Daniel Bateman on documentary TV shooting with Cinema EOS cameras

Daniel Bateman's career is a blueprint for aspiring documentary TV makers. Passionate about photography and photojournalism as a teenager, Daniel went on to study film production at university, where he focused on documentary filmmaking. After working as a video editor for about five years, he befriended people who specialised in conflict filmmaking and he hasn't looked back.

Daniel has now been shooting documentaries for more than a decade, filming and directing content for HBO, VICE, the BBC and more. He's taken his cameras to many countries around the world, and in 2022 he won two Emmy awards as part of the team behind the VICE News documentary Inside the Battle for Jerusalem.

Daniel says his background in post-production has benefitted his documentary TV shooting. "I approach a shoot with the idea that I'm filming for an edit, and working through a mental checklist of shots," he says.

"A lot of the time in documentary filmmaking you might have access to a location for a very limited amount of time, for whatever reason. So, if you've got 20 minutes in total and 15 minutes of that time is spent filming with a contributor, you know you'll have five minutes at the end to spin around the location and try to get the editor as much material as possible to piece the sequence together."

Daniel has shot almost exclusively with Canon cameras throughout his career and began making documentaries with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (now succeeded by the EOS 5D Mark IV). "I was massively influenced by a surge of online documentaries in the early 2010s, and a lot of those were being made on the EOS 5D Mark II," he says. "So that was my first camera of choice at that time. After that I moved to the EOS C300 [now succeeded by the EOS C300 Mark III] and EOS C100 [now succeeded by the EOS C70], before mostly staying with the EOS C300 Mark I and Mark II."

When he was considering upgrading from the EOS C300 Mark II, he tested out a number of different cameras. He now uses an EOS C500 Mark II, with an EOS C300 Mark III as his B-cam.

There were two main reasons for choosing the EOS C500 Mark II, he explains. "The first reason was its full-frame sensor. Frequently when you're filming documentaries, you're shooting in cramped conditions, such as in a car or a small room. That full-frame sensor when paired with a 24-105mm or 24-70mm L-series lens gives you so much more room than on a crop sensor. Suddenly, filming in a car feels much more spacious."

The camera's dynamic range was the other big benefit. "Having 15+ stops of dynamic range to play with in post is just great," Daniel says. "When you're filming a protest, for example, you're rushing and under a bit of stress. If the light suddenly changes then the exposure might be off by a stop or two in either direction, so having that dynamic range is really useful. It means you can correct any problems in post-production."

Although he's pleased to have the option of reducing the size of his camera, Daniel says that his typical build is actually not that small.

"Unless I'm in a more stressful or sensitive environment, I prefer to shoot with an extension unit and a slightly bigger lens. I've found that having a larger, more balanced camera is better for my back when filming for prolonged periods of time."

Daniel uses an Extension Unit 2 EU-V2, which offers a wealth of expandability by providing Genlock/SYNC and Ethernet ports, a 12-pin lens terminal, as well as two additional XLR terminals, a V-mount battery plate, and more.

"I bought it mostly for the ability to use V-Lock batteries for longer days of filming," he explains, "but the two additional audio channels have proved to be invaluable as well. Very often, clients don't offer a sound recordist, so I have to run all the audio as a one-man band. I can feel a bit limited with only two audio channels in some situations, but having two more means that I can stick lavalier mics on four people and quite happily monitor them."

One situation that proved technically demanding for both audio and video recording was when Daniel was documenting night-time protests for Inside the Battle for Jerusalem. "It was an intense shoot for a number of reasons, and the stress of filming in those protest situations was quite high," he reveals.

Daniel shot primarily on his EOS C500 Mark II, with secondary camera operator Ayman Abu Ramouz using an EOS C300 Mark III.

Having shot with Cinema EOS cameras for such a long time, Daniel has developed techniques that enable him to react quickly. "I've programmed a button on my camera to do One-Shot AF," he reveals. "So if I've got the focus guide on the monitor and I can see it's starting to slip focus, I hit that pre-programmed button and in one shot it's regained focus on a person's face, while I'm still walking backwards with a camera on my shoulder, which makes life a lot easier."

He has also adopted a workflow that enables him to safeguard the results. "I use two 512GB CFexpress cards, and I'll typically double-slot those," he explains. "So I'll just use the A card as my ingest card, I'll offload that and back it up on to a drive, then back up that master drive so I've got two backups. I'll also have a third backup that just lives on that B-slot 512GB card. If I'm filming proxies with an SD card then that's another safe copy.

"I've been in many situations where police or less formal organised groups have demanded the memory card from the camera. That's when having that dual slot and the proxy card is really useful," he says. "I can format a card at a police or military checkpoint quite happily knowing that I've potentially got two backups inside my camera.

"A lot of the time with documentary filming, you can be in quite difficult situations, and I've learned that you need to allow yourself to become a lot more comfortable in those environments. In the end, that's what allows you to come away with better footage."