C300: Branded Content Films Shot in 4K on C300 MKII (and 1DX MKII)

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FFWDMedia

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Seeing as people have been sharing a few bits of work recently (and there's been a few more people asking for examples of C300 MKII footage) thought I'd post these two films I recently directed/DPed for UK photographic retailer Wex Photographic. They tell the inspirational stories of 3 photographers (part 3 launches next week) and explore what the power of photography is to each of them.

The first film tells the story of Giles Duley, an internationally renown documentary photographer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T4MAY318o4

The second film explores the issue of using photography to deal with mental health conditions, especially relevant on World Mental Health Day today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNTkdy-hJvE

In terms of technical details, The first film was shot entirely on my C300 MKII in 4K with a couple of slow mo 1080 50p shots upscaled and included. We delivered in 4K, so if you've got a fast enough internet you'll be able to watch it in something approaching the original quality. I shot entirely on Sigma Art and Canon L series lenses, with a 1/8 Black Pro Mist Filter.

The second film is a mixture of C300 MKII as A cam as above, and a Canon 1DX MKII we had on loan from Canon as a b-cam, mounted on a MoVi M5. We shot most of the 1DX footage in 50p, and I'm honestly incredibly impressed with the camera, and how good the footage looks when intercut with the C300. Very tempted to pick one up soon based on my experiences with it on this project.

Anyway, hope you enjoy watching them, and if you've got any questions, fire away!
 
Nicely done on both counts, very organic documentary kind of look you achieved. Focus is very good, the gimbal stuff is excellent and overall, they both seem to be engaging short films. This is the kind of branded content that I enjoy, the branding was subtle and not the point of the films. Can you talk about lighting? Are they both all available light or did you light certain scenes and if so, how? Also, did you have a crew on any of it?
 
Great stuff, I like the raised look of the blacks, subtle, not pushed too far. Is this more a factor of the BPM filtration or the color grade?

Also curious which profile this was shot in, CLOG2?
 
Thanks for taking the time to watch them both, puredrifting. Glad you enjoyed and thanks for the positive feedback!

It's definitely the kind of content I both enjoy watching and making, and really glad I was able to achieve the organic documentary look we were going for.

Happy to talk about lighting and crew. For the most part, the films are entirely available light. The nature of Daniel's film meant that it was exclusively natural light throughout as so much of it was filmed outside. I ended up relying on the C300 MKII's fantastic DR and doing a lot of work in Resolve to balance stuff out, so a fair amount of tracked gradient masks etc to keep things looking nice. The stuff inside was also all available light, including the interview, but I messed around with the blinds to create the shafts of light which is also a feature of his photographic work, and posed him for the opening sequence to make the best of the available light.

Giles' film was a little different, in that whilst all of the outside stuff was likewise available light, some of in interior scenes were lit, albeit with motivated practicals. The Lightbox sequence was quite heavily staged and lit with the practical light box providing the key, and then some fairy lights he had in the back of shot for some depth and colour contrast, as well as another tungsten kitchen light switched on in the rear of shot. The projector scene was also staged to work around the available light from the projector. Would've liked to put some fill in on the reverse angle but we were pushed for time. The interview was natural light with a 1x1 panel off to the left of frame for a little fill and the practical light to right of frame giving a little colour contrast on the other side. Also did a little work in resolve to bring up some of the mid tones, but not loose the moody look we wanted. Amazingly enough, the outside window wasn't actually clipped had I wanted to mask and recover the highlights. The C300 MKII's DR really does impress in these kind of situations.

Crew wise, we kept things fairly nimble. I directed and DPed, and I had a Producer/Production Manager, Production runner and sound op. I've posted some BTS on my FB here: https://www.facebook.com/madebyforward/posts/1177722962250119 and will probably do some more in depth breakdowns at some point in the future. Hope that was useful!
 
Thanks Lkorver. Yeah I like a little raised blacks, but try not to overdo it, so glad I've hit the mark. It's a little of both, I tend to start the look with the BPM filtration, and then lift the blacks a little further in post to complete the look.

