Overview
The San Diego Rescue Mission reached out to me about creating a documentary series that focused on three almumni of the mission. Our approach was to film with each of the graduates at three to four places that were relevant to their story. From where they may have experienced hardship, to their recovery at the mission, and finally showing where they are at now. The goal was to tell the amazing success stories of those who’s lives were changed at the rescue mission.
Results
With the help of these films, the rescue mission met its annual fundraising goals. They distributed the fundraising documentary films on social media platforms, in-person donor viewings, and donor email lists.
Workflow
The videos were shot with one Blackmagic Pocket 4k Camera and primarily two MFT lens. Panasonic 15mm 1.7 Leica Lens & Panasonic 50mm 1.4 Leica Lens. The Panasonic Leica 42.5mm 1.2 and 8-18mm 2.8 were used for a few shots here and there. All the audio was recorded with a Rode Link Wireless Kit and a Zoom F6 32bit recorder. I had a Sennheiser ME64 on my camera for any ambient audio.
We captured most the videos in one day. We started out about 9am and traveling to three to four locations. Specifically for the shot with Lamont on the bridge we took an afternoon break and waited till evening to capture that final segment with him.
About that scene : I started rolling the camera and just followed him on the bridge purposely trying to not interrupt that moment of reflection for him. What came out of that was a real honest moment that felt special to see in the final video.
Everything was shot at 12:1 Blackmagic RAW imported into DaVinci Resolve (fixed exposure / color temp issues) then exported Apple Pro Res 422 files for editing in Final Cut Pro. If I noticed any color issues I would just fix the BRAW file and export a new pro res file.