AFTER CLASS - snodart & Tim Young

snodart

Veteran
You can download the Drama-Fest entries here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/dramafest/

2/15/2007: After Class can now be viewed here:
http://snodart.com/shorts.php

After Class is the third from the bottom on the list.

after_class_thread_poster1.jpg


Created by Tim Young & Justin Snodgrass (creators of CACHE)


CAST
David Concannon
Jacob Westerberg
Hanna Snodgrass

CREW
Justin Snodgrass (Written by, DP, edit)
Tim Young (Written by, DP, sound & score)
Richard Spencer (location sound, grip)
David Concannon (Makeup)

SPECIAL THANKS
Oak Glen School House Museum
Amy Snodgrass
Amber Young
Mary Ellen Westerberg


SCREEN CAPS


Cap_JakeHanna.jpg


Cap_DaveStand.jpg


Cap_DaveBehindJake.jpg



We had a rough start on this one, but thanks to the tremendous effort of everyone involved, we were able to get everything shot.

Tim is currently working on the sound and score, and I am finishing up with the color correction.

 
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BTS PICS

Jacob patiently waiting.
BTS7_JakeChinaBall.jpg



China ball invasion.
BTS5_LightMania.jpg


David Concannon, the man of many faces. From school teacher to
world leader in seconds.
BTS1_DaveWar.jpg


David gets Hanna ready for her shot.
BTS15_MakeUpHanna.jpg


David Concannon and Tim Young discuss character
motivation. The Marshall monitor (foreground) was
a rental.. and a huge plus for pulling focus with
a 35mm adapter.
BTS9_DaveTimeMarshall.jpg


Tim Young (camera), Rich Spencer (boom), and
Jacob Westerberg (at desk).
BTS16_RollingOnJake.jpg


Me with the DVX, indifocus, and Snod35.
BTS18_JustinCamera.jpg


Dave and Tim.
BTS17_JibTimSit.jpg


Dave and Jacob synchronized snacking.
BTS14_Chips.jpg



 
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Me going over the character of Eric with Jacob.
BTS10_JakeJustin.jpg


Tim setting up for a shot.
BTS11_HannaTimJake.jpg


Below is a good pic of the basic lighting set-up that we ended up using.
The first day that we tried shooting, we used one 500W Lowel Omni,
a 500W Lowel Omni with soft box, and one of the small China balls.
It was working okay until the sun vanished. In the end, we ended
up using 3 China balls and one 500W Lowel Omni with soft box. The
500W soft box set-up looked like a night light compared to the
China balls.
You can also see one of the sound blankets that we had to use. The
hardwood floors and flat ceiling made for some nasty echo.
BTS12_ClassChinas.jpg


Dave was good to provide motivation as needed. There is a pretty funny
outtake of one of his methods. We will have to wait until after the
viewing begins to show it though.
BTS13_headlock.jpg


Hanna at the mic. Tim will have to
break down our modified shotgun mic set-up.
BTS3_HannaMic.jpg


Here we are looking confused as to why the Marshall had a purple tinge.
We never did figure it out. Abuse from being rented I guess.
BTS4_LookingMarshall.jpg
 
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Congrats on the entry, it's looking very nice!
The grabs are great; almost looks like a 50's or 60's piece with the costumes and desaturation.

Looking forward to it!
 
LOVE the poster! the china ball lighting seems very effective for overall fill. are those white light bulbs inside?
 
dvpixl said:
LOVE the poster! the china ball lighting seems very effective for overall fill. are those white light bulbs inside?

justin designed the poster. i was really excited about it when he showed me. i think he did a great job.

as far as the china balls, we had 3 of them: one 20" and two 30". they worked really well for what we needed: a cheap, daylight-balanced, large and diffuse light source to compliment the room's natural sunlight and fill in darker spots. it also needed to be bright without drawing to much juice (old schoolhouse with old wiring). we made the china balls for about $80 for the large ones and about $50 for the small one. i bought the lanterns here:

www.paperlanternstore.com

the large one was $14 and the smaller one was $10 if i remember right. we bought nylon lanterns so they would last longer and be less of a fire threat than the paper ones. the bulbs were compact fluorescents that i bought at home depot. they're a brand called n:vision, and they're really cheap. they were $9 for a two-pack of daylight balanced (5500k) 23 watt bulbs. because they're fluorescent, they produce the equivalent of 90 watts of incandescent light each. also because they're fluorescent, they produce very little heat, which is nice for actors. we bought 15 foot electric cords, 2-prong to bulb socket adapters (below right) and a bunch of socket Y-adapters (below left). for the small ball we attached the 2-prong adapter, then a y-splitter, then 2 more splitters on each end of the Y. so we were able to get 4 bulbs. we did the same with the large ball, but split each end again, so using a total of 7 y-adapters we put 8 bulbs in each 30" china ball. the china balls come with a frame that lets them easily attach to the cord. here are the adapters (these are actually from lowe's website - the ones i bought look similar but i couldn't find them on the home depot website):


