XH A1 + Letus Elite = Class shoot stills

PaPa

PaPa

Major Contributor
Wanted to share some stills from todays class shoot with you guys. This was shot at Concordia University with the fine folks from my Film Acting + Directing class. Our Teacher is Micheline Lanctot ( duddy kravitz ) who brought us a scene from a David Mammoth play. My job on set is as DP.

enjoy!

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Those look great! The lighting looks amazing. If you don't mind, could you share reason you shoot with such a flat/low-contrast image out of the cam? More latitude for CC?

Thanks
 
I dig what you've done with the contrast and shadows. I don't think I like the kind of yellow milky wash over all the overexposed ares outside.
 
Hm, yea I'm not digging the blown out windows. The blown highlight creates an unpleasant bloom over your subject that's hard to get rid of. Although I'm surprised that the window is as blown out as they are. In my experience the Cool Lights fluorescences do an excellent job as a fill as long as you get them up close so you can bring the exposure from the window to a reasonable level.
 
no cool lights in this shoot, only the schools equipment.

1k and 650 tungsten Fresnel. We made the choice to blow out the windows, which was both a technical choice as well as an artistic choice for the scene that i personally enjoy for this piece. It helps the feeling of isolation and claustrophobia. We discussed having outside slightly exposed would also create the problem of giving the audience too much to look at, and perhaps giving it more of a TV feeling than cinema. TV tends to have too much information crammed into one frame and blowing out the windows redirects the attention as well as adds a dramatic tension due to the slightly silhouetted figures.

A student comes to see a teacher after getting a grade that potentially alters her future in a negative way. She confronts him about his teaching methods and urges him to see his arrogant ways. He is in the midst of receiving his tenure as well as putting a down payment on a home. In the midst of the confrontation, he tries to convince her that higher education isn't meant for everyone, which she then responds by charging him with rape. His tenure is thus removed and both of these characters come to a devastating end.

The interesting thing about this piece, is that it is done in a manner in which you cannot decided who you want to side with.

-j
 
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Hey nice grabs.

It's interesting how flat/low contrast the original images were shot, that seems like a great way to get a lot of control out of your grading and levels etc. Nice one. I like the blown out windows quite a bit. Personally I'm not a fan of the half and half so this works nicely.

Where were your lights positioned, if you don't mind?
 
Not sure how much discussion or constructive criticism you are after here Papa but my input...

The only scene that looks "cinematic" to me is the frst close up on the female student where she is framed right looking out left. Nice. (It would have helped to add a better eyelight. Those little specular eyelights are alway a bit ugly and shgould be avoided because they distract).

Framing and composition of the other scene grabs are not cinematic looking at all.

I am sorry but I dont like the burnt out windows at all. Your artistic reasoning does not quite stack up as a reason to do that and it has caused technical issues . eg. The windows exposure has caused a milky lens flare that has softened your image and restricted your cc and grade. (Could have been solved by art direction /set design ie blinds maybe...or a night shoot or minimising them in the framing.)

I also feel there is a lot of grain or noise in your images. Is that from the adapter?

One problem shooting against bright windows is that monitors can voltage clamp the high input signal and totally misrepresent the image on set. Any chance you used a CRT monitor?

Did you use zebras or a waveform monitor during the shoot?

Sorry to be a bit harsh on your work but I hope it is taken as constructive critisicism.
 
The backlight (I think that's what it is?) might be a good stop too hot, as well. It's bouncing off of his skull a little harshly and is hitting in an odd fashion.

If you want to fix the windows, try desaturating your highlights a bit.

Agree with some of Shooters points, good feedback.
 
ya, the back light is a little heavy on him. We noticed that a little too late and only corrected it with the later takes.

Desaturating the highlights?

As per shooters comments, i do agree to a certain extent, but once you see the moving image, you will see how cinematic this scene really is, especially once you factor in the camera movement and the ability to tell certain shots through long takes and framing. I am quite pleased with the final look. Our Director, Micheline Lanctot chose some great angles and camera movement to help tell the story and maintain suspense. I will post the final video when it's ready.

We were shooting with the on camera LCD and then the class was following on a HDTV LCD screen that was not calibrated, so it was simply for viewing pleasures for the crew during the takes.

We did use zebras.

Noise? Probably because we had very low exposure due to the insufficient lights available to us forcing me to shoot at 0db gain on the XH a1, which already is a noisy cam to begin with. Also, i opted to shoot with high pedestal and high setup so that i could adjust the shadows in post due to our low lighting levels.

For the windows, as i said it was an artistic choice, but mostly a technical choice because no matter what we did, there was absolutely no way we could compete with the sun with the schools equipment, so this is something we had absolutely no control over. Our 2k's are absolutely junk and output close to what our 1k's did, and once we CTB'ed them, they became a little less than 500 watters, and then on top of that we diffused them. So our light output could not justify stopping the aperture down to incorporate a less exposed exterior. Also, since many of the shots covered so much of the set, since our director likes to tell the story in the least amount of cuts possible, this meant that we were unable to cheat lights and bring them closer because they would be in any portion of the shot at any given moment.

Thus i say, for what we had to work with, i think we achieved amazing results given the circumstances of having one day pre production and setup, and then just winging it from there.

When i have a few minutes, i will post stills from our setup.
 
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Papa when I use my A1 in low light Gain goes up to 6 dbs and I get better results than 0 db under exposed. The milky look and the softness of the before images tell me that they were under exposed or the camera was setup with a very low contrast and sharpness turned all the way down.
It is hard to recover from any of the previous situation even tho you did good with the color in the after images, you couldn't add the sharpness that the original image was missing.
I know that sometimes we do what we have to do to get the shot and that is OK. We just have to know what to post and what not.

(I STARTED WRITING THIS YESTERDAY :-)
 
ya, that feature is quite nice.

Again guys, thanks for the criticisms.

Doug, i definitely agree with your comments, we do need to be careful. I guess for me this was more of a triumph considering that i was working with half broken schools equipment. I did my best with what i had available to me and for me it was a victory! :)
 
That happens a lot to all of us. We fall in love with the ones we savage from the cutting room floor like if it was our handicapped child.
I am shooting one of those no budget corporate promos todays. I'll provably post it tomorrow. ;-)
 
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