Filmmaking for Sight Loss: Creative Camera Techniques & Accessibility

[00:04:56]All right.

[00:04:59]Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the Pervasive Media Studio lunchtime talk. These talks are live every Friday at 1 p.m. both here in the building and live online. Hi, if you're watching us online. Uh, so whether you're in Bristol or you're far away, you can join in the conversation. My name is Martin Olri.

[00:05:13]I'm the head of studio here. I'm a white man in my 40s, long hair and a beard, wearing a quite cozy red jumper today.

[00:05:20]Uh, every Friday we throw open the doors of the Pervasive Media Studio for Open Studio Friday, where we offer uh you the chance to spend some time in our space by hot desking alongside our residents and staff from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

[00:05:32]Especially big welcome to anyone who's new to the studio. Can anyone who's new to the studio put your hand up? Yeah, quite a lot today. Welcome. Uh, this bit is for you. What is the Pervasive Media Studio? We're a diverse and collaborative community exploring creativity and technology. Everything from comedy to coding and product development to performance art. And we're a partnership between Watershed, where we are right now, UEI Bristol, and the University of Bristol. And we're funded by Arts Council England, and by generous donations from members of the public just like yourselves. Uh we offer studio space, including desks, meeting rooms, events, and opportunities, all for free to our residents as part of a spirit of generosity and mutual exchange. And most of all, we're a space for people to take risks with embriionic ideas and to make some time for collaboration. So, just a few notes before we begin. Please do feel feel free to move around. Um, fairly relaxed here. There's a kitchen back there.

[00:06:25]You're welcome to make a cup of tea or coffee or grab a glass of water. Um, if you need to take a break at any point, uh, there is a quiet space just next to this space. So, to my left, that's your right. Around the corner there, there is a little room with some sofas and bean bags and things. It's pretty well soundproofed. Not perfectly soundproofed, but fairly well soundproofed. So, if you need to pop in there and, you know, take a moment, feel free. Um, we're not expecting a fire drill today. If you hear a fire alarm, that is probably real. So, uh, the the studio team will direct you to the fire exits, but in any event, they are at the other end of the studio. Again, my left, your right, on either end, but uh, should we need them, we will direct you towards them. And then there are accessible toilets including baby change over there in the corridor just next to the kitchen. Um there'll be a Q&A at the end of this talk. Uh those of you who are watching online, please pop your questions into the YouTube chat. Laim is here. He will be your voice in the room today. Uh if you're in the building, please raise your hand and we'll send around a microphone so the folks at home can hear what you're saying. You can get news on all of our future talks by heading to watershed.co.ukstudio at prevasive media studio atmasterdon.social social on Masteredon, appmstudio.bsky.social on blue sky or at sub media studio on Instagram. All right, our speaker for today is Ruben Armstrong. Ruben is a video design director and studio resident. His new documentary, An Exercise in Perspective, follows blind runner and punk frontman Phil Harrison, who's also here with us today, as he trains for his first London marathon.

[00:07:57]Today, Ruben's going to break down how his eclectic creative approach rooted in animation design and a love of unorthodox visual techniques led to the film's immersive bespoke camera setups that let us see the world from Phil's perspective. So, please join me in giving a very warm welcome to Reuben.

[00:08:16]Thank you, Martin. Thank you. Um, so I'm a tall white man with dark hair and a beard, wearing a white t-shirt, black trousers, and a gray shirt. It always feels a bit weird doing those, but we do them every week uh in the studio and it's an accessibility thing. So that's that's my visual ID for people who can't see me who might be listening to the talk rather than watching it. And it's particularly relevant today because um we'll be showing a a film talking about a film which is all about sight loss about one man's journey with his sight loss. And so um yeah, to start I will describe what's on the screen. So I've got a a poster frame from the film here.

[00:08:53]Here it says an exercise in perspective at the top. That's the name of the film.

[00:08:57]And we've got 21 circles with uh images from the film which I won't describe all now because they'll become clear through the talk. And at the bottom we have some braille which is completely useless in this form because you can't touch the screen. Um but um this whole talk is really going to be an exercise in accessibility as well and sort of exploring that. And um yeah, the braille makes sense when it's printed out, but we sort of thought we'd leave it there because if you're cited, it still gives you a hint at what it's about. So yeah, it's uh it's all up for debate. And yeah, that's sort of what we've learned is accessibility is not really something that you just sort of tick off and solve. It's a sort of constant journey that you've got to sort of think about along the way. So bear with me if I put my foot in it. Um, so yeah, as Martin introduced me really well, I'm Reuben. Um, I'm a video design director and I run a company called Reuben and Co. Um, it's a sort ofworked hybrid company of lots of different freelancers. It's more like a kind of collective, a network. I've got a kind of spider diagram here pointing at all types of people who we work with from illustrators to producers, coders, animators, editors, sound designers, camera operators. And so we build a bespoke team for each job. Um, and so, uh, yeah, this this job's no different really. We're sort of pulling people in who can help us. The sort of work we like to make is a kind of ven diagram between documentary and animation. Um, that's sort of the sweet spot. I trained as an animator and I've always loved documentaries and so over the years it's sort of ended up being that sort of work. And on the right, I've got some clips of a show reel, some of our previous work for clients such as uh the BBC or Channel 4 or lots of different production companies and design agencies. And the kind of uh visuals you see in our show real looking back, they're very there's lots of textures.

[00:10:52]Um we sort of think about documentary animation like authenticity and the aesthetics. And so documentary doesn't have to just look like the news, you know, it doesn't just have to be kind of very simple. um you know uh local news broadcast kind of style. It can be textured, it can be artistic, can be creative. So here you can see blueprints and code and um schematics and chalky dust and grit and d dirt and all that sort of thing. We love playing with all of that sort of uh texture and and leaning into the sort of authenticity of uh of analog stuff. And I I've been for ages like rubbing my fingers together and being like, "Oh, texture. Yeah, I really like texture. You know, texture."

