Period Film Trailer Shot on the AF100

Jon Hout

Jon Hout

Active member
Hey everyone. Just finished up post on a trailer we shot on the AF100. The producer and I liked the results so I figured I'd share.

A little background:

This was a low-budget piece shot over 2 days to market the concept for a feature film. I was originally contracted to 1st AC this shoot, but about 4 hours before call the DP had to bail. I stepped in to fill the role at the last minute, but things actually went quite well despite the lack of prep time.

Anyway, hope everyone enjoys!

- Jon


Direct Link (in case the embed isn't working): https://vimeo.com/75160443
 
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The video's embedded in the post. Is it not showing up?

EDIT: Posted a direct link just in case. :)
 
Can't say I'm a big fan of the photography. To me it looks like one bad call after another. I just wish someone would have put up some flags here and there and framed the shots in more of a non-student-film fashion. Not to mention the post-work.
Costumes, props, locations, acting and the overall cutting of the trailer looks promising though. I'm sure if they make the feature they'll be able to hire a proper DP that doesn't bail in the middle of the shoot.
 
Ouch. Now i have to ask...what do you mean by the framing comment? I dont know what i would have done any better/differently?
 
Tolin said:
Can't say I'm a big fan of the photography. To me it looks like one bad call after another. I just wish someone should have put up some flags here and there and framed the shots in more of a non-student-film fashion. Not to mention the post-work.
Costumes, props, locations, acting and the overall cutting of the trailer looks promising though. I'm sure if they make the feature they'll be able to hire a proper DP that doesn't bail in the middle of the shoot.
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Wow. I admit that it's not my best work (I am, as it happens, a working DP), but given the circumstances I was fairly pleased with what came out. I must say the framing isn't something I thought would be a problem for anyone (except the funeral shot - blech). Care to explain your definition of "student-film-fashion"?

Tetewsky said:
Take the vignettes off- I don't know why people think vignettes make their videos look more pro.
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And yeah, we were debating on the vignettes. I've never been a huge fan of them, but I applied them on a whim and the producer liked it. Definitely not sold on that look though. :-)
 
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Since everyone is bashing it. My honest opinion. It's very flat. You got to remember, it's a period film. Don't be afraid to under light. Anyone who tells you it's too dark, doesn't know lighting. Contrast and shadows are your friend. It shouldn't be that bright. Think of your sources, your candles shouldn't be so bright it fills the whole room. And why is all your light coming from inside? Use window sources as much as you can. Turn off the fill. The shot with the girl picking up the sword, you could of lit with one big source through that window. The fill tells me it's today trying poorly to be yesterday. A vignette is not old timly looking, lighting is when you want it to.

the good stuff is that you pulled through stepping up from AC to Dp and finished the trailer. You established a look and stuck with it. As long as the client is happy then you can mark it a success.
 
Jon Hout said:
Wow. I admit that it's not my best work (I am, in fact, a working DP), but given the circumstances I was fairly pleased with what came out. I must say the framing isn't something I thought would be a problem for anyone (except the funeral shot - blech). Care to explain your definition of "student-film-fashion"?
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I did by no means intend to insult your work. I misread the original post and thought the DP left towards the end of the shoot and you merely picked up and carried it to the finish line. With that in my head I may have been slightly biased as to how much I disliked the cinematography. I'll go through the things I reacted to and hopefully give you a clearer picture;
  • I can't seem to find where the point of focus is in the opening shot. Neither the object in the foreground nor the rest of the room appears to be in focus.
  • The shot at 0:23 as well- It may be the compression but I can't help but to feel the focus is off. Do you recall which lens you used and what aperture you were shooting at? Looking more closely at all the shots I'm having a bit of a hard time myself pin-pointing what makes the images look so bad.
  • The clips at 0:31. I'm not a big fan of the low exposure. Again I'm realizing what I react mostly to is a softness in the image.
  • 0:51 - It's just so flat. But AGAIN, there's something else there just ruining the picture.
Alright, I'm going to stop there because I'm finding myself in a state of realization. I can't actually find much to say about the framing of the shots. But it's generally just, flat I guess.

But if the original material is all in-focus you might want to have a closer look at your editing workflow.
 
Tolin said:
But if the original material is all in-focus you might want to have a closer look at your editing workflow.
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It was actually a choice to make the aesthetic slightly soft in-camera, but I think we overdid it. Good observation, and I wish I could change that one. :)

Tolin said:
I did by no means intend to insult your work. I misread the original post and thought the DP left towards the end of the shoot and you merely picked up and carried it to the finish line.
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Oh, I have no problem if you do insult my work! The negative criticism is welcome - that's how we all get better, right? I just wanted something a little more specific.