This was all shot Clog 2, Production Matrix, Cinema Gamut. Clog 2 post the recent update is an entirely new animal. It was great before, but it's amazing now, incredibly clean in the blacks if exposed properly. The lightbox sequence in Giles' film, for example, was basically noise free, almost all noise you see in the final image is film grain added for aesthetic reasons. Honestly don't get why people have an issue using it; expose with a LUT and double check with waveform and you're good to go. So much latitude in post as well, I've recovered a lot of shadow detail in some shots with the log wheels in resolve with next to no noise penalty.
 
Wow, this is really an accomplished work, I love it. Scotland is so incredibly epic, I have only been once but it is truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever experienced. Fantastic views everywhere. Her story is very moving, she is so matter of fact about her MS, it's a very powerful interview and testimonial. My sister in law has MS, I know a little about it, it's great that she can still get out and do her art, many people with MS can no longer do so. The other two films were very nicely done but I feel this one to be to jewel in the crown, the filmmaking is very subtle and tasteful with a delicate subject. A few technical questions?

1. Did you shoot her walking shots with a gimbal? If so, which one and what was your experience with it?
2. Can you talk about lens choices and which version(s) of log you used?
3. As usual, can you tell us a bit about lighting?
4. Can you also address the client directive? Did they provide her to you? Did you seek her out? How was it decided how the story should be told? Was it true documentary filmmaking with you just showing up for a couple of locations and shooting or was everything carefully planned and laid out? Were there specifics requested or required by the client to tell her story? This piece is a beautiful mini doc about her realtionship with photography but it feels as if there could be more to her story that could fill out a nice short form 15-20 minute film?

Congratulations, you are a talented filmmaker. Thanks for sharing your work.
 
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Thanks so much Puredrifting, it means a lot to both me and the rest of the crew to receive such glowing feedback, makes the month or so of work we put into the film all the more worthwhile!

Scotland is indeed incredibly beautiful. One of my big worries going into the shoot was figuring out how to do the scenery justice. Hannah, like the rest of the subjects is a truly inspirational person and it was a real pleasure to spend a couple of days filming with her in such a beautiful environment.

1. All of the walking follow shots were shot with my MoVi M5 and the Canon 1DX MKII. I love the MoVis and have nothing but praise for them. I've had mine for over two years now and it's always performed and added production value to the projects I've used it on. Cheaper options are of course available, but nothing touches the MoVi in terms of performance and reliability, in my experience.

2. Lens wise all of this was shot on Sigma Art series lenses, chiefly the 50mm, 18-35 and the 24mm. As with the others, I had a 1/8 black pro mist filter in the matte box the whole time. All of the c300 MKII footage was shot Clog 2, Production Matrix, Cinema gamut. The 1DX footage (the MoVi stuff in the woods) was shot using good old ProLost flat and then graded to match.

3. Lighting wise, all of the beach and forest sequences were entirely natural light. The interview was natural light with a Wescott flex off screen left for some fill. Darkroom was all available light. We bought in a few extra red lights to add some backlight or fill. Table sequence with her photos was keyed with the natural light diffusing through the net curtain, and I bought the levels up with a Westcott flex bounced into the corner of the room (off screen to the right of the shot at 3.06) That's about it lighting wise.

