Hello from Yorkshire

JackCarter

JackCarter

Well-known member
Hi everyone,

My name is Jason and I can't believe I haven't joined this site sooner.

I'm a Sony fan-boy, I use the PMW F3 and NEX 5N. My next camera is either going to be the F35, or FS700, I can't decide to be honest. F55 is my dream camera now, but way out of my price range.

I edit with Sony Vegas and grade with Magic Bullet Looks.

At the moment I'm writing a feature length screen play, Jack's Return Home, it's a modern day version of Get Carter. Set on a council estate, a career criminal goes on a mission to find out why his 14 year old sister has committed suicide. As he investigates, he uncovers a gang of youths, who have no moral code.

I'm stuck for a short, I have a script I want to make, but lack the actress to make it. I also have a short war film that is in production hell.

Looking to do a music video, so any local bands in the Yorkshire area, feel free to get in touch. I'll do it for free as long as I can use it on my portfolio.

Anything else, please ask away.

All the best, Jason
 
Welcome to the forum Jason.

I used to live in Heptonstall near Hebden Bridge and worked at YTV as a Dubbing Mixer in the 90's.

Do pretty much everything these days but mainly broadcast but did a lovely short in Harrogate a few years ago called The Last Straw.
 
Thanks, Gary this forum is excellent!

GaryNattrass said:
I used to live in Heptonstall near Hebden Bridge and worked at YTV as a Dubbing Mixer in the 90's.
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I'm Bradford born and bred, unfortunately, haha. I studied at the School of Art, Design and Media in Bradford. A guy on my course, his last name was Aspinal, his father was an editor at YTV during the 90's, I think he edited some hospital drama, I can't remember it's title. Hebden Bridge is beautiful, I suppose you moved away for work reasons, I can't say I blame you.

Do you have The Last Straw online? I would like to see it.
 
I worked with David Aspinall a lot at YTV as he was one of the senior film editors!

Moved back to the North East when my Dad was ill but work all over the Uk now and off to Sochi for the winter olympics and Glasgow for the commonwealth games next year.

Miss doing drama as sport is pretty dull but it pays the rent, will see if I can find a link to The Last Straw as it was directed by a graduate of Leeds uni!

Miss west yorkshire a lot but still get to Waites in Hebden for some pies as my accountant is still there.
 
GaryNattrass said:
I worked with David Aspinall a lot at YTV as he was one of the senior film editors!
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I believe his son is an editor now too, I haven't seen him in long time though.


GaryNattrass said:
Miss doing drama as sport is pretty dull but it pays the rent, will see if I can find a link to The Last Straw as it was directed by a graduate of Leeds uni!
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This got me thinking, I always felt that if I did become a full-time editor or cameraman, I would be happy, but from reading your post, I guess I would have to work mostly on projects that I disliked. Maybe it's best if I remain a hobbyist, and work on personal projects.

GaryNattrass said:
Miss west Yorkshire a lot but still get to Waites in Hebden for some pies as my accountant is still there
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I'll give Waites a try, next time I'm out and about. :)

Cheers Gary
 
Excellent work Gary, your photography was spot on! I can't fault it. It needs to be uploaded in HD, but I know the limitations of Vimeo. Out of curiosity, was any of it shot day for night? How long did that piece take to shoot? Do you have any idea what the budget was? If anything, it has inspired me to write a horror short set in Yorkshire, so thank you. I bet that project was a lot of fun to film.

I liked Time at the Bar even more, the writing, acting and directing were superb. I could see that woman working behind a bar in one of my films, she was great, very natural.
 
Yes David uploaded it in low res but I may see if I can put it on You Tube in full HD.