032664491689md.jpg
032664273100md.jpg


here are the socket adapter and the splitter at lowes.

the bulbs look like this, except they're daylight balanced (5500K). i think the "soft white" was 3500K - it says on the bulb:

762148582304_4.jpg


so with the 8-bulb 30" china ball, you get a daylight balanced, 720 watt diffuse light source (8x90 watt bulbs) for 80 bucks (14 for the china ball, about 20 bucks for the adapters, 36 for bulbs, and 10 for the cord), that uses less than 200 watts (23x8) of power, and will last a lot longer than incandescent lights. our lowel omni lights are 500 watts (and use 500 watts because they're incandescent) and put out much less light. the n:vision bulbs are also available in 2700K and 3500K.

we had originally bought specialty compact fluorescent bulbs that we found online that were higher CRI (color rendering index), which is a measure of how fully a bulb's light spectrum is. this is important for avoiding tinting of certain colors in your lighting. you want at least 85, and as close to 100 as possible. anyway i found these bulbs that were daylight balanced and had a CRI of 95, which was as high as i could find, that were $20 each. we bought 4, i put them on the splitter setup, we attached it to the cord, hung it, stood back and watched it detach from the cord and plummet to the ground in slow motion, shattering into a million pieces. so if you try this, make sure to tape the 2-prong splitter to your cord with electician's tape. but luckily we found the n:vision bulbs which were a lot cheaper. i couldn't find the CRI for these bulbs but the color seemed good.

we hung the lights from bogen light stands and some old microphone stands i had. they can be hung from anything sturdy you can clamp them to (buy some plastic spring-loaded clamps from home depot). i'd recommend sand bags to prevent your stands from tipping. we'd like to eventually buy some c-stands.

anyway we were really happy with the china balls, so i would recommend them to anyone looking for some nice, cheap, cool softlights. sorry about the long-winded post, but i thought someone might find this useful.

-tim
 
haha. should we just call this contest DAVIDfest? :cheesy:

Congratulations David on landing another film. You deserve it. :beer:

-Justin
 
Great to see you guys are in on this one. Its looking good so far. I like the look of the color correcting. Thanks Tim for the info on those China balls. I think I'm going to start making some of those soon.
 
snodart said:
BTS PICS

Jacob patiently waiting.
BTS7_JakeChinaBall.jpg



China ball invasion.
BTS5_LightMania.jpg



Looks a lot better than my 4 garage lights. You know, the metal cans with the clips on the end? The ones with old paint on them were especially professional looking.

Looking forward to your short.
 
The grabs look real nice and thanks for the detailed post on the china balls, I've been looking into building a few of those and you've outlined a great setup. Much appreciated!
 
Tim Young said:
sorry about the long-winded post, but i thought someone might find this useful.

-tim

Long winded. No way. Great info on the lights. Splitter on top of splitter seems a bit scary but if it works for you it is worth a shot. Thanks for the tips. Good luck.
 
jontuttle said:
Splitter on top of splitter seems a bit scary but if it works for you it is worth a shot.
The same thing went through my head at first. Luckily, fluorescents use very little wattage. So even the big china ball with 8 lights only uses around 184 total watts (23W X 8). The splitter and adapter are rated at 600W, so you could actually add even more lights (as long as the cord has a high enough rating as well).

DVX-Ben said:
Looks a lot better than my 4 garage lights. You know, the metal cans with the clips on the end? The ones with old paint on them were especially professional looking.
Whatever it takes to get it done! I still have our old lighting kit with those lights. The Lowel Omnis have made life much easier though. :) And the China balls too of course.

FatBird19 said:
haha. should we just call this contest DAVIDfest? :cheesy:

Congratulations David on landing another film. You deserve it. :beer:
Dave, how many is it total for Drama-Fest? 4 or 5? I agree with you FatBird, it is well deserved.

Thanks for all the well wishes and comments everyone.
 
Tim Young said:
...sorry about the long-winded post, but i thought someone might find this useful.

-tim
Don't apologize one bit!!! That was great info! Thanks. I will be creating a few of those myself!

I love the bts here, guys. Really great stuff! And I am very excited to see this. EVERYTHING that I've seen by Snodart makes me go "wow!"

David, you are a monster!!!!

Good luck and congrats, guys!

-Ted
 
DVX-Ben said:
Looks a lot better than my 4 garage lights. You know, the metal cans with the clips on the end? The ones with old paint on them were especially professional looking.

Looking forward to your short.

I took a lighting seminar awhile back with this pro lighting guy. Somebody asked him what is his favorite light is. You know the one he always reaches for. Guess what he said?

"Garage lights. You know, the metal cans with the clips on the end."

He said they have so many uses you should have at least a few with you at all times.
 
Great to see you guys in on the show! Looking forward to seeing it. I'll have to adopt the use your china ball ingredients. :)

CHeers!
/justin
 
Thanks for the china ball info! I just ordered the lanterns and bulbs and bought the y-adapters this morning. If I can get my shots to look as good as yours, I'll be beyond happy.
 
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