4. So this was an interesting, and really nice brief and way of working. The client found the subject, and due to the distances involved, we had several Skype meetings with her before the shoot to get her comfortable with us and to start planning what we could shoot and learning more about her story. We then had several meetings with the client and spent a lot of pre-production time figuring out what her story was and a rough narrative arc, before creating some interview questions and roughly planning the key locations we wanted to shoot based around what we'd learnt about her and her story in (i.e. beach, forest, darkroom etc) We had pretty much free reign on how the story was told, beyond that we should interview her and shoot some b-roll! Which is a great way of working. There were very few specifics requested by the client at any stage of the process. I would describe it as pseudo-documenatry filmmaking insofar as we had planned a lot of the narrative, questions, locations to film etc, but we didn't know what her exact responses would be on the day, and the exact sequences we were going to shoot, other than ' beach photography sequence' 'darkroom sequence' 'forest walking/photography sequence' etc, so a hybrid way of working really. We definitely had enough material to make a longer cut, and there's definitely more to her story and the other two stories (especially Giles'!) to easily fill a 15-20 minute doc piece, but one of the few stipulations the client did have was running time, which had to be under 5 minutes, so we worked hard to tell a coherent story in that time. I'd love to make some longer form pieces, but it's getting the budget/freedom to do so; hopefully one day in the not too distant future.

Anyway, hope those ramblings were useful/enlightening, and thanks again for your kind words, they really made my day.
 
Thanks for the insights, it sounds like a wonderful project and client. Wish the projects and clients could all be so pleasant ;-)

FFWDMedia said:
Thanks so much Puredrifting, it means a lot to both me and the rest of the crew to receive such glowing feedback, makes the month or so of work we put into the film all the more worthwhile!

Scotland is indeed incredibly beautiful. One of my big worries going into the shoot was figuring out how to do the scenery justice. Hannah, like the rest of the subjects is a truly inspirational person and it was a real pleasure to spend a couple of days filming with her in such a beautiful environment.

1. All of the walking follow shots were shot with my MoVi M5 and the Canon 1DX MKII. I love the MoVis and have nothing but praise for them. I've had mine for over two years now and it's always performed and added production value to the projects I've used it on. Cheaper options are of course available, but nothing touches the MoVi in terms of performance and reliability, in my experience.

2. Lens wise all of this was shot on Sigma Art series lenses, chiefly the 50mm, 18-35 and the 24mm. As with the others, I had a 1/8 black pro mist filter in the matte box the whole time. All of the c300 MKII footage was shot Clog 2, Production Matrix, Cinema gamut. The 1DX footage (the MoVi stuff in the woods) was shot using good old ProLost flat and then graded to match.

3. Lighting wise, all of the beach and forest sequences were entirely natural light. The interview was natural light with a Wescott flex off screen left for some fill. Darkroom was all available light. We bought in a few extra red lights to add some backlight or fill. Table sequence with her photos was keyed with the natural light diffusing through the net curtain, and I bought the levels up with a Westcott flex bounced into the corner of the room (off screen to the right of the shot at 3.06) That's about it lighting wise.

4. So this was an interesting, and really nice brief and way of working. The client found the subject, and due to the distances involved, we had several Skype meetings with her before the shoot to get her comfortable with us and to start planning what we could shoot and learning more about her story. We then had several meetings with the client and spent a lot of pre-production time figuring out what her story was and a rough narrative arc, before creating some interview questions and roughly planning the key locations we wanted to shoot based around what we'd learnt about her and her story in (i.e. beach, forest, darkroom etc) We had pretty much free reign on how the story was told, beyond that we should interview her and shoot some b-roll! Which is a great way of working. There were very few specifics requested by the client at any stage of the process. I would describe it as pseudo-documenatry filmmaking insofar as we had planned a lot of the narrative, questions, locations to film etc, but we didn't know what her exact responses would be on the day, and the exact sequences we were going to shoot, other than ' beach photography sequence' 'darkroom sequence' 'forest walking/photography sequence' etc, so a hybrid way of working really. We definitely had enough material to make a longer cut, and there's definitely more to her story and the other two stories (especially Giles'!) to easily fill a 15-20 minute doc piece, but one of the few stipulations the client did have was running time, which had to be under 5 minutes, so we worked hard to tell a coherent story in that time. I'd love to make some longer form pieces, but it's getting the budget/freedom to do so; hopefully one day in the not too distant future.

Anyway, hope those ramblings were useful/enlightening, and thanks again for your kind words, they really made my day.
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