BMM MEETING 3 April 2025 – All you ever wanted to know about brooms and basic camera operations.

Club shoot - new thinking with an old broom.

Acting President Glenn opened the meeting opened 7.30pm with 13 members present. An apology was received from Hermann. 

Film bite:  Peter recorded his thoughts on the blockbuster four-part Netflix series Adolescence which has captured 66.3 million viewers. Peter said it promoted as much discussion about the making of the film as it did about the content which revolves around a 13 year old boy accused of murdering a girl from his school. He said the key aspect of making it was that each episode was just one shot. There was no shot list and no cuts in editing. Each episode was rehearsed in military like fashion over five days, rehearsed, choreography, blocked and camera angles selected. Then in next five days they would shoot two or three scenes a day and use the best take.  Sometimes the one-shot shoot was abandoned by events such as lights going out, and in one case, the cameraman walked into a wall. To shoot the series they used a DJI Ronin 4D 4-Axis Cinema 6K camera which is an all-in-one camera/gimbal (and currently sells for around $7,600). Peter commented that a lot could be learned about film making such as movement follow shot and close-up to allow the audience to immerse themselves in film making. There is quite a lot of information online about the series and the making of the series. Peter delivered his views in a video he made after watching the series, and appropriately did it in one shot. 

Club Facebook page - Following comments at previous meetings about the need to make the club’s presence felt more, Glenn said he was re-vitalising our Facebook page, firstly by updating the image on the page, and then by uploading a new post every week. A recent post focused on the Celtic Festival that club members shot but with the message that the club loves doing oral histories in the hope that it brings the club more attention and opportunities. 

End of Year video theme.  Glenn also announced that the end of year video project would be on the theme “Humans of Brisbane” – this is early notice so that we can give some thought to early planning to create exciting, talented and innovative productions.  

FIORDLAND – New Zealand’s Natural Wonderland - Paul showed a video he shot in Milford and Doubtful Sounds in New Zealand’s south island. The film which was just over eight minutes long was shot on iPhone14 pro with a DJI Osmo 6 gimbal.   

Broom challenge…. Glenn referred to the interclub project with the broad theme Broom. It’s no longer a competition project but an exhibition. The video can be up to six minutes long and in any genre. Glenn suggested we come up with some ideas so that we can shoot it at our next club meeting in two weeks’ time. Several ideas were put forward and the one selected was an environmental theme about the overuse and impacts of plastics and chocolate wrappers. The concept would be that we need to metaphorically and literally ‘sweep out’ the overuse of plastics and wrappers with the tag line “It’s time to renew our thinking”.  

Smoke and Mirrors David gave an update on progress for the exciting project which is hoped to be a worthy successor to Eleven Tomorrows. He said he was very encouraged by feedback from Professor Rose Woodcock-Tosaki, Senior Lecturer in Screen and Design, School of Communication and Creative Arts at Melbourne’s Deakin University who commented we need more films of this kind. David and others including club members have been working on the project for the past few months, especially research and concepts for the episodes. It’s about the big ideas… near future scenarios, future issues we feel strongly about.  It’s still very much a work in progress but David said there has been strong progress on research, episode ideas, meetings with potentially interested collaborators and table readings for various scripts plus he already had interest from a financial backer. David’s PowerPoint presentation will be emailed out to members separately.   

To wrap up the night, Nigel led a comprehensive practical demonstration and discussion of “the basics of camera operation” covering everything from setting up a tripod, focus, digital/optical zoom, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure triangle, frame rate, lenses for DSLR cameras, neutral density filters, white balance, modes and exposure valuations (EV). Very informative and very useful information. Nigel’s tips will also be emailed to members separately.  

The meeting wrapped up at 9.50pm  

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 17th April with another insightful film bite, scenic drone shoot review, 'Broom' shooting practice, and judging a movie using an old club movie.