All shot in the camera and I used the colour balance to do the day for night etc, we shot it in 6 days working 10-18:00 on a panasonic HPX371 with one mic an AT875R straight into the back of the camera but on a boom with me being camera OP and sound quality control. It was one of the happiest weeks of my life and everyone was great to work with. I think the total budget was only £2,500. I put one of the day for night shots on you tube a couple of years ago and there are some other clips of mics and using small lights etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd2iexSmhTU

Ha ha "Time at the Bar" was me asking the wife to write some Alan Bennett monologues based on characters that were customers in our own Pub, she wrote three and we shot two of them in a couple of afternoons in our own pub with a sony Z7 and a radio mic on my wife who also plays the characters. They were done as pilots for CH4 and a test regional IPTV station but we never did anything with them.

Sadly had to close the pub a few years ago and that is why I am back in TV land trying to pay off all the money we had to borrow trying to keep a lovely rural pub open, we still live here as we own the building but it is a rather large house now.

Have a look at some of the clips on my You Tube page they may be useful as there are some of the Last Straw camera rushes etc: http://www.youtube.com/user/HDProdSolutions

I was brought up on film drama shoots in the 80's and 90's so always very happy to help on indie drama projects, I like the Sony F55 too but also have a good friend with a RED Epic but can make just about any camera look good as I have always loved to light and do stills etc.
 
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Excellent stuff Gary. I'm writing a script based on Get Carter, entitled Jack's Return Home (the books original title). The character is based on the Michael Caine version of Jack Carter, but the story is my own. Set in Bradford, Jack returns home from London after being informed that his 14 year old sister has committed suicide. He suspects foul play, to cut a long story short, set on a council estate, it's about of gang of youths who groom young girls and introduce them in to prostitution. This has been going on in Bradford and Keighley for some time, and I would like to shed some light on the subject. My intention is to write it as a full length feature, then condense it down to a short, more as a test film. If the test is good, then I can try make it for real. I've not finished the script yet though, only on page 35.

This is my project for 2014, and if it happens I may consider hiring you as the DP for the short, if anything just to spend some time with a pro and learn. I have a Sony F3, and will either have a FS700 or F35 by the time we film this. Let me finish the script, and you can see if it's something you would want to do. I suppose it's dark, but that's what I love about British Cinema, Get Carter, Harry Brown, Gangster No1, Eastern Promises, A Clockwork Orange, this is my sort of cinema. Perhaps your wife could do a cameo as a bar maid, she reminds me of the landlady in my local, The Queen, next to the bus station in Bradford, same accent, I love it.

So sorry to hear about the plight of your pub. Without getting too political, the government killed off the pub trade with the banning of smoking. They are killing off anything that is British, it's about time we had a radical change in this country, I for one will be voting for the U.K Independence Party now.
 
All sounds good and would love to be involved as Get Carter is one of my favorites as I lived and worked in Newcastle for all the early part of my career 1980-1991.

I actually know some of the people who were in it, the Preacher at the funeral is Maxwell Deas who was head of religious programmes at Tyne Tees when I was there in the 80's, a floor manager called Bill Sykes is in the party scenes mainly standing at the foot of the stairs looking moody, and Lawrence Coulson aka the wrestler Black Jack Mulligan is in several of the bar scenes as an extra. Max and Bill are no longer with us but Lawrence lives in Hebden Bridge and we could get him in yours as an extra too. I am sure Jane would love to do it too as she loves performing and can have a look at your script when it is finished too.

Note I am busy Jan/Feb and July/Aug 2014 doing winter olympics and commonwealth games but that will be my only work next year so pretty much free the rest of the time, I still have mates in Heptonstall so could stay with some of them or as we did with The Last Straw all I need is a room and a pub to unwind in after a days shooting.
 
This is exciting! I had better get writing, I've wanted to do something like this for a very long time. It's hard to pay homage to something you love, without it turning in to blatant plagiarism. I'm determined to write it though. I'm going to shoot some tests, when uploaded I'll send you the links. The hardest thing is casting Jack, I mean finding someone with those qualities will be difficult, but I have someone in mind, he's a police officer, and I'll shoot a test with him ASAP.

