Mark and Ted's Excellent Adventure in Drama

also, i note the femme digitale book underneath the mouse... ah, i remember the day you got that mark. -- picking it up from the front desk, flirting with the cute girl's behind the desk. ;)

-kyle
 
Kyle ... you bring back fond memories. Ah..... you gotta come out here soon. .... Tim and I are flying south on the 5 passing Bakersfield. Tim is riding in the back seat with an inverter doing SR keying but the breaker keeps tripping cause he doesn't have a laptop.
 
Wait, he's plugging his desktop in? ROFL! We got some screenings lined up of SR in early Feb. so we're trying to push! Thanks for all of your hard work Tim and Mark. Good luck guys! Have a safe drive.
 
Kyle Stebbins said:
if i hadnt been so wound up in my film i would've NAILED you with that one!!

thanks for picking up my slack, mark.
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Yeah, I was sweating there for a minute! Talk about a typo! And it showed up on EVERY SINGLE POST THAT I HAVE EVER MADE! I couldn't get back into Photoshop quick enough to fix that mistake!!!

Mark Johnson said:
.... Tim and I are flying south on the 5 passing Bakersfield. Tim is riding in the back seat with an inverter doing SR keying but the breaker keeps tripping cause he doesn't have a laptop.
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Tim probably shouldn't be using that Plasma TV for a monitor... that does use a lot of juice! :grin:
 
Tim probably shouldn't be using that Plasma TV for a monitor... that does use a lot of juice! :grin:
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Yeah, it was friggin' hard to get that big screen into the car. ....

We made it down here around midnight. Just got up and we have to go down the hill to shoot a driver POV for a forensic case. We'll get on line when we get back and update ya, Ted.

Mark
 
Hey Kevin,

I have a question for you.

I know that you went to great lengths to acheive that look that you wanted in the camera (vs. in post). Can you describe some the settings that you adjust? Do they change from scene to scene or do you set it for the shoot and let it ride? I saw that you once used a card to establish a "warm tone" and then never used that card again. I am very curious to learn what some of the steps and rules you used to shoot this. (It just looks so amazing coming right out of the camera!)

If these are your trade secrets, I understand. Just want to learn!

Thanks!

-Ted
 
Hi Ted,

For me I lack the experience with the HVX that I have with the SDX and DVD so I didn't make as many changes (in camera) as I would typically. I did make a choice to balance the look of the shot based upon what I feel (or what I have been told) is correct for the scene. This does differ from setup to setup. I actually used my warm cards a few times and set both the user white balance channels to different options.

As you may have noticed, I use the production monitor a lot for reference. Not only is it higher resolution, but the color accuracy (once calibrated) is so much better than the EVF or LCD on the camera (I really prefer a CRT viewfinder for this reason).

In the case of TTN, as I mentioned, I don't have the same level of comfort with the HVX so I used lighting changes more than camera ones. I did have a chance to run a few camera tests with Mark before we started principal photography in December and I did a bit of analysis of the resulting images from the HVX with both tungsten and daylight balanced conditions. This gave me a somewhat better understanding of the camera and its character.

The other thing that I lacked on TTN was a proper mattebox and filtration. My mattebox was setup for a 72mm barrel and with the HVX's 82mm I couldn't use it (despite the suggestion that I use a step up ring, which I wouldn't due to the vignetting). I also never got the filters that I wanted so a lot of my choices were restricted to what I could accomplish with lighting changes.

In high color temperature conditions, I find that the blue channel of most CCD cameras exhibits some non linear effects. This is why I often choose to warm the information presented the camera.

All in all, I don't consider these exactly "trade secrets" as they are all fairly well understood concepts. What I hope that I can achieve (on set) is a quick analysis of the resources at hand a fairly quick solution that works within the constraints of the shot.

For TTN I didn't want to use a 35mm adapter (despite having access to one) due to the additional light loss and the issue of cutting back and forth between adapter and non adapter shots. So, really shallow DOF wasn't a possibility in many of our setups (due to space and other considerations). For these I choose to really push the lighting to push the viewer's eye to the part of the frame where the action was occurring. I realize that this took some time to achieve since we didn't have the opportunity to pre light any of our locations, but I hope that it was worth it.

Let me know if this doesn't answer all your questions and I will try to cover any specific ones in greater detail.

Kevin
 
No, that is great info. I guess I was wondering if you went into the scene setting files and changed those parameters. There are so many options in there. I had started to play with some of them during horrorfest but was so overwhelmed with the possibilities.

I have to break out my dvx and start experimenting with those.

I watched Barry Green's dvd and got some tips from one of the chapters there but still... very overwhelming!

Thanks for the breakdown here. I hope that we have more opportunities to shoot together. I learned a lot from you.

-Ted
 
HAHA! Yes, it was! Have you been out there Mark?

Brandon, I was thinking the same thing yesterday. I almost changed my avatar because I started craving an In-N-Out Double Double Animal style!!! (damn, even typing that makes my mouth water!)
 
We just now got back to Apple Valley, Ted. We shot a driver POV for a forensic shoot (Tim standing up in my moon roof with the HVX to get up at eye height for the truck driver). Worked out cool and we booked it back up here so we can get our machines set up. I've got to convert the footage and upload for the client but Tim will be getting his edit going and his AE file for Brandon.

No time yet for In-N-Out but it definitely is on the agenda.
 
Sounds great, Mark.

btw, the In-N-Out comment was to Mark Harris!!! Not you. But, please, feel free to indulge yourself. :grin:
 
Mark Johnson said:
We just now got back to Apple Valley, Ted. We shot a driver POV for a forensic shoot (Tim standing up in my moon roof with the HVX to get up at eye height for the truck driver). Worked out cool and we booked it back up here so we can get our machines set up. I've got to convert the footage and upload for the client but Tim will be getting his edit going and his AE file for Brandon.

No time yet for In-N-Out but it definitely is on the agenda.
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I was thinking of going and grabbing some In-N-Out myself! Since I feel so much better now!
 
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