Puducherry Cockfighter - documentary from India!

Terry_Tsurugi

Terry_Tsurugi

Active member
In february my class went to Puducherry, India to make nine documentaries.

I teamed up with director Johan Høeg Haanes and his project about cockfighting.

I was Director of Photography and did the color correction.
We shot it on HPX171E in 720 25pn (some in 50p), cropped to 2.35:1
No adaptors and all handheld. The opening and finishing shots were stabilized using smoothcam in FCP.

The music is composed by Øyvind Mathisen

http://valiantfilm.net/puducherry_cockfighter_english.mov

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The colors are really appropriate for the setting in my opinion. Did you do much color correction?

Reed
 
Some thoughts on the frame grabs.

The first one looks awesome. The shollow DoF really makes that cock stand out. Wow you can really tell that cock's seen some rough action. That's probably the best looking cock shot I've ever seen!

The second grab is nice too. The high angle shot of the 2 guys grabbing their cocks is very dramatic. You can tell those two cocks are ready to go at it. Is it just me or does the guy on the right look like his cock is a little bit bigger? Maybe it's just puffed up more or the one on the left might just need to get a little more excited.
 
Great looking footage. I felt like I was watching a narrative, not a documentary. Very cool

Any cc? or are these shots straight from the camera?
 
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Johnny Cola said:
Some thoughts on the frame grabs.

The first one looks awesome. The shollow DoF really makes that cock stand out. Wow you can really tell that cock's seen some rough action. That's probably the best looking cock shot I've ever seen!

The second grab is nice too. The high angle shot of the 2 guys grabbing their cocks is very dramatic. You can tell those two cocks are ready to go at it. Is it just me or does the guy on the right look like his cock is a little bit bigger? Maybe it's just puffed up more or the one on the left might just need to get a little more excited.
Click to expand...


I actually have an appointment with two Hatian's this weekend and I might make a few shots of theire cocks.
They were bragging about theire cocks last weekend .
So if any body here would like to see some Hatians and theire cocks have a go
at it just say aye.
And I'll post some cock fighting footage.

nice grab...., Terry
 
Everts said:
I actually have an appointment with two Hatian's this weekend and I might make a few shots of theire cocks.
They were bragging about theire cocks last weekend .
So if any body here would like to see some Hatians and theire cocks have a go
at it just say aye.
And I'll post some cock fighting footage.

nice grab...., Terry
Click to expand...

Wow you're gonna take on two Hatians with thier cocks! That needs to be filmed for sure. Just be careful, don't get between those 2 cocks unless you've got really fast hands, you might lose an eye.
 
DM_rider said:
This thread feels like a throwback to middle school... haha
Click to expand...

It was inevitable, haha.

But thanks for the feedback! I did quite a lot of color grading. I set the midtones to a warm orange and the shadows dark blue, then desaturated the shadows to make the darkest shadows black. In some shots I softened the highlights with white gradients. One example is the shot where Karthick the Trainer walks through the market, the sky is masked.

I actually don't remember the excact scene files, but I shot Cine D, with detail coring at +4 and detail level at -2, I kept the iris open mostly and the shutter down to a 1/250.
 
I don't know if I'd call this a documentary. I agree with DM Rider, it feels like a narrative but whatever...it's great. The editing is awesome, especially the cuts in the fight scene between the cocks and the spectators reactions. Oh, and the opening credits kick ass.

ha..cocks...yeah I'm in 8th grade.
 
I think the fact that it looks like a feature, but is still a Doc (events happened without any control from the production team etc.) is a testament to how well this was produced. Great, great job. The camera work was perfect. How many cameras did you have for the fight? You seemed to have everything covered exactly right...
 
Terry_Tsurugi said:
It was inevitable, haha.

But thanks for the feedback! I did quite a lot of color grading. I set the midtones to a warm orange and the shadows dark blue, then desaturated the shadows to make the darkest shadows black. In some shots I softened the highlights with white gradients. One example is the shot where Karthick the Trainer walks through the market, the sky is masked.

I actually don't remember the excact scene files, but I shot Cine D, with detail coring at +4 and detail level at -2, I kept the iris open mostly and the shutter down to a 1/250.
Click to expand...

However you had the cam setup or graded it was a perfect look for this content IMO.

Well done!
 
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