Production Log for Feature film shooting with HPX500

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G.P.

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Hello fellow members

As you may have seen on my other posts, we are shooting a feature film this Feb. with the HPX500 and some great new gear...

I wanted to post these logs for all of you to see what we are dealing with on the pre-production side of things in regards to equipment.

I will try to update this as much as possible, and give details as to how it is like working with the 500 on a feature film with all these new products.

The HPX500 was chosen for many reasons, some being the factor was light sensitivity and its very low noise ratio, cupped with the ability to use great lenses. Its good dynamic range, its ruggedness, its CCD's and more...

The feature is a low budget one, $150,000 total for pre, prod. and post. So we had to stay under budget with our gear as well.

There are quite a few special fx in the film, we are using The Molecule in NYC as our post production house. They do the FX for many great shows on tv, including "Rescue Me". We have already met with them and are figuring out what we need for production as far as the prep work goes. The green screen work, the motion tracking work, its all going to be down to the wire with our budget, but it will be done right.

Right now the director is flying in from Italy to direct the film, we will be doing some tests once he arrives as well.

The list of our camera gear so far is as follows:

HPX500
Letus b4 relay
Letus extreme
Sachtler and Vinten Tripods
Zeiss Primes
NanoFlash
DP1 HD monitor

We will be talking about some of the newer products as they come in, including the NanoFlash, Letus b4 relay, the DP1 monitor, and more. We will describe the good the bad and the ugly about what happens throughout the production process on the equipment side of things.

Just about all of our gear except the camera body itself, are all new items that have come out in the passed 6 months or so... so It will be interesting to see how they will hold up to a feature film shoot.

We still need:
Remote Turret Head that can handle 30lbs of camera
Dolly system
Jib system
Crane system
Steadicam system
Post workflow setup
and more

The next on our list is the remote head, there are quite a few out there now, and we want to test a few and find which is the best bang for our buck.

I believe the biggest test of all will be our weather. We will be shooting at the peak of winter in NYC. Our gear will be subjected to very low temperatures and harsh winds, this will push the gear to their limits. The HPX500 is known to handle cold and hot weather very well, but yet to be tested by us is the NanoFlash, I have heard from other productions that it is indestructible and temperature drops wont hurt it.... I guess we will see.

Back focusing the Relay lens is going to be a constant, considering we will be shooting on the streets of NYC as well as indoors within the same day. We are going to have a native 1080p flat screen monitor on set to always check our backfocus.

We do not know about our trailers yet, we need a mobile production office, but as of now we don't have a trailer setup yet to work out of. This is a must, but have yet to find the right bang for our buck.

If any of you are interested in stopping by on set, you are more than welcome to come see. We will be shooting all over, so you might have to contact us so you know where we will be at any given time. The shoot is 100% locations.

I will try to update this as much as possible, also posting photos, full HD test clips, and more.
 
How many film has the director made before? Most likely at those budgets not that many thus using 2x cameras might be a better choice as first timers or little experienced directors usually don't know how to stage creatively and the production ends up being a TV show-like staging so a second camera might be a savior.

How many days do you hope to shoot for?
 
I believe this is the first feature film the director is shooting, he has a bunch of award winning shorts behind him, but no features. I have 2 HPX500's just in case we need them, he has a very clear picture of what he wants, I am used to working with the first time directors and so is my UPM so we should be ok for now (crosses my fingers).

What a small world, that Nokia edit changed like 1000 times haha, we kept getting "notes" on what to change from the company, you guys had a lot of coverage which was nice. Kevin was nice to work with, though we had changed lots of things on the 11th hour, like the logo as you can see haha.
 
Unless you feel uncomfortable about working with 2 cameras (and you shouldn't as it gives you 2x as much footage at fraction of a price of shooting for 2x as long) shoot with 2 cameras.
 