[00:11:36]And I didn't really know how to describe this until recently I found this film uh it's a it's a kind of YouTube essay, if you like, um about uh it's got a bit of a clickbait title, why movies just don't feel real anymore, but there's really nice uh analysis of films in here. And they they come up with this phrase called haptic visuality, which I really liked. And it's basically the idea that through use of your cinematography and your visuals, you can evoke some of the other senses. So maybe you use your eyes to feel a sensation of touch, whether it's temperature or wind or uh the elements or material or roughness. And um yeah, I really like this idea. And so maybe that's what we were trying to do.

[00:12:20]I'm not sure. Bit postrationalized, but um I just really liked it.

[00:12:24]So over the years as well as doing client work, we've done lots of these originals if you like uh where we've rather than waiting for someone to come to us and say can you make us a film about X or Y, we've sort of sourced the stories and found the stories and then work back from there and thought how can we bring this story to life. So I've got four projects on here. Um there's the Brighton Cop which is a film about Liverpool fans who gather in a pub and seeing at the telly despite them being 270 miles away from Liverpool they kind of recreate the stadium atmosphere. um a North London signage company make these really lovely light bulb letters. Uh this one's about the the um the Cuban missile crisis. So it's lots of super eight texture and a old uh home family footage from the 60s. And then this fourth project here, Grounded on the Pier, uh is a documentary about an elderly community who uh are on the aisle of man and they decided to take over their uh abandoned Victorian pier that was 130 years old and repair it.

[00:13:23]And so that film's got loads of schematics and the textures of a kind of seab battered windswept town with the wood of the pier and the rusty steel.

[00:13:34]Um, and so yeah, I think that kind of texture idea actually does come through.

[00:13:38]It's always in the back of our mind really. So the film we're going to be talking about today is our latest original, if you like, originated piece of content. Oh, or we call that amplifying change makers. So yeah, that's one thing I was going to say say is that they're not um they're not dispatches films where we've blown open some conspiracy, some some uh terrible thing that's happened. They're all optimistic and and that we like to think of what we do is we're trying to give ourselves and the audience a little bit of hope in this world which is the sort of thing it feels like we need at the start of 2026.

[00:14:14]Um so our new story here is about Phil.

[00:14:18]Phil is here today and um I've got two pictures here of Phil. One of him with a a white stick and one with him with a mic stand. uh both with big dark sunglasses and so Phil is visually impaired and also the frontman of punk band Social Security and um Phil's actually my father-in-law so I've known him for years and so um on documentary you always need to kind of gain access and trust to be able to tell a story and so we had a bit of a shortcut with this one because immediately you know we knew each other really well um but you could say that also added a layer of pressure and so Phil said I'm going going to run the London Marathon. And um I thought, "Oh, okay. Yeah, this is interesting."

[00:15:01]He said, "I want to run I want to run for the RNIB and raise money for the UK's sight loss charity. Can you help me make a film?" And uh and I thought, "Yes, this is great. He's this is a good character. I'd like to have a go at this." Um so, um yeah, the London Marathon 2026, April is when it starts. So he asked us last year and you have to raise a certain amount of money to be able to have your place guaranteed by the charity. So we've got a kind of target I think it's 2,500 pound we have to try and hit in terms of fundraising. That's the sort of ambition. Um and so for this one rather than having a client like uh you know like a organization or a charity or a brand our client here is Phil and so uh you know our primary audience people who might donate. Then we're thinking about okay what's the potential release? How could we amplify this? if we're about amplifying it, how you know, how can we spread the word as far as possible? So, we thought, well, maybe we make the film and then send it to the RNB and London Marathon and see if we can we can almost like reverse the engine, reverse engineer a client project.

[00:16:04]So, we always ask ourselves this at the beginning. Um, why do we want this film to exist? Um, obviously, it's raising money for a great cause. And one of the things that I find immediately interesting about Phil's story is, you know, his eyesight isn't completely pitch black and his he's got two different stories, as you'll find out in the film, for each of his eyes. And it's a story that takes place over, you know, his eyesight's changed over time. And I think that's really interesting because I think a lot of people just think if you're blind, you can't see anything and if you're cited, you can see, but there's such a degree of visual impairments, a real spectrum. Um I've got some images on here on screen of uh they're from the Perkin School of the Blind of various different visual impairments. So it's um it says glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts, acromopsia, cortical cerebral visual impairment. I don't know what any of these mean on a medical level, but it's got these visual uh circles that kind of depict different um different visual impairments. Um, so yeah, I thought that was really interesting straight away because as a very visual person myself and the work we do is about trying to use the visual to try and give people a sensation of of of what something's like or what actually this is something this is an area we could really help and so ultimately we want to inspire people to reflect. So perhaps cited folks who haven't considered what it might be like to live with a visual impairment that's sort of what we're trying to do with this film.

[00:17:30]So the challenges, you know, what are the pitfalls trying to think up think of this at the beginning of the project?

[00:17:35]Well, Phil's eyesight has uh is a 50-year story and we want to tell it tell it in a really short form uh way.

[00:17:42]And so one of the ways we do this in all documentaries is we we allow people to tell their story in their own words. So we try not to have a narrator. We do a long form interview for in this case about two and a half hours talking about the whole story and we use all of those words to then try and edit it into a into a succinct narrative.

[00:18:02]Um, and another challenge, you know, we really didn't want this to be like a, you know, one of those comic relief films that's just a bit like sad and pulling on the heartstrings and sort of um, you know, a sob story. Like that's not Phil's personality. That's not the story that we've been following. So, we wanted to try and find a way of balancing, you know, hardship and optimism and and ultimately leaving space for Phil to be himself. And then ultimately, as as I sort of mentioned at the top, accessibility here is a challenge. Um, you know, knowing that Phil won't necessarily see everything that we've created in the film. Um, and that was a really interesting thing as a starting point as a filmmaker. We're so used to creating audiovisisual content to to say, "Oh, actually, we've got to we've got to make sure it works as audio only was a really useful discipline." um which we hadn't had before.

