Barry_Green
Moderator
If you haven't seen it yet, pick up a copy of HD Video Pro magazine and check out Neil Matsumoto's article on Crank 2: High Voltage.
As many folks know, Crank 2 is a modestly high-budget film ($20 million) that was shot pretty much entirely on prosumer Canon camcorders, primarily five HDV XHA1's and fifteen AVC-HD Vixia HF10's.
A lot of us have been scratching our heads, wondering "why?" Especially when the first film was shot on F900 and F950 cameras, why would they choose to go with a $4,000 HDV camera and a $1,000 AVCHD camera? (They also occasionally used an EX1 for some 60p slow-mo stuff.)
The article answers it brilliantly. They weren't trying to emulate the look of a bigger camera, they embraced the tiny cameras specifically for their tini-ness. There was no 35mm adapter going on here, instead they were strapping tiny cameras onto the end of 10-foot poles to get unique looks that haven't been seen before.
Brandon Trost, the cinematographer, talks about what they were trying to accomplish, and it's really kind of cool. A couple of sample quotes:
The interviewer asked why they didn't go for the XH G1, which has HD-SDI output, etc. Trost said:
As for settings, he says that they shot flat except for detail. The directors wanted every pixel of every frame to be so incredibly sharp that... well, this is how he phrased it:
That's what I love about this article. They weren't trying to replicate a "hollywood look" on the cheap, instead they were embracing these new technologies to create a totally new look that nobody's done before.
There's a picture on the bottom of page 49 which exemplifies this perfectly. They built a rig that was sort of like a surround-image rig like what was used for "bullet-time" in The Matrix. But instead of dozens of still cameras all synchronized, they bolted eight HF10 camcorders onto a curved 8-foot piece of speed rail. This is a rig that was so light that [director] Mark Neveldine could actually hold it in his hands and surround the actors with it, roller-blading or running with them during the action. Brilliant!
They've got another photo in there of Statham riding passenger on a moped, and Neveldine is shooting the action, and he's holding an XHA1 in his right hand, and holding on to the back of the moped with his left, and he's on roller blades getting dragged along for the shot.
In another section they were going to do a shootout at a strip club with 10 guys with guns, and after the AD called "Rolling", star Jason Statham looked around and said, "Wait a minute, where are all the cameras?" Trost had to yell out that there were a dozen cameras out there, so just "go!" They were able to capture so many angles because the cameras were so tiny that they could be hidden in plain sight!
Anyway, a fascinating article.
On a side note, I think it's just comical that back in the 1990's, when we were doing video games and the in-game "cut scenes" (movie clips) everyone seemed to want to make a video game that would be "like being in a movie." That was always the big goal (Wing Commander, etc). Now, here's some guys who are making a movie that they want to have look like a video game. Totally turned the paradigm around, in just 10 years...
As many folks know, Crank 2 is a modestly high-budget film ($20 million) that was shot pretty much entirely on prosumer Canon camcorders, primarily five HDV XHA1's and fifteen AVC-HD Vixia HF10's.
A lot of us have been scratching our heads, wondering "why?" Especially when the first film was shot on F900 and F950 cameras, why would they choose to go with a $4,000 HDV camera and a $1,000 AVCHD camera? (They also occasionally used an EX1 for some 60p slow-mo stuff.)
The article answers it brilliantly. They weren't trying to emulate the look of a bigger camera, they embraced the tiny cameras specifically for their tini-ness. There was no 35mm adapter going on here, instead they were strapping tiny cameras onto the end of 10-foot poles to get unique looks that haven't been seen before.
Brandon Trost, the cinematographer, talks about what they were trying to accomplish, and it's really kind of cool. A couple of sample quotes:
The interviewer asked why they didn't go for the XH G1, which has HD-SDI output, etc. Trost said:
As for settings, he says that they shot flat except for detail. The directors wanted every pixel of every frame to be so incredibly sharp that... well, this is how he phrased it:
That's what I love about this article. They weren't trying to replicate a "hollywood look" on the cheap, instead they were embracing these new technologies to create a totally new look that nobody's done before.
There's a picture on the bottom of page 49 which exemplifies this perfectly. They built a rig that was sort of like a surround-image rig like what was used for "bullet-time" in The Matrix. But instead of dozens of still cameras all synchronized, they bolted eight HF10 camcorders onto a curved 8-foot piece of speed rail. This is a rig that was so light that [director] Mark Neveldine could actually hold it in his hands and surround the actors with it, roller-blading or running with them during the action. Brilliant!
They've got another photo in there of Statham riding passenger on a moped, and Neveldine is shooting the action, and he's holding an XHA1 in his right hand, and holding on to the back of the moped with his left, and he's on roller blades getting dragged along for the shot.
In another section they were going to do a shootout at a strip club with 10 guys with guns, and after the AD called "Rolling", star Jason Statham looked around and said, "Wait a minute, where are all the cameras?" Trost had to yell out that there were a dozen cameras out there, so just "go!" They were able to capture so many angles because the cameras were so tiny that they could be hidden in plain sight!
Anyway, a fascinating article.
On a side note, I think it's just comical that back in the 1990's, when we were doing video games and the in-game "cut scenes" (movie clips) everyone seemed to want to make a video game that would be "like being in a movie." That was always the big goal (Wing Commander, etc). Now, here's some guys who are making a movie that they want to have look like a video game. Totally turned the paradigm around, in just 10 years...
