A Few Grabs from "You Better Run"

[DavidBeier]

EDIT: Ok, I put together a little montage of some of the raw footage with no sound (but music). I'd suggest saving to your computer for viewing.

http://www.beierfilms.com/You%20Better%20Run/Raw%20footageHD_720p.wmv

Shooting my first real film in two years (been doing corporate videos in the mean time) and while it's been really hectic and we've had some disasters, I'm sticking with it. I just took a few screen grabs to keep me motivated.

The focus is soft on the 3rd one. It was a night shot and it was just supposed to be the main character rubbing his hands to keep warm. He then decided to breath on them so I tilted up to his face but didn't pull focus. We were so short on time we couldn't do another take but I really liked the rim lighting on his face so perhaps I'll stick it in anyway.

 

[Derrick_SA]

Nice grabs, it would be nice to see some of the BTS pictures of the lighting setup,

looks like you used an 35mm adapter or am I wrong?

- Derrick

 

[DavidBeier]

Nice grabs, it would be nice to see some of the BTS pictures of the lighting setup,

You'd have to ask my DP. He just said, "trust me" (the same way I do to my actors) and was constantly moving and shifting lights. We actually accomplished it all with just some 750ks. The generator was noisy as hell though so we'll have to ADR.

looks like you used an 35mm adapter or am I wrong?

I was waiting for someone to ask this. No, no adapter. I have a friend who's really pro-Letus but I don't like the loss of resolution and sensitivity. This location, which is where the climax of the film happens, was expensive but I wanted it because it was HUGE and it gave the feel of a Leone-style showdown. The great thing about having that kind of space is that you can take the time to position the camera, and your actors, to get as shallow a DoF as you want without the drawbacks of an adapter.

I'll post some more grabs later.

 

[Derrick_SA]

ok, good work,

so like in eg. grab 2, you put them a little futher from each other, and zoomed in, and took advantage of the fact that at the telephoto end of a lens things look compressed (closer to each other)?

And om the same grab, did you guys use a flag to keep the light on the guy and the right and not spill over to the right? It would really be great if there was some behind the scene photos.

- Derrick

 

[Drew Ott]

The grabs look great.

Good luck on the film.

 

[DavidBeier]

so like in eg. grab 2, you put them a little futher from each other, and zoomed in, and took advantage of the fact that at the telephoto end of a lens things look compressed (closer to each other)?

Exactly. I kind of irritated my crew and actors a bit when I kept constantly moving them a bit apart, me a bit closer, both me and them a bit further from the fence. Only my DP understood what I was doing.

And om the same grab, did you guys use a flag to keep the light on the guy and the right and not spill over to the right? It would really be great if there was some behind the scene photos.

I'll ask my crew but, to be honest, I think everyone was too tired and rushed to take any pics during the night stuff. We go there at 2:50 AM and were supposed to be lit and ready to shoot by 3:30 but it took til 4:10 because the wind kept blowing down the flags and a mic short circuited.

Here are a few more:

 

[DavidBeier]

Edited the first post to include a footage montage. No sound but music.

 

[DavidBeier]

Got some new grabs from our last round of shooting. Some more night stuff. I never realized what a pain lighting interiors at night could be. Once again, I owe my DP my butt. I'd tell him something like, "well, it has to have a different look from the daytime stuff in the same room but I'm not sure how" and he would just come up with something. I ended up taking over so much of the visual aspect whenever we were outdoors that this day of interiors was really the first time when he was busier than I was.

I'm really pleased with the rim lighting we got in the boy's bedroom. I'd had that in my head for so long and I'm glad it came out. I had planned to do the girl's bedroom in silloutte but that just didn't work unfortunatly. Much to my surprise though, I'm glad it didn't work since my actor's gave much such a great moment that I wouldn't have wanted their faces to be lost.

I'll actually post the scene itself when it's done uploading.

 

[Beat Takeshi]

Congrats on getting something done. Looks good so far and would like to see the final. The one thing about not using an adapter is that when you zoom in you compress the background.

 

[DavidBeier]

Congrats on getting something done. Looks good so far and would like to see the final.

Thanks. I don't know when the final will be as we've just had our last day of shooting pushed back yet again, this time because one of my actor's father died. It's not a huge role but he's in every scene and we can't shoot around him.

The one thing about not using an adapter is that when you zoom in you compress the background.

But I believe using an adapter does as well. I mean, from what I understand, your depth of field is totally based around the lens itself. Now, it's true that you tend to get a more shallow DoF when you're shooting with bigger imagers (2/3 CCDs or 35mm) but that's simply because their larger size means they grab a bigger portion of the image coming off the lens and thus you tend to use much shorter lenses when you're shooting on a 1/3 CCD. Barry had a great thread about a year ago that explained all this.

As is my understanding, a 35mm adapter will compress the background in the exact same way when using the same lens size. The advantage to it is that I have to be much rather away from the subject to use a 55mm with my HVX200 alone than I would if I had the adapter. On the other hand, I'd lose a lot of sensitivity and, since our biggest light is a 1k, I don't think that would work.

 

[DavidBeier]

http://www.beierfilms.com/You%20Better%20Run/Night%20sequenceHD_720p.wmv

Right click and save the above link. It's actually a full scene roughly edited. The audio has some issues and the music is just temp but I like the performances.