[00:18:52]And then on top of that, we kind of added some self-imposed challenges being an originated piece. So where we're sort of in control of, we we had sort of certain things that we wanted to get out of it for ourselves. So we wanted to experiment and learn and try some techniques that we hadn't done before.

[00:19:08]Shoot this in a way that that wasn't using things we previously done. Push ourselves a little bit. Ultimately be weird um for a reason though. So try and think about okay how can we try some new techniques but for a for a purpose to help tell a story.

[00:19:25]So we've got this if you haven't worked out by now I like ven diagrams. Um here's another one. Um so here we've got the three ven diagrams of sight loss running and punk. And um really it's like often we think about when we make trying to find characters or or documentary subjects um if you've got kind of two layers that's quite interesting but if you've got three layers that's really interesting and so we sort of started thinking about this story as having these three uh circles if you like that could be three parts three layers that can kind of build up through the story.

[00:20:00]So the first thing that we do on most projects really is uh is do a mood board. So, all of these images here are found images online. Um, us trying to work out what should be the visual look and feel of this film. And so, we've got uh kind of punk photocopied posters with ripped up letters. We've got photographs in black and white of Phil uh gigging with his band. We've got mug shots of people like David Bowie and Sid Vicious.

[00:20:28]Um, we've got graffiti. We've got feet running through mud, splattering mud everywhere. Uh, and we're looking at this kind of high viz color, a kind of highlighter yellow, uh, which matches some of the kind of punk poster aesthetic, but also the high viz vest uh, of blind runner and a guide runner.

[00:20:49]And so immediately we start to get a sense of of what we want this film to feel like. Um, so this is where we started and you can kind of when you see the film see if we got near that.

[00:21:01]So, we got really attached to this image here, which was the bottom of a trainer running through a muddy puddle splattering everywhere. It feels kind of a kind of anarchctic kind of punk version of running, right? We quite like this. Um, but it also felt a bit crisp and uh to give that idea of sight loss, we looked at a few images of kind of more long exposure photography. So, if you uh have a longer shutter speed, you will reveal more motion blur. We've got a diagram here that shows a sharp short shutter speed will give you a crisp hard image and of someone in action and a slower shutter speed will give you more blur. So we started trying to think okay how can we push this this uh slow shutter speed to make the most of of this energy and uh we tried various different cameras and actually yeah we didn't want to hire a big camera and then put it in the mud. We're kind of worried about that. So, we thought, hold on, what about if we could try small cameras? We tried a GoPro and actually the that's got a really limit on it on its shutter speed. You can't really get really slow shutter speeds. We tried a phone um and you can't do it usually through the the iPhone app, but if you download this app called Blackmagic, uh you can basically hack into your iPhone camera settings and it does a lot more than you think it does. So, in here, we're able to lock the shutter speed at 12th of a of a second. So that means you let in light for a 12th of a second. So you will start to see a nice little bit of motion blur and um on that you can you can then shoot at 12 frames per second which is like animation world animating on twos.

[00:22:38]And so suddenly we thought okay this is quite interesting interesting um look and feel and and ultimately using a small camera like this we can put it in interesting places.

[00:22:49]So um yeah this is a moment of weakness really. This is the only time I've used AI in the project where I broke and I asked chat GPT. Has a documentary filmmaker ever mounted a camera on a blind man's white stick or walking aid?

[00:23:02]And chat GPT because it loves to like fluff us up and tell us all we're really great. Said, "No mainstream documentary has ever used a K-mounted camera, but the idea is conceptually rich and could be powerful used in the right artistic or documentary context. If you're thinking of pursuing this as a project or concept, it would be quite original and potentially impactful." So yeah, it gave me a pat on the back. Obviously, it was bollocks because this is uh this is actually just not true. I immediately found a film where someone had mounted a camera on a white stick. Um this guy Juan Alkazar, who is visually impaired himself, had mounted a GoPro on his stick and filmed it for this short film, which was quite interesting. And it it starts to show the sweeping motion as as he walks. um you know to use a white stick your train to to have a rhythm with your walking patterns and and so you can see um sense what's coming and uh so I watched this and thought okay yeah we can go a little bit one better so here is uh some of the shots the first shots we filmed with Phil with a camera mounted to the white cane and we've got a real fisheye perspective here so it really distorts the the frame but gives you more from an extremely close camera. Um, so on the left we've got the camera pointing up the stick back towards Phil and on the right we've got the camera pointing down towards the ground. And um in black and white with a slow shutter speed. I think it does actually look quite dynamic. Quite enjoyed it. And one of the things that we really liked is when the white cane comes along uh the road. We've I've got a note here to remind me that this is called tactile paving. When you get to a zebra crossing, those little bobbles on the side of the road uh make you aware you're coming to a zebra crossing. And so the camera jutdders more as you get there. And we just really liked that.

[00:24:42]Suddenly you as a viewer feel like you're getting a sensation of of how Phil is physically experiencing the world. So we got really carried away with this and started attaching the camera to everything.

[00:24:54]So So this is in the kitchen. We've got the camera attached to a knife as Phil cuts a carrot. Um we've got a attached to a wooden spoon stirring in a pot. We could even put the phone at the bottom of a pan or here attached attach it to the fridge door. And again, I think you start to get a sensation of that physicality because you can sense the the camera's movement and the jutdder how the sort of snap as the knife goes through the carrot and cuts into and hits the chopping board or the sort of friction as the wooden spoon pushes against the vegetables in the pan. It's sort of, you know, we quite like the fact that the camera it he Phil's in control of the camera. we've just attached it and then and then we go and quite liked what that was doing.

[00:25:38]So within the context of running, we tried loads of different ways of trying to shoot Phil's running and um this is what we settled on. It's a waistmounted selfie stick which is pretty weird thing to wear. Um but ultimately um you you get this great shot that we're really pleased with. Um, if we'd run backwards away from Phil, we would have got the jutdder of the camera as we take steps.

[00:26:03]But here, it's connected to him, so the motion blur is in sync with his running.

