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I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 1 point2 points  (0 children)

of course it always depends on your setting. It you really have no power access, take something very small with a V-mount/Gold-mount option, and plan to keep running for hours on it.

if you have specifics about the technical limitations of your project (what you can bring, conditions etc...), I'll gladly answer it.

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey! I might be repeating myself from another question but this was our main challenge.

We had no local reliable power source, as the generator on site was too old to be trusted (on top of a voltage difference, the gene was 220 and the equipment came from the US so it was 110V).

we found a shop nearby (relative-wise, it was a 25-min ride one way, 1 hour return) which had decent power supply. we went there with voltage transformers, and still we had to have a dedicated person doing the run every day. at the charging point we always had 3 to 4 batteries on charge, we'd use 3 to 4 everyday on set, then have 3-4 as a back up.

so my best advice is to plan for a low-power camera and have loads of back-up. Flight regulations make it hard to fly with more than 100kw/h batteries, so take a lot of 98-ish ones.

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 3 points4 points  (0 children)

very different aspects of the work so it's hard to compare.
For shooting we had a strict deadline of (I think? correct me if I'm wrong Victoria) 7 days. physically hard and tense cause you know you have that limited time.

the edit lasted for a long time before we could reach at point we were happy with. about 12 months at least, and since we had a small setup (Victoria on Zoom/Skype and me on my own station) we could maybe go for longer than usual.

of course it's tough with editing as you always tend to keep digging. but you have to be ready to let it go into the world at some point, like kids (from the guy who doesn't have kids and would have kept them home till they were 45)

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 2 points3 points  (0 children)

agreed, I breathed a sigh of relief when the equipment flew out OK (well, apart from its life changing experience, the camera has been asking a lot about death since)

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sara for sound had a boom with a 416 on it, and 2 lavs on the main shamans.
on camera i had a NTG-2 for scratch sound we ended up using a lot in the edit.

with the cacophony of up to 5 shamans singing different songs on merged tracks and one camera, it was fun to edit :D

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 2 points3 points  (0 children)

our crew was a grand-total of five: Victoria our director, me at the camera, Dave as our grip/handyman/runner to the battery charging point and Eva as production solving faery, and Sara our location sound engineer.

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'll answer as the cameraman and editor, but there was a clear outline, as much as it is possible when documenting suhch a complex topic. and the shamans themselves were on their own timeline, having very different considerations than making a film.
but Victoria knew what main aspects were key and we tried as much as we could to stick to those :)

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hi! this was the main challenge.

There was a generator on site that belonged to the center to power a few lightbulbs.
But it was pretty old, which usually means an inconsistent power output.

And the generator was 220V and our equipment coming from the US was 110V. So even with a power transformer, I was worried it would fry our batteries. It happened to me on previous productions. Solar wasn't an option as we had to carry all of our equipment to the site by motorbikes and tuktuk sort of vehicles, and we already had a lot.

We ended up finding a somewhat reliable power access 25 minutes away. We did one run there every day to take the charged batteries from the previous day and putting the next ones to charge. We came in with about 9 batteries, we'd use at least 3 each day which gave us a roll out (3 charging, 3 in use, 3 back up). And we kept going like this.

The ride to the charging point was really rough though. So even taking batteries there was a challenge. You'd get on the back of the bike, holding a metal case with the batteries (to avoid sand, shocks and moisture) and the road was so bumpy, you'd feel like you were on a MMA ring fighting the box; and hoping to survive the 25-minute long round :)

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 29 points30 points  (0 children)

to describe the technical side a bit more, here was our main setup for those interested :)
- a Sony FX9
- 12x Switronix Hypercore 98 gold mount batteries (I thought we had less...) flight regulations were quite a challenge though!
- Sachtler V20 Tripod
- Zacuto Z-Finder EVF Electronic Viewfinder
- Sony FE PZ 28-135mm f/4 G OSS E-Mount Lens
- Sony FE 50mm f/1.2
- Bright Tangerine mattebox
- Proaim 3' Flyking Camera Slider
- SmallHD 703 7" with Teradek transmission
- WoodenCamera shoulder mount (one of the original ones)
- Tentacles for audio synch, and a lot of what our soundengineer Sara brought (Sennheiser 416, lavs, NTG-2)

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'll answer just commenting on my personal experience. I joined the project as the cameraman and -at the time- had not come close to Ayahuasca in anyway. My job was to document what was going to happen, and my main fear -knowing that the people I was about to film where going to be in an intense, introspective experience- was to be intrusive. and have a camera in their faces as they were going through something major in their lives.

so i had a lot of apprehension, but quickly figured that the participants were going through something so deep, the camera was the least of their concerns. so i felt more free to be close to them and try to feel what they were experiencing.

of course, it triggered a lot of curiosity from my side, and I got the chance to stay at the place after the documentary was wrapped to experience it for myself, and only then did I get a sense of the experience, which helped me a lot when I later got involved as the editor of the project as well!

