DSLR FILM & SOUND CHALLENGES

Bio:
The brothers, Anton and Darryl van Niekerk started in the film industry as runners in 1992.
Anton worked through the varied disciplines in the industry from camera work, gripping, lights and art department to the other side of the industry, production and treatments. He specialised in production and research and treatments. In 2008 his love of camera work brought about a return to this discipline and he now films and photographs
Darryl very rapidly identified his skill in research and treatments and worked for the incredibly talented Fiona Macpherson as her assistant. When Fiona left Johannesburg for Cape Town he launched his own editing and production work under the umbrella of the company co-owned by his sister, Deena, called Perfect Directions.

The company has two full HD edit suites running Adobe Creative Suite 6 and 5.5. They have two 7D's and various lenses and audio gear and are currently producing a series of three full length documentaries about Leopard conservation. The support of Canon for their project allowed them to film the final of the series with the incredible Canon C300 and the new Canon EOS 5D mkIII.

Presentation:
We started filming using traditional large broadcast cameras but as the project took a new direction we realised that with the improved image quality and compact size of the DSLR we would have to change to this format. This was a difficult transition but was very worth the effort.
Due to our documentary series being self funded and the constraints this created we have had to specialise in "run and gun" filming. We will share how we have adapted to accommodate this style of filming and the benefits this creates when filming wildlife, especially Leopards. We recently used 3 different microphones specially created for DSLR's and the benefits and difficulties with these cameras.
The C300 and what it was like to film with this specialised camera. The benefits it created for camera operators and its rewards.
We filmed in some exceptionally harsh conditions and how we adapted to it and our findings.