TOM BANKS : director of photography

VH1 CCMA's

2012-01-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

Recently I had the amazing opportunity of working with the worlds most favorite Muppets, Statler and Waldorf.

We shot a "live via satellite" feed that aired during the VH1 Critic's Choice Movie Awards.

It was certainly a pleasure working with these two.

In addition, we shot another piece featuring Paul Scheer and Rob Heubel interviewing the horse from War Horse. In this sketch, Michael Cera plays opposite of War Horse in a fictional jailbreak film.

Portraits of Inglewood

2011-09-03T01:30:00.001-07:00

I shot a music video in Inglewood the other week.

Part of the video was to capture the local flavor of the neighborhood with portraits of the residents. Although a seemingly easy task, it was actually quite difficult at first to find anyone who would stop what they were doing to be filmed. Towards the end of the day, we came across a group of kids on their BMXs who were excited to be a part of the video. As we hung around longer with our cameras out, more and more of the neighborhood came out and soon we had our hands full trying to capture as much as we could before the sun went down. It ended up being a really fun afternoon interacting with these kids and families. I'm happy they were all kind enough to let us briefly into their lives, so I can now share these images with you!

Anjulie "Brand New Bitch"

2011-08-25T01:52:00.000-07:00

New video out for Canadian artist Anjulie "Brand New Bitch", directed by Hannah Lux Davis.

This song has such a strong energy that Hannah and I really wanted to compliment the track with visually dynamic setups - as much flashing, pulsing, and moving lights as possible. I worked with Hannah quite a bit going over references and really honing in each lighting setup and choosing an overall color pallet for the video.

There are also some serious flares in this video! Several months ago I had been testing anamorphic lenses and I came across a zoom with some pretty unique characteristics. Hit with the right light, it would give a constellation of square and circular flares across the frame. Once on set, we found ourselves primarily using a gelled Source4 aimed directly at the lens to produce these flares. The Source4 iris attachment was also useful in varying the size and intensity of the light, which translated into clarity of the flare. Most often, a small ping of light gave us the most pronounced flare. In a pinch, the LED Flashlight also worked great for providing a quick flare (this can be seen in the Hallway and Mirror setups).

The lighting was featured more than usual with this video. Without budget or time for moving lights, we used a few "tricks" to get movement out of normal theatrical lights. For the primary Beauty Setup we used an old fan found on location to add some movement to the light. The Hallway Setup is backlit by a Source4 rigged with a Gobo Rotator. This was my first time using the gobo rotator, and it worked as expected! Ordering the gobos was a fairly simple process as well - Rosco's catalogue of steel gobos can be found here - we used the Radial Spokes gobo. With the quick cutting, you can just barely distinguish the rotation, but it adds that extra element to this setup. On top of that, having enough haze or atmosphere was important for these beams to be seen.

The final Dance Setup was the most important, highest energy setup of the video. It was our last setup of the day, so of course we were racing the clock and had the least amount of time to light it! Our approach to this setup depended heavily on the layout of the location, so during our tech scout we decided on utilizing metal track structures on the ceiling to mount kino tubes to. We used SuperBlue tubes (my first time using these) to help go along with our color scheme. The SuperBlues looked electric, which helped give some energy to the frame. The kinos were manually flickered at random, a flicker box was added to several fresnel backlights, and we wet the whole floor down to reflect back all that lighting. During color correction, the decision was made to overhaul this setup to give it a warm look. Although that was not the intention, the video benefits from having this variety and finishes even stronger!

Hooray For Earth "True Loves"

2011-04-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Hooray For Earth's "True Loves" has finally released after several months of VFX and heavy coloring, but it is getting some great reviews. Here it is for you all to enjoy!

Technical info and making of in the post below.

Shooting on the AF100

2011-01-21T11:05:00.000-08:00

I just finished shooting a music video this past week for directors Alex Takacs and Joe Nankin aka Young Replicant The video is completely narrative, showing the journey of a man traveling his mindscape across all types of geographies. Location and costumes were all epic!

We had the choice of going with the 7D (which we were all familiar with) or trying out the new Panasonic AF100. We did some tests and decided to go with the AF100. Initially we considered the AF100 because we wanted to shoot 60fps at 1080p. Further down the line we realized the video was going to be a bit more run and gun on location, so having the conveniences of a conventional video camera (like built in ND filters) felt like a safer choice for this project.

