Someone may find this interesting, we are a commercial company but I also like to share and discuss like most on the forums so I thought some of you might find our recent film and production notes of interest as we shot some of it with the RedOne, HPX301 and 171. We also used steadicam Merlin with the 171. At the bottom is an extract of the finished film from vimeo. Any questions fire-away Cheers, Tyrone.
Behind the Scenes of ‘The Real Sherwood Forest.’
Produced by besq ltd.
There are many benefits to living in Sherwood Forest if you’re an outdoors type like me. The forest may not quite be the same as it was 700 years ago but its footprint and legend are unshakeable.
When Nottinghamshire County Council commissioned besq to produce an updated tourism film taking in the full girth of the Robin Hood legend and the equally famous forest we were thrilled to pieces at the opportunity to produce something creative, interesting and authentic.
ADE ANDREWS AS ROBIN HOOD (EXTRACT FROM RED FOOTAGE)
Looking at the script and schedule we needed to have the finished film up and running before Ridley Scott’s feature film ‘Robin Hood’ hit the screens. This did mean shooting in the winter which is not easy at the best of times...
THE JIMMY-JIB MOUNTED ON OFF-ROAD GATOR FOR QUICK SET-UPS
The star of the film was to be the forest, so we needed a solution to get up high and be mobile at the same time – enter a Jimmy Jib and gator off-road system. We got some great shots with the jib, and coupled with our Panasonic HPX301– we had plenty of creative freedom to shoot the Major Oak and other ancient trees in the forest.
The other major element of the shoot was to be made up of historical re-enactments, including Robin and the Outlaws, as well as charting the post-war history. We had a great band of re-enactors led by Ade Andrews and the rangers of Sherwood Forest Visitors Centre – who really pulled out all the stops to pack maximum authenticity. A mention must also go to our Production Assistant Suzanne and our two work-experience girls Natalie and Izzy who collectively were happy to take on all-sorts of roles!
CHRIS & TYRONE DIRECT ‘THE CAMP’ IN THE HEART OF SHERWOOD FOREST
The bulk of this day was to throw maximum camera technology at it to do justice to our cast; made up of 30 actors two horses and a dog! For the camera we hired a Red One digital cinema camera (which we have subsequently just purchased) – which shoots quad HD (4K) and is capable of 120 fps film-like slow motion.
Our RedOne poses for its holiday pic
The Red One is not particularly easy to deal with; capturing a shallow focus situation like an arrow being pulled into firing position can take time but looks superb. We moved to the Red One after struggling with the Letus Extreme and HPX171 which was great but way to many limitations I think for shooting a wide spectrum of material.
STORY-TELLING BY CAMP FIRE (EXTRACT FROM THE RED FOOTAGE)
We were blessed with the weather that day – it was cold but mainly dry and we got some great material culminating in the evening with a camp fire sequence. This was lit by our good friend and D.P. Keith Reed.
After the shoot in the forest we moved on to pick-ups of the local area – we needed to cover the grand estates of the Dukeries and associated landmarks. Sherwood is a big area if not all actual woodland. We shot this using a smaller unit, often at sunset to get some golden hour, high contrast and often silhouette features of the Nottinghamshire landscape. Again we struck lucky with the weather, apart from one blustery day on an ex-colliery site.
AN INDUSTRY IN DECLINE (EXTRACT FROM HPX301)
Over the week myself and Chris shared production duties, bringing in crew where required. Chris carefully scheduled the days to extract every resource out of limited daylight hours and potentially complex crewing arrangements. I must add we are primarily a P2 Set-up and P2 beats the pants of the compact flash arrangement of Red. Also I have had no issues with the 301 in terms of noise or jello and that includes moving jib shots as explained here.
Into the post-production - the script and the voice-over were already signed off, so the timeline and narrative was pretty much in place. For the bulk of the editing we used Edius 4.6 and conformed to 720p – even though we’d shot higher quality material we needed a happy medium of quality and compatibility as the footage was also going to a Discovery based production in the states. The Red footage was conformed via CS4 and out to DVCPRO HD. Premiere pro handles Redcode natively. Chris edited the piece and everything ran smoothly – we only had about 4 days to do the edit to make the deadline for the media-launch. We needed top quality music, so we licensed this from Universal for their production music, well worth the cost and added greatly to the impact of the final film.
After the edit I began to colour grade the piece to give the historical sections a different feel to the contemporary touristic sequences. We chose certain colour types that would capture the re-enactments in a drained palette. We tried very hard to keep consistent judgments within the grading process; it was all very typical with the modern material strong on colour and contrast and the old world footage having quite a bitter look to it.
We and our client are very happy with the final film. It is now doing the rounds of Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest Visitors Centre, and other high profile tourist spots. Some of the footage has gone to the US for a couple of projects that have just been aired on Discovery. It seems everybody has got Robin Hood fever at the moment for which I’m very grateful.
