puredrifting
Major Contributor
This is a recent corporate project that I shot on my C100 MKI. It is four short vignettes about commuting in LA, an image piece produced for LA Metro. The shoot was challenging as it was all exteriors, shot during June when we were having that crazy weather, rain, clouds, really bright sunlight on white concrete train platforms, etc. Very small crew of myself, sound mixer and a PA, along with the director, shot run and gun all over southern california in about ten days. It was frustrating that the client, because of access to rail stations and shooting on trains, made us do most of the shooting at the worst possible hours for light, about 10:00 AM to about 2:00 to 3:00 PM so I had to deal with a lot of blown out backgrounds but that's how it had to happen logistically. I was able to shoot some b-roll and the LA Live shots with the selfie stick sequence at night, which was nice, but almost all of the rest it was shot at the times of day with the worst available light. Sometimes schedules, logistics and access override the need to shoot when the light looks decent. The directive was for the video to be entirely handheld and it was except for a few long lens shots, the client wanted the video to convey the frenetic movement of the LA public transit system. Only two of the interviews were lit, the first actor you see was lit in the Union Station transit center with Joker Bug HMI 800 with a small Chimera to fill in with sunlight coming through an ND covered large window out on Patsouras Plaza and young girl, who we shot a sequence in an east LA restaurant, but the editor ended up using her alternate take which was shot out on a Metro train platform across the street from USC. Her interview on the platform was just available light with some fill from a soft gold 42" Flexfill. Once again, blown out backgrounds. The interview we shot inside the Mexican restaurant looked better but the client liked her out on the train platform better, even though she was squinting and the light was harsh.
In an ideal world, I would have had a couple of grips with an 8x8 net behind her, and the first actor, to knock down the nuclear background but this entire shoot, because of the dozens of locations, was run and gun all of the way. We had about 15 minutes at each location because we had to cover so many locations in the ten days of shooting. We shot a lot of sequences that were not used because of length and several of those sequences were interiors with nice lighting, a slider, and a slightly larger crew. But they didn't fit the story that the client wanted, which was interviews on train platforms for a large part of it. I shot car footage with a combination of GoPro Hero 3+ Blacks and the C100, I was pleasantly surprised at how good the newer GoPros look, we intercut them with my C100 for the car interior with the construction guy character, Nick. The GoPros were great for getting angles that we physcially could not get with the C100. Overall, I was not thrilled with the color correction/grade applied, but client was happy with it. I think there was a little more detail that could have been salvaged in some of the backgrounds and overall, I would have liked to have seen a more consistent look but the client wanted a sort of collage effect with several different looks for the footage and I think the editor achieved that pretty well.
The C100 MKI was a trooper, I used it with the Atomos Ninja Blade, an older Zacuto shoulder mount system. The main lens was the Canon 18-135 3.5-5.6 STM IS, not my favorite lens, but good for run and gun, a few of the interviews were shot with the Nikon 85mm 1.8 AiS and some of the long lens stuff was with the Nikon 70-300 4.5-5.6 G VR, the Nikons mounted with a Fotodiox Pro Nikon F to EOS adapter. I used the Canon 10-18 4.5-5.6 STM IS for a couple of the car interior shots. The 85mm 1.8 is an old circa 1970s lens with a manual aperture ring but the 70-300 was a modern G series lens with no aperture ring. With the G lenses, the iris is always all of the way stopped down until attached to a Nikon body that uses a small actuator arm to select the appropriate aperture. Since it was mounted to a Canon body with an adapter, I wedged a small piece of cardboard into the aperture mechanism to hold open the aperture at F4.5. Unfortunately I was not abe to control the aperture with that lens but I was able to control exposure using a Tiffen 67mm Variable ND filter so it worked out fine. I was going to rent a Canon 300mm lens but the weight and size would have been prohibitive, considering we were on our feet for about fourteen hours a day and had to lug all of our own gear all day in backpacks. The Nikon 70-300 is relatively copmact and weighs about 1/3 of a Canon 300mm 2.8 lens. The one piece of equipment that was absolutely invaluable on this project was the Zacuto grip relocater, it really saved my life as far as operating the C100 effectively in the ridiculously tight confines of trains, buses and cars. I can't recommend it highly enough. I also learned that the batteries on the Blade last much longer shooting with an SSD than a spinning drive. I own one SSD and two spinning drives that are larger, but I am going to have to invest in more SSDs for the Blade. 4K was not a concern for the client, as you can see the posted YouTube video is 720p so they are not even really concerned with delivering 1080 at this point, although I am sure that will evolve.
