"A Verse Before Dying" - AF-100 Western Short

I thought this was worth sharing…

Our co-executive producer, Barry Green, brought an Ultra-16 modified GSMO to the shoot, so we decided to shoot some side-by-side shots with the AF-100 and Kodak Vision 16mm film.

I don't have the raw film footage, so what you will see is a series of four different shots, with AF-100 raw footage first, followed by color-corrected film, and then the color-corrected AF-100 footage.

Workflow for the AF-100 footage was… Shoot native AVCCAM. Transcode to ProResHQ. Color-correct files in Baselight. Output corrected HQ files. Assemble in Final Cut.

Workflow for film was. Shoot film, and hope you got it. Transfer via 2K ArriScan to ProResHQ. Color-correct files in Baselight. Output corrected HQ file. Assemble in Final Cut.


Stephen, Barry,

many thanks for sharing!
Tomorrow I will have the new Panny in my hands... I'm lucky! :o)
 
I'm curious about the approach to color in this film. I notice the raw AF footage is very desaturated, as one might expect of raw. The corrected 16mm is quite saturated, and the colors are rich and well distinguished. For instance, the color of the horse is clearly chestnut, and quite nice. The AF corrected footage is at least as desaturated as the raw, and blacks are very crushed. Is this intended? And if so, why was the 16mm treated differently once color corrected? It's hard to compare color detail with the 16mm handled so differently.
 
Our primary focus was working with the AF-100 footage, and getting the look we wanted from it. Timur did quite a bit of testing beforehand to arrive at the raw camera settings he used, with the specific idea of our look in his mind. With the film, what we really wanted to see was how much more we could "push" it than the AF-100 footage. And we only had so much time in the telecine suite to do what we wanted to do. We couldn't put the film through every test we wanted, as our time was limited. We provide it for viewing here as nothing more than an opportunity to see the two side by side.
 
Also, this was as much a test of -- does this film camera even work?!?! I bought it off ebay, and this was its maiden voyage for me. And it worked very well, so I'm happy with that. Rather than shooting a test roll and sending it in, I brought it along with the AF100 to shoot some side-by-sides. This was not a structured "shootout", this was "hey, while we're shooting this movie, let me grab some 16mm shots and then we can see what they look like next to the AF100". Ideally I would have had a color-bar slate and slated the takes so the colorist could match the grade exactly, but that's not how it all turned out. Oh well....
 
By the way - I have to say, as a quick aside here, hats off to our sound guru MattinSTL -
Sitting in on the sound mix today with Stephen and Drew it was obvious that our sound was top notch.

I know we're all drooling over the camera... but no one would care about a film with such a great image if the sound was sub par.
Fantastic job, Matt.
:thumbsup:
 
Also, this was as much a test of -- does this film camera even work?!?! I bought it off ebay, and this was its maiden voyage for me. And it worked very well, so I'm happy with that. Rather than shooting a test roll and sending it in, I brought it along with the AF100 to shoot some side-by-sides. This was not a structured "shootout", this was "hey, while we're shooting this movie, let me grab some 16mm shots and then we can see what they look like next to the AF100". Ideally I would have had a color-bar slate and slated the takes so the colorist could match the grade exactly, but that's not how it all turned out. Oh well....

Barry, I disagree about your veredict of the film camera. Your film is way too scratched and dusted - Yes the camera works, but something is still not in optimal quality to work it with confidence. Your negative should look much cleaner than that. Maybe since you changed the mags, and probably was a little 'rusty', you wasn't very careful. Or maybe some of the desert dust got in while you were running to get the shoot done in time. But I've seen some loaders getting into serious trouble when stuff like that happened while shooting. The hair is also troubling, but sometimes, we can't check the gate with enough minutia and it happens.

What made me really happy was seeing some raw shots from the AF-100. That was absolutely stunning, some truly RED-looking stuff!
 
Wow, the film stuff looks absoluteyl beautiful. SKin tones are excellent. I assume the low saturation is due to the af100 having been toned all the way down in camera?

I thought this was worth sharing…

Our co-executive producer, Barry Green, brought an Ultra-16 modified GSMO to the shoot, so we decided to shoot some side-by-side shots with the AF-100 and Kodak Vision 16mm film.

I don't have the raw film footage, so what you will see is a series of four different shots, with AF-100 raw footage first, followed by color-corrected film, and then the color-corrected AF-100 footage.

Workflow for the AF-100 footage was… Shoot native AVCCAM. Transcode to ProResHQ. Color-correct files in Baselight. Output corrected HQ files. Assemble in Final Cut.

Workflow for film was. Shoot film, and hope you got it. Transfer via 2K ArriScan to ProResHQ. Color-correct files in Baselight. Output corrected HQ file. Assemble in Final Cut.

 
Wow, the film stuff looks absoluteyl beautiful. SKin tones are excellent. I assume the low saturation is due to the af100 having been toned all the way down in camera?


Exactly!

The skin tones out of the AF-100 are actually very nice, and the colorist said as much when looking at the raw footage.
 
Exactly!

The skin tones out of the AF-100 are actually very nice, and the colorist said as much when looking at the raw footage.

Great, thus we will see some wonderfully colored footage within the next 30 days as everyone will get their hands dirty. I too am included.. hopefully... if it arrives to Canada on time from BH.
 
I won't put any disclaimers or pre-ramble in front of this, except to say that we had a blast making this, and I hope the finished (for now) film reflects the time, passion and effort that everyone put into making "A Verse Before Dying." Cheers, happy holidays, and enjoy…

 
we had a blast making this, and I hope the finished (for now) film reflects the time, passion and effort that everyone put into making "A Verse Before Dying."

I think it definitely does.
I for one am very proud to have played even a small part in bringing this project to life.

:thumbsup:
 
I think it definitely does.
I for one am very proud to have played even a small part in bringing this project to life.

:thumbsup:

It's safe to say you (and Cliff) played more than a "small part" in the making of the film. We couldn't have done it without you guys, or without every other person on the cast and crew.
 
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It's great to see a group of people that first on the net gather and make a movie!!! :beer: this is to a creative future!!!!
 
Thank you for your effort gentlemen! Enjoyed the short, looked great, but I did guess the *spoiler*!! There were many opportunities for moire and aliasing and skewing, but the AF100's proved themselves to be immune. I think you guys did the camera proud!
 
Thank you for your effort gentlemen! Enjoyed the short… I think you guys did the camera proud!

Yeah, it's interesting… Some of the wardrobe was chosen specifically because if there was going to be moire/aliasing, we wanted to see it. And we (or at least I) didn't see any.

Glad you enjoyed the short!
 
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