Monday 17th
We headed to our first location (the poste house pub) where Hitler apparently liked to drink during his alleged visit. Just to recap, our documentary is investigating into the folklore that Adolf Hitler came to visit his half brother in Liverpool between November 1911 - February 1912. We intended to get a mix of opinions arguing for and against from a variety of sources, both public and professional.
The team stopped off at a chip shop, before heading to The Poste House, to get something to eat, and and afterwards had a minor scare when we forgot one of the tripods, but luckily when Leanne and myself went back, the man working at the chip shot had it waiting behind the counter.
When we got back to the others, we were getting our first interview set up, regretfully outside the pub, due to it being to full. It was with one of the regulars who was quite common with folklore, and h gave us some very interestingpoints about his view and beleifs. As sound recordist I believe that the sound for the outdoor interview came across quite well, with only a couple of minor lags (a squeeky garage door) that can only be faintly heard.
We then went into the pub, but due to the small size of the veanue, and the amount of people in there, the recording process was delayed, and though we got talking tosome people, filming was an impossibility. However, I maneged to get an audio only interview with a woman, using the lapel microphone, and it came back sounding really decent.I then realised that if I use that, all the background noise (which the boom mic was picking up heavily on) would be mere mutters compared to the sound quality of the interviewee. We got a couple of interviews, with some old timers that seemed to generally argue that Hitler did not visit Liverpool, and they were both recorded with the boom and lapel.
The lanlady had a lock in on our behalf, and after kicking the remaining regulars out, gave her own interview. The recording was about 14 minutes long to my memmory, and though I did mess up having to shift the microphone round a few tmes (this interview being recorded with only a boom mic) their is plenty of clean sounding relating to the subject matter.
With the documentary only being a 5 minute piece, we came out of that first day feeling confident about our work as we filmed, I estimate, around an hour maybe an hour and a half of usable footage. So all pre production nerves were erased by a variety of things: the quality of our work, the freindlyness of the people, the amount of information we gathered, and of course a good team ethic.
Below are stills taken from the first days filming.
Tuesday 18th
Tuesday in our opinion was the biggest day for us; it was the day we were to interview Mike Unger (who had shown the most interest in this project) and we had heard back from historian Mike Roydan and arraneged to go up to Chester and meet him. The interviewing with unger took place between 11AM and quarter past 2, and he gave us alot of information and personal insight, as well as showed us the location where Hitler supposedly lived during his alleged visit (which had since been made into a power transformer).
The sound quality of the street was decent, considering it was recorded on the shotgun microphone (aka boom) so fair few background noises were picked up, but I aimed the microphone accurately enougth, to hear Unger over any passing car on the street, however there was a moment where an ambulence went by on the nearby main road, which completely drowned out Unger, so the point he made there was unusable.
We then went to the school where his nephew went breifly, but the information given i personally think doesn't relate to the subject we are persuing, so probably wont be included in the final piece, despite the excellent shots we got. We then interviewed Unger in a pub, and got 18 and a half minutes worth of footage and sound, with alot of relevent points favouring that Hitler did visit Liverpool. It was recorded on the boom microphone and the lapel, which worked in our favour, as the boom picked up some major static towards the end, so if that part of the interview is included, the the lapel can cover. However I do have some concern how clear the music in the background is, as I tried to make it as mute as possible, but I personally fear that some music may be clear, and on copyright terms thats a bad thing.
We also had the radio station call us for a phone in, and I had just set up for Unger, so it was a very last minute thing, I tried my best to get the equiptment set up, but some technical difficulty with the headphones meant I failed toget a recording, but lckily Josh Walker contacted the radio station and aquired a sound bite. I was highly critical of my failure on that occasion, and vowed to do better.
After finishing with Unger, we had a couple hours break before me, Tom Noonan and Josh Walker got a train to Chester taking a boom mic, the lapel, an XF100 andtripod with us, leaving the others to go get atmos, and cutaway shots of night time Liverpool.
We met Royden just outside Chester station, and our director (Noonan) somhow managed to get this hotel to let us film the interview in one of there 5 star suites, which was both lucky, and also helped convay the professionallism of the piece. we sent aout half an hour setting up the shot, and me and Tom breifly had a creative clash over what microphone to use as we left the zoom in Liverpool with the other group. I favoured the lapel as for me its the best for an interview situation, as sound is picked up clearly and cleanly from the interviewee, where as Tom argued that the boom createda richer quality and their was no background noise in the room, so the lapel wouldn't be needed. It ended up being down to my personal decision, which i'll admit I was abit biased as i was impressed with the lapel in the previous interviews, and wanted to explore it in this setting. Tom let me have the final call, and we tested it, to see if the subject moving would cause any distress to the sound. We found no quiries and opted for the lapel.
The sound on that I feel came back clean, though i will admit a richer sound could have been acheived with the boom, but I stand by my lapel decision as it really picked up the tone in Royden's voice, yet one issue with the lapel is the sensitivity it has to its subject, so there were sometimes where he got more intimate, and louder which cause the sound to just dip out of the bracket, and that is something to be corrected in post. As with Unger we recorded a large chunk off interview footage with him, which argued against the idea Hitler came over, and caused us to question Ungers views.
After getting back to the hostel the other team showed us real good footage of the albert dock which we think could be used for cutting away from ungers pub interview. The tuesday inished with a feel that we was almost there, we just needed a few more cutaways to fill the holes.
Below are images of the Tuesday filming.
Unfortunately the only still of the Roydan interview is a shot of the hotelroom with Royden in the background, as our stills camera was with the other group.
Wendesday 19th
The wendsday was a highly chilled out day; it became a mixture of sightseeing and working.
We started off with a meal at weatherspoons and the proceeded to go to a few locations. We got a shot of the high street, The Cavern Club, Alber dock, the Liver building.
We managed to get a free ride on the bus tour and Tom, Harry, Leanne and Amy set up the camera on the upper deck at the back and the effect was a shakey shot of the Liverpool street, that lood slightly surreal. it's like a unique shot that I don't believe I have seen in any film previously, however i doubt it could be used in this film. We came off the bus and agreed that our job was done....with only an hour and a half before our train home.
Below are two images from our bus filming.
Lookin back at the three days filming, we got enougth footage to make a feature length documentary let alone 5 minutes, so I am confident that our editing team of Nathanuel and Harry can make this a decent documentary that will be good to watch.
We have one more thing to film which is a phone interview schedualed for Monday, so though we have plenty of footage, it doesn't hurt to get a little bit more.
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