I'll write a part just for Jane, either as a pub landlady, or something else. Give me one more week, and I'll email what I've written so far, just to see what you think. It would be amazing to have a cameo from someone who was actually in the original, and this whole thing is giving me very good vibes.:)

I'm flexible, so anything can be arranged or worked around. Thanks Gary, I'll crack on writing next week.
 
Tim who was the main lead in The Last Straw is a good actor and nice to work with, his craggy looks and northern acceng may blend in well. He does a lot of extra work on big features such as Pirates of the Caribean etc so knows the score.
 
I imagine Jack to be in his early 30's, I wrote his age as 32. Tim may be a little older than that, but I think Caine was about 37 when he played Carter. Do you think he could play a hard man? It would be interesting to see. I have a few people to test, but I don't intend to use a pretty boy. If I could cast anybody, it would be Daniel Craig, I find his James Bond character fascinating.

I really intended to read the book, but have decided against that now. On my research, I discovered that the Ted Lewis wrote two more books about Jack Carter, Jack Carter's Law (1974) and Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon (1977). The books are quite difficult to obtain.

Gary, what is your opinion on 4K?
 
4K is great if you can afford it and are going to deliver the film for mainstream cinema use. 2K is absolutely fine for most things and there are too many people pixel counting without the knowledge to use it properly.

You also need to define to TOTAL workflow too and there are far too many grads and wanabees going off and shooting at ridiculous data rates only to fond that their edit system can't handle it all so the end us with an inferior product. It's the same with DSLR's people think they can just use them to get cinematic shallow DOF and slap magic bullet on to get the LOOK, you then see the results on TV or in the cinema and you can see all the artifacts and faults as well as the searching for focus and people drifting in and out of focus as the DOF is far too shallow for a decent sized screen.

Walk before you can run and it is more about using the tools to get the look you want rather than just jumping on the marketing bandwagon for 4k or even 3D, the Arri Alex is about as much as you should ever need at the moment but your F3 would also be acceptable for most delivery for UK film and TV and as most companies hire in high end kit for shooting I wouldn't be rushing off to buy anything at the moment.

I am always amazed at what my panasonic ENG camera can do is it gives better pictures than a lot of other cameras at times due to the 4:2:2 10 bit codec at 100mbs OK it is a small chip camera but you are better shooting wide open anyway and there was certainly enough DOF for what we needed in The Last Straw. My favorite high end cameras is the panasonic HPX3700 and a lot of BBC drama was shot with that camera but the canon C300 looks interesting as does the sony F5 and F55 but I would not be buying anything unless I could justify it by the returns I could get.

Right tools and the skills are far more important than thinking that just getting a 4K camera would be an instant solution. To be honest for your film I was going to suggest that you shoot it black and white but with a warm almost sepia grade to it. That was you can light it with high contrast and make it very different from the norm. As a kid I was brought up watching black and white TV and most of the classic british films I watched from the 60's and 70's were black and white anyway so it might be fun to do one in the camera that way as you can see that my heritage has also taught me to do as much in the camera to minimise the messing around in post and therefore keep the budgets tight.

Here's a snap shot I took at my daughters wedding last month, it isn't black and white to show you what I mean but has a tonal quality that I think is timeless, what do you think ?
It was done on a nikon D3000 that I got off e-bay for £150! as I find my old D1x too big and heavy for happy snaps but it's CCD chips look fantastic at only 5.6 mega pixels.
 
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GaryNattrass said:
4K is great if you can afford it and are going to deliver the film for mainstream cinema use. 2K is absolutely fine for most things and there are too many people pixel counting without the knowledge to use it properly.
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My feelings exactly, I'm all set up for 1080p/2K and now they want to change the format. I'm not falling for it either, if I do buy a new camera next year, it's the FS700, and only for the slow motion feature at 1080p. My F3 is really heavy, so it's difficult to achieve certain shots. I'm obsessed with above head shots due to Scorsese's Taxi Driver, so the light weight of the FS700 should come in handy. We have a small crane and a Stedi-cam, the FS700 should work well with these I'm thinking.