[00:26:09]And if ultimately we'd gone back on a dolly track or skateboard or a bike or whatever, you would have got uh something really, really smooth and it wouldn't have felt right. So, um, yeah, we were really pleased with how this ended up um looking and you get a real sense of uh the frenetic energy of running, which kind of felt punk. So, we thought thought we'd go with it. And um I've got one more example of a shot here before I actually pay you the film. Um we also did this one which I saw in a an advert for some shoes where they had a a knee brace uh so velcro around the thigh and the shin with an angle on the knee kneecap um with mounts coming off the side. And so we mounted the camera off Phil's leg as he ran. And so as his as his foot plants on the floor, you get all this cam uh this jutdder within the camera shake. So this one on the bottom left is is me testing it out running along the street at home. And um and then this one on the right is is one of the shots we filmed with Phil. And if if you're careful looking at the shadows, you will see you will see the rig just stick out for a moment. Um but yeah, once we make it look all kind of uh punky, then you don't see that anymore.

[00:27:16]Um so yeah the last slide before I play the film is um something to bear in mind really. Obviously our eyes are not the same as cameras. Uh for a start they're liquid and organic. Um there are certain similarities. You know we have a we have a lens and and light bounces in through the lens in our eye and hits our retina in the same way it hits a film sensor.

[00:27:39]Um but but we wanted to be aware of these differences and and um realize what was possible and what wasn't possible. Um you know we don't have an exposure speed or a frame rate really that doesn't really translate to our human eyes. Our brains interpret the data that comes in and um yeah you can have an operation on lenses within your eye but it's incredibly complicated.

[00:28:01]Whereas swapping lenses on a DSLR is really really easy. Um on a phone it's less easy. you know, these are fixed lenses and you're putting things on top.

[00:28:09]So, we needed to put ND filters on top of the lenses of the phone so we could let you know, so we could keep the shutter speed that slow even on a sunny day. And that's quite nice because that's sort of a bit like how people wear sunglasses to kind of control the light. And so, yeah, we tried to make as many parallels as possible. So, I guess that's worth bearing in mind um as we play the film. So, I'm now going to press play on the film and shut up and let Phil tell his story.

[00:28:40]A documentary by Ruben and Co.

[00:28:47]An exercise in perspective.

[00:28:52]>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm in the middle of being filmed.

[00:28:56]Hello.

[00:28:56]>> Hang on. Say that again. You're in the middle. I'm I'm I'm I'm doing I'm being filmed, you know, doing that film thing.

[00:29:04]>> Yeah.

[00:29:04]>> Okay.

[00:29:05]>> So, I'll call I'll call you later. Yeah.

[00:29:07]All right. Cheers then. Bye. Bye. Bye.

[00:29:09]Bye. Sorry about that. I would turn it off. Right. I'm Phil 68. Yeah. Imagine a geyzer who bounces about a bit who still behaves like he's 8 years old. Sort of sums me up, I guess. Yeah.

[00:29:31]You know, when you do the eye test with the letters, I can do the top big one.

[00:29:36]The letters move a bit. It's almost like they're dancing. It's kind of pulsating.

[00:29:42]And I've got floating bubbles as well.

[00:29:49]It's like a slow strobe.

[00:29:56]I got hit in the left eye when I was a teenager. Whack. And all I can remember is everything went red while somebody said he needs an ambulance.

[00:30:07]I remember it being really painful. I just wanted them to do anything to get the pain away. I remember that.

[00:30:15]It was like looking through a crapped mirror. Everything was like fuzzy. Yeah.

[00:30:21]Just very distorted.

[00:30:24]I was a bit young and stupid at 19 and lost and didn't really have a clue what I was going to do with me life. I had no real clue. I think my mates who were there at the time, they were more cut up about it than I was. They looked out for me. I think I was the joker of the pack cuz I wasn't really I wasn't, you know, I'm not a big bloke, you know, so I wasn't like the hard guy.

[00:30:44]The only good thing was that punk had just happened. So I was listening to lots of punk on John Peele late at night on me headphones.

[00:30:52]Punk was my salvation really. I got right into it while I was in the eye hospital and I just thought, "Yeah, I like that." You know, I belong to the blank generation. It was in that long hot summer back in 1976.

[00:31:04]So my right eye did all the work for the next 40 years.

[00:31:09]Don't know where my future lies, but I'm not really worried. I like to take this in my stride. I never like being hurry.

[00:31:18]I never made a lot of trouble. I had much to go with the law. Don't know the thing I'm looking for. It's what I know.

[00:31:48]2016.

[00:31:49]My right eye cancer.

[00:31:54]Sometimes they go out of their way not to say it.

[00:31:59]I guessed all along. I thought when the bloke inspects saver said he kind of half guessed. thing is they didn't have the high-tech to confirm it.

[00:32:09]Finally, you see the the main man and he says, "I've looked at all your stuff, you know, and but I I need to tell you you have a tumor in your eye."

[00:32:20]I guess in my makeup, I'm fairly glass half full to overflowing sort of person.

[00:32:28]I always remember my reaction is it was like, "Right, what are the options then, Doc?" you know, whereas the wife was quite upset. Understandable because it's a bit like, well, you know, it's a bit of a game changer is the sort of thing that could reoccur in the liver, which would have been big shit, you know. I was more concerned about stopping the spread of the cancer. If they said, "We're really sorry. We're going to have to take your eye out." I go, "Okay." I honestly thought they might have had to. So, the eyesight was secondary to managing the cancer. I literally said, "Do we have to whip it out Nelson Styley?" You know, he said, "No, no, no. We can do proton beam therapy." So I said, "Well, what's all that about?" And then he explained that I had to have these markers in the eyeball and I had to wear a special metal disc and then I had to wear this special mask and it's like being in an underground bunker where you're kind of lying on a chair. It's like something out of some kind of David Croninberg movie and you you're in there and all the staff behind a screen and then it's like a 10-second blast of Proton Beam which killed a tumor but zapped the optic nerve.

