Faceless is the Killer

Ryan Patrick O'Hara

Ryan Patrick O'Hara

Veteran
Hey everyone, this is my first post of footage ever to dvxuser, so I'm really excited to be contributing. This film is called, "Faceless is the Killer".

Escape Entertainment made this film, I was their assistant DP. (I camera operated and lit the film.) The main DP (he was also co-director) and Director are great guys and great filmmakers. I had a blast on this set. I hope you all enjoy.

Shot with my HVX and M2. Some select shots were shot with a special high speed camera. ENJOY!

(this is the temp trailer. I'll be sure to update when the entire film or anything new is posted)
http://escape-entertainment.com/faceless.html
 
Nice, looks pretty entertaining. Lighting looks decent to. this might be right up my alley.
 
looking good bro. is this a feature or a short? what was the light setup for outside in the opening shots? i worked with one of the actors that was in this film on my last short.
 
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Good lighting on the actors in the car in the opening. What did you use for lighting? The shot of the guy with the silencer was tight. Good job.
 
FilmBoy77, this was a short. It is actually the first scene to what was written as a feature. If funding works out, I bet the directors would love to bring back 'faceless' as a longer film. You worked with one of the actors? Very cool. All of the actors in this film were great guys. Most of our casting was through ATL. I can personally say it was a great time on set.

ShamrockFilms, I'll discuss lighting following this paragraph. As far as the silencer shot, I think you are refering to one of the slow motion shots, correct?
The guys who made this film got a nice high speed camera for those special shots. As you HVXer's know, the more frames per second, the more light you need. Needless to say, for those 7,000 or 10,000 fps shots, we had two hmi's, a couple 1k's, and every other light we could grab just feet away from the actor. :kali:

As far as lighting... the car scene I cannot recall the wattage from each lamp, but I know I had the key set about 2-3 oclock from the actor, the fill slightly off camera, and a backlight/rim coming through the back window. Lights were same but reveresed for the other actor in car.

For the interior scenes in the room (the one with mainly brown tones), I know that I almost ALWAYS had a 650 as key, a 300 as fill, and 150's for rim and accent lighting. The lights which lit the backgrounds varied around 1k's and 650's.

For the warehouse interior, the DP/Director and the other Director wanted a black light look. They bought some big black lights and lots of them. But even then black lights do not give much 'poop'. So in order to get the black light look and still get acceptable light levels, we gelled a bunch of 1k's and 650's with magenta. This worked by giving us good light levels and the blacklights still gave punch to the whites. Even then I had to shoot the HVX/M2 at +6 gain. We had a B camera unit as well. B cam was an HVX w/o M2. This got us some clean shots in the dark warehouse.

If anyone has even more specific questions, I'd be glad to answer. This was shot in February, so I'll do my best to remember.

Thanks!
 
Looks good. Those high speed shots looked really nice. What kind of camera did those shots? Also I had a problem with that guy out in front of the building holding his gun in his hand. My opinion is that no one would be out in front of a building with their gun in hand. Maybe in the front of their pants or something like that. I mean if your going to have it in his hand the whole time just give him an AK or something like that.
 
yo prodigy how long was production? what are you guys doing to promote it and what are you going to do for funding? is it aimed at straight to DVD or big screen?
 
Drew599, Thanks! The camera was a rental (from where I am not sure). I can tell you it was a digital high speed/ high def camera. It was pretty much just a metal box with a nikon f mount sticking out the front. (worked out great because we had my prime kit for the m2). I believe it came with a nikon 50mm f/1.2... The camera was tethered to a laptop that comes with special software installed. The laptop serves as the controls for the camera and it is the preview monitor. I agree henchmen would usually be more conspicuous. Oh well, I guess they are just that hard core...

Filmboy, production was three LONG days. It was intense. As far as promotion and funding, I am not sure. That is up to the directors. Right now I believe they are still editing the film.

This was a great short which we all had a great time doing. I believe when this film is done the directors will definately use it to either get funding to make the remainder of the film, or use it to get other jobs or funding. Either way you will be seeing more from these guys in the future (which most likely includes me)!

Something that will make a bunch of you sick: During the wrap of the third and last day of production (around 5-6am) we were packing up. I had about 5 large boxes of equipment. I packed it up and piled it next to the door. I went to help strike the lights and grip equipment. About three weeks later I had my next job. I went to get my M2 and it was missing!!!

It was either stolen or somehow lost in the shuffle. I would hate to think stolen because every member of that crew were great guys and gals. Anyway, it's a long story from there but I bought a new M2 and things are good again. I really hope it was stolen and somewhere someone is making great footage with the lens adaptor. Otherwise it was lost in a big dirty old warehouse and being a waste of a great artistic device, which is what most likely happened.


Keep the questions coming! Thanks
 
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