GaryNattrass said:
You also need to define to TOTAL workflow too and there are far too many grads and wanabees going off and shooting at ridiculous data rates only to fond that their edit system can't handle it all so the end us with an inferior product. It's the same with DSLR's people think they can just use them to get cinematic shallow DOF and slap magic bullet on to get the LOOK, you then see the results on TV or in the cinema and you can see all the artifacts and faults as well as the searching for focus and people drifting in and out of focus as the DOF is far too shallow for a decent sized screen.
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You and I are in total agreement. I was discussing this with my friend last night, why do people think it looks good when the camera goes in and out of focus? It looks terrible. I shot my friends wedding in June, and I did manage to get the odd shot out of focus. I was only asked to do it about two days before the event, and my only option was to use two NEX 5's. I couldn't really see the screen due to the daylight, which has now prompted me to buy a 5'' screen for my NEX. The camera overheated around 10 minutes in to the ceremony, but I managed to work around it. It's not best, but I did the best with what I had. https://vimeo.com/71172721
I did grade with magic bullet looks, but my ambition was to make it more dream like, and I managed to change the colour of the walls from green, to white, at the expense of peoples hair, haha.

I would love an ARRI ALEXA, I bet in a few years time they will be on Ebay for a pittance, just like the F35.

GaryNattrass said:
I am always amazed at what my panasonic ENG camera can do is it gives better pictures than a lot of other cameras at times due to the 4:2:2 10 bit codec at 100mbs OK it is a small chip camera but you are better shooting wide open anyway and there was certainly enough DOF for what we needed in The Last Straw. My favorite high end cameras is the panasonic HPX3700 and a lot of BBC drama was shot with that camera but the canon C300 looks interesting as does the sony F5 and F55 but I would not be buying anything unless I could justify it by the returns I could get.
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The first camera I ever used was a Panasonic MS4, haha, the old S-VHS camera. All the cameras I used when I was a student were made by Panasonic, and I gave them some serious abuse, but they did the job, and very well. Panasonic have been quiet recently, I can't wait to see what they do in the future. I won't touch Canon, we had an XL 1s, it broke on two occasions, never again. I have this thing about Sony, I can't explain what it is, I've had an A1E, 2 V1E's, I'm keeping the F3, NEX 5N, and will probably get another Sony in 2014.

GaryNattrass said:
Right tools and the skills are far more important than thinking that just getting a 4K camera would be an instant solution. To be honest for your film I was going to suggest that you shoot it black and white but with a warm almost sepia grade to it. That was you can light it with high contrast and make it very different from the norm. As a kid I was brought up watching black and white TV and most of the classic british films I watched from the 60's and 70's were black and white anyway so it might be fun to do one in the camera that way as you can see that my heritage has also taught me to do as much in the camera to minimise the messing around in post and therefore keep the budgets tight.
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Fantastic idea, I fiddle about with colour correction too much, I find a look, then change my mind, it goes on and on, it drives my friend mad, haha. Do we film at 8bit to SxS cards? Or 10bit 4.2.2? or 10 bit 4.4.4? S-log? I have decided to go for the Odyssey 7Q, and I'm sure it's a wise investment. http://www.convergent-design.com/Products/Odyssey7Q.aspx What do you think? I think the use of an external recorder is a more practical idea, by the time I have purchased a few SxS cards, I could have purchased the Odyssey.

The photograph is beautiful, the blown out whites remind me of the cinematography of Robert Richardson on his Scorsese films, I'm a massive fan. I'm working 6-7 days a week at the moment, but if I get a chance this Saturday, I'll record some footage of the estate, and try emulate that sepia, just to see how it looks.