[00:33:51]You could say that my left eye is now my good eye.

[00:33:56]I was referred to a specialist consultant surgeon who could put an artificial iris in it. So it affords a little bit of light although I've only really got about 5% vision.

[00:34:11]So in a house I kind of know where things are. Although having said that, I have more accidents at home than anywhere else, you know. I mean, occasionally I slice a hand or a finger or whatever, you know, where I'm being a little bit silly, but most of the time I'm quite careful. Yeah. I always make sure I've got footwear on that protects me toes cuz I can misjudge. Pouring a hot drink, got those things that make a noise.

[00:34:41]And also I listen, you know, sounds I'm listening really acutely.

[00:34:52]But once I'm beyond the gate into the big wide world, I always make sure I've got the can. Once I start moving, everything goes all over the place. Things are coming at you. See, I can think, "Oh, is that somebody there?

[00:35:07]Is there someone there?" And there's no one there. this lamp post, but you imagine it all blurry, you know, and the figure starting to morph into something else.

[00:35:18]But that doesn't stop me from doing stuff I want to do.

[00:35:26]I'd really done any serious run for years.

[00:35:30]Well, my daughter encouraged me to do park run.

[00:35:34]Well, you could do this. You could try that. Why not?

[00:35:40]So when I'm running, it's just a complete psychedelic kaleidoscope of color.

[00:35:49]It's like watching drawings and you just change it a bit and you flick the pages.

[00:35:54]Stuff running all around you.

[00:35:58]This year, 2026, I'll be running the London Marathon.

[00:36:05]Anything's possible.

[00:36:09]A lot of people have asked me, "How am I going to do this marathon?" Well, I will be in the hands of Julia, my guide runner, joined at a teber. She's holding one end, I'm holding the other. To me, to you, yeah, we do at Chuckle Brothers.

[00:36:24]I'm not going to break records. It's not about that. At the end of the day, I just want to finish because I'm not really seeing what's in front of me. I'm just locked into my body where it's going, what it's doing.

[00:36:39]Living in the moment, being in the zone.

[00:36:43]I kind of have this visual image about how I'm moving.

[00:36:47]It's a buzz. Yeah, it is a bit of a buzz. Moving and grooving.

[00:36:57]And when I'm not running, I'm singing with this lot.

[00:37:03]in my head.

[00:37:06]Even life around you won't tie me down.

[00:37:27]I don't want to ru my head.

[00:37:41]down.

[00:37:43]>> The thing with pump is a DIY effort.

[00:37:46]It's similar to the running. It was a bit like have a go. Don't care. You know, why not? Yeah. I know it's going to be hard work, you know. I put in the training and there's no encore. Yeah.

[00:37:58]No encore to worry about.

[00:38:00]You use less energy to smile than you do to frown. I'll be singing my own funeral.

[00:38:07]Here's some stats for you. One in five people in the UK experience sight loss in their lifetime. So, it probably doesn't surprise you why I want to run for RNIB, the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

[00:38:22]There should be a link on screen now.

[00:38:26]Anything you give will help other people living with sight loss. Thank you.

[00:38:37]You're watching a film by Ruben and Cara featuring the music of Social Security with sound design by Jamie Fry with thanks to Julia Tyo, RNIB, TCS London Marathon, Social Security, Open Anchor, Dave Somerset, Heart Run, Tov Leisure Center, Pervasive Media Studio, and the Harrison Family. Cheers.

[00:39:06]That's a true story.

[00:39:10]>> There are true stories tonight.

[00:39:12]>> Yeah. If it rains, I'll just wear a hat.

[00:39:25]>> Cheers.

[00:39:27]Uh, thank you. Um, so yeah, a bit more waffle from me and then you can ask Phil some questions. Um, so back to the ven diagrams.

[00:39:37]Um, that was three days filming. So we basically spent one day on site loss, one day running, and one day filming the gig. Um, which I think is kind of interesting on reflection. We didn't necessarily set out like that. It sort of happened. Um, I'm now going to talk through some of the shots that were in that film. I didn't want to give away before, but I'll explain how we did did do them. So these bubbles, these really organic uh abstract bokeh floating shapes within that is uh is it's Phil's fridge and a pint glass with the camera on the bottom. And uh we did a load of different ones of these trying different lighting and really loved how the pint glass gives you this sort of cylindrical spherical uh refracted light a bit like an eyeball. And um and these bubbles are exactly how Phil was describing his his eyesight changing on a day-to-day basis.

[00:40:32]Um and then this was Phil's idea said, "What about if we put a hydration tablet in the pint glass?" And um yeah, this becomes the shot that you see in the film when he when he mentioned um the cancer diagnosis and the way these bubbles sort of uh grow and and and leave the tablet at the bottom and float upwards um was just really atmospheric.

[00:40:53]And again, this is not, you know, one of the great things about making a documentary is you don't know necessarily. It's great to go in with a with a with loose land, so that things like this might just happen. You come away with shots like this.

[00:41:05]Um, these abstract shots that you see at the beginning when he's talking about his injury to his left eye. Um, is his left eye, right? I get them. I get them mixed mixed up now.

[00:41:17]This is a torch being shown through a telescope or and also through binoculars. And we liked how this created these sort of slightly grimy um circular refracted light um abstract bits and bobs. And so yeah, sometimes kind of going really analog and messing around with lenses is quite quite good way of doing it. Um and then this idea of almost seeing a kind of collidoscopic or or seeing double seeing a kind of fractured viewpoint. Um we we tried a few different things here. There's loads of really sort of trendy lenses you can buy for phones that are um you know, Instagram influencers have them and it makes them have a sort of disco filter on their Instagram stories. We didn't get one of those. We used a toy.

[00:41:58]Um so yeah, my son's strange doctor kit made out of wooden blocks. There's this autoscope uh toy autoscope which had this almost kaleidoscopic lens thing or you know uh yeah it's just we'd attach that to a phone. Who knows you know that was actually how we ended up doing it.

