production blog

As I mentioned some time ago, the short film I shot for director Mark Mollenkamp called “Night Light”. It’s currently screening as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. I’m in New York and I’ll have an update in the next couple of days. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer here.

↑← Me and Mark at the Short Film party. I love the fact that Mark was “whoring” me out to the other directors.
↑→ Mark just before making a strike at the SAG party. Nicely played and the free drinks were great too! Oh so many free drinks.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience for both Mark and me. Lots of great contacts and hopefully some opportunities for the future.

Ah, your moment of Zen…

I think that this time it really is finished. The last shot of an all night shoot ironically turns out to be a sweet golden sunrise and a start to a bright, hot summer California day. Right now I’m so tried it hurts to keep my eyes open. On the drive home, I would swear that all the cars around me were driving at least 30 miles faster than me. Home long enough to pack and then head out to the airport for a light to New York for the TriBeCa Film Festival.

I’ll write more in a couple of days - I’m still recovering.

OK… it’s been a couple of weeks now and I think I’ve recovered. So here are some pictures and some info on these end of days. For these last two days of shooting I ended up operating the camera so I didn’t get to shoot very many photographs.

First off, here’s a little press that showed on Reelz Channel show, “Dallies”.

↑← Wow blood… cool. That’s Makeup Artist, Jessica, putting on the final touches.
↑→ It was an ice bag for a banged up knee, but for me, this photograph looks as though it’s life-sized.

↓← Here’s the sunrise I mentioned. That’s the last shot of the show’s photography.
↓→ Me and 1st AC Delfina calling it a day.

For anyone really geeky (like me) here are the locations where we shot the movie.

View Larger Map

So, that’s it — it’s all done. Now just waiting for the final color correction. Till then, a million thanks to the crew that stuck by the show and by me. You guys are great and I love ya.

All quite on the Nevada front. With Apple and Avid no-shows at NAB, attendance seemed significantly smaller this year. But it wasn’t without some good things to see. Here’s a short list of the products I saw worth writing about.

Red, Red, Red. Yes, let’s start there. I had a chance to see more footage from the Red. The folks at Red showcased footage provided by owners of the camera and two teasers for upcoming movies by Steven Soderbergh, “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla”. Not gonna lie, the stuff looks great - it was projected from a Sony SXRD 4K projector. They announced two new cameras which you can read all about on their website. Promising future indeed. Looks like I might have a short film next month with the Red - I look forward to shooting it and writing about my experience.

↑ The new Panasonic VariCam 3700. It offers 1920×1080 image capture at 4:2:2 in AVC-intra 100 recording to five P2 slots. It can also output 4:4:4 via duel-link. Nice, but perhaps too little, too late.
→ Fuji is hoping to introduce a 64GB P2 card this fall. At 720/24pN that’s 160 minutes. Very useful.

↑ & → Angénieux’s new Red ready lenses, the Optimo DP: 30-80mm T2.8 Less expensive then their regular cinema lenses but they claim that they’re significantly better than the Red lenses. We’ll see how that claim stand up when they’re released later this year. On the left is the 17-80mm T2.2 Optimo WA.

↑ While most are hankering for the Red, I’m psyched to see the new Aaton Penelope. It’s a 3- and 2-perf camera that with a little training can be switched in the field in a matter of minutes.
→ P+S Technik 3D rig. The photo shows the rig with SI-2K Mini cameras also offered from P+S. What’s cool about the rig is that it’ll accommodate different camera makers and can be adjusted for SteadiCam and handheld shooting.

↑ Direct-to-print has been a buzz word for some time in Europe and now might see the light of day in the US. It means taking your project and film recording directly to you print. It’s great for, say, printing one copy of you film for a festival release. But its uses shouldn’t be considered so limited. The Cinevator by the Norwegian company Cinevation can print in real time - a 120 minute film will take 120 minutes. That’s a far cry from when it would take overnight to print a film. Technicolor in Burbank purchased two and this one pictured is heading for Tunnel Post in Santa Monica after the show. I’m trying to arrange a test with several different cameras.
→ Green continues to be the thing. The fluorescent globes are from Photoflex. The CoolStar150 CFL is a 150w fluorescent fixture which they claim produces about the equivalent of a 450w tungsten globe. The color temp is roughly 5500K and they’re using a Mogul E39 base. I’ve noticed that the Mogal base is becoming quite common with lighting manufacturers. They also offer adaptors to go from Edison E26 globe (household standard in America) to the Mogal as well as a bi-pin G9.5 to Mogul.

So that’s the tech stuff now for some useless stuff. Ever see a 24 oz. steak dinner.

That is one big slab of meat. Surprisingly tasty for only $24 (Whiskey Pete’s in Primm). You might be wondering if I finished it? No, not even close. Made for a good breakfast though.

It’s been a while since I had something for our little moment of Zen… but I found something.

I did all I could to not slap him and ask, “Why?! This isn’t Comic-Con”. In case you can’t see it, it’s a kitty.

Band: Rockchild ( mySpace page )
Song: Winded
Director: Jonathan Bowen

It was a fairly quick start to the shot. I met with the director a couple of weeks before shooting and within a few days, we took a look at one building near the Warehouse District. It offered a great view of Downtown and the building had a great “aesthetic of decay” but was lacking what we needed for the narrative portion of the video. When the UPM (Aaron R.) came on board, he suggested Willow Studios - a place he’d shot at recently. For what we would have paid to do the production design at the other location we got a location with several pre-existing sets already dressed. It worked out better than we could have hoped.

The video breaks down to performance footage shot by day and night and a narrative element also shot by day and night.