GaryNattrass said:
They did a Get Carter tour a couple of years ago so Chris might be a good source of research from the original film if you need it:
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Excellent stuff, I love Alun Armstrong, my favourite scene is when carter give him some cash, '' Now go get yourself some lessons in karate" :)
 
Agree with an outboard recorder and if you can go 4:2:2 10 bit it gives you a lot more to play with in post 4:4:4 would be even better but you need to check the workflow can handle all that data. I use AVC Intra 100 10 bit 4:2:2 and it goes into FCP as pro res HQ with no problems and it handled very efficiently.

Like Taxi Driver too but they were using hand held 35mm arri's I think so not exactly small.

I used to be all sony too but then went P2 and panasonic four years ago and have not had a single problem with AVC Intra 100 my little £8k HPX301 does SD, HD PAL and STSC and has been so useful but if I do go for a new camera it will probably be the PMW400 from sony. The NEX are great value cameras and we were using one this week to do interviews for a corporate video.

Nowt wrong with an F35 and at the end of the day it is the skill of the DOP that counts and how he or she uses the tools of the trade, I was brought up on Arii SR16's and Aatons and the Alexa is hugely popular as it isn't a computer like the RED and looks very filmic.

Ha ha blown out whites, it was a snapshot and it was incredibly sunny so I got what I could although the main photog struggled as he really needed a reflector as you can see from this example:
 
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I built a new PC myself just under a year ago, I'll download some footage when CD upload it from the Odyssey, but I'm sure it will cut through the footage without problems. I have no idea what the Q7 will record to at 4:4:4, if it is Pro Res, it shouldn't be a problem, CinemaDNG, I don't know.

Yeah, NEX cameras are amazing for the price. F35, I'm still contemplating, many people on here like it more than the ARRI ALEXA.

What are your choice with lenses? I have 3 Zeiss CP.2's, 50mm, 35mm, 25mm in PL mount. I need a wider one, but it will have to wait. I have a few Canon FD's, 50mm, 35mm, 28mm, 17mm, 15mm, they fit the F3 and the NEX.

This is what I mean by blown out whites.

richardson.jpg

I see this a lot on Richardson's Scorsese films, I like the look a lot.
 
I like the Zeiss lenses and favour primes but will use anything I am given, I used to have a nice set of Nikors from the old film stills cameras but sadly sold them a few years ago.

My mate with the RED in Glasgow has a set of rare primes but can't remember what they are, he shot this band video and corporate but tends to use his Epic for stills: http://www.tomdobbie.com/motion.html

I doubt that shot would be so blown out on the film in the cinema and it's a lot worse on a DVD transfer or a TV print but appreciate what you are saying as Casino and Goodfellas are two of my faves too, big fan of JAck Cardiff though. Did you see side by side on film 4 recently that was about digital versus film for shooting it was a superb doco!
 
Zeiss for me too, but those FD's are really good value for money. I was going to sell them and put the cash towards another CP, but I think I'd regret it. I'm still waiting for someone to make some inexpensive Anamorphic lenses. SLR Magic said it was going to happen, but I'm still waiting.

Do you like the look of RED? I think it's one of those, you either love it or hate it. I'm not a fan, but I appreciate some of the cinema that have been shot on RED's. Steven Soderbergh loves them, and his latest, Side Effects, shot on the EPIC, is the best film I've seen this year. I like his music video, but I think it would have been better in colour.

Jack Cardiff, what a legend. One of my favourite films is Black Narcissus, out of all the films that I've seen, I'd say Black Narcissus has the most amazing look. It's hard to describe, but it's pure art! I always wanted to make a horror film where sister Ruth comes back to stalk men, haha.

I work till late, but I saw some of Side by Side. My feeling is, if you can afford to shoot on film, then do it. I saw some of what Lucas says, I hate that bloke, he didn't pioneer s*%t! The most amazing era of American cinema was ruined by his creation, and now we are subject to more and more blockbuster rubbish every year.

I miss Stanley Kubrick, imagine what he would be doing with this technology, I know he'd be shooting on the ARRI ALEXA, and loving it.
 
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