Behind the Scenes: Filming Teta
Our second release of 2012 was a particularly nice video (at least, we thought so). Following on from our very well-received Draculino video was a hard act, but we feel like we pulled off a nice job with our video of Eduardo ‘Teta’ Rios.
The Interview
‘Teta’ is a 3rd degree black belt under the legendary Carlson Gracie-black belt Ricardo Liborio. Teta is from Barra da Tijuca, Rio, but has lived in Norway for about three years now. He has a really successful academy called Frontline, and they’re one of the best teams in Scandinavia. He was in Rio for a month or so on vacation, and as he’s old friends with Roberto ‘Gordo’ he was training at the same academy as us. We approached Teta with the idea and he was down without need for an explanation from us as to what we wanted to do. As we would find out, he’s one of the most friendly, open and generous guys we could’ve hoped to meet.
The interview took place at Gordo’s academy, which is perfect because it’s located about 100m from BJJ Hacks HQ. We met in the afternoon while the gym was quiet to film the interview and rolling in one session.
Teta’s calm, easy style gives this vid a great vibe. He’s a chilled out guy (he describes himself as a surfer who does jiu-jitsu) and we wanted to make a video to mirror this feeling.
Filming
We know the set-up at the academy well. The lighting varies from barely acceptable (downstairs) to pretty much perfect (upstairs). There are always sound issues at the academy though. It’s on a side-street but there is always a lot of noise from outside, including dogs barking, manholes rattling and various other annoyances. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot we can do about it. We’ve experimented with various microphones and they’re pretty much equal. It’s just something we have to put up with.
The gorgeous afternoon daylight that streams in from the floor-to-ceiling windows makes this video pop. The bland grey mats serve as a nice, plain canvas for the white and black kimonos Teta and his student Andre are wearing. The contrasting colours really helps separate the limbs in some of the more interesting scrambles, also.
The interview was fun and easy. The rolling was fantastic to watch, and we were lucky enough to interject with questions about some of the positions along the way. Teta and Andre rolling for over 30 minutes, carrying on long after the camera stop rolling. Their passion for jiu-jitsu is evident in their playful (yet competitive) matches. They just love jiu-jitsu.
Unlike the Drac vid, this film didn’t focus on the academy at all. Teta only trains there while visiting Rio and was formerly the head gi coach at Brazilian Top Team, so we wanted to make this video solely about the man and his philosophy toward jiu-jitsu.
Instead of cutting to shots of the academy or other people, every shot featured Teta and his rolling partner. This meant we mixed up the shots from wide to tight, with some very close-up details shots. We change angles a lot, moving from having the camera level with the mat, to switching to an elevated view to get in as much of the action as possible.
Editing
The last two months have seen our familiarity with the once-daunting Final Cut skyrocket. Editing is limited now only by our RAM capabilities, which we’re fast finding out could be a lot more capable than they are. 4GB of RAM just ain’t what it used to be.
One of the things that really defines this video is the soundtrack. We chose the track ‘Piano 37 Bis’ by French pianist Feather Drug. We found his music by chance on Soundcloud, and even though it is a Creative Commons licensed track, we reached out to him to make sure he was comfortable with us using his music. It took a few messages to explain we’re not a commercial enterprise and we’re more focussed on the art that profit, but he was kind enough to let us use the track. We’re extremely grateful to him as without the wonderful music, it wouldn’t be half as good as it is.
Final thoughts
Though his jiu-jitsu is pretty damn awesome, Teta isn’t an internationally-recognised name as say, Draculino or Roger Gracie. That’s why we were pretty stunned that his vid clocked up over 8000 views in a week.
One of the reasons for the surge in popularity is the massive number of subscribers on YouTube we’ve picked up in recent months, as well as the sharply-rising number of people following us on Facebook . By maximising our exposure across social media platforms and more ‘traditional’ outlets such as forums and blogs, we’re making sure more people see our videos than ever before.
And that’s awesome.
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Making this video would not have been possible without the support of our amazing sponsors Manto Fightwear, Scramble Clothing and Connection Rio.