[00:42:20]And um and then this this shot here is actually taking some of the footage we filmed playing it back on an iPad and putting a foil cylinder on top and then filming it back through the foil cylinder. So again, like really analog techniques that are kind of like through my kind of animation mindset um and trying to apply that back to the cinematography.

[00:42:41]And then um this drone shot was filmed by Jamie, our sound man. And um yeah, really really beautiful uh shots. And then we took the the footage from the drone uh shots and animated it frame by frame by by lining Phil and Julia up in the center of frame. So you get this kind of stacato animation almost like tracking them. Um which we really like that one as well. And then um this is just I just happened to be up in London so I because it was only filming on a phone I just attached it to the bicycle and got a line bike and cycled a bit of the London Marathon route. So over Tower Bridge and along embankment past the House of Parliament up towards Buckingham Palace. And that gives us some of that energy that gives you the sort of context of London later on in the edit.

[00:43:28]Um, so yeah, you might be saying, "How did we get this from a phone?" Well, you can't just press record on a normal camera app. Um, this is obviously the Blackmagic camera app. It's a Beast Grip mount, which enables you to attach various different lenses and ND filters.

[00:43:41]We used a variable ND filter because we knew we wanted to have a fixed shutter speed. And then, um, every DP's favorite bit of kit is this magic arm. So, that's how we attached it to a wooden spoon or attached it to a um, a knife or or the white cane. And um and then we've textured it in Photoshop. So this uh kind of photocopy texture that we put out put throughout and the drawing that's all photoshop and Procreate all done digitally. So we haven't wasted any paper. Um so that's how we did that stuff. And the same with this collage.

[00:44:15]This is um scanning in uh magazine letters and rearranging them basically how people would have done it before, but uh a little bit more digital with the Photoshop to to create some of that post-processing digitally rather than printing out loads and loads of photo copies. Um and then filming at the gig, this is kind of an interesting thing that happened is we sort of thought we'd do more mounting. We thought we'd mount uh attached to the mic stand or attached to the guitar stem or to the drum kit.

[00:44:41]Um but then that sort of felt awkward and and difficult especially when they've actually got a real gig on. Um so in the end we went in in the crowd and actually uh yeah this sort of we felt fitted better how you know Phil experiences a gig ultimately you know in the audience you you're sort of taken away by the music the energy and so we got in there and basically these shots are just shaking it shaking the camera a lot. Um, Phil stays in focus because we're bouncing in sync with him bouncing. And so, um, that's how you get all of this kind of crazy motion blur.

[00:45:19]In this shot of Dom, the camera is basically just it's rotational spin like that. And so, you kind of get these nice streaky moments, but it's it's just shaking the camera.

[00:45:32]Um, and yeah, the gig was recorded by Jamie Fry, my kind of long time longterm sound designer and music composer, uh, collaborator. And, um, that first half, the obviously the the end music is Social Security, but that first half, the more abstract stuff, Jamie actually took a a Gibson guitar and played it back through a JCM900 Marshall amp, which is basically kind of your classic rock band setup, and recorded the feedback. So even all of that sound design layer is actually, you know, derived from the band, which uh which is really nice. But yeah, speak to him about that because he's uh yeah, he's the dark wizard.

[00:46:08]And speaking of dark wizards, um we found this font that the RNIB had commissioned um which is uh it's designed specially to be uh the perfect subtype font because it's really uh visible and um they've named it Tyrrosas after a blind prophet of Apollo who's this guy who I looked him up. He's famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years and apparently he fought some snakes. So you know that was exciting. Had to keep that in there.

[00:46:38]Um, a couple of other little accessibility things we learned along along the way on our social media edit.

[00:46:43]We've got a flash warning for some of that staccato fast cut um, uh, running sequence. Uh, obviously Phil says all of the credits out loud that you don't often do that on films, but actually like that to make it a proper radio edit, you've got to say the credits out loud. And so actually, yeah, we realized that that'll work. And um yeah, alt text, this is something the RNB do on all of their videos is uh can be picked up by screen readers. Underneath the YouTube video, you write a description of what the visuals were. And so someone who is partially or hardly cited can ultimately get that information.

[00:47:17]Um and yeah, we sort of realized because we're we're making the film maybe trying to get sighted people to understand what it's like for lowsighted people. Um, we realized actually someone mentioned this to us uh as we were making the film.

[00:47:31]It's a called a low vision simulation kit and this has been going since about 1979 I think. And these different glasses they uh give you various different visual impairments. And so they run workshops with people um all around the country really to to sort of experience uh degrees of visual impairment and actually check your uh your user journeys if you like or your marketing materials or whatever it is to um to to see if they're functional and accessible. So I thought that was a really cool thing to to share.

[00:48:04]And then this was um one other thing was this is a this is a one of our kids books and um I quite liked actually we've sort of done a similar thing to this really which is uh this book's called invisible things and it's a illustrator Andy J Pizza who's just drawn loads of things that you can't see such as the feeling of heebie-jebies or deja vu or chaos or an itch and um yeah I really like that and so I think maybe in a way that's what we were trying to We were trying to create a visual that would give you a sense of something that isn't your experience. Um, I thought I'd throw that in there. So, yeah, just to sort of wrap up, what did we learn?

[00:48:43]Don't be a camera snob. You can film things on phones nowadays. Even, you know, Danny Bole used it in the his latest 28 years later film. Um, leave room for your plan to change. Some of those shots we didn't plan for. They just happened along the way. And that's probably one of my favorite things about making a documentary. Um, and things like at the beginning Phil ending up getting a phone call from Dom, one of the band members, and he's like, "I'm in the middle. I'm being filmed." We quite like that. And that that's a sort of lesson we knew already, but keep rolling because you never know what might happen in these sorts of films. And then, yeah, making one edit accessible is really really hard. And we have been learning loads of things there along the way. And often people just think, or make it accessible if we had subtitles, and that's just one tiny element. And so um yeah, often doing lots of versions and that's what the RNIB often do is they'll have two different edits. One will have a visual description layer which obviously we don't have in our film um in the audio track. So yeah. Uh so anyway, the film is now live. Um it's gone live today on the London Marathon YouTube channel and it's going to be launched by London Marathon and RNB.

