Work in Progress

disjecta

disjecta

Lucky Duck
Ingredients:
1 Cinematographer
1 DVX-100A
1 Beautiful Park

Time to cook:
1 hour before and 2 hours after the sun rises

Still needs a lot of work and additional trips but take a look at what I've got so far. No generic settings in this one. I tweaked and tweaked according to each shot. Shot at 24pa. Also used some mild diffusion on some of the footage in post using the Premiere plugin MovieLooks.

The music is from Cold Mountain but I will do another edit with music I can actually use beyond personal pleasure  :)

The plot is obvious, there is none   :D

Edit: I've removed this file in favor of the final edit which you can see at this post: http://www.dvxuser.com/cgi-bin/DVX2/YaBB.pl?board=Clips;action=display;num=1092428197
 
Re: Work in Progress

its awesome !!! did you modified the colors in post prod ??
what traitment did you do on this movie in post prod ?
did you used the anamorphic lens ??
give some info !!! so beautifull photography !

/yaniv
 
Re: Work in Progress

That was truly amazing. Where do you live man? I wanna live there. I love work like this b/c it gives me this Final Fantasy vibe..but its like real. Its awesome.
 
Re: Work in Progress

That is the kind of visual enjoyment I get when I sit and watch HD-Net on the big plasma! Outstanding work. :)
 
Re: Work in Progress

Thanks for the kind comments....

Did not use an anamorphic lens...in-camera squeeze
I color corrected some shots to make them match better...I didn't have a chance to white balance every shot because conditions were changing too fast. There's still some correcting to be done...some of the colors are a little severe.

I live in the Sammamish area of Seattle in Washington State. This is a park that is close by. To most people, it's just a pretty park but for someone with a photographic eye, it's a very special place, particularly during the sunrise period.
 
Re: Work in Progress

Man you live about 100 miles from me (Ellensburg WA) and it doesnt look anything like that over here. All I've got here is sage brush and huge field fires. I did get some nice dirty footage of some burning bushes though. Ive got to convice my wife that we need to live were you live after I graduate.
 
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Yeah I have nothing to say except everything he shoots is gold. The bar is raised. Amazing, beautiful, filmic.

Sigh...
 
Re: Work in Progress

Excelent photography. Definitely a good eye for composition. Very artistic / pictural. Some shots look inspired by Japanese / Chinese silk painting. Lovely. On par with the best "nature" films I've seen. Those were from National Geographic I believe...
 
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Once again, my hope for mankind is extended if only for a few more moments.

Thanks

CaptM
 
Re: Work in Progress

I loved it; you have an eye for composition, an ability to color correct just beyond naturalism but not to the extent that it looks "fake," and technically it's well done as well. I'd love to see you do some narrative work, though, since prettiness only holds one's attention for so long, but prettiness combined with good storytelling is unbeatable (pretty much all my favorite movies of late have been both great stories and gorgeously shot). Then again, that much prettiness goes a long way.

I briefly considered living in Seattle for part of the summer, or just outside it. It's a great place; I love coastal cities and it's one of the nicest I've visited. It isn't nearly as pretty as that video would make one think, though, but it's not half bad either.
 
Re: Work in Progress

Policar,

You make some very good points and a narrative is something I hope to get to eventually. Unfortunately, I do not have the time right now to consider anything grander than what you see here. Every spare minute I have (which doesn't add up to much right now) is spent shooting and editing.

I'm accumulating footage to create something much more elaborate with a "point" but in the meantime, I am creating these vignettes, kind of visual diaries of my sojourns...

Oh, and by the way, Marymoor Park is as pretty as this film would make one think   :D
 
Re: Work in Progress

Disjecta, that was amazing!
You made it look like you had at least a $100,000 budget.

I've never seen the moon captured that cleanly on DV before. Everytime I try, it ends up looking like an oversized street lamp.

Dumb question:
Did you crop the footage in post because it looks more 2.35:1 than 1.85:1?
 
Re: Work in Progress

Yeah -- The moon sold me on the rest of the piece. (you've got something for moons, don't you...) I'd like to know how you get such smooth timelapse. Or did you just run the thing for a good 1/2 hour and then speed up all the frames?

CaptM
 
Re: Work in Progress

Awesome footage. Moved very nicely. Great music score. Really captured the beauty of your shots. I love static camera shots. They ALWAYS make you look professional! How did you do the time lapse?
 
Re: Work in Progress

Thanks again...

The moon timelapse was done in post. I figured out the path of the moon and then planned the framing. I let it run for about 20 minutes until it moved out of the shot.

Here's some tips for getting really good moon shots:

1. Plan your shot... if you just want to get the moon with a black background, then you can shoot at any time but expose for the moon's light, not anything else around it. A good exposure for a full moon is usually achieved by setting the ND filter to 1/64 with an f4 or f2.8 exposure. Set your color temperature to tungsten (indoor light) to get a nice slightly blue-ish moon or you can set it to an outdoor temperature and warm it up significantly.

The night I shot the moon was when it was low on the horizon and was quite large. I used the 1.6x teleconverter but also shot it without the converter and it still looked good.

2. If you want to include some detail around the moon but still give it a night time effect, shoot in the magic hour. The shots in this piece other than the opening shot of the moon were shot as the sun was rising so there was more balance in the sky regarding the amount of light. I stopped down...again, exposing for the moon's light, not anything around it...That way, I got some trees in silhouette with the moon. In reality, it was quite bright but stopping down allowed me to give more of a night effect.

I cropped the 16:9 footage in Premiere similar to how you would crop 4:3 footage to normally get the widescreen look. When you do this on footage that is already widescreen, it crops it to a cinemascope ratio which is what is used on a lot of big budget movies and subliminally has an affect on the viewing audience to make it even more movie like.

You have to be very careful shooting in such low light conditions, particularly at 24pa. Noise levels can be quite pronounced. Do not use gain of any kind because this will all but ruin your footage. It's better to control the contrast and brightness in post rather than trying to have the camera compensate for it.

General hints for good composition are that you should try to achieve some kind of balance in the amount of information in your frame. Whenever possible, avoid having your main subject in the middle of the frame. Offset interesting things, it makes for more fullness in what you shoot. Learn about the rule of thirds (you can find lots of information about this on the Web) - this is critical and can separate your work from having an amateur look.

In general, try to look at things the way a photographer would. Frame things off with your hands and fingers and spend a little more time moving the camera a little to the left or right to what seems good to your eye. Always trust your eye and your heart.

The thing about breaking rules in photography or filmmaking is that you have to know the rules to break them.

Another really important tip in trying to achieve a big film effect is to practice moving your camera really slowly and fluently. This will give the illusion that you are using a huge camera on a gear head and takes the audience away from the fact that this is just a video camera.

Read lots of books on cinematography, study films and try to learn something new EVERY day. This strategy will accelerate your skills and make you a better filmmaker. Hell, it will even let you enjoy life more, it will open your eyes to things you've never seen before on a daily basis.

These are things I have learned in the course of shooting and I hope they can help others.

Okay, my diatribe is over now :D
 
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