Quick Teaser from our Feature Film in Progress

[thisisapocalypse]

Teaser we did up for cast/crew but I thought I would share - we will be getting the license for this sync music, but until then we're keeping the video password protected.

Everything you see here is PRE color correction, PRE After Effects, etc. Most of it has been downrezzed and highly compressed since I've got a free vimeo account.

http://vimeo.com/10509836
password: "dragons"

Notes on lenses:

1st shot: Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 (Rollei Sl35 Mount - West German)
2nd shot: Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake m4/3 mount
3rd shot: Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 (Rollei Sl35 Mount - West German)
4th shot: Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake m4/3 mount
5th shot: Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 w/Panasonic Anamorphic 1.33x Adapter
6th shot: Canon FD 24mm f/1.4 L w/Panasonic Anamorphic 1.33x Adapter
7th shot: Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 (Rollei Sl35 Mount - West German)
8th shot: Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake m4/3 mount
9th shot: Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 (Rollei Sl35 Mount - West German)

Filters:

Multiple Nikon ND4s (stacked) depending on light
Tiffen T-1 (IR-Cut) Filter (always)

Sound:

Sync Audio not in this teaser - just music, but we recorded all sound with a Fostex FR2-LE at 96/24 with an K-Tek Boom, Rode NTG-3 w/blimp outfit for exteriors and NT-3 for interiors.

There are more dailies on my vimeo page, password to all of them is just "dragons" most of them do have sync audio - not going to leave them up for very long, they're just up to give the cast/crew a taste of what the footage looks and sounds like, the takes may or may not be the best, some of them may have actually been rehearsals - shouldn't be viewed as complete projects - they are unedited in every sense - for any given scene we did about 20-30 total takes from various angles.

NOTE: Dailies may or may not be safe for work, unless your work involves particle physicists, astronomers, lesbians, prostitutes, dragons and the periodic use of foul language (no nudity).

Links to other dailies:

http://vimeo.com/10739254
http://vimeo.com/10663280
http://vimeo.com/11023025

password as always "dragons"

This is a feature film - we're just about done shooting the 1st half of it - the GH1 has been amazing and has never, ever been the limiting factor in this production - side note, the Canon 24mm f/1.4 L + Panny Anamorphic Adapter looks *AMAZINGLY* good when it's in its sweet spot - which is sort of the subject being in the middle of its focal range and around f/8 - can get a bit soft when you're shooting something at infinity, close focus not really possible.

 

[thisisapocalypse]

Still from one of the anamorphic shots - I find this combination of the FD 24mm f/1.4L + Panny Adapter + right shot design and location is giving me about as film-like a look as I've seen from the GH1.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Ok, I watched dailies by 'skipping' through, and the trailer straight through.

My over all impression... other than envious of the time other have available to make movies... is this.

On most of the closeup shots, both girls tended to bump out of the frame. So, I think you should have pulled back a bit, and part of the problem is that the girls tended to have bobble heads. I chalk this up to a tendency to 'over act'.

The short I have making the fest rounds at the moment, the lead actress tended to over act as well, but I was pulled back to at at least medium shot so, her head movement was a problem and as it was I tended to edit out scenes where she was bobbing anyway.

Since I'm new to directing, my problem was how to get 'emotion' from the talent, that visually reads well, but still works with the framing I've chosen.

In terms of aesthetics, for extreme closeups, I think having the head of the actor/actress such that top frame cuts their forehead, but has at least a reasonable 'gap' below the chin for dialog or emotion, is necessary. This does not leave any room for bobble head action. For Incredibly Extreme Closeups, like 'just the eyes' the talent has to be essentially immobile, and so must work with the emotion/motivation of the scene.

For example, people playing cards... one shot, incredibly extreme close up of eyes, and just eye movement would be where such a shot would work. Or at the finale standoff, where you break the rapid pace of the action, to put in that 'moment of final hesitation'... etc.

In the teaser, the actress says 'Oh, my God', you have an over the shoulder shot (at about 1:10.), and the actress in her performance of the line shoots out of the top of the frame...