LIGHTING PLAN & SUN PATH

↑ ↑ My shutter speed/foot-candle cheat sheet (click to view).

↓ ↓ My notes for the lighting of the performance footage. The notes are just that, notes. The shiny boards were focused and moved around as needed and the notes on camera placements for A- and B-camera changed slightingly too, but you get the idea. I always get a kick when I see the lighting plans realized on set.

For the night performance, we danced around 80-120 foot-candles. This accommodated the higher shutter speed we were using - usually around 1/120 or 72°. All the MolePARs were aimed straight ahead with the globe’s patterns spread horizontally. All the lights were plugged into 6K Magic Gadget Shadow Makers on a fairly fast and random flicker. For the day performance, we used shiny boards to edge light the members of the band and a 1200HMI to fill faces.

We shot with two Panasonic HVX200 cameras to capture as much coverage of the performance footage as we could using. The editor was on set downloading the footage was soon as a scene or block of footage was shot.

↓ → The next image indicates where the sun would be in the sky at given times of the day. I used SunPath to generate the coordinates and Intaglio to create the text on the map from Google Earth. It’s a quick visual indicator of where the sun will be without breaking out a compass.

↑ ↑ Day performance with downtown skirting the background.

↑ → Jib shots. Rock on!!

↑ ↑ Night performance on the roof above LA.

↑ ↑ Now that’s a damn sexy shot.

↑ ↑ The show’s other rock stars, Key Grip Dwight S. & Chief Lighting Technician Josh D.

↑ ↑ Trust me, she looks so much prettier when the curlers are gone.
→ → The director and 1st AD, Josh G. talk about what’s next. The decision? Lots more cool stuff!

↑ ↑ Someone save Josh!!!

View Larger Map

Map of where we shot - Willow Studios.

All in all, it was a fairly smooth running show.
This video couldn’t have been a cool as it was if not for the generous support from Luka Grip & Lighting. Thank you for all your support on this and previous productions.

Luka Grip & Lighting : +1 (818) 565-5580
The gear: 2-Ton Grip Truck, 600Amp Genie, MolePARs (MFL), Barger Baglight 6K, 5K Junior, Kino, Arri Light Kits, 1200HMI, 5x MG Shadowmaker

(more…)

The show “Dailies” (Reelz Channel) visited the set of “Dead Air” to do a spot about actors who turn to directing. A little of the behind-the-scene from “Dead Air” can be seen on the spot. Here’s a link to view it: Reelz Channel

If you blink, you’ll miss me!

↑↑ Listening attentively during our safety meeting for our helicopter shot atop a building in downtown.
L>R: Josh (2nd AD) / Chris (Producer) / Justin (B-Camera Op) / Chris (Sound Mixer) / Corbin (Director) / me / Patricia (actor)

I can’t tell you how many times lately I’m asked if I have had any experience with the Red One camera. Well, I finally did it. I got a chance to play with one and do some very rough and tumble tests - one with my friend and producer Greg and another with jib op/owner and director, Shane. The verdict? In a nutshell, I really like it (but don’t love it, not yet).

What did I loved? I love the modular design. The menus are great - no more MS-DOS-like looking hierarchy tree. The onscreen information is wonderful and very useful. The onboard monitor produces a great image and it’s light as a feather. The Electric View Finder is one of the best I’ve used. Using it handheld is great - nicely balanced and easily adjustable. The controls are all easy to get to and easy to use. Building the camera is fast and easy.

One feature I really like is the exposure by colors. When activated, the exposure of the scene is represented in colors. So if a window is over 100 on a waveform monitor, the window would be colored yellow, red or even magenta to signify that it is over exposed. Or a chair in the shot that’s would be 45, might be colored green. Very visual and personally, much more useful than a waveform monitor for my needs.

↓↓ Here’s the color scale for reading exposures. Note the over/under stops indicated.

What I didn’t like so much. The Red lens (specifically the 18-50mm zoom) isn’t as good as most. It’s not sharp and it seems to flare quite a bit. Still for the money, it can be perfectly usable for smaller projects. I’m not so sure about the smaller BNC & audio connector. I’m sure I’ll change my mind about this after using the camera. One thing I noticed is that while the shots we got weren’t lit or graded or anything that might go into an actual shot for a scene, the images look and feel very “plastic”. Here too, I’m sure after shooting and finishing a project under proper conditions I’ll feel different about this.

I’m hoping to do some extensive tests before heading out to NAB. Till then, we did some very simple test:

• Lens cap test
• Basic over and under exposure
• Panning
• Wide shots of high detailed object
• Handheld
• Specular highlights test - looking for smearing

↑↑ Director/producer Greg M. plays with the focus on the camera.

↑↑ This is a fast pan to the right. ↑→ This is a slightly slower pan back to the left.
I wanted to see what would happen with very fast panning shots. So here it is.

↑↑ Everyone who wants a shallow depth of field now has it. We shot this with the focus set to 12″

↑↑ This was to see fine detail. Next time we’ll use charts or a newspaper.

Both cameras were using Firmware Build 15.

The day started with a couple of birthday emails. Thank you Toby & Guy for your birthday wishes.

Yes, it’s true it was my birthday today. To celebrate, the wife secretly contacted some of my friends and invited them over for a little get together. We started with a fantastic bottle of Krug champagne we’d been saving. Then it was off to our favorite, little restaurant and, IMHO, the best burger in town at the Bowery on Sunset Blvd. near Vine. What did the table order? Five burgers and one order of moules frite - not bad. Thanks Aaron, Justin, Chris, Pat, and most of all, my wife.

No cake this year just my wife’s very special mini, salted caramel cupcakes. It’s good to be the king.

Till next year…