For anyone unfamiliar with the AF100, you can spend a good deal of time sifting through Phillip Bloom's review, which does a pretty good job covering all the bases in good detail. However, I hadn't come across much feedback from narrative or music video DP's, so I forward to seeing more work and hearing more experiences surface in the next few months.

I think the easiest way to describe this camera is it being a hybrid between an HVX and DSLR. The menus and on-board controls on this camera are very similar to that of Panasonic's previous prosumer HD cameras. The scene files are all still there, white balance and gain selectors in the same place, and XLR inputs. Nothing too crazy or groundbreaking in that regard. What's new about this camera is that it offers HD-SDI and HDMI (and the HDMI doesn't deactivate the on-board LCD!). Certain menu options have changed for the better, like the ability to reformat cards in Record Mode (so you don't have to toggle to Playback when you insert a new card). But unlike the HVX or other cameras shooting on hard drive, the AF100 takes quite a bit longer to format than you would expect. I never clocked it, but formatting lasted several minutes.

The on-board monitor is set up slightly different than before. Possibly one of the biggest let downs is the focus check that used to be on the HVX, that little button that gives you a pixel-for-pixel display to make sure things are nice and sharp. The AF100 offers the EVF detail, which makes for a pretty ugly image, and a Focus Assist that can be programmed as one of the user keys (there are 3 user keys on the camera). The latter option is similar to the focus assist on the RED ONE; it goes off contrast and highlights the sharp areas in red over a B&W image. What's unfortunate about using this feature on the fly is that it can't really account for the motion blur of a moving object, so it's basically useless if you have to do any real focus pulling on your own. For this shoot we had a Marshall 7" that primarily served as a director's monitor, but certain shots it was definitely needed to pull focus off of.

I can say one of the best additions to this camera is the option to add frame guides. This video was shot in 2.35:1, so it was easy to add those guidelines via the Display Setup. So many times I've had to scotch tape the 7D off a framing chart, which is never as easy as it sounds...

The image sensor on this camera is 4/3", which I was pretty disappointed about when I first heard about the AF100. This camera is meant to compete with the DSLR's, but I think it also caters a bit to the live shooters and ENG style cameramen that don't have a perversion for shallow depth of field. This smaller chip size gives an even tighter crop factor than the 7D, which offered a little bit of confusion at first on choosing lenses for the camera. AbelCine has a really helpful tool that helps visualize the difference in sensor size here. So we had to account for crop factor and make we were covered for our wide lenses. We shot Zeiss Superspeeds with a custom PL Mount made to fit Panasonic's AF100 mount. Having the Superspeeds really helped us overcompensate and achieve a film-like DOF. We shot wide open mostly and in certain cases having the extra stop saved us from using too big of a lighting package or shooting later in the day. We shot 200iso and in some cases had to bump up to 400iso which gave us quite a bit more noise than I had hoped for. Unfortunately the AF100 doesn't seem to do too well in low light.

Photo by Tim Suglian

Photo by Julia Chase

I will be sure to post the video when it's released. Overall I think I will be very pleased with the final picture and feel that the AF100 held up to most expectations we had going into the shoot. Check back soon!

LA Rain isn't soo bad...

2010-12-30T10:22:00.000-08:00

It's been raining quite a bit in LA, which is always a refreshing change from the sunny weather we have to suffer through most of the year. Driving up to San Francisco for Nes Years, there was even more rain and fog. When I finally broke out of the clouds, the light was incredible and I had to pull over to shoot. I snapped off a few shots in auto, and immediately the camera produced some unexpectedly cool high contrast images. So I decided to embrace that and shoot a few more.

And in case anyone is unaware or on the fence about the 8mm Vintage Camera iPhone app, its definitely worth the $1.99! It has a pretty convenient straight to Youtube upload feature. Here's a quick sample I took off the highway.

Will.i.am Interview

2010-12-12T18:35:00.000-08:00

I am still intellectually buzzing from an amazing sit-down interview with Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. I had the opportunity of shooting this as a part of an upcoming project they are working on with director Ben Mor. The interview lasted probably over five hours and Will.i.am let us in on some amazing moments.