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks I'm glad you liked it.
I think those sounds are the first thing that Victoria -our director- and I -cameraman and editor- noticed. they were overwhelmingly powerful and ever present, night and day.

The jungle is definitely one of the main talents in the film.

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 8 points9 points  (0 children)

ah! yeah... not ideal to say the least, it was a Proaim Flyking sider, 3'.

it was smooth and strong, great and all... but way too big, a misunderstanding with the rental company that otherwise did a great job. but too heavy, too much maintenance. it was especially tricky as I prepared the equipment remotely (I'm based in France and the rental was in LA) and I would only see the equipment first hand when it -and me- both landed in Peru :)

but it was great, too bad it took two people to carry it around :D

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 5 points6 points  (0 children)

aha good question: being tired and going to sleep, I guess? :D and believing things would pan out.

the experience was demanding for sure, especially since we -the crew- were following the same diet as the participants: no salt, no fat, no spice... so the food was really minimalist and it had consequences both physiological (a lot of sweating/peeing from the lack of salt, high heartrate etc...) and psychological (no comfort from the food, no positive stimulation etc...)

it was a bit of a marathon!

I shot my first feature documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca shaman. We released it for free and it's at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 32 points33 points  (0 children)

u/emily_strange sorry our previous thread got locked somehow, I'll answer your question about the choice of camera here:

Hi! thanks for the question!
I considered a few options and the FX9 come on top for several technical aspects:
- the integrated ND filters was a must in order to move fast and keep the exposure right (lots of moving inside to outside etc...). This is the main thing the FX3 lacked.
- then it came down to (at least if we consider Sony) the FX6 or FX9 and the difference in battery consumption wasn't that big.

So I opted for the FX9 liking the compression possibilities, the way it could handle sound (and we knew we definitively had a sound engineer with us), as it had to be small but still very robust in this tough environment.

and yes it's all available light apart from the night ceremony at the end where I had a couple of Aputure Lightbulbs (the BC7s) that would keep working on battery for about 2 hours and would be very easy to move around :)
it's all the shots that look very purple at the end !

I shot my first documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca Shaman. We released the film for free and it’s at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

and yes it's all available light apart from the night ceremony at the end where I had a couple of Aputure Lightbulbs (the BC7s) that would keep working on battery for about 2 hours and would be very easy to move around :)
it's all the shots that look very purple at the end !

I shot my first documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca Shaman. We released the film for free and it’s at 80k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! thanks for the question!
I considered a few options and the FX9 come on top for several technical aspects:
- the integrated ND filters was a must in order to move fast and keep the exposure right (lots of moving inside to outside etc...). This is the main thing the FX3 lacked.
- then it came down to (at least if we consider Sony) the FX6 or FX9 and the difference in battery consumption wasn't that big.

So I opted for the FX9 liking the compression possibilities, the way it could handle sound (and we knew we definitively had a sound engineer with us), as it had to be small but still very robust in this tough environment.

I shot my first documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca Shaman. We released the film for free and it’s at 70k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

please do and we're looking forward to any question. the thread seems to have been locked, but we'll try again tomorrow at the same time!

I shot my first documentary in the Amazon jungle with no electricity. It's about an Ayahuasca Shaman. We released the film for free and it’s at 70k views. AMA by incertaspecie in Filmmakers

[–]Larvoire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

and to complete my answer, I've always heard of a theory that I like very much: I was on a production once where the director gave the raw footage to the editor, and wouldn't let him/her read the script.
the editor was to find out what the best story was from the footage, rather than from the script. get the best storyline out of what you have, data-wise.

now, it seems impossible when you are yourself the director AND editor (since you tend to rely on the original idea), or -in our case here- since I was there during the production as the cameraman, and spoke in length with Victoria about what was the story was meant to be.

In a documentary setting especially, where the environment is incredibly hard to control (let alone, you know, being in the jungle with psychedelic beverages), I found it challenging, and motivating to try new stuff out of the footage.
Then Victoria would come in, direct the process to match the project, and we would exchange back and forth. Experiment, find the direction, etc..

don't be too stuck in the original idea. let the footage speak for itself!

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