C300: Canon C300 MKI Netflix Gilmore Girls Promo

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
Shot this a couple of weeks ago with a rented C300. Lauren is so talented and charming, a true delight to work with. I hate green screen but Netflix wanted her in front of the famous gazebo from the show. Of course, when I shot it, nobody knew what they were going to put behind her so I just lit it flat and soft with the key centered above camera and soft underfill, a touch of hair light on her hair and shoulders. Came out okay, not ideal as I would have lit it differently if I had a picture of what would be behind her, but we do the best we can with what we have.

 
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say what you want about how canon stinks, the chip is old, the ergo flawed, the c300 offer up a lovely image.

ymmv

be well.

rob
smalltalk.productions
 
puredrifting said:
Shot this a couple of weeks ago with a rented C300. Lauren is so talented and charming, a true delight to work with. I hate green screen but Netflix wanted her in front of the famous gazebo from the show. Of course, when I shot it, nobody knew what they were going to put behind her so I just lit it flat and soft with the key centered above camera and soft underfill, a touch of hair light on her hair and shoulders. Came out okay, not ideal as I would have lit it differently if I had a picture of what would be behind her, but we do the best we can with what we have.

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Looks great....as usual for you!

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com
 
Thanks or the notes of encouragement guys. As you might surmise, when working with certain talent, there is a lot of "emphasis" to make sure that the talent looks beautiful so they were happy, Lauren and I were happy and the feedback has been good on the spots, I think there are a few more variations on this that will be released, possibly in the other Netflix markets overseas. And yes, my little C100MKI and the outdated, obsolete C300 MKI can still make beautiful images, just not in 4k!
 
Josh Bass said:
uh, besides "that guy" who is saying canon stinks/chip is old etc.? i think that cam is still super popular.
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josh-

i might have made myself misunderstood, i was "quoting" several of the more common remarks about the canon cxxx line.

i believe the c100 and c300 are still very viable.

sorry for any confusion.

all good here ;-)

be well.

rob
smalltalk.productions
 
Indiawilds: Netflix requires 4k for programming but since this was a social media promo, 4K would have been massive overkill I guess? I asked about it when I was booked and they said "not necessary".

Erik: Good on-line editor pulled a nice key. I was actually concerned because originally we were going to use the real BG that was in the studio and then at the last minute, clients decided they didn't like the real BG and I had to slip a green screen in. There really wasn't enough room for my green screen Kinos to be positioned where I wanted them for even light for the green screen and when I looked at zebras, the lighting was even around Lauren but the rest of the screen was pretty unevenly lit. Thanks goodness for new, improved keyers where uneven lighting isn't the problem it once was. I like to set up a green screen and really play with the position on the lighting to get it perfectly even but that takes time (which I didn't have) and room (which I didn't have) so I got it even around Laura and we went ahead. She is lit with two 12x12 Coollight LED600 daylight panels key and fill with a Coollights LED 256 daylight with a small softbox as a hair light. Key source is one 12x12 panel, centered over her, through a small Chimera Quartz Pro and the fill comes in from underneath, punched through a 42" Westcott transparent Flexfill, beauty shoot style, to fill in under the eyes and under the chin. Green screen is lit with two homemade Diva 200 lights with Kino 5500K tubes. I made them about a decade ago when Kino introduced the Diva line. I wanted but couldn't afford $2,500.00 for two of the Divo 200s so I made my own from scratch. Made the housings out of pine, installed super high frequency ballasts, wired them up myself, used two nickel plated reflectors and the Kino tubes. At the time, I worked right across town from Kino Flo so I drove over there and bought two of the Kino lollipops as I had tried all kinds of other grip solutions for mounting but the Kino lollipops worked the best. Been using them for ten years and they work great. They are heavier than real Kinos and don't have the barn doors but functionally, they are the same, big, soft blobs of Kino light that are good for lighting green screens and or people. I used them to shoot Andy Williams at his theater in Branson years ago for his PBS Special, they made him look great.
 
She looks as good now as when the show first started back in ... let me look it up ... 2,000.

Nice clip too.

But, really, let's talk more about Lauren Graham.
 
I have been catching up on Gilmore Girls since I never watched when it aired originally. A lot of major talent, both in front of the camera and behind worked on that show. Melissa McCarthy got her start there, Jenji Kohan was a producer, lots of cameos from well know (now) talent who were relatively unknown back then. Sam Phillips, who I have been a big fan of since the early 90s did the soundtrack, lots of Elvis Costello, and other quality stuff as well as her own pieces everywhere in the show. The writing, at least through the first two seasons I have watched most of, was pretty solid. But back to Lauren, yes, she is stunning in person, she has star quality. In the earlier episodes, she reminds me a lot of Audrey Hepburn around the eyes and mouth, very gamine. She is just as lovely today and is fun and chill to work with.
 
I remember reading about "Townies" back in 1995-96, which featured a pretty decent cast of LG, Molly Ringwald and Jenna Elfman,and reading in the LA papers that everyone was saying that LG was stealing scenes from her more known partners. There were a lot of big time talent involved with "Townies" but the show quickly tanked. After that, LG was supposed to replace Khandy Alexander on "Newsradio" (Khandy wanted to do "ER" full time and thought her role on "Newsradio" was getting shrunk anyway). Apparently, the marketing tests of her three episodes were somewhat negatively received - they happen to be some of my favorite "Newsradio" episodes but not because of her - and she was let go.

She was very good on her three episodes of "Law and Order" around that time too ("Conrad Bloom" sucked, however).

And, btw, I was a "GG" fan for most of the time the show was on, though I was a bit peed off they didn't switch to HD before the 2004-05 season. It was one of the few shows I watched and felt it would have been nice if they went to the format a year earlier.
 
I had a little run operating and doing Steadicam on Season 6 of Gilmore Girls. Some interesting challenges presented over there, some unique ideas on coverage and shooting style. Had to do a lot of long and very specific masters (like this one: http://dai.ly/x3j736f?start=591). Lauren was indeed cool.

Nice work on the promo, she looks good.
 
Wow, thanks Charles, that means a lot coming from a DP as talented as you are, I really admire and respect your work. Your Key and Peele writeups have been inspirational, you are an excellent writer as well. I wish I was going to get to work with her more for GG but the end of series four episode arc is wrapped so unless she does more press, which is possible, I probably won't get to work with her again, at least on Gilmore Girls promos. I do mostly home entertainment, junkets and publicity as well as BTS and EPK so I never know who is going to show up in front of my camera next ;-)
 
Love the colors...I was just wondering, did you use any diffusion or are some shots out-of-focus a bit? I could be totally wrong, but the eyes look a bit soft to me.
 
No diffusion and pretty sure that they used a single take for the promo I posted so there were no focus issues. She didn't move toward or away from camera and I double checked the focus. I think what you are seeing is that I shot it in 1080 and they output and posted in 1080 so that means that they reframed a single camera shoot to look like a two camera shoot by punching in on the 1080 quite a bit. I think the shots where her eyes look softer might have been punched in and reframed. They should have edited and output in 720p, not 1080 or we should have shot it in 4K. Then again, for social media, they probably just didn't care that much ;-)

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Yes, I just double checked it, the shots where her eyes look a bit soft are the punched in shots. That's the downside to what I do, I usually hand over footage and have no control over post.
 
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