoots and perhaps better surfers to allow me to gain a decent amount of footage.Jess has great organisational skills and being able to get a team .of 6 people awake and ready at 430am is an achievement in itself.
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Developing Process
10th of April
First of all i had to mix the chemicals to create one litre of Bleach, Colour developer , stabiliser.Then take my film out and attach it to the reel in the pitch black i was unsuccessful at this and had to ask fro help.Next i had to pour each solution into the Lomo tank for a certain length of time and flush out each time. The 16mm film was 100ft so took a long time to develop. I am still yet to telecine the 16mm. The next day i developed the under water super8 shots. Only around half of the footage came out i think this is due to the trigger not pressing the record button on the inside.However the shots i got from this were amazing.
14th
I helped Charlie Chambers develop his black and white negative 8mm film .We did this is lab and was both our first time using this type of film.The process was a lot longer then coloured film. I then developed my own colour super8 footage. I forgot to warm up the water to 38'c and therefore the chemicals did no react correctly and there is now a tint on the film.This was a very annoying day for me.
15th
Without any teachers present i tried to telecine mine and Charlie's 8mm footage. This should have been a quick simple part of the process however we encountered many different problems with our film and the machine and spent the whole day trying to fix it. Luckily we persevered and the footage was saved to the hard drive ready for colour correction. I then tried to use the Steinbeck Telecine machine for my 16mm it started to work fine but then chewed up certain parts of my film creating further difficulty for the future. The light box then broke on me and i called it a day.
16th
Using a projector that i had never seen before or any knowledge of how to use , i began to attempt to project my 16mm onto a wall then record it off a camera. The projector repeatedly ripped the holes in my film making it almost unusable and i believed that i had ruined all my footage.(major stress)
17th
After 2 days of failed attempts at recording my negative footage, Marcy brung in her own projector from home. We salvaged 80% of the film and i learnt from my mistakes as well as a lot about projectors. Now i have all my footage saved to a hard drive and i am in the process of colour correcting.
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22nd -24th of April
Spent three days colour correcting. Trying to remove the over powering green tint to most of the super 8 footage. I also attempted to keep all the 16mm shots a similar tone. Some of the scenes were shot on nice , sunny days and there is not much I can change about this. Everything on this film is one take and not scripted so Im not going to reshoot anything.During spare time i also created a basic trailer for the film.
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24th/25th
Finally began putting all the footage into one timeline to edit.Creating a rough idea of how i want each section to work alongside each other.Put sound track by Joe Bracey along side the footage and then made more changes.Realised Im going to need another soundtrack as the final goal is going to be 6-9mins. I rang Ross Sinclair aka SOSS , a artist i have worked with a few times and he said he could have me a few beats for me by Monday which is perfect.
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Somewhere
South
Final Film - Full Length Cut
Here is my end product, after many days spent editing I believe this is the best work of my ability. However I agree that there are a few areas that could be improved , Audio editing for example. I still want to create a five minute cut for the future so that i can enter it into short film festivals.