USC School of cinematic arts and the SHOAH Foundation, founded by Steven Spielberg, hired Flare Media Group through ProductionHUB to manage a two week long production for one of the Dimensions in Testimony shoots in Ft Lauderdale, FL featuring two of the oldest living Holocaust survivors telling their incredible stories.
Multi-camera 3D stereoscopic video was used to create holographic images that will be shown as interactive educational media at holocaust documentation and education centers around the world for centuries to come.
Flare Media Group owner & operator Chris Cameron is an LA film school graduate with a major in video production, editing and directing for tv & cinema production. He is also certified on Apple computers and Avid Media Composer, now working exclusively in Adobe and Davinci software.
We spoke to Chris about the project in more detail.
Chris Cameron: The USC Shoah foundation called me from my ProductionHUB page one night while i was on a busy south Florida freeway dong 80 heading back to Tampa after a commercial I was shooting for a jet manufacturer at Fort Lauderdale International airport. I knew as soon as they mentioned what it was about I was in because just a few months earlier I stayed at the comfort suites right across the street from the holocaust documentation and education center in Fort Lauderdale for two weeks on another job and would stare out my hotel window every night after work as I pulled the curtains closed and see the museum sign and want to know more and maybe film it somehow.
Because of my intense holocaust education in film school I really appreciate survivors of that horrible tragedy and am in great awe over the positive mindset they all seem to have acquired from surviving it. I never told anyone about that but then I get this call asking me to do exactly what I was thinking about… There are times in life I think one really needs to be aware and see signs of perfectly aligned direction. This was one of those times for me so I said to myself, my crew and the Shoah foundation this job will get done by us whatever it takes. They liked the sound of that I guess because they hired us.
PH: Let's talk about Multi-camera 3D stereoscopic video. What is it and how long have you been working with this technology?
Chris Cameron: 3D stereoscopic video has been around for a while. It’s when two cameras are used side by side to see two slightly different angles of the same shot that will reveal in video a more realistic and immersive sense of depth that is closer to how we actually see in reality. There can be many shots or master angles all having two cameras each side by side. Although shooting stereoscopic with multi-cameras and timecode monitors is newer to my work flow the Shoah film team had it down to a science and after a few days of their specific equipment training my crew and I had it down pretty well when it came to tearing down and setting back up and the intense DIT work needed while shooting.
PH: How do you approach telling a story like this one? What does the pre-production process look like?
Chris Cameron: The USC Shoah foundation was founded by Steven Spielberg so they are pretty good and pre production for filmmaking projects... They handled all the pre-pro with questions they have researched and tested for years to be the most common questions asked by children and adults when speaking with survivors. Since this project is destined for educational purposes and museums its important to make sure all the questions are what will also be generally asked in the future along with the more personal questions that are survivor specific.
Since every survivor has their own experiences and memories it’s good to have a lot of researched control questions that get right to the heart of the matter on every level for best understanding by future listeners. The Shoah foundation has the most amazingly talented interviewers I have ever met anywhere! They flew in their select interviewers for the 2000 questions that were to be asked over two weeks and I couldn’t have been more thankful they did because even with my experience I could have never been as good as they were.
PH: Did you encounter any challenges? What were they and how did you resolve them?
Chris Cameron: The Shoah foundation has built a custom equipment set for these productions and as such have minimized and filtered out most of the potential problems and challenges that can arise like cameras or monitors overheating from such long shooting periods or from timecode possibly slipping on one or more devices. The Shoah team has obviously done hundreds of these and it showed in the custom tailored equipment and training they gave us on this project. It was a real pleasure not having to do it all from scratch with such a great team along side us!
PH: How important is interactive educational media? How do you think this will continue to grow?
Chris Cameron: Interactive educational media is one a medium for heuristic learning when students follow their interests and try to find the answers to the questions they have on their own. Such an approach to learning has proved to be effective, and contemporary technologies give many new attractive opportunities to develop this approach. Right now, educational media utilizes various accessible interactive technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, AI, digital interactive maps, and others. I think it will continue to grow by developing new educational resources for different areas, subjects, goals and age groups. At the same time, educators and researchers are reflecting on how using interactive educational media affects students to find better ways to introduce them into the learning process.
PH: What other projects are you working on this year?
Chris Cameron: This year Flare Media Group is continuing to drive forward with producing promotional content for business, people, products and events. We are getting more into longer forms like documentary and narrative plus master class style educational courses. We are happily working as part of bigger teams more often now for major brands which we have always known and loved! We have had a windfall of work for the past few years partly in thanks to the Productionhub platform. Clients like GE, NatGeo, Discovery, ESPN, Coast Guard, Embraer Aviation and more are now all able to see that we exist and are here with modern, cost effective pro video production and marketing solutions.
PH: Can you share a bit more about Flare Media Group? Where can we keep up with you or get in touch with you?
Chris Cameron: Flare Media Group is one of the most appreciative and caring companies you will ever meet. There isn’t a day that goes by that we aren’t thankful for the jobs we are chosen to work on and the people we meet and learn about as we continue to perfect our craft and be just one of the best. Please visit us at FlareMediaGroup.com or any major social network to follow our video adventures around Florida and beyond.
For more info visit https://sfi.usc.edu/.
About Flare Media Group
Flare Media Group is a professional and powerfully efficient boutique style Tampa video production company with studio partners from St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Tampa to West Palm, Miami and beyond. We specialize in modern electronically enhanced traditional film and video production as well as aerial photography and frame accurate broadcast quality video editing for web, tv and cinema.
Whether you just need a one man band cinematographer and editor or a full crew we've got you covered with our pro network of local freelancers. When it comes to high quality & cost effective bang for your buck, we are hands down the best video production company Tampa to Miami has to offer! Flare Media Group is fully-licensed and insured as a Florida corporation.
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