studiot: finding footage - reimagining old freemans bay

first takes

initally we shot some 'old freemans bay' footage from locations close to the auckland viaduct.
we chose bays that we thought would have similar landscapes and characteristics of our screen/ concept location;

elements we saw in pre-1840's images include;

parcially embanked shelly beaches, a shoreline that tapers up to a parallel ridge, some grass by the water, a crescent shaped bay, vegetation, no obvious modern intrusions upon the landscape (like houses etc) and a lapping shore.

as we shot test footage we realised that there were too many modern features present in the contempory visual landscape around freemans bay and downtown auckland so we set about finding a setting to use as our reimagined version...

we realised that many islands in the hauraki gulf have similar shorelines, immediate ridges and shelly, embanked beaches. ... so we sailed off to scour the seaside for options...

islington bay

we found an excellent location at the end of islington bay to do our shooting. we nosed in as close as we could, to capture a decent scene but found that even on this calm day we would find too much rocking.

we decided to have a stationary vantage point for our shooting because we thought the wobbling of the camera would distract the audience and break continuity of our narative. ie if the scene is moving the window it is viewed through should too.

this is an issue that we could resolve with some servo's and well timed camera rocking (with the waves). this would be fun to add to the overall boat presentation structure but will not be feasible this time. $$$

we decided to go ashore to get a better shot...