We were rolling 4 cameras - 3 5D's and 1 7D - on an assortment of L Series lenses. Due to the nature of having that many cameras all honed in on one subject, we scratched our heads for a second figuring out how to maximize all cameras while not diverging off eye line too much. We came up with a configuration that we were finally happy with.

Another interesting aspect to this shoot was the directors request to have one camera on a 180degree dolly. Not only was this was the basis for placing the other angles, but also got us thinking on how to light 180 degrees while keeping it looking good for all cameras. Once we were on set and working, we were quickly able to determine where to set our key light and continue lighting off of that.

Smashbox FACE/OFF 2010

2010-12-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

I'm super excited to have two of my works selected to show and participate in Smashbox Studios' 2010 FACE/OFF competition. The show was created to give up and coming artists/photographers exposure, but also its a great excuse to have a good time and meet fellow photographers!

You can find the event details and RSVP on Smashbox's Blog they call YELLO.

The first piece is a photo taken a few years ago of my good friend Jimmy. I caught this moment at the end of the day and it just so happens that it was last exposure on my roll. Until recently it's been hanging above the toilet in my bathroom, so I'm glad its finally going to see the light of day.

The second piece is a stop-motion video I created during my time in Japan this summer. There is a blog entry somewhere below going over the technicals.

Hope to see you there!

Local Natives "Who Knows Who Cares"

2010-10-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the video for Local Natives "Who Knows Who Cares"

We shot this video back in late August on 2 7D's outfitted with the powercage setup thanks to Digital Film Studios All of our daytime setups were natural light with an occasional shiny board. We moved fast, so we could accomplish all of the daytime vignettes of the band and their friends romping around the wilderness. Boa Simon shot Bcam for the performance setup and broke off to shoot 2nd Unit for the daytime scenes.

I highly recommend checking out Local Natives' album Gorilla Manor if you haven't already.

Photos by Eric Rippin

Route 66

2010-10-21T09:46:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I went on a photo road trip down Route 66 with some wonderfully beautiful ladies. We didn't have a particular destination in mind, we just set out towards the desert and stopped at whatever caught our eye. We ended up shooting mostly around Barstow and got some great shots.

Models:
Elizabeth Trieu
Kate Adams
Sara Weishenk
Brook Evans

Make up: Melinda Miller-Rider
Styling: Brook Evans

Maximum Balloon - Making of

2010-10-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

I had a nice surprise this morning to find my recent Maximum Balloon video on the front page of Vimeo. Who knows how long it will there so I had to capitalize in snagging a screenshot of the Vimeo page!

I figure this is a good occasion to provide a bit more informative look back on the video, as the Behind the Scenes posted somewhere below in my blog shows a much more glamorous view of the set (as these things tend to do).

For this song Carlos came up with a really awesome concept that gives a fresh take greenscreen by taking traditional objects found in daily life, painting them green, and keying them out to put imagery inside (that imagery had yet to be fully determined going into the video). That idea fused with the artists desire to have a video in which he "receives a letter inviting him to a house party in Heaven" pretty much sums up how this video evolved.

The budget was extremely tight and therefore only allowed for one day of production. So our approach going into this video was highly focused on moving quickly and making sure we got all our shots. We all all admitted and understood this video's selling point was the greenscreen gag. Having a glossy or polished look was something that was unrealistic with our shooting schedule, and we hoped that a slightly unrefined the approach would further the greenscreen effect.

We chose to make use of the front-lit spotlight approach that has been pretty common in music videos recently. This was something that was portable and quick to set up, and for this we used a 200w Joker HMI with a few battery belts. We scouted in downtown Santa Ana and chose locations that were already sufficiently lit on their own, so with the addition of our one light we were ready to go. We matched our lights with the location lighting, gelling them with Lee's Urban FX Sodium Vapor and Mercury Vapor gels with the intention of doing an overall correction to the image in post to get the colors looking a bit more neutral.

One of the bigger challenges we faced was determining the best way to light the subjects. With keying greenscreen, of course its important to minimize shadows, which we anticipated would be especially difficult at night. Opting for front light wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing route to go, but it gave us the least amount of shadows and avoided any difficulty in hiding lights that would've been scene in some of the steadicam moves.

