Director: Jaxon Defa
DoP: Kevin Michael Martin
Editor: Jaxon Defa

The first official film I was Director of Photography on outside of film school came through collaboration with a skilled writer in the writing program from Vancouver film school. Divided was written and Directed by Jaxon Defa. This short film was a dialogue rich, covering various stages of a relationship.

Divided was filmed with a Panasonic DVX 100A mini DV camera. The crew consisted only of myself, a sound guy and the director. The script called for only a few locations mostly exterior with one of the exteriors on the Beach and a second at night at a bus stop. We wanted to run and gun, so this meant keeping everything light.

As a cinematographer I prefer to work in a minimalist fashion, while I love the use of expansive lighting packages, I like to work with available natural light whenever I can. Much of my work is done in documentaries, but as a cinematographer I feel that forcing light can be a detriment both viscerally and artistically. Of course the use of light and  higher ratios will be unique to each project.

Divided’s night scene called for two actors sitting side by side in a bus stop downtown. The scene is lit by a bright advertisement sign in the bus stop that illuminated enough to cover the principals. The beauty of the DVX 100A is the incredible picture quality shooting at low light (in particular from a distance) one of the reasons I used this camera. With a t-2.8 and a shutter of 1/30th the camera performed flawlessly with very minimal grain and deterioration of the blacks. There was even some detail in the blacks.

Another difficult scene on this production was the poignant climax on the beach that was driven by dialogue. The director and I wanted to go with a handheld feel to raise the dramatic tension of the scene. Being on the beach we had to walk carefully to avoid rocks, logs and other obstacles while maintaining natural blocking. Keeping the tension of the scene was important, I felt that crushing the two of them by keeping the camera close and a little rocky helped to achieve visual tension while blocking the actors was imperative as well.

Overall it was a fun project to collaborate on with Jaxon and the rest of the crew. Working on a dialogue heavy script can be difficult, the focus often falls on the actors and it is important they can handle the subtle nuances. Blocking becomes important for both the actors and camera movements so that the viewer can viscerally live the experience. This project certainly offered great opportunities to play with a dynamic relationship between camera, dialogue and actors. I am would love the opportunity to work on another piece that focuses on the power of well written and delivered dialogue.