The Blackout: Just Wrapped Feature with XLH1

ecking said:
I've said it before about Robert's stuff and I'll say it again amazing. Simply poo pooing amazing.
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It doesn't get much better than poo pooing amazing :thumbsup:
I'll keep my eyes open for the release. i hope the movie gets picked up by a cool company.
Any thoughts of another brief teaser?
 
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I wanted to let everyone know that I will be a guest speaker at Birns & Sawyer in downtown Hollywood on Wednesday, April 30th from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. I will be showing some footage from the movie as well as discussing our workflow.

RSVP at Canon - Post NAB Event

I look forward to meeting some of you there.
 
Just discovered your trailer and it's great. I will go and read your posts and just wanted to say congrats on a good job!
 
Hello Robert,
I justed watched your trailer for Blackout. I was amazed at the footage you got without using an 35MM adapter. I will be bumping up my gear a little and getting the 6 X HD Wide Lens. I would like to invest in the Lens instead of an 35MM adapter. I also like the standard 20X lens, could you tell me a little about the 6 X HD wide Lens. Thank you and keep up the good work.
 
musicprogirl, Michael T, and JAPWOLF...thank you very much for the kind words. The film is nearing completion. Justin Durban is writing the score. Parts of the film have been graded and look superb.

Regarding the 6x HD Wide Angle lens from Canon...I love it. I think it's a miracle they produced a WA lens that is HD capable and can ZOOM without distortion, breathing or vignetting for less than $3 grand!! And it's sharp corner to corner at full wide. This lens was probably our workhorse lens through a lot of the movie. Plus I love the look of the 20x at the telephoto end of the range. Beautiful stuff (requires a rock solid tri-pod though).
 
Glad to hear the film is nearing completion. How did the ProRes codec hold up in post? Were you able to lift shadows without artifacting? Can't wait to hear more about the film down the road.

About the 6x: I have to echo Robert's opinion. It's a fantastic lens, even if it's servo based. It's so sharp and perfectly curvilinear, (24mm equivalent) with nicer contrast and makes color pop a bit more than the stock lens. It's an underappreciated piece of glass that can really elevate the H1's potential.
 
Hello Robert,
Thanks for the information on the 6 X WA lens. I just received it the other day from B & H. I slapped that baby on and fooled around with it a little and I can tell you it is everything you said it was. Again thanks.
 
Trailer looks fantastic mate. It gives me an my good ol xlh1 some inspiration.

Can I ask what settings you used for the xl regards night shooting and low light?
And do you have any presets you could share with us fellow xlh1 users?

And what software are you using to create these images? fcp?

I think I bill buy this film to see whats truly achievable! great work.:dankk2:
 
You guys are making me anxious to release the new trailer we've been cutting. The only thing holding it up is we still need to shoot our television news anchor scenes (which is pivotal to encapsulating the story in the trailer).

Elton: I couldn't be happier with ProRes (at least ProRes HQ -- I haven't tried the regular variant). I do find that I can push the image more because we avoided HDV compression. The blacks looks really good. The grain structure throughout the entire contrast range is what impresses me. Yes the camera is a little noisy throughout (all 1/3" camera are), but capturing the HD-SDI to ProRes really preserved all that shadow information. Fortunately, though, we're printing the movie down instead of pushing it. So I haven't run into any shots that need to be lifted.

I know this goes against common wisdom in HD cinematography, but I'll go ahead and say it: I would rather have a handful of shots with blown highlights than an entire film that's noisy. Therefore, I have found that I would rather shoot for mid-range and blacks rather than protecting the highlights. With this camera in particular, shooting for the blacks and then dialing them down in post created a much smoother and filmic image that has great low-noise characteristics.

I spoke with a colorist at Fotokem who said that the "expose for the highlights" wisdom is correct when shooting with robust camera systems like the F23, Genesis, RED. These cameras have very low noise floors and lifting the image doesn't introduce artifacts or too much noise. He did say, however, that this ideology should NOT have ever been applied to small chip cameras like the HVX or the H1 BECAUSE they have unpleasant noise floors.

