On The Front - A 35mm short film

Andrew Brinkhaus

Andrew Brinkhaus

Veteran


ON THE FRONT
a 35mm short film



Director Max Miller | Director of Photography Andrew Brinkhaus | Producer John Walsh


In the chaos of war, every man must decide for himself who he is going to be.


BTS Photos available here.


Shot to match the negative
Roy.jpg
Germans.jpg


n83504496_30388536_9718.jpg


n83504496_30388522_6304.jpg



(That bridge is made of wood and foam thanks to our incredible Production Designer and his department.)


-FRAME GRABS-
(Sorry for the low quality, these are taken directly from the Avid timeline.)

Forest.jpg


Shack2.jpg


Bridge.jpg


Ben.jpg


Shack.jpg


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DAY 1
03-08-08

This is a 4 day shoot, I am shooting on Kodak's Vision2 5279 and 5218, both 500T stocks. Camera package includes 2- ARRI 235 cameras, and an Arricam Studio.

Taking on a 35mm WWII film was a great idea, but in the end, we worked hard to make this happen. Sure we could've sat back and relaxed some, but the end result would not have been nearly as rewarding. With a crew of about 40, getting setups and coverage was much faster, especially being able to shoot two cameras simultaneously. This was a much bigger film than my last project, The Master.

We started early, 6:00am. As I was waiting for the sun to come up, I was watching the clouds on the horizon, hoping we would have an overcast day for our first exterior battle scene. The lighting was all natural, with a few bounce boards and silks flown up, so getting the first shot off was just a matter of getting into blocking. The director and I wanted a very disorienting and confusing opening scene, as the character feels that way emotionally. We shot all hand held at a 45 degree shutter, to really intensify the action. I also am doing a bleach bypass in the transfer, so I underexposed about 1 1/2 stops to compensate. Also I had in an ND .9 (3 stops) to allow me to shoot at a more open aperture. With all this, my ASA was down to an 80!

After lunch, We moved on to shoot the last scene of the film, on a nearby location. This was very simple as well, with just a 4K HMI through a cookie, and a 4X4 silk. Luckily this was shot later in the afternoon, so I was able to take advantage of the very long shadows, and speckled sunlight. The bleach bypass really adds a crunch to the negative, which really looks amazing.

I will be posting the rest of the production soon. Stay tuned!
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Day 2
03-09-08

Call time: 7am. This was the craziest day of them all. We were scheduled to get 40 shots off in the 8 hours of shooting. Thankfully, the scene takes place in a dense patch of woods, so the high trees and low sun provided most of my lighting, I just filled it in with some silks and shiny boards. Half way through the scene, our two main characters, Addison and Roy are exposed to two germans, and the rest of the scene is a chase. This action was all shot at a 90 degree shutter, still compensating for a bleach bypass. We used the 235 for all the running work, as it is a very VERY light camera compared to the Studio. In one particular shot, we undercranked to 12fps, and transferred back at 12fps to recreate the "Gladiator" effect of ghosting and blurring. This will make more sense in the final film.

These scenes required getting the most shots off out of all four days, but it also equaled the smallest amount in the script, so we got lots of coverage. By the end of the day, we were able to shoot about 36/40 shots total, and we planned on coming out the next day to pick up the shots we missed.

The next day was all of our night exteriors. Definitely ready for a little breather. I finally get to sleep in. :Drogar-Happy(DBG):



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Day 3
03-10-008

Getting started today, most of my G&E prepped the trucks to move out to the location, and the Genie lift and Genny truck were also moved out. We were shooting on a dike next to the forest line, and to simulate the moonlight for these large exteriors, I lit up about 200' along the road with a 12K HMI on a condor crane, and two 6K HMI's raised up. Because I was shooting uncorrected, I didn't want the HMI's to read too blue, so I gelled them all with 1/2 CTO and 1/8 + Green. None of the night scenes would "skip the bleach" so I was back to rating the stock at a 500.

We were very fortunate to have a nice cool and calm evening, it was predicted to be in the mid 40's, but ended up being mid 60's. To start fresh, I placed the HMI's about 20' apart from each other, which gave me a large of throw. These lit most of the shot, and then I just added a little detail to the fill side with a bounce board. Because of the large difference in intensity between the 12K and the 6K's, I flew up a double net and a frame of opal diffusion to bring it down a little to match.

We finished shooting this scene early, and headed over to our nearby location to shoot our other night scene. For this scene, our production designer had built a bombed out building, which contained a few sleeping soldiers, and our main actors looking out into the woods for the scene. I lit up the foreground forest by bringing up the 12K HMI on the Condor to about 20'. At a distance of about 200', this got me about an f/2, which worked nicely with my actors coming in about an f/2.8/4 split. The building and the talent were lit from behind with a 2K Airstar, gelled with 1/2 CTB and 1/8 + Green, and a 10K Tungsten bounced into a 12X12 Griff. This gave them a nice soft key, and allowed the background to fall off to about 3 stops underexposed.

These scenes were the most fun for me, as they required the biggest setups of the film. The next day was also great, our one interior day.
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Day 4
03-11-08

Fourth and final day. 3pm call time, and most of the crew were ready to get started after a few hours of sleep from our overnight shoot the night before. This was our only interior day, and it took place on our "shack" set that was built buy the amazing art department. Our Production Designer, Tristan Garrison did a great job. Because this location is supposed to be deep in the French country, the only source of motivation came from the moon, and a small lantern that Roy had lit in the shack.

They also built a small forest on the soundstage outside the door of the shack, so lighting this realistically was very important for it to sell. I lit the trees outside about 3-4 stops underexposed, by hanging a 500W 24" china ball above the trees on a dimmer, and a 2K space light with a silk skirt from the trussing above, also on a dimmer. This created a nice top light/ambient to simulate a single soft source, the moon.

Inside, I created some speckled by hard mounting some small fresnels in the ceiling; mostly 300W betweenies and a few 200W midgets. They were all gelled with 1/2 CTB and 1/8 + Green to match our previous night coverage. For the actors, and mainly used 2, 2-foot 2 bank Kino's also gelled blue, and to simulate the lantern/fire light, a 300W fresnel on a Flickermaster, gelled with 1/2 Straw and a layer of 250 diffusion. I shot most of this scene at an f/2 and an f/2.8, most of my walls and even the fill sides of the actors were coming in around an f/1.4 or 1.7.

I really learned on this film not to be afraid of exposure. Underexposing is something that is very important in this film, to create the illusion of real darkness. Most young DP's have trouble making something look "dark" without being grainy and just unattractive. In this case, I just learned to trust my meter, and my knowledge of the latitude, and my DSLR, which even though only provides 7ish stops, is very accurate to the negative.

I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to shoot this film, and I can't wait to share more BTS material with you all soon. Stay tuned!




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Lookin good. Would you mind talking about what it takes to make a 35mm short? Raising money, festival plans, logistics, etc.

Good luck with this.
 
With the film, equipment, permits, processing, etc. the budget for this project would've been around $30,000. I shot this as our final project here at Full Sail.
 
Ahhhhh I just worked with a guy who just Graduated from full sail, good kid, really knows his stuff. His name was Andrew as well, lives in Mt. Airy Maryland if you happen to know him.
 
Andrew, wow! This film looks super sweet! Looking forward to seeing the final results. Will it be shown anywhere online, or are you releasing it to the festival circuits only?

/j
 
Thanks Justin! The film will be available online, as well as being submitted to the festival circuit. I know the director will be submitting to Sundance...
 
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