Mike Manzoori

Mike Manzoori skateboarder/cinematographer

Director, Videographer and former pro skateboarder Mike Manzoori a film maker has been a proficient contributor towards capturing both skateboarding and their culture. Over his career he has directed edit and filmed 10 feature length skate films and countless shorts for companies such as Etnies and Adrenaline skateboards. Mike style of representing skaters and their authentic culture has developed me as a professional. Mikes one-man-camera approach as a film maker has inspired me to take on the role of editor, director and camera operator.

Wes Anderson & Stanley Kubrick

Over the past year I have looked back at film makers that have coined cinematography styles and pushed the boundaries of motion picture.
Stanley Kubrick's one point perspective has influenced me in my composition greatly. His use of tracking shots and symmetrical cinematography challenges the parameters of conventional videography. Transporting the audience into the perspective of the character, so that the viewers may feel immersed in the image track of the film.

It is clear that Wes Andersons has been influenced by Kubrick's style heavily. Anderson through out his career has worked closely with a cinematographer Robert D Yeoman. Together they have perfected Kubrick's style of symmetry in the a composition.

Equipment

Equipment

As university is coming to a close, the impending problem of not being able to use Leeds College of Art's equipment is looming on my mind. Over the last two years I have built up a fluent work flow with using the Canon 5DMk3. I am now confident with my ability to shoot in different situations with the high spec DSLR. This partly due to the fact that I own a Canon 500d, which shoot full hd. This camera gave me a basis for my knowledge of Canon DSLR's. However,  my Canon 500d only shoots 20fps in full HD and 30fps in SD. The camera is great for stills but I really want a camcorder with a built in shotgun mic. I think a HD camcorder like the Sony DCR-VX2100 would benefit me as a documentary filmmaker. This camera has everything built in that I will need for operating as a one-man-camera team. 

Samsara & Baraka

Samsara & Baraka

Samsara & Baraka are two Observational documentaries by director Ron Fricke, who has explored the furthest corners of the world, in attempt to document human life. Filmed over nearly 5 years in twenty-five different countries on five continents Samsara documents social expressionism in different cultures, as well as looking at the diversity of life on planet earth. This motion picture transports the audience to a dissimilar worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes and natural wonders.
The film was visually breath taking, which was down to the fact that director Ron Fricke shot the whole film in Panorama seventy-millimetre film. Nonetheless my favourite aspect of this film is the way it was co-ordinated, the amount time and detail Fricke has placed into this film is remarkable. Fricke needed to acquire major government and regulatory clearances to access certain parts of the world, he waited patiently for certain seasons or lunar phases to acquire the lighting he wanted in his film. All placed together by composer Michael Stearns who composed the music for the film after the motion picture was 'silently edited'. The entity of the music itself combined with a 7.1 surround sound design is testament to the artistry of the film. The 70mm negative has digitally scanned and rendered at 8k resolution making Samsara truly the first 4k film of its nature.

Fricke's distinctive time-lapse sequences in Samsara has drawn my attention to the way in which the film was shot. Fricke in an interview with comingsoon.net explained how him and his crew navigated their equipment through hostile terrain with a team of five. After traveling over 58 different countries through the course of Baraka and Samsara, the team had learnt to set up the large-scale equipment in a minimum amount of time. This was due to the crew years of over-all experience. Having built and designed most of their own custom equipment it became an easy routine for them to set up quickly if needs be. Fricke explained that the size of their camera weren't massive but nor were they handheld, nonetheless the team have a regular rhythm that makes this type of complex shooting manageable. This degree of team work has made me reflect on my one-man-camera approach to film making. I like to take control, yet I am open minded and work extraordinarily in a creative team. Understanding the team process of a full scale film crew has contributed to the idea that film making in essence is problem solving. That the more I produce the more problems I face. From the care and attention of the delicate equipment equipment, to the different continuity errors that the life throws at you.

Brandalism

http://www.brandalism.org.uk/

Production/Post diary 06 - 11th May

Production/Post diary 06 - 11th May

06.05.14: Tuesday today I made my way into town to gather a few more homeless clips. Heading to the Leeds city centre train station. It was near the station on the Leeds city square that I found 'Rats' the busking flute player. I asked him if he would be interested in appearing on camera and he agreed willingly. Filming went smoothly as I recorded a 15 minute interview as well as establishing shots of Rats busking. The winds were quite strong at the time of the interview, with the audio peaking due to the gusts, if I had to shoot the interview again I would have asked Rats to move to a location sheltered from the wind. At the time I thought the interview would have flowed better in the area he had chosen to busk.

Before I approached Rats me and my camera assistant scouted around the area for other homeless, whilst walking around the square I saw a homeless man sitting on the steps of Mill Hill Chapel. After talking to Rats we approached the stranger and asked him if he would be interested in appearing on camera for the documentary; which he positively accepted. I began setting up all the equipment for interview, tuning the camera settings, checking the audio levels and settings a composition. I then started recording the interview. The light for the interview process was frustratingly erratic. Intense rays of sun would burst through the trees inconsistently. This made it hard for me to conduct the interview at the same time as changing the camera settings. If I had stayed behind the camera for the interview I could have adjusted the camera; to the irregular waves of light breaking through the clouds. Nonetheless the interview with Duncan was a moving experience, as he revealed his tragic story behind the his downward spiral onto the streets. Thanks to Duncan I have footage that has bought a thought provoking and chilling story to the documentary.