Interesting take patryk but for narrative stuff I think 1 camera makes for better and more solid lighting and framing decisions. If you have 2 cameras you are always making compromises, not being able to step in lights for closeup, having more footage then you need (which means more editing - too much footage leads to longer edit periods, enough is better)

2 or more cameras for non narrative stuff for sure - but for narrative its the shotgun approach - shoot as much as you can and hope something sticks. Can make for a tough edit with lots of compromises.
 
Seth, i absolutely disagree. You won't find one Hollywood production that shoots with one camera, they simply can't afford NOT to. Likewise the indie production's can't afford NOT to. Even with A cam doing a complicated dolly shot you can still find the 2nd camera doing an interesting CU that will come in handy in the edit.

Have a look at this scene:
http://patrykrebisz.wordpress.com/2...summer-a-12-day-feature-fast-food-restaurant/

1st and 3rd image were shot at the same time. Then 1st image pans to the side, while 3rd becomes 5th. Those were all shot at the same time and tell totally different "story" wide giving the establishing of the situation while the mediums are good for conversation. Could it be shot with 1 camera, yes, but for just a fraction of the budget you saved yourself the $$$ to spend 2x as much time to shoot with 1 one.
 
i hear what you are saying but i believe you must take creative shortcuts to do that. For example to sneak a CU into a wide shot the CU must be a long lens so the camera isnt in the wide - but a close camera wide shot might be a better CU. Or you might want to move a light in to light the actress better on the CU but you cant cause it doesnt work in the wide

its all about tradeoffs and I dont think its as clean as you say - you dont just get more footage without sacrificing nothing else by using more than one camera. Sometime more than one camera is what you NEED to work with to move more quickly (and therefore cheaply), sure. But that doesnt mean that its the best creative toolset for a particular shoot. You sound like you are saying that multiple cameras is always better on a low budget shoot. I totally disagree with that and think , more often than not, it causes creative shortcuts which will work in the edit room, but might not be the best creatively.

Given the choice I would shoot one camera on a low budget narrative.

You cant compare to hollywood. They shoot multiple cameras not to save time. But to have more footage. And they can afford the greater footage storage and management, greater editing time to sort and find the BEST of a ton of stuff. ANd they still will do the multiple setups. They dont do it to save money - they do it BECAUSE they have the money to do so. Of course special effects, big scenes, etc need multiple cameras cause of the enormous cost of resetting but that is something different.
 
Filmmaking IS the art of compromises thus there always will be trade-offs. The point is to do it in such a way that the trade off is tiny in comparison to what's being gained.

The lighting argument only makes sense in theory as in practice you can easily shoot wide and medium close at the same time without sacrificing quality. On top of that you will be "protected" in case the actor delivers a superb performance and you were at wrong focal length with one of the 2 cameras.

The editing argument is also problematic as there is no editor in the world who won't thank you for the extra footage when it comes to solving a problem in the footage. If anything the extra footage can speed up the editing process as you won't have to resolve to some silly tricks and work arounds.

Yes, there is a small percentage of projects that would not benefit from the 2 camera set-up, but simply aiming in the dark i can tell you that the OP's project most likely WILL.
 
Yea its the art of compromise and that is my point. For me. The lighting arguement is valid because while sure you can shoot Med and cu from same lighting standpoint from a tech perspective that most often wouldn't be my choice. I would touch IP the actor for cu. Maybe add kickers or highlight an element. Its a compromise and I am saying I'd rather craft each shot rather then light for both which ultimately is a compromise. The feature you posted I think was 12 days so you needed perhaps to do that but if you had 20 perhaps different

I also believe its a fallacy that more footage and 'saves' make a better edit. To a point you need options. But o have seen several times that more footage leads to more time and money in the edit room. So if you shoot multiple cams and no other coverage you will have an easy edit of course but at the risk of compromising shots
In fact multiple cans will lead the editor to use one take all angles sometimes for ease when maybe not the best choice

Yes there are times for both approaches but foe me single cam with enough time is better
 
"single cam with enough time is better"

I really can't phantom how you reach the conclusion that with 1 camera you have more time... If anything you have less as yes, you would love to add that "kickers or highlight an element" but you still have to shoot a mediums (that i already have in the can as i shot the scene with 2 cameras one on wide while another on medium) and only then you can move on to your beauty CU. So you still need to run your camera 2-3 times to get your medium and then scramble to do your CU while i'm already moving on to another scene or better yet add a nice dolly move to the CU.

