"The Fiction" a DP blog

Thanks. Mike works that camera hard. We start shooting again tomorrow night and the rest of the interior shots are supposed to look like the house scenes in M.Night's "Signs".
 
Another day down and it was great. Still shooting night shots but doing some day for night stuff to get more detail in the wides. We still need to get some night pick ups but starting to shoot daytime stuff tomorrow so the sleeping transition will be rough. One of the shots that didn't work was the guy running in the woods with a flash light. It just didn't look right so we need to shoot that again some time later. Other than that, the schedule has been loose enough not to have to rush any shots and just shoot them to have but rather to plan them and make them look good. We have been watching the dailies on a 50 inch screen and they are sharp as hell. Everyone watching including non- film makers say right away how nice it looks so that makes me happy. :)
We watched them the first night on another plasma and it looked like ass which made us worry but it turned out to be the tv. Something was wrong with the greens on it. Whew.
So far the amount of lights we are using have been more than enough even on the interior wides. We got a really nice shot today which I will post in 2 - 3 days.
 
astigmatic said:
awesome, are you going to try the new cinefuseX? if so, I'd love to see how some of those some shots turn out.
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We are interested in the CFXL. We've been having to tweak out the grain pattern for some shots by adjusting the oscillation intensity on set. Even though its fairly easy to do with an MP.1 unit, if the CFXL has improvements on the grain structure of the diffusers, then its well worth it. So, last I heard we will be doing a test drive for the CFX on the remaining four weeks.

We'll keep you posted.
 
Here are some more screen shots from the other days. Not sure how the color correction looks on these since my laptop screen sucks.

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These were lit with a 2k, 1k fresnal, and a 1 k flood bounced into a grey board.
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BTS of the setup
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This shot I used a 1k on the right of screen, a 300w with blue on the left, a 650w above hitting the back wall, on the right or screen, a 150 on the phone on the wall on the same side, a ton of practicals that were in the kitchen area and a 300w tucked back there also.
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This shot used mostly natural light from the big window irised down and I used a 1k soft to the left of screen to back light them and a 300 both blue gelled on the right to hit the glass of iced tea.
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This shot I used a 1k soft box from the upper right of screen and a 300 below under us both blue gelled
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This was all lit from the right of screen with the natural and a 1k softbox blue gelled.
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These are all just natural lit but we waited until the sun went down behind the trees because these will be day for night shots and relit in post. We did a bunch of day for night stuff on the wides when we are looking from the house out into the woods. I did not color correct these to look like night.
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This by the way is an incredible looking dolly shot...
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hi,
wich lens do you have used.
only zeiss zf??
wich one??
i have seen also nikon 17-35mm .is it true??
 
Zeiss primes 35/2, 50/1.4, 85/1.4, 100/2 and Nikon 17-35/2.8 as well as a 80-200/2.8.
 
Here are some new shots from today. Most of them are single sourced using the window as motivation. We had a 1K out the window and a 1k softbox inside to wrap the light a little better and a 300w to hit highlights.

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This was actually motivated by 2 windows, the one in frame and the big one on the right out of frame. Even though the window in frame was too far away to really light her, I still threw a 300 with diffusion on her face to make it look like it was being lit from it.
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These 2 will be bloomed in post for that early morning look.
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Rise and shine
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This shot was really nice and Mike did a fake, hand held crane up from behind the bed to follow the path of the ball. Still motivated by the same window.
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This was a dolly shot which will be flipped in post to make the audience think the door moved to the other side. We are looking at him in the mirror. This film has a bunch of little tricks to show the degradation of the main characters mind. Sort of like Spotless mind.
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Looks good man. I think this is some of your strongest work yet. The attic stuff is killer, nice and moody. I also really like the OTS on the little girl holding the pencil to her mouth with the diffused 300. Not a big fan of the large wood office/library interiors, I think it's a little too bright for my tastes, too much natural light coming in through the windows perhaps? It just feels more lit to me than the other stuff. What do you think? How did you perceive it on set? I'm curious because sometimes I want to light something dark and dramatic, with pools of shadow, etc, but it doesn't call for it or the director wants something else.
 
What I like about the shot with the little girl is that you've got excellent tonal and dynamic range. It flows well to the eye and she is lit a stop or so more than the rest of the image. My eyes are immediately drawn to her and then the surrounding areas. I'm a fan of dark recessed backgrounds but my other favorite is to have a small, bright highlight (window, light, etc) behind characters, usually in front of their eyeline, such as this grab. It creates good depth and contrast within the shot. What lens is this shot on?
 
Thanks Chris, 4-man crew.... director, sound man, aram, and myself.

Geoff, thanks for the feedback. Aram will describe the lighting scenarios we faced in those particular shots/scenes you mentioned. I can tell you the office had ridiculously large windows that pretty much spanned the entire wall. As far as the shot with the little girl you mentioned, we used a 50/1.4 ZF.

I heard you and MattyG were in NYC recently. Wish we couldve all met up. We've been in CT most of the week for the past 2 weeks or so. Give us a shout the next time you guys come thru.
 
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