North Eye Land of New Zealand
“People also have always captured our attention. One of the main inspiration for us remains local people. They are resourceful, authentic and give us all we need to capture beautiful footage. So thanks again to all of them who share with us their daily life.”
“Both of us love travelling overseas, and filming people can be done everywhere. We were planning to work abroad in 2019, and we had already heard about New Zealand’s incredible reputation. We noticed that over the past few years, there has been a lot of audiovisual contents performed about this country, especially its landscapes, however not too much about kiwi people. There was an opportunity for us.”
“We prefer to talk about ‘challenge‘ rather than ‘difficulties‘ when it comes the moment to find the protagonists for our projects; upstream of each project, there is a huge reflection, brainstorming, inspiration and iteration phase; all of this is very exciting, it’s also great to set the bar high (sometimes very high) and give yourself everything to succeed in achieving our goals. Besides, before we even look for people to meet, we spend a lot of time immersing ourselves in the local culture and identify locations, just to know what we are talking about and what we want to show on the screen.”
“However, like any other creative business, one can not control everything. Sometimes, it’s particularly difficult, especially as we are only two people. In New Zealand for example, climate is very temperamental: the country is even called ‘the land of the long white cloud’. Not to overstate, sometimes blue sky moves on to rain in a matter of seconds, without warning. Moreover, the sun there is vicious: it is very easy to get sunburns in less than a minute. When we plan to shoot outside only for one day with a protagonist that has been a struggle to find, and the sky turns black, then our morale takes a blow. We must react urgently, find solutions right away because we simply don’t have choice.”
“From a financial standpoint, our beginnings weren’t easy either. To transform this idea into a real project, we had to self-finance. It took hundreds of hours to emerge, even though we were both working at this time. But it’s like everything, it’s a matter of hard work and confidence. We had to find the courage to go down this path, and not come back on our commitment, while sometimes it would have been much simpler to stop everything. Well, it’s just the beginning.”
“We have deliberately chosen to invest in an ultra compact set-up and adapted to our lifestyle. When we go abroad, we must be ready for anything. Concerning power supply (to charge the gear), we rely on outlets located in the housing where we’ll spend the night. The people we film aren’t actors, so we depend on their schedule. We never know in advance the setting in which we’ll be: indoor or outdoor, light intensity, the space available, the presence or not of electrical outlets, the number of attended people, etc. Thus, we have to imagine everything and optimize in advance, all the time, for any ’scenario’.”
“Our gear has to be relatively light and quickly installed, we must always be ready to record the action, even fill up several memory cards for a single shoot, which might represent only a few seconds. For the camera, I (Jean-Emmanuel) mainly use GH5 from Panasonic Lumix + 12-60mm f2.8 lens. Freehand or stabilized with the Zhiyun Crane +. We love long shots / sequences in features. Candice uses the Gx80 Panasonic Lumix to film + 25mm f1.7 lens. Freehand or stabilized with the Zhiyun Crane M2. Concerning sound recording, we mainly use a Video Mic Pro, a Zoom H4N. Finally, we have chosen the DJI Mavic Pro for aerial shots.”
Jean-Emmanuel : “Once our next film subject is defined, we start grabbing information about it, from articles, documentaries, videos and so on. Soon after, we begin exploring locations and listing every relevant places, works, hobbies, cultural activities. Next, we look for protagonists, by word of mouth, emailing companies or associations. For example, we were looking for beekeepers, so we contacted a local small business to film them working; they accepted. Filming was great and we spent some very nice moments with them.”
“When we have enough footage it’s time for post production, it is the most iterative part. First, we brainstorm a lot on our final project design, what style we want to give to the film rhythm, what atmosphere, the presence or absence of dynamic and calm intermittent phases, etc. All of this will condition the choices that follow, the music or the colorimetry, among other things. Once we both reach agreement and share a very similar vision of the final product, we begin researching on our own: hours and hours listening to music, artistic awareness, footage processing, etc. And then I attack editing on Adobe Premiere Pro.”
“Even if I’m the one behind the screen at this stage, Candice keeps her perspective and continues to shape the project with constructive criticism. In accordance to what happens, I change the result to get the right compromise. And the operation is repeated until it sounds perfect for both of us. This process works throughout the whole editing period, including sound design and colorimetry, etc. We are quite complementary on this part, and we always end up agreeing to bring up the best possible result.”
“For us, this kind of project goes beyond, as it appears to be a way of living experiences, of socializing (intensely and authentically); it’s also for us a new way of travelling, as we follow a virtual trail that depends on what we want to film, even if paradoxically our life is made of 90% unexpected. However, something is sure : between what we have in mind and what we’re going to film, there is a world. At each new location, several recurring feelings appear: enthusiasm, at the first place; the euphoria of the beginning of the project, where everything is possible and when imagination overwhelms us completely. Then comes the adrenaline; it’s time take our camera and go meet complete strangers in a complete unknown location. During the shooting, no fear or enthusiasm, but a good dose of concentration because everything has to be done in one shot. The most important aspect of our job is not to miss the action.”
“After the pressure has gradually increased, it is time to edit on our software. We leave our gear to focus on the essential: the story we’ll tell and the emotions we will seek to convey. When we spread online the film North Eye Land, we were surprised by the enthusiasm it has generated. In general, people have recognized local habits and cultural aspects that we managed to bring to light, which is awesome for us.”