After the interview with Duncan I moved on to NCP car-park by the bust station. I shot a time-lapse of the bus station and the busy dual carriage way from the top of the car-park. I thought the shot will metaphorically represent societies fast paced living. Through the constant movement and flow of the busses coming in and out of the station. Once that was finished I made my way up to college to render out the time-lapse and look over the clips from the day.

07.05.14: As I woke up at 7.00am I knew that today was going to be a very long day. A day that consisted of heavy post production work. I am well and truly in the thick of the crunch, which on the contrary to most people, I find rather enjoyable. Busy hands are happy hands and although I may dread the impeding workload; whilst in the crunch I find myself locking into a state of pure productivity. My mind is focused and hungry for the end goal, a perfectionist by nature I think of nothing else but how to better my production. This is partly why this year I have made it into college every day, even when unscheduled, so that I may brainstorm with fellow classmates. I have discovered that expressing my ideas and opinions orally really helps me develop in my creative process. This is why I have started editing this video solely in college, so that I may discuss what I have done with fellow class mates that are also in the same state of productivity, such as fellow filmmakers Luca Flailabrese and Thomas Bone Lija Jursins.

Today I received the music for the documentary as well as the still frames for the logo. Once putting the music into premiere it felt that I could now make real headway with organising the structure of the documentary. All the footage that I had been cutting up over the last couple of weeks were now falling into place, like the missing pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. After working 12 hours solidly I managed to piece together 15 minutes of footage, making up 75% of the documentary. Working right up to the very last minutes till the 9pm close at college. I felt disappointed with myself that I hadn't finished the rough cut for the final crit tomorrow. Nonetheless, I prepared my alarm for early in the morning, so that I could piece a few more scenes in the morning before rendering out the video for the crit.

08.05.14: 8th of May, which means today is the final crit for FMP. A day that I have felt nervous about for a long time. After making my way into college and stitching together sections from 'The Real Junk Food Project' I exported the video and set up my work area for the crit.

The feedback I received from the class was amazing, and was shocked at the enthusiasm that I received from fellow classmates. The main theme that came through in the critique of my film is that the audio levels are unbalanced - especially towards the end with 'TRJFP' and 'Left Overs' clips. Other critiques to the production were on VFX elements that I can not start until I have colour graded the piece, such as adding name tags to the persons in question on the image track.

Today was a very informative day, being told that my film invoked tears from a fellow class mate has put me on high spirits about the production and it's potential of being entered into film festivals.  

09.05.14: After yesterdays successful crit I made my way into college to continue with the editing process. Towards the end of the day I went down to the AV suite to book equipment out for the weekend shoot.

10.05.14: After showing my rough cut at the final crit to my tutor Annabeth, it became clear that I had not thought my title sequence through enough. Despite the fact that the spatial shots I recorded around Leeds looked smart. The footage did not set the viewer up for the context and connotations presented in the documentary. I wanted the audience to to really feel what it was like living on the streets. Annabeth suggested shooting street shots from an extremely low angle as though the camera was from the perspective of the homeless sitting on the street. I liked the idea and wanted to put it into practice as soon as possible.

Today I made my way into town since it was Saturday, the busiest retail day of the week - giving me the opportunity to capture large crowd shots. On the way into town the heavens opened, and rain came gushing down. I feared that this erratic downpour would scare of the shoppers traveling into town, however we continued to make our way toward the briggate. It was around the city centre that I managed to capture some good crowd shots from a extremely low angle. I could not use the tripod for these shots for it was too high. I had to use free hand which tested my steadiness and nerves, nonetheless I managed to record some great crowd shots of silhouetted shoppers. In the end the rain made for some great clios, as crows huddled under arcades to hide from the downpour. Which contrasted well against the bouncing light of the sodden streets.

The only problem I faced whilst recording was the fact that Matt Burton did not have any SD cards left when I came to him to book out the equipment. I thought using my 16gb card would be a suitable substitute. However, when I tried recording in 1080p 25fps the camera notified me with an error message 'Movie recording has stopped automatically'. Straight away I knew that this error was caused by the card having a slow write speed. As the footage from the camera was too big to buffer onto the card. I changed the settings to 720p 50fps, despite the fact that I could now only record for 20 seconds or so, I felt this was enough time for the type of shots I needed. Since I was only recording b-roll footage over the talking head of the interviews and quick snippets for the title sequence.

Although I encountered minor problems with filming today I was very happy with the footage captured. I managed to get some great locations for the title sequence and b-roll for Duncan and James. Including perspectives of where they both sleep at night. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this documentary, I just need to push through for these last couple of clips as well as making sure everything is air tight in post production.

11.05.14: Today I woke up at 4.45 to make my way into town to shoot. I wanted to capture the streets of Leeds town centre in the early hours of the morning. I wanted to shoot an empty town centre to emphasise the lonely life of the homeless. Similarly to the shoot yesterday I recorded footage from an extremely low angle, as if it were from the perspective of an individual on the streets.