Tiananmen Square remembered - 5dmkII interviews

[Dan Chung]

My report on the 20th anniversary of the Tianamen Square massacre. All interviews bar one from the US was shot the 5dmkII with a radio mic and auto gain (my edirol recorder wasn't working at the time for sync sound)

Sorry its only in low res right now, HD will follow on Youtube later.

Tiananmen Square: briefly, anything seemed possible | World news | The Guardian

Dan

[Josh Dahlberg]

Hi Dan,

Fantastic (and sobering) material. I guess you leave it 30p for the web?

Do you feel sometimes the DOF may be too tight in interview situations, giving backgrounds a kind of glazed look? I shoot a lot of head shots too and I almost wonder if it's worth closing the aperture down a little and giving the background more definition.

Josh

[Wayne Avanson]

Hi Dan

Can you let us know when the hi def is available for download from Vimeo so I can have a look? Cheers

Avey

[Yang Wen]

Dan: have you tried getting some interviews on the square?

[Bob Thompson]

Nice job Dan, There were 150,000 people in Victoria Park, Hong Kong tonight remembering that day in June 1989

[Peer Landa]

Originally Posted by Dan Chung

All interviews bar one from the US was shot the 5dmkII with a radio mic and auto gain

Dan, nice work -- I like the DOF during the interviews and especially the short snippet of the guard at Tiananmen Square towards the end.

However, the pumping noise-floor from the AGC during the interviews makes me cringe, and in the midst of it there are some VO commentary that are perfectly clean, (since I always use headphones, I certainly get it worse). As far as I could tell, next to the VO there was only one interview that had good sound, but that one didn't have the DOF (we could clearly see the books in the shelf behind him ;^)

Anyways, congratulation on a good job on an important event report.

-- peer

[Soeren Mueller]

Dan, great work - as usual!

Care to share what lenses you used for most of the interview parts?

[Marcus Marchesseault]

With control over the audio gain, this camera will be ready for almost anything.

I really liked this piece. I did not pay attention to the audio noise because the content is so good. A subtle thing I did notice was that the subtitles seemed to match the content of the speaking. Keeping the subtitles matched with the person's expressions really helps a different-language audience as it keeps the ideas in sync with the emotions. Great editing.

[Dan Chung]

Originally Posted by Peer Landa

Dan, nice work -- I like the DOF during the interviews and especially the short snippet of the guard at Tiananmen Square towards the end.

However, the pumping noise-floor from the AGC during the interviews makes me cringe, and in the midst of it there are some VO commentary that are perfectly clean, (since I always use headphones, I certainly get it worse). As far as I could tell, next to the VO there was only one interview that had good sound, but that one didn't have the DOF (we could clearly see the books in the shelf behind him ;^)

Anyways, congratulation on a good job on an important event report.

-- peer

Yes, sorry about that, won't happen again. I'll use the Beachtek DXA5D next time.

Soeren,
The lens for the interviews was a 85mm f1.4 Contax/Zeiss lens.

[Dan Chung]

There is now a second video in the series here Video: Tiananmen: a night of despair | World news | guardian.co.uk

Yang Wen,
No interviews I'm afraid but here are my images from yesterday cut with archive footage from 20 year ago. Video: Tiananmen Square today | World news | guardian.co.uk This one was shot on a Panasonic LX-3.

Dan

[Dan Chung]

Originally Posted by Josh Dahlberg

Hi Dan,

Fantastic (and sobering) material. I guess you leave it 30p for the web?

Do you feel sometimes the DOF may be too tight in interview situations, giving backgrounds a kind of glazed look? I shoot a lot of head shots too and I almost wonder if it's worth closing the aperture down a little and giving the background more definition.

Josh

Yes its 30p, and yes I'd normally close down a bit more to around f4, it was just quite dark in most of the interviews and once I'd started in a certain look I didn't want to change it.

Dan

[Bob Thompson]

Dan, When you have a chance could you outline your "post" workflow.

Thanks

Bob

[William Chung]

Love your stuff as always Dan, Thanks for sharing with us.

Did you say LX3 as in the compact?

[Xavier Plagaro]

Dan, you are the 22th century journalist!!! ;-D

I am baffled that people cares about lenses, adapters or tripods when watching your video-news. I would like to learn your narrative/visual skills, I don't care if you were f2.8 or f4.0!!!

Keep your good work!!!

[Josh Dahlberg]

Originally Posted by Xavier Plagaro

I am baffled that people cares about lenses, adapters or tripods when watching your video-news.

Hi Xavier,

I know what you're saying... like millions of people, I often see Dan's work for the Gaurdian online - in that context content is everything, and the kind of journalism Dan does is very affecting. This particular piece is of great personal interest to me for a variety of reasons (as I know it will be for others), but it seems to me DVinfo is not the place to go there.

Quite aside from being a first rate journalist, Dan clearly loves his gear and the technical art behind capturing those great images... perhaps part of the reason stories like this one are so absorbing (and emotions are captured so well) is that beyond content, Dan gets his lenses, adapters and tripods just right.