Joncarr said:
Think of your sources, your candles shouldn't be so bright it fills the whole room. And why is all your light coming from inside? Use window sources as much as you can. Turn off the fill. The shot with the girl picking up the sword, you could of lit with one big source through that window.
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I do agree with both of you that the whole thing is flat though. I actually tried lighting that funeral scene from the window at first, but I didn't haven anything powerful enough to bang through and make it believable. I repeatedly found myself wishing I had thrown my combo kit and two 1Ks in the car before heading to set just in case, but hey, only a shoddy craftsman blames his tools eh? Oh, and interesting story about those candles - most of the light you see is actually coming from them. There's a dialed-back inkie in the corner shooting at a reflector to give a bit of flicker on the walls, but otherwise it's all candles - especially in the close-ups.

I appreciate the feedback from everyone. Every bit helps - good and bad. :)

- Jon
 
You mentioned the "student film framing". Still curious about what you meant. The lighting stuff i understand but the framing comment intrigues me.
 
Josh Bass said:
You mentioned the "student film framing". Still curious about what you meant. The lighting stuff i understand but the framing comment intrigues me.
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That's what I tried explaining in my last post, that I was wrong about the framing. The flat lighting, missed focus marks and softness of the picture made it look so (in my view) bad that I truly became picture blind. Upon going through the shots one by one I found that there was (as you yourself pointed out) nothing odd with the framing at all. In my view it was the little things (flat lighting, missed focus, digital noise etc) that made me think of student films.
I can only give my sincerest apologies for the comment on the framing.
 
Oh ok. I guess you used the word "framing" differently than im used to...i always think of it as literally meaning the compositional technique.

Anyway i appreciate the idea behind trying to soften on cam, but i would have tried the old school techniques like nets or promist filters rather than throwing the focus even a little bit. Or explore post options, im sure there are many these days.

As for lighting, that can depend in what you have available. If your punchiest light is a 1k fresnel or something you cant really do much "through the window" stuff with that.
 
I thought it was quite cool. Surprised how negative the comments have been. Glad to see people are willing to rethink and take a second look though. Also Jon Hout, your a true gent the way you've taken the criticism.

My thoughts on improving the first few shots re what Tolin was saying is the light looks like middle of the day almost. Middle of the day is hard to make look nice or even very atmospheric. So that was against you.

The men confronting each other in the woods needs something, maybe some more foreground not sure what. I look at that frame and think I probably would have done the same thing so cant figure out what it needs. I like the girl running to the bloke over his shoulder, that looked nice. Coming back to the wide with the two blokes, I think you just needed to be wider to place them more into the setting.

Liked the dinning scene. Looked good. When the canon fires it looks great, if the earlier shots had the same lighting it would have looked great to id say.
I think the first two cannon shots look a bit average and that makes people judge the rest a bit unfairly.

Overall, good effort I'd say.
 
Josh Bass said:
Anyway i appreciate the idea behind trying to soften on cam, but i would have tried the old school techniques like nets or promist filters rather than throwing the focus even a little bit. Or explore post options, im sure there are many these days.
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Thanks for the feedback Josh. While we did try to hit our focus marks (we missed a couple of times), we actually tried to soften things using the Detail settings in the camera, though I definitely think we overdid it. Some time to do camera tests beforehand would have probably gone a long way. :)

EndCredits said:
I thought it was quite cool. Surprised how negative the comments have been. Glad to see people are willing to rethink and take a second look though. Also Jon Hout, your a true gent the way you've taken the criticism.

My thoughts on improving the first few shots re what Tolin was saying is the light looks like middle of the day almost. Middle of the day is hard to make look nice or even very atmospheric. So that was against you.

The men confronting each other in the woods needs something, maybe some more foreground not sure what. I look at that frame and think I probably would have done the same thing so cant figure out what it needs. I like the girl running to the bloke over his shoulder, that looked nice. Coming back to the wide with the two blokes, I think you just needed to be wider to place them more into the setting.

Liked the dinning scene. Looked good. When the canon fires it looks great, if the earlier shots had the same lighting it would have looked great to id say.
I think the first two cannon shots look a bit average and that makes people judge the rest a bit unfairly.

Overall, good effort I'd say.
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Heh, the first canon shots were definitely in the middle of the day - not ideal. Perhaps I can do a bit of post "lighting" in After effects to increase the contrast between the foreground and background in those couple of shots. I really appreciate the feedback, EndCredits. It's nice to hear someone enjoyed watching it. :)
 
I don't understand all the hate, but I do agree that the vignettes are not ideal. You should haze out your interior locations a bit and use some big diffusion frames on the exteriors. But not a bad job for four hours of prep on the day of the shoot! That must have been a bit of a nightmare in the morning.
 
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