The video called for 6 so NIGHT EXT's and a large NIGHT INT. sequence that all had to be packed into a 12 hr day. Surprisingly or not, we didn't make our day and some of the NIGHT EXT's had to be left for pickups with a body double. Thanks to everybody owning a 7D now days, it wasn't hard to pick up a camera and get the remaining shots we needed.

Big thanks to the crew for putting in the extra hours on a super long and exhausting day of production.

Without further adieu, here is the video:

2010 MTV EMA's

2010-10-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

I have had the pleasure of shooting bits and pieces of promotional material for the upcoming European Music Awards. The bulk of the promos were shot out of the country, so it was our job to shoot the "celebrity cameos" which had to be produced in the US. We only had a small window of time with the artists, so each job would consist of a half day in which we would spend about 2-3 hrs setting up, then 15min - 1 hr with the artist shooting the material. Each job only required us to get one or two shots, so we could spend a good deal of time lighting and making sure we were matching the look of the promo. This is the first time working with 3ROUNDBURST who has done a wonderful job in producing these projects. The director was my good friend Carlos Lopez Estrada, who is responsible for directing the bulk of my music video work. Here are some stills from the shoot:

The Kesha shot was the first one to make it in the promos. Its amazing the amount of work the post team did in rotoscoping to glamorize the shot. Our location was a fairly plain hallway in which lighting and set elements were painted in to give the shot a glossier look that wasn't practical to achieve during filming. Here is a before and after:

You can see Ke$ha in this promo

Maximum Balloon "Groove Me"

2010-09-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a pretty cool little behind the scenes for Maximum Balloon's new track "Groove Me". We shot about 2 weeks ago and the video's almost done. There's heavy VFX work and lots of green screen, as you might see in the BTS.

We shot with Adam Richman's 7D rig - which most notably comes with the ViewFactor Powered Cage, which gives the camera a bit more film capabilities.

Stop motion Japan

2010-08-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

This about sums it up my time away from set in Tokyo! Lots of people, subways and escalators, rice paddies, and some good times with my crew buddies.

The photos were shot on my Canon 50D in high-speed burst mode. Everything was processed through Lightroom where it was cropped and colored. The JPEGs were brought in to Quicktime as image sequences, exported as ProRes422, and edited in FCP.

Filming in Tokyo

2010-05-18T16:11:00.001-07:00

So it has been a busy few weeks lately but I have just landed in Tokyo, Japan for my next feature. This is a Japanese basketball movie with Japanese actors in their native language. The film tells the story of a small town basketball team past their prime who is brought back together by their old coach to road trip up to Tokyo for a big basketball tournament. The film is a comedy, revolving primarily around the road trip the team takes from the Southern end of Japan into the big city, so it's 90 pgs road trip with moments of action during the basketball games. The producer is American (living in Japan now) and the director is coming in from the Sates as well. I also had the privilege of bringing my 1st AC, Richard Card, out with me and working with the best gaffer Tokyo has to offer, Yuji Wada.

the famous Shibuya crossing

Roppongi - the international party district

In the two weeks before we flew out, there was quite a bit of preparation. We spent our last three days in the States prepping our camera package at Indie Rentals. I have never brought any equipment overseas, so it's been a learning experience. The shipping is being handled by a private company, but there is a complicated process of acquiring a Visa for the equpment (called a Carnet) and filling out detailed forms of everything and its value for customs. The whole camera package will have to be walked through customs on both ends of its flight to hope that nothing gets held up.

prepping at Indie Rentals

We are choosing to bring out the camera from the States because we were able to get a new Mysterium-X and the rental prices are significantly cheaper than in Tokyo. I didn't realize just how funny the whole RED MX situation was until I tried to find one. Both Panavision and Clairmont couldn't nail down an MX, but Indie Rentals who I've used several times for smaller projects had several MX's ready to go! Obviously digital film making is moving away from the larger camera houses into the smaller ones. With that said, Indie is also providing us with quite a comprehensive camera package. I usually won't be stubborn about getting the latest and greatest, but I've heard so many good things about the MX and I know we'll have several situations in which we'll need all the light we can get.