The only argument you make that i agree with is that in hands of inexperienced editor or director too much footage can be deadly as then the edit points don't happen for any other reason other then "because we can."
 
im not arguing - just discussing my man - I totally respect your opinion - just, for me, i feel having 2 cameras makes the technology dictate the shots more than I would like it to. But I hear where you are coming from.
 
I'd love to stop by when I'm in NY, thanks for the open invite.
My doorway dolly has been sold, but I have a Camtram 1500 "ladder" dolly that will be available soon that will handle your HPX500 nicely w/100mm bowl Sachtler/Vinten heads. Very well constructed/robust. Fast setup.
http://www.camtramsystems.com/

chris
 
hey chris, nice to talk to you again, let me know when youre up here, love to have you on set.

We are shooting 1 camera for many reasons including budget, as for paying to have a second Op, second 1st AC, second 2nd AC, second dolly setups, second everything, it would pretty much double our equipment and camera dept. budget. I know why hollywood does it, but we are talking a feature with $80,000 devoted to production and $70,000 for post. The budget would only hurt. Its better to have 1 camera setup that is perfect and under budget, than to stretch everything out with double the camera crew. You might forget that doubling camera crew means paying for more food, more transportation, more housing, more everything. So Adding a camera does not save money, it spends it before we would even start shooting.

I understand what he is saying, but for our situation it would be the wrong approch, this is a "coffee budget" i was hired for. I truly believe it would be too great of sacrifice to add all of the people on set and all of the traveling this film requires to get double footage. All of our rentals would be double, we would have no money left.

On a different note, our director is on the plane now, and will be here soon. We will be holding a few meetings that we will record and post for you guys to get a front row seat into what they are like. I hope that some people will benefit from watching the process and see what a 150k feature is like to plan haha.

I have always wanted to let people in and see what my day to day work is like on shoots, so nows the chance. Will update you soon.
 
Don't ask me what i'm doing up so early....

I think you got your numbers wrong.

You need the camera (about $4000/month)
Letus + Lenses (about $3000/month)
Cam Op (about $200/day - $3600 for 18 days)
AC (about $150/day - $270 for 18 days)

Total just over $13,000.

Again, if you are uncomfortable to shoot with 2 cameras then by any means don't but if i were you i would try to convince the producers to try to find the extra $13k as for just that little extra they will get 2 as much footage.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Seth, i absolutely disagree. You won't find one Hollywood production that shoots with one camera, they simply can't afford NOT to.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. Tarantino refuses to use multiple cameras. Inglorious Basterds is a fairly recent movie of his that only uses a single camera on set.
 
To update our logs, today I found out the director is stuck in London for a day, no flights heading to NY because of weather over there.

Our PM is currently breaking down some script notes that we had, and I am awaiting some of the gear that should be arriving within the hour. Our SmallHD DP1 monitors should be arriving, cant wait to test them out and tell you how they hold up to the cold.

Our new MacBook Pro's have come in, and is a pleasure to use. We will be working in FCS 3 for the edit, but none of us have actually upgraded yet. Once the NanoFlash arrives we will upgrade and start testing what the proper way to work with the high bit rate footage will be.

We have discussed Raid drives, but we haven't decided on the best one for the job yet, we want something portable so we can dump footage on set, and when we do a company move during the day, it isnt a crazy hassle.

Since technically we arent even in official pre-production yet, its nice to have the jump on some of these things. Pre officially starts on the 11th and thus the 3 weeks of pre-production craziness will begin.
 
We will be shooting CF cards with the nano, we are avoiding the P2 all together, but if we need anything for slomo work we will have to shoot to p2, but I believe we wont have to.

The director has finally arrived to the US, and they lost all his luggage thats no fun, I am going to meet up with him later today.
 
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