I'd think about cutting just as she's moving' to a wider two shot where she has the frame room to move.

Some people like anamorphic, and for some set of films it works. But I've been tending to think about either the traditional 1.85 or even 1.76 (16x9) which is close to the 1.66 of some older/european films.

The subjects of most of my projects that I've thought about, are predominantly personal/character studies, and so I think the 1.76 is an appropriate aesthetic choice for that sort of film.

Action films tend to be 1.85/2.35, and allow for seeing more of the 'action' at any given time. But for my 'aesthetics' anamorphic isn't a great choice for 'upcloseandpersonal'...

For example in the over the shoulder shot, you have the one girl pretty 'fuzzed' out which of course would be necessary to 'crop' the wide frame down to the person central to the shot... That works if that sort of device is used in say 10-20 % of the shots... it would, to me, get pretty noticeably if the whole fillm was filled with such shots.

 

[thisisapocalypse]

Hey there!

Thanks for the feedback - it is greatly appreciated - on the "dailies" i just went ahead and cropped once and let it play out - most of them were shot 1.76:1 and then I'm cropping down, but for the takes we will use, whatever part we use in editing, I'll be able to adjust the crop accordingly so that they don't hop out of the frame (in most cases, or as you noted if they do that- we'll go to a wide shot). It's definitely an issue when you're so close.

The 2.35:1 ratio is definitely my favorite from a composition standpoint - it's really just the way I like to frame so I'm going to stick with it - but your points are very, very well taken. The film could definitely be done in a normal 1.76:1 ratio - the anamorphic footage could have the sides cropped off to fill the frame - we're just going to have to see how it goes, and if the 2.35:1 crop isn't working, we may do that - but if I can find a way to make it work, I definitely will as I personally find it much more interesting and its sort of my natural aesthetic.

Re: time to make films - oh man, I have a regular full time (non film industry) job - it's crazy pulling this all together, I did take 2 weeks off (saved up vacation time) to do a good chunk of shooting, but everything is pretty much nights and weekends...intense, yes, but it's doable if you want it badly!

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Re: time to make films - oh man, I have a regular full time (non film industry) job - it's crazy pulling this all together, I did take 2 weeks off (saved up vacation time) to do a good chunk of shooting, but everything is pretty much nights and weekends...intense, yes, but it's doable if you want it badly!

Your job gives you nights and weekends off... boy some people have all the luck...

 

[butler360]

It looks pretty good to me, but, more importantly, this is one of the few posted teasers in which I'm actually interested in the content of the film. Sure, I can't tell exactly what is going on or what the plot it, but it does make me curious and interested.

 

[thisisapocalypse]

It looks pretty good to me, but, more importantly, this is one of the few posted teasers in which I'm actually interested in the content of the film. Sure, I can't tell exactly what is going on or what the plot it, but it does make me curious and interested.

Really appreciate that - tried to put it together where it least seemed interesting even though it doesn't have sound sync'd - the film is all about story and performance, it just happens to be shot on a GH1 - so far production has gone very well and as I work out edits it looks like we're really going to have a good and interesting film, all the time we've spent has been on the script and table reads, etc., we definitely want it to look as good as possible, no question about that, but the emphasis has always been on the story, the writing, etc., none of the film is "about the camera" other than it's novel that a film that can look this good at times can be made on such an insanely inexpensive camera - I love the GH1, it's as good as I am, sure, more bitrate would be nice, but in the end it just will not matter, if our film is compelling, that's what matters, the GH1 gives you the capability to compose and shoot with nearly the look of 35mm, albeit very compressed, but it's got great color, dynamic range, the sensor size is good and with good lenses and shot design, I just don't see how you can do much better for what it costs - the film would be 0% better if I shot it on a Red or Super35, it'd be nice, but it just wouldn't matter, the GH1 is good enough to be in that "league" even if it's just barely there, it *is* there...it does all one needs it to do to tell a story, it doesn't get in the way, it doesn't make itself noticeable if you use it right.