Here is a quick rundown of our camera:
- RED Mysterium-X Camera
- Zeiss Super Speeds (18, 24, 35, 50, 85, 100 t2.1)
- Anginieux 24-290 f2.8 zoom
- Bartech
- Clip-on, 4x5, and 6x6 matte box
- Full ND sets with Hot Mirror, Grad ND's (hard and soft), full streak set
- CamWave wireless HD transmitter
- 7" RED onboard, 8.4" Panasonic onboard, 20" Sony monitor

I am pretty excited to work with such a complete package for the full show.

Richard's super comprehensive breakdown of our package

The crew I am working with is all Japanese, so as we landed and went straight into a production meeting with 25 Japanese speaking crew, it was a little bit overwhelming to say the least. But the production has provided me with an interpreter to communicate with the crew that doesn't understand English well enough. Although I've already picked up a few phrases, I'm sure this will come in handy during the rush of things on set. While on our first few location scouts, I've relied on translation very heavily when talking with some of the crew (line producer, production designer, etc.) which is something I've never really had to do before. We have also made sure to hire key crew that are fluent in English, such as the AD, Gaffer, 2nd AC, etc... I was a little apprehensive about having to rely on an interpreter, but its turned out to be a pretty straight forward and painless process. The majority of discussion that goes on in Japanese doesn't get translated, but it works out for the best because I'm not hearing all the extraneous discussion and drama that goes on on a film set!

on the plane!

getting close finally! (photo courtesy of Richard)

We have a very reasonable schedule on this shoot: 2 weeks Prep in Tokyo, 5 weeks shooting, and 1 week of vacation! Because June is the rainy month, the production has scheduled a bit more time than really necessary in case we are rescheduling to fight the rain. At this point we're looking at between 25-30 days of filming, which is a huge step for me. The longest shoot prior to this was my first feature at 15 days. Otherwise, its already day 3 of prep and we've been packing in the location scouts. Because the film takes place along the country side, a large amount of our locations are an hour or two outside of central Tokyo. So the crew of about 15 people piles into what they call a microbus (pictured below) and heads out for the day to tech scout all the locations.

scouting roads for the driving sequences

yes, they rock the variety pack of chips here too!

There are several differences with how a film set works over here in Japan versus in America. The roads are much smaller here so there are hardly any large vehicles. Grip and electric comes in several smaller trucks, rather than one giant cube truck. 2nd AC's are focus pullers while 1st AC's are more of an overall manager of the camera dept. The Electrics handle both lighting and grip, and what we call Grips are only camera grips in Japan. For example, they handle all ways of rigging the camera - dolly, crane, any special rigging our mounting. But because most of our crew has worked with Americans before, they are familiar with the differences and adapting to whatever we are comfortable with.

Wada-san standing in for light

one of the basketball gyms we plan on using

One of the most exciting aspects of this production is the phenomenal crew we are working with here in Tokyo. I was recommended a gaffer several weeks ago by another DP, and once I saw his list of credits, I had to get him. His name is Yuji Wada (a.k.a. Wada-san) and he is locked as gaffer. Some of his credits include Lost in Translation, Tokyo units of Fast and the Furious, Babel, and Inception, all great work. So I am looking forward very much to working and learning from Wada-san. The camera grip team shares many of the same credits, so everyone here is familiar with each other and has worked together a good amount.

the farm we will be shooting at for 4 days

not looking forward to the smell of this location!

For the rest of prep we will be mostly location scouting. Some locations we are still choosing, others we immediately like and it becomes more of a tech scout, going over ideas with gaffer and production designer. The director is arriving one week before we start filming due to schedule conflicts, so scouts have been less blocking and camera oriented than usual. We have a few days of camera prep once the gear arrives from the States in which the AC's will have a chance to work a bit together before being thrown into production. We also intend on having a test shoot where we can make sure we are all comfortable and familiar with how our gear is working. The other purpose for the test shoot is to have some footage to run through our workflow. This is a whole nother beast I will address in a later post, but has been one of the main areas of attention we have been researching.

me looking very American at Shibuya crossing (courtesy of Richard)

Things couldn't be going better, this city and my experiences on this project have exceeded my expectations. I'm definitely excited to be calling Tokyo home for the next two months!

SXSW 2010

2010-03-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

I just got back from an exhaustingly awesome road trip to Austin, TX for the South by Southwest music festival - aka SXSW.