[00:49:52]They both loved it. They're both pushing out there for us which is amazing. Um because London Marathon have over nearly half a million followers. And so here's Phil's page. You can go to his page now and support his fundraising efforts. Um and he's got to hit his target to be able to guarantee his place. So, you know, we've all got to chip in. And uh yeah, that is the end. There's a QR code to to support Phil's fundraiser. Thank you very much.

[00:50:20]Thank you very much, Reuben. Uh we've got time for a few questions. Do we have any questions from the audience?

[00:50:26]>> I'd love to get Phil up as well. Phil would like to ask Phil a question. Jump up with me.

[00:50:33]Anyone in the audience got a question?

[00:50:35]Don't be scared. George, >> thanks very much, Reuben. I really enjoyed that and I appre I particularly like really appreciated the generosity with which you've shared all of your secrets and like the creative process.

[00:50:48]It was really really interesting. Um, this is a really quick question. I want to know what a hydration tablet is and if it's is it like conceptually relevant. Does it mean something in the narrative?

[00:50:57]>> Well, Bill had the hydration tablet. So, >> yeah, it just gives it's like electrolytes you want to take while you're running or before you do a run.

[00:51:07]It's just Yeah, it's got potassium on various kind of things that you'll lose when you're running long distances and you sweat a lot.

[00:51:15]>> Or I've taken them when I've been to a music festival and I've got dehydrated >> as a hangover cure.

[00:51:23]>> Oh, multi-purpose function before >> both. Yeah, good idea. Rehydrate before you've got dehydrated. That's how you just stay ahead of the game. Yeah.

[00:51:34]>> Anyone else in the audience got a question?

[00:51:38]Everyone's being very shy about questions. January thing.

[00:51:43]>> Um, is there going to be any um follow on? Like is there going to be any capturing of the actual marathon event in April?

[00:51:52]>> We haven't talked about that yet, but I feel like maybe Yeah, I would I would I would quite like to try and um film some of the marathon, but trying to understand what what context it would come in. Um, but yeah, as I said, we've only just launched the film. It goes out now, so hopefully it's going to start us having lots of conversations with different people. See what happens. Um, yeah, I got a question for Phil. Do it.

[00:52:16]What What was it like um uh trusting us with all of the weird camera attachments because that was all something we've not done before.

[00:52:26]>> Um, it was very strange in, you know, especially the um the bit that felt like this, you know. Was it the selfie stick?

[00:52:34]Yeah, that was very weird. That was a kind of um carry-on film moment, I think.

[00:52:41]But um yeah, no, we both Julia, my guide and myself, we felt very kind of, you know, supported by you and Jamie. We just trusted your ideas. We thought, yeah, in for a penny, in for a pound, let's do it. Yeah.

[00:52:55]>> So, yeah, it was fine.

[00:52:56]>> Thank you.

[00:52:58]>> Did you get much interest when you were running around?

[00:53:00]>> Sorry. Sorry.

[00:53:01]Um I think I think the interest was um well we were running around a park track so there weren't many people there were there that time >> with with the the the >> there was a couple of kids cycling around on like BMX was using it as a cycle track.

[00:53:16]>> Yeah.

[00:53:16]>> But um No, it wasn't too busy.

[00:53:18]>> It wasn't too crowded. I think the bit when we were running up and down past the beach huts going because you wanted puddle shots and there was this unfortunate family having a picnic and we kept going past them splashing into this puddle. I don't know if we soaked their sandwiches or not, but it was >> Yeah, I think away with it.

[00:53:34]>> That was the only bit, wasn't it? Yeah, I think we're saying we're making a film.

[00:53:39]Don't worry.

[00:53:40]>> Yeah, we did get some we did get some funny looks with uh with some of the strange equipment we had. But >> yeah, and going over the zebra crossing a few times was reminiscent of a Norman Wisdom film for those of you are so vintage. Yeah.

[00:53:54]>> Got a question from John. Um, Reuben, how will your learnings about accessibility impact future work that won't necessarily have an accessibility theme?

[00:54:03]>> Yeah, I think it's made us um think about it. Like for example, the alt text, you know, where you're supposed to write uh a visual description of an image. um you know often I thought that stuff was for like SEO for search engine optimization and actually know when you start to think about it know there's some people who can't see the image or they or they can see a bit of the image but not all of the image um yeah it's more information you can pass across and actually the uh process of writing alt text does make you think about well why is that image why have we gone with that image and so it's kind of quite useful to make you think about your choices visually more um so yeah We'll try and do alt text on everything I think. Um, and yeah, in general, like I said, all of our documentaries, we're recording the subject. We're letting them speak in their own voice. We try not to use narrator. And so quite often they are sort of audio first. Um, so we're part of the way there in that sense, but then the idea of also thinking about every single thing being able to be audio only is harder. Um, and uh, but doable. So yeah, it's that's that's something we've learned along the way really.

[00:55:12]I actually have one more question for Phil if that's okay. Uh, what would you say is one essential punk album that everyone should listen to?

[00:55:19]>> Uh, the first damned album.

[00:55:23]>> First damned one. Yeah.

[00:55:27]>> Any other questions from the audience?

[00:55:31]part.

[00:55:33]>> Uh I think that's like a interesting dynamic because it's uh like a visual and also like auditory film about Phil but Phil will can't see like what the film end result is. So it has was there anything interesting that was going on in the sort of feedback process between you guys but like were you describing like oh yeah then this is like a very gritty shot and like anything you can tell about this process. Yeah, I mean, Phil obviously saw the edit before today, so, you know, was able to kind of uh we we viewed it together and talked about it beforehand to make sure he was happy. Um, obviously the main thing you're you're saying is, you know, you wanted to make sure that your story was uh accurate the way you've told it, which which phrases we we used in in which order. Um, but yeah, I mean, hopefully by listening to this talk today, I've probably explained more detail than ever before in terms of what all the shots are doing. So, I don't know if that's changed any of your opinions. Now, you know what you now you know what what was in there.