While I don't feel the video, lighting or grade on this project was anything special as far as "the look", it is just mish mosh of frantic run and gun, I am happy with the overall feel and some of the handheld camera work, which is a nice change for me as most of my work is carefully lit interviews and BTS on movie and TV sets so mostly tripod and slider. I miss working with actors as it is typically only a few times a year that I shoot projects with them so that was fun. This project would have been perfect for a gimbal and when the next Metro project comes along, I will be using a gimbal for at least part of it but I felt that for handheld, this worked okay. Gimbals are amazing and I love the look, but there is something to be said still for handheld, the bumpy, frenetic movement can be more interesting than everything being so smooth and "floaty" although a mixture of smooth and more frenetic would have probably been ideal. Just wanted to add this to the gallery of C100 projects, a lot of mine are produced under NDA for the studios but Metro put this up on YouTube so I thought I would post it here.
In an ideal world, I would have had a couple of grips with an 8x8 net behind her, and the first actor, to knock down the nuclear background but this entire shoot, because of the dozens of locations, was run and gun all of the way. We had about 15 minutes at each location because we had to cover so many locations in the ten days of shooting. We shot a lot of sequences that were not used because of length and several of those sequences were interiors with nice lighting, a slider, and a slightly larger crew. But they didn't fit the story that the client wanted, which was interviews on train platforms for a large part of it. I shot car footage with a combination of GoPro Hero 3+ Blacks and the C100, I was pleasantly surprised at how good the newer GoPros look, we intercut them with my C100 for the car interior with the construction guy character, Nick. The GoPros were great for getting angles that we physcially could not get with the C100. Overall, I was not thrilled with the color correction/grade applied, but client was happy with it. I think there was a little more detail that could have been salvaged in some of the backgrounds and overall, I would have liked to have seen a more consistent look but the client wanted a sort of collage effect with several different looks for the footage and I think the editor achieved that pretty well.
The C100 MKI was a trooper, I used it with the Atomos Ninja Blade, an older Zacuto shoulder mount system. The main lens was the Canon 18-135 3.5-5.6 STM IS, not my favorite lens, but good for run and gun, a few of the interviews were shot with the Nikon 85mm 1.8 AiS and some of the long lens stuff was with the Nikon 70-300 4.5-5.6 G VR, the Nikons mounted with a Fotodiox Pro Nikon F to EOS adapter. I used the Canon 10-18 4.5-5.6 STM IS for a couple of the car interior shots. The 85mm 1.8 is an old circa 1970s lens with a manual aperture ring but the 70-300 was a modern G series lens with no aperture ring. With the G lenses, the iris is always all of the way stopped down until attached to a Nikon body that uses a small actuator arm to select the appropriate aperture. Since it was mounted to a Canon body with an adapter, I wedged a small piece of cardboard into the aperture mechanism to hold open the aperture at F4.5. Unfortunately I was not abe to control the aperture with that lens but I was able to control exposure using a Tiffen 67mm Variable ND filter so it worked out fine. I was going to rent a Canon 300mm lens but the weight and size would have been prohibitive, considering we were on our feet for about fourteen hours a day and had to lug all of our own gear all day in backpacks. The Nikon 70-300 is relatively copmact and weighs about 1/3 of a Canon 300mm 2.8 lens. The one piece of equipment that was absolutely invaluable on this project was the Zacuto grip relocater, it really saved my life as far as operating the C100 effectively in the ridiculously tight confines of trains, buses and cars. I can't recommend it highly enough. I also learned that the batteries on the Blade last much longer shooting with an SSD than a spinning drive. I own one SSD and two spinning drives that are larger, but I am going to have to invest in more SSDs for the Blade. 4K was not a concern for the client, as you can see the posted YouTube video is 720p so they are not even really concerned with delivering 1080 at this point, although I am sure that will evolve.
While I don't feel the video, lighting or grade on this project was anything special as far as "the look", it is just mish mosh of frantic run and gun, I am happy with the overall feel and some of the handheld camera work, which is a nice change for me as most of my work is carefully lit interviews and BTS on movie and TV sets so mostly tripod and slider. I miss working with actors as it is typically only a few times a year that I shoot projects with them so that was fun. This project would have been perfect for a gimbal and when the next Metro project comes along, I will be using a gimbal for at least part of it but I felt that for handheld, this worked okay. Gimbals are amazing and I love the look, but there is something to be said still for handheld, the bumpy, frenetic movement can be more interesting than everything being so smooth and "floaty" although a mixture of smooth and more frenetic would have probably been ideal. Just wanted to add this to the gallery of C100 projects, a lot of mine are produced under NDA for the studios but Metro put this up on YouTube so I thought I would post it here.
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