 

[UncleBenji1977]

Well, I'm gonna comment on the quality shots that came from that camera. I'm ordering mine tomorrow, and this makes the wait all the more harder.

How did you light your scenes? I thought that looked great.

 

[thisisapocalypse]

Well, I'm gonna comment on the quality shots that came from that camera. I'm ordering mine tomorrow, and this makes the wait all the more harder.

How did you light your scenes? I thought that looked great.

Believe it or not, this is the kit I'm using:

http://cgi.ebay.com/BRITEK-COOL-FLO...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item334ca630b5

Now, normally I would go for something more than this - however, a few things - one the GH1 is very sensitive and the ISOs are really underrated, so I do think you can get by with a little less in terms of pure wattage *DEPENDING* on the shoot. For this particular film that's fully dialogue driven satire/comedy and we're going for flat-lighting most of the time with more dynamic lighting in the emotion-heavy scenes this kit worked well - we are also usually pretty close to the talent.

For a wide, epic action film? No go on this kit.

But it's four lights, with 2 softboxes, 1 set of barn doors and one umbrella reflector so it gives you good options for little money. Usually I could shoot at f/4 at ISO 100 indoors. If I was worried about the actors moving too much, I could stop down to f/5.6-8 and still never have to go beyond ISO 400 - I think that's really important with this camera, you wanna keep it at ISO 400 or below.

I'm not sure this kit would work in all situations for all projects, however - one of our primary considerations was that we simply didn't know what all the locations would be capable of delivering in terms of power, and we wanted a kit that we knew we could use *anywhere* without blowing circuits, we are getting all our locations for free, so we really had to be able to tread lightly. I don't know how long a kit like this would last under constant professional use, but basically I just wanted something that would survive this feature film shoot.

The quality of the stands is excellent, and this kit is simple but solid, it came with bags and cases, and the bulbs are inexpensive and that fit the bill for us.

The other nice thing is that we could have all 4 lights going and these things just don't get very hot and that was a consideration for the comfort of our talent and crew. Yeah, they get warm, the whole kit going is nothing like even the way a single light in a Lowell DP 1000 watt kit gets.

I took the advice from the Hot Rod camera guys in terms of exposure - rating ISO 100 at about 500-640 on the light meter, making sure I didn't blow highlights and then lighting the shadows and or black areas to keep them from turning into a dark mess (I wasn't always 100% successful but this was my mindset). If you're on the normal GH1 meter, it's going to read 2-3 stops underexposed - but it does seem to deliver the most film like image that way - smooth setting, -1 contrast, that's about all we did - white balanced to the slate.

 

[thisisapocalypse]

A few screencaps from a scene we shot Monday night. Playing with after effects a bit on the wide shot so there's 2 caps of that shot, really still figuring things out with that though...

Also the dailies from this scene...not SERIOUSLY NSFW - no nudity, but...it's dirty dialogue...oh yeah...I cannot leave these up long as we are going to be submitting this film to fests but for you guys...I'll show ya


password: dragons

In the dailies there are 4 shots: 1st, a webcam shot the girls did, 2nd close up take on "ellen" , 3rd, close up take on "joanne", 4th, wide shot on both. Wide shot: Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake.

Sound: Fostex FR2LE, Rode NT3 - we mic'd whoever was favored in the shot.

The close ups are with a Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 @ 1.4 using stacked Nikon ND4 NDs and the Tiffen T1 IR Cut Filter - on the close ups we shot this in sort of a docu-style - and I was pulling focus like a madman - interestingly I find that the viewfinder is better for me when pulling focus than the flip out LCD. YMMV. Wide shots Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake.

Note this is so long that it is super, highly compressed - WMV 500k.

 

[33 and a third media]

I am really interested in this film, some of the best work I have seen done on the gh1

 

[thisisapocalypse]

I am really interested in this film, some of the best work I have seen done on the gh1

Really nice of you to say - not fishing for compliments but could you elaborate on what you're liking here?