https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mIVRphxFHU
The was my first time using the 1DX II for an interview (with Canon 24-105 F4L). I used an on-camera light (Aputure AL-H198) which is daylight balanced while the interior lights appeared to be tungsten balanced. Lesson learned: bring the tungsten (orange) filter for these kinds of shoots. It was a bit of a challenge to get skintones looking good in post with mixed lighting. I also used the normally reliable Canon AWB as this was a fast shoot with changing light color. In retrospect I should have shot fixed WB and corrected in post. I used my custom CLog/CineStyle-like picture profile which boosts shadows and pulls highlights down slightly. The forest background shots and plates for greenscreen were also shot on the 1DX II.
The studio and Bigfoot recreation shots were shot on the C300 II, set up in "ARRI mode" and I used an ARRI LUT in Premiere Pro CC.
PDAF was used on both cameras and worked great.
Audio: Sennheiser wireless + Rode NTG2 for interview, Audix SCX-1 (interior), Schoeps CMC641 (interior), and Schoeps CMIT5U (exterior). I used EQ and a simple compressor and expander ('Dynamics') for the interview (no noise reduction- there was fan/white noise on location). No audio tweaking except for minor volume tweaks for the studio and recreation shots.
Editing was done in Premiere Pro CC. On a 3GHz 12-Core 2010 MacPro with 24GB RAM, SSDs, and GTX 980ti (6GB), Premiere Pro CC struggled to play back the 4K footage from both cameras, especially green screen which requires processing two streams at once. I used 1/2 resolution for playback and later 1/4 and 1/8 when working on audio to try to get continuous playback without PP CC stopping. One shot was edited in FCPX- the Bigfoot-in-the-tree shot. I wanted to see how well FCPX handled keying, compositing, and masking, and it worked extremely well. It was much easier to get a good key (effortless really), masking was super fast and easy (UI interaction), and playback with smooth at full resolution. So I rendered out that shot in ProRes and brought it into PP CC.
The spark gag was done in After Effects. I hadn't done particles outside of 3D Studio Max, so I looked at the various options in Motion, After Effects and 3rd party plugins. After a few minutes in Motion I gave After Effects a try (which I know how to use a bit better, though AE is much slower to use and render than Motion). Googling turned up the Particle World effect and in a few minutes I tweaked it to create the basic effect I was looking for. I saved the composition to disk and was able to load it directly into Premiere and drop on the timeline above the shots (actors and greenscreen). Tweaking the effect to fit the scene back in AE and updating on disk, which updated in PP CC, seemed faster than when I did something similar in the past using Dynamic Link.
The UFO was a 'quick & dirty' I created a while ago in 3DS Max (rendered out with an alpha channel). It's a gag prop so no effort to make it look 'real'
The C300 II worked great and was easy to use. The Canon 24-105 F4L was used for hand-held shots, and the 24-70 F2.8 II for studio shots. I always shoot in 'ARRI' mode as the colors and post grading are fast, easy, and consistent (Canon Log 2, Cinema Gamut, and 'Production' (ARRI) Matrix). The C300 II is a superior video camera vs. the 1DX II other than size, weight, and stealth. I thought using the joystick for selecting the focus region would be a step down vs. the 1DX II touch screen, however I started using the joystick on the 1DX II since it allows me to maintain a steadier grip while shooting.
Let us know what you think of the show (good or bad) and please like & share if you enjoyed it! Cosmic Flow is science (I'm the open-minded science guy) meets metaphysics/paranormal (Jacqui) for drama. We cover a bit of biology, psychology, and health/nutrition as well (those episodes are perhaps more informational than entertaining, though we're working on making those topics more entertaining (e.g. incorporating a story)).
The was my first time using the 1DX II for an interview (with Canon 24-105 F4L). I used an on-camera light (Aputure AL-H198) which is daylight balanced while the interior lights appeared to be tungsten balanced. Lesson learned: bring the tungsten (orange) filter for these kinds of shoots. It was a bit of a challenge to get skintones looking good in post with mixed lighting. I also used the normally reliable Canon AWB as this was a fast shoot with changing light color. In retrospect I should have shot fixed WB and corrected in post. I used my custom CLog/CineStyle-like picture profile which boosts shadows and pulls highlights down slightly. The forest background shots and plates for greenscreen were also shot on the 1DX II.
The studio and Bigfoot recreation shots were shot on the C300 II, set up in "ARRI mode" and I used an ARRI LUT in Premiere Pro CC.
PDAF was used on both cameras and worked great.
Audio: Sennheiser wireless + Rode NTG2 for interview, Audix SCX-1 (interior), Schoeps CMC641 (interior), and Schoeps CMIT5U (exterior). I used EQ and a simple compressor and expander ('Dynamics') for the interview (no noise reduction- there was fan/white noise on location). No audio tweaking except for minor volume tweaks for the studio and recreation shots.
Editing was done in Premiere Pro CC. On a 3GHz 12-Core 2010 MacPro with 24GB RAM, SSDs, and GTX 980ti (6GB), Premiere Pro CC struggled to play back the 4K footage from both cameras, especially green screen which requires processing two streams at once. I used 1/2 resolution for playback and later 1/4 and 1/8 when working on audio to try to get continuous playback without PP CC stopping. One shot was edited in FCPX- the Bigfoot-in-the-tree shot. I wanted to see how well FCPX handled keying, compositing, and masking, and it worked extremely well. It was much easier to get a good key (effortless really), masking was super fast and easy (UI interaction), and playback with smooth at full resolution. So I rendered out that shot in ProRes and brought it into PP CC.
The spark gag was done in After Effects. I hadn't done particles outside of 3D Studio Max, so I looked at the various options in Motion, After Effects and 3rd party plugins. After a few minutes in Motion I gave After Effects a try (which I know how to use a bit better, though AE is much slower to use and render than Motion). Googling turned up the Particle World effect and in a few minutes I tweaked it to create the basic effect I was looking for. I saved the composition to disk and was able to load it directly into Premiere and drop on the timeline above the shots (actors and greenscreen). Tweaking the effect to fit the scene back in AE and updating on disk, which updated in PP CC, seemed faster than when I did something similar in the past using Dynamic Link.
The UFO was a 'quick & dirty' I created a while ago in 3DS Max (rendered out with an alpha channel). It's a gag prop so no effort to make it look 'real'
The C300 II worked great and was easy to use. The Canon 24-105 F4L was used for hand-held shots, and the 24-70 F2.8 II for studio shots. I always shoot in 'ARRI' mode as the colors and post grading are fast, easy, and consistent (Canon Log 2, Cinema Gamut, and 'Production' (ARRI) Matrix). The C300 II is a superior video camera vs. the 1DX II other than size, weight, and stealth. I thought using the joystick for selecting the focus region would be a step down vs. the 1DX II touch screen, however I started using the joystick on the 1DX II since it allows me to maintain a steadier grip while shooting.
Let us know what you think of the show (good or bad) and please like & share if you enjoyed it! Cosmic Flow is science (I'm the open-minded science guy) meets metaphysics/paranormal (Jacqui) for drama. We cover a bit of biology, psychology, and health/nutrition as well (those episodes are perhaps more informational than entertaining, though we're working on making those topics more entertaining (e.g. incorporating a story)).