This is the second time I've been down to the festival, both times I've had the great opportunity of working in the camera department under a good friend and great DP Joe Arcidiacono. The shoot was "top secret" so without naming any names, you can read about it here or tune in to mtvU in the coming year to see what we were shooting. Nonetheless, I look forward to this job every year as a chance watch these private performances put on exclusively for the cameras. Most of these bands I have hardly heard of, but as I experienced this last year - they do a pretty good job of predicting who will blow up this year.

Here's our incredible schedule I saved from the shoot. I made my own little notes on the bands I'm looking forward to hearing more from.

And unfortunately this tiny picture on your computer screen just doesn't give justice to this incredibly huge space we were working in.

Tech specs - we shot with 1 Red with two Anginieux zoom lenses and a few wide primes for certain shooting situations. Because we were recording live perfomances, audio was mixed and recorded in a separate part of the space, usually several hundred feet away, then sent to camera with a hardwire out of the audio snake near the band. Also coming from the snake were two lines of timecode that were genlocked to the camera and digital slate. We had a few configurations for monitors since there were a variety of monitors for director, producers, sound mixers, and onboard. Most were hard wired, but we also had a Wevi wireless HD transmitter which we used when sending monitors across several hundred feet, which saved us from having to re-cable for each setup. The wireless system was also used quite a bit for mobile handheld situations or shooting in tight spaces where running 4 lines of cable from the camera was too cumbersome.

Everything else was fairly standard. The style established for these shoots lent itself to lots of long dollies, one takes, and more stylistic shooting to highlight the architecture of the space. Lens flares, high contrast, and slow sweeping dollies, countered by high energy erratic handheld work (depending on the artist) was the name of the game on this one.

Noel "Momentos"

2010-02-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

Just completed a very fun and successful 2-day music video shoot for Latin American Sony BMG artist Noel Schajris for his new song Momentos. Carlos Lopez Estrada and Carles Torrens co-directed this video, one of few times I've worked with two directors. I have done several music videos with Carlos, but only recently have I come to know Carles, who is an accomplished writer/director.

Carles Torrens - setting up our first scene of the day.

Carlos Lopez Estrada - our last scene of the night with stunt performers/drunken sailors.

Now for some technical details:
The video was shot in two days with 2 RED cameras. Each day we accomplished roughly 5 "scenes" and around 30 setups. In order to finish on such a tight schedule, lighting was kept to a minimum. The two cameras worked primarily on the same scene, but often times we would split off to cover two different scenes. Many thanks to David Cho for providing the additional RED, and the talented Kyle Klutz for stepping in last minute as the 2nd Unit DP.

In order to accomplish a hefty shotlist, all scenes were it so that there would be very little to no relight from shot to shot. Daytime consisted mostly of bounce (12x12 ultrabounce) and an occasional shiny board. This gave the crew time to start pre-rigging and lighting the more intensive interior scenes in the main circus tent.

For our exterior night scene, a 9-light bounced off of 6x6 unbleached muslin keyed the scene, string lights lit the location, and a few 5k's highlighted some of the set in the background.

For the interior tent scenes, practicals played a huge role. The tent was filled with string lights that gave an ambient fill to the whole scene. The location also provided vintage floor lights which were directed towards the stage and provided an uplit feel. For the audience, we simulated this same effect with bare bulbs configured on the floor with diffusion over them. Finally, two lekos (20 degree lenses) were placed at opposing ends to key the stage performers. Once haze was added, the whole location came together in a nice warm vaudvillian look. The cameras were also balanced for 5600k in the interiors to add to the tungsten look. Once we went in for closeups, china balls were used to supplement the key, or provide a bit more wrap-around on the subjects.

Xtinction Wrap

2010-01-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

After 15 days of filming we are just about done with shooting Xtinction, and all I've got to show is a variety of raincoats, a pair of mud caked boots, and a nice sunburn. But word has it that you'll be able to catch the film on the SyFy channel before long!

the final explosion, a 2 walled slightly smaller mock up of the "redneck shack"

props to the stunt guys and actors brave enough to go into the 55 degree water

goodbye Baton Rouge!

