The UBC fair trade committee is made up of a number of students and staff who advocate fair trade and wish to promote it across campus. UBC Food Services is very much committed to fair trade and this year invited me to cover the committee’s main event: a marching flash mob.
The week before the flash mob, I opted to shoot some behind the scenes footage for them and put together a short promo film that they could share with friends and hype up the event the weekend before. I joined them in the planning meeting as well as the rehearsal.
Two of the lead organizers, Rosalind and Quinn, were happy to provide some interviews on camera and this helped to drive the narrative of the promo. Audio was captured via Zoom H1 mounted to a small tripod directly in front of and below the speaker and synced up in post. On the visual side I turned again to my trusty Leica Summilux 25mm f1.4 for coverage. This is fast becoming my favorite interview lens. The 50mm effective focal length on the GH2 is both natural and flattering and the backgrounds simply melt away at f1.4. Lovely, lovely lens.
My one and only complaint about this Leica is the manual focusing. While the focus ring is exceedingly smooth and friction free, the distance it takes to turn from near to far is exceedingly long and makes rack focusing more tiresome. This is mostly a result of Panasonic’s focus-by-wire design where the focus ring is really a digital controller and not an actual mechanical device. Not really a fault of the Leica, but I wish it wasn’t there.
For stabilization I turned to my beloved Manfrotto 561 BHDV-1 monopod. This is probably my favorite tool for fast set up and all round use in unpredictable situations.
It was a pleasure to shoot with this set of gear and even more fun to watch the committee members learn the lyrics and dance moves. All in the spirit of fair trade.
Flash mob coverage to follow shortly.
Sam