Click Clack Click

A tricky nightshoot in Invercargill, a dancing mayor and seven ‘generations’ of digital media students… Production manager** Ruby Cumming**, director of photography Ben Ruffell and key grip Joshua Dunn reflect on the making of the short film Click Clack Click.

Ruby Cumming

When I heard that Brett Mills had described the short film we planned to make as 'too ambitious,' I don’t think I was the only one in our team who took that statement as encouragement to rise to the challenge.

If I cast my mind back to one morning in 2012, I can remember my classmate James Wilkinson pitching his idea for a short film where a ballerina dances along Esk Street, Invercargill. We were in class with the other digital media students, pitching ideas for our final third-year film projects. Our tutor Andy Mosse encouraged James to look for an alternative film idea but to also continue to develop the script. As discouraged as James was with having to shelve his idea, this turned out to be a blessing. Two years on, the film has just been shot. As I write this, our editor Matt Inns is hard at work on the project. Our experience, networks, and resources have increased significantly since I first heard James pitch Click Clack Click and this has meant that our rushes are much more beautiful than we could have hoped for if we had shot the film then. So, thank you Andy!

Brett was absolutely right – we were ambitious. Nightshoots can be tricky, and shooting on the main street of Invercargill requires a lot of planning and preparation. Road closures, complicated lighting set-ups, scheduling the film around three public holidays and of course relying on the unpredictable Southland weather. We definitely had a few challenges to overcome. Fortunately, working in our favour was the continuing support from Invercargill locals and the Queenstown filmmaking community. It was great to have AD Hannah McKenzie work with us in the production office. Jaimee Poipoi (the producer) and I enjoyed working with her and learned a lot.

The Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) has always been supportive of local film projects and came on board early to give their support to James. The Invercargill Licensing Trust and the Invercargill City Council provided additional support and even local Mayor Tim Shadbolt couldn’t resist bringing his Dancing with the Stars dance experience to set and had a wee dance with lead actress/dancer Amy Hutton.

Along with a great crew of 35, we also had our own ‘prince charming’ fresh from Tokyo Disneyland, being lead actor/dancer Nicholas Beckwith. We had two great local ballet teachers and four amazing locations, Pagani, McKnight and Brown, Goody Two Shoes, and Little India Restaurant. We also had two Red Epic cameras, one Alexa, and one MoVI camera rig at our hands. We were incredibly fortunate and are grateful to everyone who helped.

Ben Ruffell

I was drawn to this short film due to the wonderful script. It was very elegant, and I knew that I could generate some wonderful visual imagery to complement the director’s vision. Three nights of night shoots… in Invercargill… for no money… not to be considered lightly. However, the director James Wilkinson and the whole production team were so organized. With their level of commitment, I decided to invest my time and equipment into the project. The production team must have done something right, because several other Queenstown technicians decided to help out as well. Brett Mills with his lighting truck, generator, and an Arri Alexa kit. Key grip Joshua Dunn came on board with his Panther Dolly. Raj Patel kindly came along as 1st AC. Additionally, I was spoiled for choice with three fantastic gaffers Joe Bollinger, Max Catterick, and Jamie Cooper. I brought along a couple of my Red Epic cameras, MoVI M10, and Cooke Mini S4i lenses.

The film has three distinct acts. I decided to shoot with three very different looks. To achieve this, I shot the reality scenes on the Arri Alexa with Zeiss Super Speeds. By controlling the camera movement and using lighting techniques, I was able to visually define the early parts of the film. For the fantasy sequence, I wanted a radical transformation. The lighting was very different, and I decided to swap cameras to the Epic with Cooke lenses on the MoVI M10. Changing cameras for a look is a bit of a luxury, but I like to think of it as changing film stock. It was the simplest way to have a very obvious image shift, and the Epic in the MoVI M10 gave us unprecedented camera movement.

Joshua Dunn

Why did we use the MoVI on Click Clack Click? Ben wanted to be able to move around the dancers in the fantasy sequence, going from low to high and amongst the street furniture and bollards. The Steadicam was limited to deciding between shooting low or high in separate takes, Ben wanted long smooth takes that interlinked perfectly with the dolly shots that were being shot at the same time – the MoVI was perfect for this. I held the MoVI and moved the rig around the dancers trying to hold a certain distance each time, and memorized the dance-off playback, enabling me to guess where they were going to end up on the sometimes rapid dance moves. Ben finessed the final frame using the remote for the MoVI, everything was wireless so I had no cables to trip over and Raj Patel – the focus puller – used a lightweight Axis one follow focus to keep it all sharp. We got some incredible footage of the dancers close-up, and then threw a ladder on the roof of a ute to get a nice high shot of the whole dance for wide cutaways. Due to the weight and portability of the MoVI, this transition from moving to static high shots was a few minutes. I literally just climbed the ladder and sat down on the top holding the rig while Ben operated remotely. Having the MoVI allowed us to get a completely different look for the transition from reality to fantasy on a limited budget with time constraints.