Xtinction Day 7

2010-01-22T19:48:00.001-08:00

We are almost halfway done with shooting and have finally settled into a nice routine. 2nd Unit has not been nearly as active as expected, as just as with my previous 2nd Unit experience, the production has realized it takes twice the manpower to produce an additional unit. With that said, we have had several productive days shooting picture cars, picture boats, scenics, and a few vfx plates.

One of the most beneficial things I have come across on this project is the post flow and dailies delivery. When shooting sync sound, each camera is outfitted with a timecode box jamming timecode into the camera from the sound mixer. Then when brought into FCP, the editor syncs the sound and picture with a pluggin called Sync N Link, so almost immediately all the sound files are synced to their respective picture takes on the timeline. The dailies have been delivered digitally via YouSendIt; the director is even watching dailies on his Iphone!

We have been shooting on two REDs, build 21, and have had just about no failures or crashes. The two cameras have been sharing a set of Master Primes and a Cooke 20-100mm. We have also had the convenience of a 30ft jimmy jib, which plays just about every day with the zoom lens. This has allowed us a number of nice crane moves that have been improvised on just about each scene.

Day 7 was a stunt and fx-heavy day, running a truck through a makeshift shaft and then a propane fireball. 2nd Unit played as 1st unit B-cam, as I anticipate will happen more often as needed to maintain pace with a heavily scheduled second half of the shoot. Danny Cosmo and Jeff Galpin are the guys responsible for the stunt work, aka Cajun Stunts, and are great guys I have worked with several times before in Louisiana. Everything went off without a hitch!

Here are some photos from set:

Muscle March infomercial

2010-01-20T17:32:00.000-08:00

This is a fun little viral commercial I shot with Joe Dietsch and United Front for a new Wii game called Muscle March. The concept was pretty silly and the day was pretty fun!

Little kids, body builders, and a sleazy polar bear costume. If you haven't seen those crazy Japanese commercials that this is imitating, you should spend a little time on Youtube enjoying Nicholas Cage or Arnold Schwarzenegger's work overseas.

Xtinction Pre production

2010-01-13T17:39:00.000-08:00

Just got done scouting today in the Swamps of Baton Rouge for a SyFy movie called Xtinction.

I'm down here shooting and directing 2nd Unit on the film. We start filming tomorrow with a 16 day shoot planned. Days will be long and interesting, its my first time shooting heavily in the wilderness for extended amounts of time. Thankfully the shoot is mostly daytime, though the majority of the shoot takes place on the water, so we have an arsenal of boats and skiffs that will hopefully sort itself into an efficient workflow.

Amir Valinia is directing, John Lands shooting, and George Kostuch producing.

wish me luck!

Magic Mouse with FCP and Color

2009-12-09T00:17:00.000-08:00

I am just now discovering the many potentials of Apple's "Magic Mouse". I was on the verge of returning it today due to the lack of the middle click function, which is highly necessary when using Color. Granted there are several improvements when running Snow Leopard with the Magic Mouse, such as momentum scrolling, the magic mouse isn't much different from the previous Mighty Mouse.

When I was about to throw in the towel, I found the "BetterTouchTool", a third party application that allows you to customize functions I didn't even know the mouse was capable of. I primarily use this to create a middle click function, which can be done by either designating an area of the mouse to act as the middle click, or as I have done, assign the a two-finger click as the middle click. This software also supports tap clicks and normal clicks with multiple fingers.

I have customized a function seen in the picture below to enable zooming, which I find very useful working in FCP. By holding down CMD and scrolling, I can zoom in or out in the timeline. The software has a "pinch" function, just like the iphone, but I found it was a bit more touchy and unreliable.

I'd definitely recommend the Magic Mouse in combination with this software to anyone who cares to streamline their editing process.

Click here to check out this software.

Cashis "Light It Up"

2009-12-02T22:24:00.001-08:00

Here are stills from a quick music video I shot a rap artist named Cashis. He is the most recent and one of few artist signed to Eminem's label Shady Records. This video is primarily a performance video shot around the grungier areas of Santa Ana (OC) to highlight Cashis's roots.

Camera Specs: HVX + 35mm RedRock Adapter with Pentax Lenses

I'm currently coloring the project with Apple Color. I've made the switch over and am happily coloring all my work on Apple's software. This video I am working more heavily with the FX Room working with a few different Bleach Bypass looks.

