Without Providence - Short Military Film - XL-H1

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pdsage10

Well-known member
UPDATE**** Tomorrow (Friday) night on "The Military Channel" (part of the Discovery channel network).

FRIDAY, December 3 from 6 PM PST (9pm EST)
KAPISA (Premiere)
Caught in the crossfire of the intensifying war in Afghanistan, members of a small team of U.S. Army soldiers are forced to choose between promises made to one another and those assured to their loved ones back home. KAPISA is a narrative short and was directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes and Paul Sage. It won the Best Student Film Award at the 2009 G.I. Film Festival. ****




Hey everyone,
During our winter break from class, a friend and I decided to make a short film about a group of soldiers in Afghanistan. My buddy, who made the film with me, is a Staff Sergeant who just got out of the Army a few weeks before classes started for us at USC. So needless to say I had a military advisor built into the project. :)
Check out his website, http://www.kylehs.com

Story Line: A small 4-man team of US Army scouts find themselves pinned down in the Taliban-infested mountains of Afghanistan. A young soldier's final act of heroism could force his best friend and platoon-mate to fill his shoes back home; that of a husband and new father.

We shot it with my Canon XL-H1 in 1080 24p, to tape and a Firestore simultaneously for safety. No adapter was used, just the 20x lens, which is a ***** to pull focus with (basically impossible). Not one shot was taken on a tripod, but I did use a Dvrig Pro for stabilization.
We are finishing up cutting it on FCP and coloring in FCS2's Color. What a nightmare!! I hate the gamma jumps between FCP and Color. Finally made my own LUT for Color to over come that issue and it helps immensely.

Our total budget was around $900, which mostly went towards food for the cast and crew over the three day shoot.

We are currently in the process of working with a composer to score the picture. So, it should be ready for viewing in about two more weeks. Yeah!!!!

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Cool, it's looking good so far! What kind of colour presets in the XL-H1 are you using if any?
 
ecking said:
Cool, it's looking good so far! What kind of colour presets in the XL-H1 are you using if any?
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Thanks, I was using a Kodak 5296 preset, but that got totally thrown out the window with the color grading we did. But it did help with the dynamic range.
 
Looks really interesting, pdsage. I can't wait to see a trailer.

How do you like the Firestore + tape workflow? Pretty much a great hybrid model, isn't it?

Do you find that the best approach is to shoot a relatively flat image for maximum dynamic range? It seems like the more people really understand and exploit apps like Color, the less they mess around with heavily tweaked in-camera presets.
 
The firestore and tape workflow is great because it gives me insurance that my footage has been captured without a drop-out. If the tape drops out on a take, I pull the footage from the firestore or vise-versa.

As for coloring, yes, I try to shape the light and texture on set, but leave color and contrasts as flat as possible. In camera tweaking can leave you stuck with a certain look. Basically the same thing as when the big boys shoot log on the D-20's or other bigger cameras, keep your range and then you will have more possibilities in post.
 
Looks cool, did you shoot it up around Agua Dulce?

So your buddy had other buddies that loaned their gear to the shoot? Does that mean that the Interceptor (minus plates) is part of permanently issued gear? If not, I'd be interested to hear how you costumed 4 actors on that little money!
 
dougspice said:
Looks cool, did you shoot it up around Agua Dulce?

So your buddy had other buddies that loaned their gear to the shoot? Does that mean that the Interceptor (minus plates) is part of permanently issued gear? If not, I'd be interested to hear how you costumed 4 actors on that little money!
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We shot up in San Francisquito Canyon on a friend of mines property.
As for the gear, yep its all issued gear loaned by soldiers. The IBA's were all beefed up by inserting cut plywood into the large pockets where the plates would normally go.
There is no way that we could have costumed these guys that well without the loaned gear. That stuff if expensive!
 
Yes it is. I have a set that was $200 without the helmet or most of the insignia... and that was still a pretty great deal.
 
Meeting with the composer next week! He's all done! So about another week and I'll have a finished film to show ya.
 
Finally finished post production. We will be doing a screening next Friday (13th) at USC in the new Cinematic Arts Building (in a theater on a very big screen). Send me an email if your in the LA area and want to drop by:

Ill send you a link to RSVP. Should be fun.
 
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Great job! I know most people gripe about the DOF of 1/3" cameras, but here I didnt notice it at all. The story really grabbed me. I was actually scared for them! haha.
 
DREWjoseph82 said:
Great job! I know most people gripe about the DOF of 1/3" cameras, but here I didnt notice it at all. The story really grabbed me. I was actually scared for them! haha.
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Cool, thanks for checking it out and the feedback. Yeah, the deep DOF is definitely there, but I guess nobody really cares because of the setting and story. Shallow DOF would have been nice for some shots, but the hand held nature of the shots would have made it hard to keep in focus. :)
 
heyy wow that was awesome. my only complaint is that, well ive been a professional screenplay writer for 16 years and one of the things that i see a lot of mistakes beginners make in there writin is the over use of curse words. dialog was excellent though. i cracked up with them playing 6 degrees and it's funny because the emphasis on mr. bacon i just KNEW you were gonna throw his name in there lmao.

i have one question though. im going to start directiing my first feature film soon and ive been looking at the xl h1 but i dont know how to handle a double system using the 24 frames the canon shoots. is it hard to sync the audio in post when using a double system? i know with 24p, your recorder is set to 30 non drop and 24pa is set to 29.97 non drop. but what about the h1's 24 frames? can anyone chime me in on what to do there?

again, awesome job!!
 
Allieminute,
Thanks man. Yeah the cursing at times might have been a bit much.
Funny thing about the Kevin Bacon game, I co-wrote this with an Army Staff Sergeant and he was telling me how he and his soldiers would sit for hours out on a mission and have nothing to do. So they would play 6 degrees with each other and even with other soldiers miles away over a short wave radio. So, this film is about as legit as it can get when it comes to little details like that. Funny :)

As for the double system, Im not sure. The end result after capture from the xl-h1 is 23.976fps.
 
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