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'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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