I am still trying out different methods with grouping shots and applying corrections to similar or identical shots. The Shots Bin allows for clips to be grouped, then by dragging a correction onto the group, it is applied to all shots specified. Although I find it still questionable if its efficient to go through the tedious process of grouping shots rather than simply applying the correction to each individual shot.

Born To Be Nervous: look | tom banks

2009-09-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

Born To Be Nervous: look | tom banks

tom banks went out to big sur for folk yeah's "party in the pines." saw woods, farmer dave scher, kurt vile, wooden shjips, vietnam, ariel pink, gang gang dance, dungen and saviours there, took their pictures too. makes me kinda wish to die that i didn't. here's more.

NOEL "No Veo La Hora"

2009-08-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

This video was completed late June for a Mexican artist called Noel on Sony Records Mexico. Noel was previously a member of a Grammy award winning band, Sin Bandera. This video was directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada.

The concept behind the video was a love story between two marionettes that are unable to reach each other because their strings are holding them back. They interact as much as possible until the female becomes distressed, and the male is forced to cut his strings in order to save her. As his strings are cut, he looses power, and the female is able to come to him. She sews their strings together, he regains consciousness, and they live happily ever after. During the sequence, it is revealed that the story is a stage play, with Noel in front of the stage. Noel performs while playing the piano, and strings and ropes radiate off the piano controlling the marionettes.

The video was a lengthy (17hr) 1 day shoot on the RED camera. Because we needed to maximize our day, lighting was primarily rigged from above so there would be little relight between shots. We started close on the stage and widened out until we were seeing the whole environment. But because the lights were rigged to tops of the flats, we didn't need to strike setups in order to move on, only add on and tweak. Things went fairly smoothly. Due to the small size of the sets and massive amount of production design, only one or two people could be working in the space at a time, which slowed us down quite a bit. Some of the set dressing had to be done after lighting was set, so at times departments were waiting for each other to finish so they could do their jobs. The RED camera has been behaving very well, no problems on this set with any crashes. We shot on the RED Raid without any problems, although I think its a general consensus that shooting on the drives is a bit more risky than the cards for whatever reason.

We had referenced strongly the Goo Goo Dolls video "Better Days" and what we tried hardest to recreate were the animated lights. We did several tricks involving shooting light through water, using mirrors with moving water, moving cookies over the lights, etc... just to give the video more energy.

Behind the scenes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPKpehpgjAI

Suzie McNeil "Supergirl"

2009-06-22T00:34:00.000-07:00

Song: "Supergirl"
Artist: Suzie McNeil
Director: Carlos Lopez Estrada
Producer: Christian Heuer

It's been about a week since we shot and we have just finished final color correction. This video was produced in an extremely short amount of time and a very small budget. Suzie is on Universal records and climbing the pop charts in Canada with this song.

The video involves a standard performance with Suzie in front of an LED curtain that had been installed onstage. Images and animations were run through a computer and displayed on the curtain, roughly 50'x30'. The video cuts between performance and a very basic narrative with Suzie. She plays a hero character that moves through several scenes in order to save a man in distress. The color schemes were very predominant in giving the scenes a comic and poppy feel to compliment the upbeat song. One of the selling points was also a 8' turntable on which everything took place. The scenes played out on the rotating platform, which produced a very display-like quality to the action.

The video was shot on RED 4k with Zeiss Standard Speeds. We were able to achieve a very shallow depth of field, which was crucial to take advantage of the LED curtain. Throwing the lens out of focus would produce very nice Bokeh with the points of light. When in focus, the LED curtain was not nearly as predominant. The same curtain can be seen in Akon's video "Beautiful".

Our post workflow proved to be a huge learning experience. This was the first time I have had a RED project go through a higher end grading system. We used Autodesk Lustre to handle color and Smoke to handle conforming the EDL and doing timewarps. The project was thrown out of wack because of several oversights while shooting. We had been recording edge code, meaning each new camera roll (SD card) would start at 1hr. The proper way would have been to shoot with free running time code, which would have saved the EDL confusion of having multiple roles with the same time code. On top of that, several cards had not been formatted when loaded into the camera, which caused a gap in the labeling of the rolls. While it was great to color on Lustre, the confusion and time solving problems might not have been worth it in the end. There are still issues matching timewarps and cuts that are slightly off.