Thanks to all who were involved in the production
Tyrone Braithwaite / Chris Wetton(Prod/Direct)
besq ltd
See an excerpt from the film here:
http://www.vimeo.com/12293519
cheers.
Behind the Scenes of ‘The Real Sherwood Forest.’
Produced by besq ltd.
There are many benefits to living in Sherwood Forest if you’re an outdoors type like me. The forest may not quite be the same as it was 700 years ago but its footprint and legend are unshakeable.
When Nottinghamshire County Council commissioned besq to produce an updated tourism film taking in the full girth of the Robin Hood legend and the equally famous forest we were thrilled to pieces at the opportunity to produce something creative, interesting and authentic.
ADE ANDREWS AS ROBIN HOOD (EXTRACT FROM RED FOOTAGE)
Looking at the script and schedule we needed to have the finished film up and running before Ridley Scott’s feature film ‘Robin Hood’ hit the screens. This did mean shooting in the winter which is not easy at the best of times...
THE JIMMY-JIB MOUNTED ON OFF-ROAD GATOR FOR QUICK SET-UPS
The star of the film was to be the forest, so we needed a solution to get up high and be mobile at the same time – enter a Jimmy Jib and gator off-road system. We got some great shots with the jib, and coupled with our Panasonic HPX301– we had plenty of creative freedom to shoot the Major Oak and other ancient trees in the forest.
The other major element of the shoot was to be made up of historical re-enactments, including Robin and the Outlaws, as well as charting the post-war history. We had a great band of re-enactors led by Ade Andrews and the rangers of Sherwood Forest Visitors Centre – who really pulled out all the stops to pack maximum authenticity. A mention must also go to our Production Assistant Suzanne and our two work-experience girls Natalie and Izzy who collectively were happy to take on all-sorts of roles!
CHRIS & TYRONE DIRECT ‘THE CAMP’ IN THE HEART OF SHERWOOD FOREST
The bulk of this day was to throw maximum camera technology at it to do justice to our cast; made up of 30 actors two horses and a dog! For the camera we hired a Red One digital cinema camera (which we have subsequently just purchased) – which shoots quad HD (4K) and is capable of 120 fps film-like slow motion.
Our RedOne poses for its holiday pic
The Red One is not particularly easy to deal with; capturing a shallow focus situation like an arrow being pulled into firing position can take time but looks superb. We moved to the Red One after struggling with the Letus Extreme and HPX171 which was great but way to many limitations I think for shooting a wide spectrum of material.
STORY-TELLING BY CAMP FIRE (EXTRACT FROM THE RED FOOTAGE)
We were blessed with the weather that day – it was cold but mainly dry and we got some great material culminating in the evening with a camp fire sequence. This was lit by our good friend and D.P. Keith Reed.
After the shoot in the forest we moved on to pick-ups of the local area – we needed to cover the grand estates of the Dukeries and associated landmarks. Sherwood is a big area if not all actual woodland. We shot this using a smaller unit, often at sunset to get some golden hour, high contrast and often silhouette features of the Nottinghamshire landscape. Again we struck lucky with the weather, apart from one blustery day on an ex-colliery site.
AN INDUSTRY IN DECLINE (EXTRACT FROM HPX301)
Over the week myself and Chris shared production duties, bringing in crew where required. Chris carefully scheduled the days to extract every resource out of limited daylight hours and potentially complex crewing arrangements. I must add we are primarily a P2 Set-up and P2 beats the pants of the compact flash arrangement of Red. Also I have had no issues with the 301 in terms of noise or jello and that includes moving jib shots as explained here.
Into the post-production - the script and the voice-over were already signed off, so the timeline and narrative was pretty much in place. For the bulk of the editing we used Edius 4.6 and conformed to 720p – even though we’d shot higher quality material we needed a happy medium of quality and compatibility as the footage was also going to a Discovery based production in the states. The Red footage was conformed via CS4 and out to DVCPRO HD. Premiere pro handles Redcode natively. Chris edited the piece and everything ran smoothly – we only had about 4 days to do the edit to make the deadline for the media-launch. We needed top quality music, so we licensed this from Universal for their production music, well worth the cost and added greatly to the impact of the final film.
After the edit I began to colour grade the piece to give the historical sections a different feel to the contemporary touristic sequences. We chose certain colour types that would capture the re-enactments in a drained palette. We tried very hard to keep consistent judgments within the grading process; it was all very typical with the modern material strong on colour and contrast and the old world footage having quite a bitter look to it.
We and our client are very happy with the final film. It is now doing the rounds of Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest Visitors Centre, and other high profile tourist spots. Some of the footage has gone to the US for a couple of projects that have just been aired on Discovery. It seems everybody has got Robin Hood fever at the moment for which I’m very grateful.
Thanks to all who were involved in the production
Tyrone Braithwaite / Chris Wetton(Prod/Direct)
besq ltd
See an excerpt from the film here:
http://www.vimeo.com/12293519
cheers.
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