[00:56:34]>> I'm I'm really grateful for, you know, the opportunity to be part of it, putting it out there. Really?

[00:56:43]>> Yeah. Did Did anyone uh does anyone think differently now about um visual impairments based on the visuals?

[00:56:54]Getting some thoughts.

[00:56:57]Yeah. Interesting.

[00:57:04]>> Hi guys. Uh, that was really great.

[00:57:06]Thanks, Reuben. Um, I was wondering about the relationship between punk and running. Like lots of people would consider running not especially punk and the documentary does a really good job of bridging that gap, but what were some of the challenges there of making running punk?

[00:57:22]Well, one of the things you say is that, you know, it's kind of the ethic is DIY, get on with it, do, you know, have a go.

[00:57:29]And there's a low uh barrier to entry for running as opposed to something like, I don't know, equestrian.

[00:57:38]Um, so in that sense, I don't think there's any reason why running shouldn't be punk because we've, you know, it's uh it's sort of free, isn't it?

[00:57:50]I don't know >> what do you think?

[00:57:53]>> Um I think as I said in the film I got back into running through R and my daughter encourage me to to do part run and I do that with a guide runner. In fact there's various people who guide me around the same course where Ruben did the filming and I think it's I like the spirit of part run because it's very much an inclusive event that happens every Saturday all over the world.

[00:58:14]Actually, at 9:00 every Saturday, you'll find a park run somewhere near you. And it doesn't matter whether you just walk it or jog it or go full pelt like in sort of 16 17 minutes if you're that fast. But it's it's for everybody. And I think for me, you know, the whole thing about the spirit punk was everyone could have a go. You could be in a band, you know, and uh it sort of captures that spirit really. So there's there's the kind of similarity. Very tenuous. I >> And it's January, isn't it? This is a good time for people people to get into running, you know, have your New Year's resolution >> or start a punk band.

[00:58:48]>> Yeah. Or start a punk band >> or form a band. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:58:52]>> Yeah.

[00:58:57]>> Hi. Um interested in the use of the um archive footage as it were. um was that on Super Eight or was originally already on a digital format when it was taken or um what did you have to do to incorporate that in your film? So that is Phil and his family's home movies.

[00:59:17]And so Avon had already transferred it all to DVDs over the years. And then we then brought all of those DVDs into Quick Time so that we could then edit with them. And I think there was about 24 hours of footage which we've edited into that sort of 30 40 second sequence.

[00:59:34]So it is a bit it's like your life flashing before your eyes really. But um yeah, that we we put that in there because we wanted to give a you know, you don't see any of Phil at the front of the film. There's it's all quite abstract and there's lots of you know, typographic moments. And so yeah, we put that in there really to give you a sense of him as a person. And um and yeah, try and give you a sense that, you know, he hasn't been as visually impaired as he is now for his whole life. And actually a lot when when you speak to people with visual impairments quite often that is a common theme is the the story of how their site has changed has made them adapt to the world in different ways. Um so yeah your your your um you you've changed your your way of navigating the world haven't you feel as as um uh as your eyesight's changed over the last 10 years at least.

[01:00:26]>> Yeah.

[01:00:29]Uh yeah, because you when did you start using the stick?

[01:00:33]>> Uh 2018.

[01:00:34]>> 2018, right?

[01:00:35]>> Because um the proton beam therapy that Phil talked about um basically gradually faded your retina. Is that right?

[01:00:43]>> Well, yeah. The the sight loss was a gradual process. Um because the optic nerve, as I said, it was it got zapped by the proton beam while that also zapped the tumor that was in the eye. So the the the sight loss was a gradual thing, but it got to the point when I initially did part run, when Rian encouraged me to do it, I didn't I didn't do it with a guide runner because I could still see enough to get round, but then I kept falling over and my perceptual field got more and more distorted and it shattered me confidence a bit. So I stopped running about three years and it was only during lockdown that Ivoni wife got me in touch with a guide runner and we went out got my confidence back up. So I went I took up running again with a guide runner and then the local pip run had a few guide runners and one thing led to another so it kind of changed. So, but um I use use a train a lot and I'm always chatting to people on the train like Yeah, I'm I'm I'm that dreaded passenger. Oh my god, not him again. You know, I'm sure I can sense people moving away.

[01:01:46]I always warn people. I say I can talk for England, mate. I'll put the headphones on if you want. You know, if you want a bit of peace and quiet.

[01:01:53]>> Yeah. I mean, I put it to you that like hearing your story that uh you the idea that you were falling over and just get kept getting back up again and then you continued to run and you got back into running uh and the bravery of running when you can't fully see even though you might fall down. Like as we were making the film, we felt that was a strong connection between the idea of having a kind of punk anarchctic mindset and being like, "Yeah, let's go for it."

[01:02:15]Because I don't think everyone has the same mindset. And so that's ultimately what we were trying to capture here is is is Phil All right. Well, I think that's probably all we got time for. So, let's say thank you again to Ruben and Phil.

[01:02:33]And please, please do support Phil's fundraiser. All right. Before you all go, if you want to stick around in hot desk today or find out more about what we do, please come find one of the studio team. We'll be happy to help.

[01:02:42]Studio team, give us a wave. There's more people around. It's not just me and Tim, but they they've snuck off. Uh, if you're watching online, drop us a line on studio.co. co.uk with any questions.

[01:02:53]If you like what you've seen here today and you want to help us keep bringing you great talks like this one, please do visit watershed.co.uk/donate.

[01:03:00]Visit Phil's fundraiser first, but then visit watershed.co.uk/donate.

[01:03:04]Watershed is a charity. We really do rely on the generosity of our supporters to continue our work. Thank you all for being here today and we'll see you all again next time.

[01:03:13]Thank you.