JAPWOLF: I'm glad you invested in that lens. Now that you have a wide range of focal lengths covered by these two lenses I'm sure you'll now fully appreciate the H1's fullest potential. There's something comforting about knowing deep down inside that you are using true native glass of high quality (mechanics not withstanding).

Andii: Thank you for the kind words. I know this camera has gotten a little lost in the shuffle of new announcements from Sony and, of course, RED. But everyone should never forget that this little sucker is like owning a Mini-F900. The image quality, I swear, is the same (save for some DOF differences).

As far as setting are concerned, I basically used the one's I found around here. Particularly disjecta's panalook preset (I may have added a little more blue to the matrix). Just make sure you're using film gamma #2.

As far as software everything's being done in Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects, Soundtrack Pro and the rest of the Adobe creative suite.
 
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Robert Sanders said:
I know this goes against common wisdom in HD cinematography, but I'll go ahead and say it: I would rather have a handful of shots with blown highlights than an entire film that's noisy. Therefore, I have found that I would rather shoot for mid-range and blacks rather than protecting the highlights. With this camera in particular, shooting for the blacks and then dialing them down in post created a much smoother and filmic image that has great low-noise characteristics.

I spoke with a colorist at Fotokem who said that the "expose for the highlights" wisdom is correct when shooting with robust camera systems like the F23, Genesis, RED. These cameras have very low noise floors and lifting the image doesn't introduce artifacts or too much noise. He did say, however, that this ideology should NOT have ever been applied to small chip cameras like the HVX or the H1 BECAUSE they have unpleasant noise floors.
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Wow, great insight. That makes a ton of sense and I think you're right on the money. As much as I don't like blown highlights here and there, they are the lesser of the two 1/3" HD evils, IMO. (heavy noise being the other)
 
Very interesting info here and a wonderful trailer! The professional look will get you a long way, although the monster made me laugh :)

Great hard work!
 
Settings Please

Settings Please

Robert, great trailer. I'm amazed that you shot it on 1/3" chips! Well done!!

So, would you be kind enough to list your color/gamma/bpress?/matirx/etc. settings?

Cheers,

Marc Levy
Cinematographer
www.marclevycine.com
 
We primarily used Stephen Dempsey's (disjecta) presets. We tweaked them to look a little bluer.

I believe you can download them somewhere here. I'm pretty sure they're available at DVInfo too.

But keep in mind that a lot of the "look" of the film has gone through Apple's Color grading app. We overlit and over-exposed slightly and then dialed in the blacks to our lacking. So only part of the look was done in-camera. The most important camera setting would have to be the Cine Gamma.
 
Don't know why a couple people are knockin it... the monster in the trailer looks freakin' cool! I just shot my first short on this camera with a buddy of mine and have to say that I was extremely pleased and a bit surprised with how much I liked working with it and the image quality we got out of it. I come from a Panny background but I thoroughly enjoyed shooting with this camera! The movie looks rad Robert! Good job.
 
Thanks spooky. I haven't come up for air in a while (being completely entrenched in getting all the visual effects done by the Sundance deadline - yeowza!).

Regarding our creature, yeah, one man's Picasso is another man's finger painting. LOL

It's all coming together very fast. We're almost done. Done done done!!!!

Thank god. It's been 10 full months of a one-man post-production team. Phew!

I'm exhausted, feeling abandoned, under appreciated, and unloved for the time, money, and sacrifices needed to get this f*cker done. In other words ... completely effing normal!

I crack myself up.

Did I say I was delirious too?
 
Sounds like you got burned bad. The problem is learning who you can trust.... I hate that part.

Wish there was a quicker way to weed out the fluff.
 
I really believe in constructive critizism. One can´t see all, another opinion can save the day.
But there are times to just shut the F up.
There isn´t one single 100 Million dollar movie out there, that wouldn´t have room for improvements.
The Blackout obviously didn´t have that budget, but at least the trailer doesn´t show this.
I have the greatest respect for what Robert has accomplished.
Until I create sth similar, I shut the F up myself ;o)
 
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