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BTS – Shooting Day 1

So I have been shooting some vlog style footage as I have been working on the Dissertation film. I have finally gotten around to editing some of them and posting them on YouTube and then of course up here.

This was from the first day of specifically planned shooting for the film. The plan was to film some driven Grouse moor, but I found a massive patch of fresh muir burn which was really very very fortuitous. The burn was masive and mis-shapen so looked like it had gotten otu of control, a scar on the hill but very useful for illustrating several points within the film. So, a bitter sweet discovery.

I subsequently made a few short experiments with that footage to help shape the tone and structure of the main dissertation film, most of them have already been shared here.

Colour Grading

Colour grading is the process is adjusting and modifying the colour of your videos image. whether it is simply rendering accurate colour, or establishing a look and tone through a colour palette. It is a crucial step of the process and once that should not be rushed.

The footage from the camera is often quite flat, slightly low in contrast and almost gray looking. Cameras often have picture profiles to counteract this, essentially do the grade for you in camera.

But then you lose all control of what the image looks like and you have less flexability in how much you can change the image once a picture profile has been applied. Thats where shooting as neutral and low contrast an image as possible is very important. Some Cameras can shot in what is called LOG video. This is essentially a form of picture profile that saves as wide a dynamic range as possible. So whilst LOG will give a very flat gray image, it holds more colour information than non-Log video. Thus giving you more freedom in the grade.

These stills are example of the before and after stages of this process, from LOG footage to the first step of a grade being applied. Sometimes that is enough, sometimes for a more cinematic and stylised colour pallette a LUT can then be applied.

A LUT (or Look Up Table) is essentially a preset that changes the colour for you, it is at its most crude, an instagram filter for editing platforms. At its best, it is a way of creating mood and tone through adjusting the bias of colour in different areas of the image.

How and teal should be exagerated in the shadow tones, and oranges and coppers in the midtone for example.I personally find that LUTS are sometimes seen as a magic bullet, when they are only another tool or step int he grading process. I do use them, but I feel that there needs to be a specific reason as to why a LUT is being used beyond “It looking good”.

In these still for example, I was try to bring out the colours of the muir burn, thus exagerasting the impact of the burn on the landscape. so shadows have more teal pushed through them and green puleld out and more yellows and orange tones in the mid ranges.

‘Cut heather burning for sake of the environment’

The argument that Muirburn has a positive environmental impact has always seemed like a flawed argument in my mind. The idea that burning the surface vegetation layer to promote new growth and return carbon into the ground doesn’t stack up against the evidence.
Peat holds a phenominal amount of carbon, it is a form of carbon storage that is often overlooked.  By burning or allowing it to erode, we release that stored carbon into both the atmosphere and the water table.
The fresh growth argument is also flawed as the growth is almost of a monoculture. The diversity in terms of flora and the animal species it supports is etremely limited due to the use of Muirburning. Plant types dont return to burnt ground at an even rate, certain plant types populate ground faster. The longer a moorland is allowed to self regulate, generally speaking, the more species will be found there. Trees take longer than heather for example, by burning the ground, any sapplings that are trying to establish them selfs are removed from the mix.
Burning the skin of the land is an illogical approach to protecting it, as it benefits few activities, all of them destructive in one sense or another.
The counter argument that well managed muirburn has been used by man to manage landscapes for thousands of years is another daft argument. They believed that a man could die of too much cleanliness only 300 years ago, just because a practice is a long standing one does not allow it to go unchallenge based on new evidence.
This is why we cant have nice things.

Heather burning on Scotland’s grouse moors may be causing serious damage to peatlands, rivers and wildlife, new research shows. The latest results from a five-year study suggest upland moor burning has a significant negative impact on the environment, causing important peat bogs to dry out, turning rivers more acidic and reducing the diversity of plants and animals able to survive in the habitat.

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Other effects include raised soil ­temperatures, an increased risk of flooding and higher silting of water courses. Muirburning, as it is known in Scotland, is a traditional land management technique believed to have been in use since Mesolithic times (about 12,000-3,000 BC). It is often carried out to promote new heather growth to boost grouse numbers for shooting. In some parts of the country, it is used to improve grazing and to prevent wildfires by restricting available fuel, and is occasionally used for conservation purposes.
Scientists from the University of Leeds involved in the Ember project assessed the impact of heather burning on upland peat moors across the English Pennines. Lead researcher Dr Lee Brown said: “Until now there was little evidence of the environmental impacts of moorland burning. “Unsurprisingly, a push away from moorland burning without solid scientific evidence to back up the need for change has created a lot of tension. “The findings from the Ember project now provide the necessary evidence to inform policy.” Researchers found the water table is significantly deeper where burning has taken place compared to unburned areas.
A lower level of saturation allows peat near the surface to dry out and degrade, releasing stored pollutants such as heavy metals into rivers and carbon into the atmosphere. Co-researcher Professor Joseph Holden said: “Altering the hydrology of peatlands so they become drier is known to cause significant losses of carbon from storage in the soil. “This is of great concern, as peatlands are the largest natural store for carbon on the land surface of the UK and play a crucial role in climate change. They are the Amazon of the UK.” Blanket bog covers around 23 per cent of land area north of the Border. Conservationists at the Scottish Wildlife Trust oppose muirburning on upland blanket bog.
Maggie Keegan, head of policy and planning at the charity, said:
“If you think that it takes 1,000 years to form a layer of peat one metre deep, should we really be burning it?”

Scottish Gamekeepers Association chairman Alex Hogg hit back at critics of land management on sporting estates, widely acknowledged to help conserve rare black grouse. “Rotational strip burning acts as a fire-break against wildfires, which scorch peat over large areas, releasing carbon into the atmosphere at a far more damaging rate than any controlled muirburn would,” he said. The muirburning season runs until 15 April from today.

This article was originally published on the Scotsmans website.